Firmware 5.8

[jomo25]

I drove like an @sshole today and still beat my typical daily average of late. 292 Wh/mi (after my personal best of 288 Wh/mi yesterday). 5.8 is definitely saving me Whs.

Low air suspension hold outs - Personally, I think its overblown. And if your excuse was efficiency, then my experience has been that 5.8 actually is better, even if it stays at normal height on highways. And I think the handling difference is minimal, unless you are really pushing the car through corners.

If you are holding out out of spite, well, that's your prerogative.

 

[ZBB]

I can see how a change to the acceleration can help Wh/mi, although that shouldn't come into play much on long highway drives. I know I'm using the brakes a lot more with the new regen profile, so I'm failing to see how that can be helpful either (not to mention far less "green" on the power meter when in regen). So I'm wondering if they have simply changed how they're calculating and displaying Wh/mi? Any real world range confirmations? In theory people getting much lower Wh/mi should be seeing much better actual range.

I should have posted actual miles vs rated miles used...

On 4.5, I'd normally see rated miles decrease by 70-72 miles over my 60-62 miles for commute.

Today rated range dropped 62 miles over 60 miles actual. I've never been that close to rated in my commutes...

 

[Kraken]

Is it possible the wh/mi being lower is due to the savings in vampire loss? When the car burns a lot of energy while sitting still, that seems to end up averaged out over the next 10 or so miles (see the guy who got pissed off because his energy usage graph was showing over 900 straight for nearly 10 miles after the service center had the car for a month) Thus, if the cars are now not using as much energy while sitting still, the wh/mi should go down.

 

[jomo25]

Is it possible the wh/mi being lower is due to the savings in vampire loss? When the car burns a lot of energy while sitting still, that seems to end up averaged out over the next 10 or so miles (see the guy who got pissed off because his energy usage graph was showing over 900 straight for nearly 10 miles after the service center had the car for a month) Thus, if the cars are now not using as much energy while sitting still, the wh/mi should go down.

I'm pretty certain vampire draw have never been factored in the Wh/mi calculations. And considering I haven't enabled the sleep mode on my car since upgrading to 5.8 (and still see the same typical vampire losses), that can't be it in my case.

 

[liuping]

I wonder if the improve range hold up for the larger Tesla population, could the Tesla request an new EPA rating? That would be an amazing first in the automobile industry: improving EPA ratings after the purchase. It could generate some interesting press as well...

 

[Mayhemm]

We're so going to get kicked for being O/T here. And rightly so, IMO. Still, it must be said...

Most, if not all, of your concerns are addressed by my first point; "It's different from what you're used to". You think a kilogram is too heavy because you're used to a pound. A centimeter is only too small because you're used to an inch, etc.

Everything is so much simpler with metric; 1km = 1000m. 1L = 1000mL. 1kg = 1000g. Distance, volume, mass, doesn't matter the category. All have analogues that work the same way.

With imperial, every unit is chosen at random. 1 foot = 12 inches, 1 yard = 3 feet, 1 mile = 1760 yards! It makes my head hurt! And those are just units of length!

Going back to temperature for a second; Freezing = 0C or +32F Boiling = 100C or 212F Which makes more sense?

Metric may be hard to live with for some...but only when trying to shoehorn it into the old system. Taken on its own, it couldn't be easier.

America's stubborn (and ironic) adherence to the imperial system is something I've never understood (cost of conversion is a pretty weak-sauce excuse, too)

When you live with metric you see the problems. When adjusting your home thermostat, people can feel a 1 degree F change and thus adjust it up or down 1 degree F. Celsius thermostats allow you to change 0.5 degree C since that is what people need. Going from a system that has integers as reasonable degree increments to one where you need 0.5 degree increments is a step backwards. Same thing happens for weights. A kilogram is too heavy a basic measurement.

Ziplock bag sizes in the US are measured in pints, quarts and gallons. These are useful sizes and people know roughly what they mean. There is NO analog in the metric system, instead ziplocks come in small, medium, and large size since the equivalent metric volume measures are, like 243 ml.

Centimeters and meters just don't quite cut it either. The cm is too small a measure, inches work better. There is no equivalent of a foot. And meters are slightly too big. Most people can pace out a yard, meters are just that extra bit more.

Acres are a good size for land areas, hectares are way too big.

Look, metric is the way to go for science and engineering, but for everyday use, it doesn't work as well as the Imperial system.

 

[apacheguy]

I find it hard to believe that the reason for improved efficiency is merely the tweak to standard regen. How about those on the low regen setting? Are you guys seeing improved numbers as well?

