Happy I went with the LR model 3 Range

[HumanBubs]

A quick thing to add to the range debate is the usage of your car when you get to a destination. I just took delivery of a LR last week and decided to spend Labor Day weekend with family in Phoenix. My drive to PHX was great, but after a day of being parked in the sun and driving around town I started getting the dreaded range anxiety. I have no clue how a SR+ can pull off a 3 day stay with family without taking trips to superchargers or mooching off grandmas electricity. I calculated I would have rolled up to the nearest SC on my way out at less than 5 percent if I had not topped up at an evgo charger a day prior. The downtown PHX supercharger can't come soon enough!

Perhaps I'm overthinking the whole situation. How do you guys handle these sorts of trips?

 

[brkaus]

I mooch from grandma

seriously though, we have an LR and wouldn’t go less.

 

[Spacep0d]

Good choice. I would only go for the LR or P. My next Tesla will likely be an LR with boost....or the 25k 'Model 2' if it has a steering wheel, lol!

 

[HumanBubs]

I mooch from grandma

seriously though, we have an LR and wouldn’t go less.

I don't feel comfortable doing that

I feel I may not have a choice soon though. I'm going to visit an uncle that lives deep into the mountains near San Diego, no real charging options while I'm there except for stealing his dryer outlet. Maybe if I shoot him a 20 or buy him a 12 pack he won't mind.

 

[HumanBubs]

Good choice. I would only go for the LR or P. My next Tesla will likely be an LR with boost....or the 25k 'Model 2' if it has a steering wheel, lol!

I very much was considering the SR+ for a good long while. It wasn't until a buddy let me test drive his LR that I knew I'd never be satisfied with the SR+ anymore.

 

[brkaus]

120v charging will get a few miles an hour. It adds up over a weekend. Plus, beer.

 

[bpjod]

I don't feel comfortable doing that

I feel I may not have a choice soon though. I'm going to visit an uncle that lives deep into the mountains near San Diego, no real charging options while I'm there except for stealing his dryer outlet. Maybe if I shoot him a 20 or buy him a 12 pack he won't mind.

My family is all 350+ km (217+ mi) away. I always plug into one of their exterior outlets (120V/15A) and give them $20 for the charge. First time I show them how the ~50 kWh I used is only ~$10 when charging at home so they realize that (1) it's way cheaper than what they spend on gas to see me, and (2) they're getting a good deal when I give them $20 for $10-$15 of electricity!

 

[Candleflame]

A quick thing to add to the range debate is the usage of your car when you get to a destination. I just took delivery of a LR last week and decided to spend Labor Day weekend with family in Phoenix. My drive to PHX was great, but after a day of being parked in the sun and driving around town I started getting the dreaded range anxiety. I have no clue how a SR+ can pull off a 3 day stay with family without taking trips to superchargers or mooching off grandmas electricity. I calculated I would have rolled up to the nearest SC on my way out at less than 5 percent if I had not topped up at an evgo charger a day prior. The downtown PHX supercharger can't come soon enough!

Perhaps I'm overthinking the whole situation. How do you guys handle these sorts of trips?

Keep in mind that you are gonna get around 5% degradation every year for a couple of years... And the Sr+ with LPO batteries is much more resistant to degradation and can be charged to 100% all the time. so they arent even that unequal for range.

 

[HumanBubs]

Keep in mind that you are gonna get around 5% degradation every year for a couple of years... And the Sr+ with LPO batteries is much more resistant to degradation and can be charged to 100% all the time. so they arent even that unequal for range.

Yeah the new SR batteries weren't a thing when I was making a purchase decision month ago. They definitely are something to consider! Hopefully they figure out a way to get LPO tech into the long range models but I don't see that happening

 

[Watts_Up]

While doing a cross country trip recently, I experienced a closure of a freeway because of an accident and I had to make a big detour.

I was lucky that I decided earlier to top off at each supercharger to have always enough margin to reach the next supercharger.

I would recommend to always have the 'Traffic Alert' set in the Tesla Navigation and also used Waze on a Web browser.

 

[Candleflame]

Yeah the new SR batteries weren't a thing when I was making a purchase decision month ago. They definitely are something to consider! Hopefully they figure out a way to get LPO tech into the long range models but I don't see that happening

also the SR+ actually travels faster if there is no access to supercharging. it is more efficient and charges 3.5kw faster on 50kw chargers...

 

[Jeremy3292]

Keep in mind that you are gonna get around 5% degradation every year for a couple of years... And the Sr+ with LPO batteries is much more resistant to degradation and can be charged to 100% all the time. so they arent even that unequal for range.

We will need to see the real world, long term data of the LFP batteries to be sure they don't really degrade as much as NCA and even if they degrade less, we are talking 5% difference or so? Charging to 100% consistently is nice I will agree, but when do you need to use 100%? Only on road trips and then I would charge to 100% anyways with my LR. No need for 90% or 100% with daily use. The ability to only have to stop at 1 SC on a trip instead of 2 coupled with slower SC speeds on the SR+ is actually quite a bit different than the LR.

Additionally, there is heavy evidence that the range of the Panasonic 82 kWh battery packs in the USA LR are actually around 5% higher than the stated 353 EPA miles as that was the range tested with the 82 kWh 2170C cells for the "2021 refresh" in Q4 2020. Since Q2 2021 the USA LR have been shipped with newer 82 kWh 2170L cells. The rated range is actually closer to ~370 miles for the 2170L cells and there is an expectation that once the "2022" Model 3 LR is released shortly it will be rated as such. This is a simple marketing tactic to show incremental YOY progress to the range of Tesla's. Expect to see a rated range software upgrade by EOY for all the 2021 LR with the new 2170L cells.

So there is a lot of nuance here if you really want to get technical with it. LR is absolutely still king.

 

[LoudMusic]

I think I will always be buying the largest battery capacity available for the model of car I am purchasing. That's mostly because I like to do road trips, but it also contributes to pushing technology forward.