It would logically reason that higher ride height = higher drag coefficient = less efficient. I would expect this to be the overarching contributing factor over regen especially with mostly freeway driving.

 

[Klaus]

@Mayhemm: Well said. 100%

 

[stacyh3]

I have to admit, I miss the aggressive regen. I was really getting to love it. If the new profile really is improving efficiency then I'm all for it. What about 3 settings? High(Aggressive)/Normal/Low. I guess that might be confusing to some though. Hmm...

 

[deonb]

A centimeter is only too small because you're used to an inch, etc.
...
Going back to temperature for a second; Freezing = 0C or +32F Boiling = 100C or 212F Which makes more sense?

Besides inches and inch fractions are equally widely used in the U.S. - e.g. the 1/4" plating at the bottom of the Tesla battery. Nothing is really ever an inch, except by coincidence - it's too large a unit to round off to.

The most annoying unit is the "mil". Imperial unit with metric division, frustrating circuit board designers the world over. (IC physical sizes are expressed in mm, but spacing is in mils, or at best some multiple of 0.0254mm).


I however don't see a specific virtue in Celsius. It's as arbitrary as Fahrenheit. Celsius doesn't figure in metric conversion math the way you can convert from liters to cubic meters etc. There isn't a case where a volume of gas would expand from e.g. 1 cubic meter to 2 cubic meter if you increase the temperature from 10 degree to 20 degree Celsius. Apart from 0 and 100, the rest of the scale isn't meaningful. So you may as well pick two other arbitrary points, like the freeing point of brine and the temperature of someone with a flu.

(It's not a matter of being used to it. I grew up with Celsius - only started using Fahrenheit after I moved to the U.S.)

 

[ZBB]

With imperial, every unit is chosen at random. 1 foot = 12 inches, 1 yard = 3 feet, 1 mile = 1760 yards! It makes my head hurt! And those are just units of length!

Youve got that all wrong. Nobody measures a mile in yards... And we all know that a mile is 5280 feet ;-)

America's stubborn (and ironic) adherence to the imperial system is something I've never understood (cost of conversion is a pretty weak-sauce excuse, too)

To be a bit more fair, the US attempted to move to metric -- and some things started to change, but we just never finished converting... The legacy of that is you can still buy 2L bottles of Coke/Pepsi/etc at the grocery store (although milk comes in gallons)... And take a look at the pic below -- which is a sign on I-19 in AZ (all distances on I-19 are displayed in metric -- and the signs were updated a few years ago the old ones used to have both metric and imperial...)

FWIW, I've lived in Europe and Japan and married a Canadian. It did not take very long to ge used to metric when I first lived in Germany, and I can flip between systems pretty easily

 

[JohnQ]

With imperial, every unit is chosen at random. 1 foot = 12 inches, 1 yard = 3 feet, 1 mile = 1760 yards! It makes my head hurt! And those are just units of length!

Love going OT about this stuff :smile:
Note that the mile is not quite as arbitrary as it would seem. A chain is defined as the distance between two wickets on a cricket pitch. A furlong is defined as 10 chains. A mile is defined as 8 furlongs. Now, why a furlong is 10 chains and a mile 8 furlongs (instead on 10, for example) I have no idea. But the mile is rooted in that measurement system. A chain happens to be 22 yards which gives us the crazy 1760 yards in a mile.

 

[deonb]

Love going OT about this stuff :smile:
Note that the mile is not quite as arbitrary as it would seem. A chain is defined as the distance between two wickets on a cricket pitch. A furlong is defined as 10 chains. A mile is defined as 8 furlongs. Now, why a furlong is 10 chains and a mile 8 furlongs (instead on 10, for example) I have no idea. But the mile is rooted in that measurement system. A chain happens to be 22 yards which gives us the crazy 1760 yards in a mile.

Which would be a fine system if the country that's famously using the mile actually played cricket!

Given a choice between the U.S. adopting the metric system, and adopting cricket, I'd vote for cricket .

 

[islandbayy]

islandbayy^^^^ I am also curious if you are running any third party apps like Visual Tesla or anything else that maybe is keeping your computers "awake" more than they should be. If you were, perhaps there is constant "pinging" via telematics that is keeping the computers busy. My understanding is that the vampire comes from solely the onboard computers. Therefore any increase or decrease in vampire is based on their operation. They way your car is loosing miles, it is like the computers are full "drive" mode and not shutting off in the least.

On a side note, if one were to put a 12 volt trickle charger on the 12 volt system to keep the voltage "up" thus preventing car from sucking juice out of the main pack, would this entirely eliminate vampire? Anyone know if this would be a "bad idea" aside from being a hassle?

Bad news, with the float charger on, did not make one bit of difference.

Char stopped charging at approx 1am +/- 15 minutes, 176 miles on the ODO. as of 7 AM on the dot, 169 miles. The Float charge is warm, which means it was/is charging.

 

[mnx]

After going for my 2nd drive with 5.8 last night, I observed the accelerator pedal mapping you guys are talking about. Where I used to engage 50% regen or so, the car now coasts. I prefer the old behaviour but am willing to deal with the new for increased efficiency. I felt the changes to TC as well, it seems to restore power more quickly.

 

[riceuguy]

I have to admit, I miss the aggressive regen. I was really getting to love it. If the new profile really is improving efficiency then I'm all for it. What about 3 settings? High(Aggressive)/Normal/Low. I guess that might be confusing to some though. Hmm...

I don't know that the regen is less aggressive, I just think it is smoother at the point of transition.

 

[jomo25]

I don't know that the regen is less aggressive, I just think it is smoother at the point of transition.

That's the way I would describe it, but the end result is it will be less aggressive at activation (another way to say it).

So, as I mentioned up thread, Im not using sleep mode yet. And I know vampire losses never factored in Wh/mi calcs. So, it was always hard to exactly match up my kWh used to charge each night (based on the electricity metering software my building uses) to the amount used according to the car (used in the Wh/mi calc). For example, yesterday, my 60 mi drive used 17.6 kWh according to the car. But my recharge last night consumed 22.1 kWh according to the metering software. presumably, the difference is vampire losses that occurred while the car sat after it recharged the night before and sitting at my work parking lot all day PLUS the inefficiency of the charging system (which I normally think of about 10%).

I don't usually keep close track of the variance, but 4.5 kWh "seems" high for the that difference as I recall. So, I've turned on sleep mode, am recharging to top off to get back the amount lost since it charged. and I'm going to measure the difference between what i consume today according to the car and the meter. So, if sleep is working, the difference should mostly be just the inefficiencies.

My whole point in this is just to make sure that the "new, more efficient drives" I'm experiencing aren't just some incorrect measuring by the car. I don't think it would be the case, but I guess I'm surprised by the improvements that I want to double check that the car isn't "shaving" Wh used somehow and only making it appear more efficient.

Will report back tomorrow.

 

[Al Sherman]

Char stopped charging at approx 1am +/- 15 minutes, 176 miles on the ODO. as of 7 AM on the dot, 169 miles.

I'm experiencing "something" like this at least. Though, it's not an issue for me.

I charge the 85kW to 65%. It stops at about 159 give or take every time. Within a few hours it's down to 149. Then it stays at 149 almost until I drive it again. This is with the charge chord connected the whole time. Strange?

 

[mknox]

After going for my 2nd drive with 5.8 last night, I observed the accelerator pedal mapping you guys are talking about. Where I used to engage 50% regen or so, the car now coasts. I prefer the old behaviour but am willing to deal with the new for increased efficiency. I felt the changes to TC as well, it seems to restore power more quickly.

Man, I must be in a real daze when I drive, because I've noticed NONE of this. I don't use "Creep" so I can't comment there, but everything else mentioned here seems pretty much the same as before. I wonder if it's a "P" thing since mine is a regular "S85"?

 

[efusco]

Man, I must be in a real daze when I drive, because I've noticed NONE of this. I don't use "Creep" so I can't comment there, but everything else mentioned here seems pretty much the same as before. I wonder if it's a "P" thing since mine is a regular "S85"?

No, I'm in an S85 and the regen is clearly less abrupt in engaging. If you use cruise control get going 60 or 65, then cancel and you'll notice (or maybe you won't!) that there isn't as big of a jerk as before. Over about a second or so regen will go to maximal which you can confirm on the dash display.

There's a lot of hand wringing about this, but the actual impact is negligible, might need to lift off the accelerator a second earlier than before to get the car to stop at the same point it previously would, but it's ridiculous to think a minor change like this would impact efficiency. I think those who are most bothered it is more because of the driving style they've adopted because of the regen, they'll just need to adapt their driving technique a tiny bit, like we all did when first driving a Tesla, and in about 3 days we'll hardly notice.

IMO, this is a fantastic change, I would always be trying to feather the accelerator as I came out of cruise control so I didn't get that abrupt slowing that was uncomfortable for passengers. It's much smoother and more natural.