Holy Phantom Drain

[camalaio]

Sure - going 75-80 dropped it to probably 23-25 mpg, but normal daily driving where my commute was 80% hwy at 60-70mph, I only had to fill up a 10 gallon tank about once per week and no, I wasn't sitting there for 15 minutes LOL.

For Teslas, you're lucky if you get the max speed at superchargers (which, btw destroys your batteries) and you have to sit there for over an hour just to go from say 10% to 90%. And that's if you're lucky that a supercharger is anywhere near where you live, anywhere near your destination. For gas stations you pull over, it's 5 minutes fueling time pretty much any city/any town/anywhere in the country.

The fact is, these cars really are very inconvenient in 2020. Yes, if you have a set up where you can plug in over night at home, that's great. But what if you forget? Then it's hours of waiting in the middle of the day or likely driving out of your way to supercharge for 20-30 minutes.

Also, back on this same phantom drain topic, really kills the whole "SO MUCH CHEAPER THAN ICE!!!!!!!!" conversation. My LR M3 AWD is getting something like 50 usable kwh and that takes me 150 miles. Where I live, gas in 1.70/gallon and electricity is like 10-12 cents a kwh (depending on the rate)...knowing that 1) it takes me 100kwh to actually go 300 miles, that's around $10.00, not including the fact that you actually lose energy while charging that's not transferred into the car. So throw another 20-30% on there and all of a sudden, you are at $12-13. How about some wind? probably another $2-3.

My gf's prius gets a legit 40-50mpg, with a 7-8 gallon tank that she fills every 8-9 days and it costs her what? $14-16?

There are just a lot of promises with EVs and their abilities and I don't believe consumers are aware that they are very misleading. With all that being said, I love the drivetrain of the car. I've fine with paying a premium to drive it each mile (even with electricity supposedly cheaper) I love no sounds or shaking...but only getting 150 miles on 80% of the battery is f-ing awful and I wouldn't buy again knowing that.

Not too long ago on this forum, you'd be darn near tarred and feathered for such blasphemies! I only slightly jest.

Your points are entirely valid. In the 13 months we've owned the car, we've forgot to plug it in overnight about 4 times or so. 3 of those were plan-altering mistakes since everywhere we go is at least 45km away, and not necessarily with any sort of fast charger around. Even with habits, sometimes you just get home absolutely beat and it skips your mind. Or you have full hands and forget to come back. Avoidable, absolutely, but happens. Unless you have an extremely flexible life, it's hard to be OK with needing to charge for at least 2 hours before you can go on with your day.

And your point about costs is spot on. Even with my relatively expensive gas (CAD$1.30/L at the time, about USD$3.62/gal) and cheap electricity (average $0.12/kWh), it's hard to justify the price premium even after many years. With gas as cheap as you get it, there's no contest. ICE wins in terms of long term costs there.

I really do hope something happens to force clarity on all this for EVs in the future, and infrastructure adapts to having always-charging cars (outlets everywhere?).

 

[Tigers]

Not too long ago on this forum, you'd be darn near tarred and feathered for such blasphemies! I only slightly jest.

Your points are entirely valid. In the 13 months we've owned the car, we've forgot to plug it in overnight about 4 times or so. 3 of those were plan-altering mistakes since everywhere we go is at least 45km away, and not necessarily with any sort of fast charger around. Even with habits, sometimes you just get home absolutely beat and it skips your mind. Or you have full hands and forget to come back. Avoidable, absolutely, but happens. Unless you have an extremely flexible life, it's hard to be OK with needing to charge for at least 2 hours before you can go on with your day.

And your point about costs is spot on. Even with my relatively expensive gas (CAD$1.30/L at the time, about USD$3.62/gal) and cheap electricity (average $0.12/kWh), it's hard to justify the price premium even after many years. With gas as cheap as you get it, there's no contest. ICE wins in terms of long term costs there.

I really do hope something happens to force clarity on all this for EVs in the future, and infrastructure adapts to having always-charging cars (outlets everywhere?).

Thank you for the corroboration.

I do want to emphasize that I love the EV aspect of this car. It's silent, it drives like it's on butter except with fantastic handling and it takes off like a rocket. All of these things are still true today and I paid a premium to get them and there are no regrets there.

But from the usable range (or phantom drain perspective) I agree, EVs are going to have to get to over 500 miles of "rated" ability before the average consumer will see the equivalent of their ICE counterpart. I strongly hope people keep buying and the tech gets better and better, I just don't want people to be extremely disappointed when they start doing the math on range (or cost savings, for that matter). I do believe the average consumer purchasing a model 3 today will reasonably expect 250-300 miles per charge.

 

[hgmichna]

One aspect hasn't been mentioned here. Most people drive long distances only rarely. Mostly they commute to work or drive around town for shopping, visiting people, socializing, etc. All these things can be done with charging at home or at work, so you don't lose any time to charging.

The remaining question is what happens with the occasional long-distance drive? Is it doable or is it a big problem? Obviously, in total you will be a bit slower with an electric vehicle than with a Diesel because of some charging stops. But how much? I have done the calculation for a particular drive we do about once a year, from Munich, Germany, to Terracina in southern Italy, 1026 km = 638 miles, to be precise. I have used A Better Route Planner (ABRP) to do the optimization.

The result is that, with driving at 130 km/h or at the speed limit, which is lower in Austria and Italy, the pure driving time is approx. 9:30 h. Total charging time in a Tesla Model 3 SR+ is approx. 1:40 h, but one long stop (at Modena, Italy) can be used as a lunch break. If you deduct 45 min or 1 h for that and charge to full, the next charge stop will be shorter. Effectively you lose about one hour to charging breaks, not counting the lunch break you would do anyway. And I'm not even sure whether I would do one or two of the other breaks anyway, even with a Diesel car.

If this is unacceptable, buy the long-range Tesla, where the total charging time would be lower. But to me a 10% longer total travel time is perfectly acceptable on the few very-long-distance drives I do, so I am happy with the Model 3 Standard Range Plus. Even this car with its smaller 53 kWh battery is quite capable of long-distance driving, if you accept a slightly lower overall speed.

Consider also that long-distance drives that are not quite so long have disproportionally less charging time, because you can always start the ride with a full battery from home, so the "problem" is even smaller.

If I had to do such long drives often, I would have bought a Diesel car, but I'm glad I don't have to.

By the way, all the 5 charging stations that ABRP picked out for me along the route are the convenient Tesla Superchargers.

 

[Gasaraki]

You waste a lot of power when you take short trips without charging.

 

[dmurphy]

One aspect hasn't been mentioned here. Most people drive long distances only rarely. Mostly they commute to work or drive around town for shopping, visiting people, socializing, etc. All these things can be done with charging at home or at work, so you don't lose any time to charging.

The remaining question is what happens with the occasional long-distance drive? Is it doable or is it a big problem?

Exactly right.

I've got 15 months and 19,094 miles on my Model 3, and have been stranded exactly... zero times.

It's been wonderful. If I add up all the times I'm NOT stopping to pump fuel, my "minutes back in my life" calendar is way ahead.

We're planning a 6,000 mile (almost 10,000km) road trip for August. Will spend some time charging on the road, but so what? It breaks up the long drives. Gives us a chance to stretch legs, grab a cool drink and then keep going. The fascination with driving a dozen hours at a time without stopping is absurd. Stop and smell the roses once in a while.... which, by the way, smell much better without exhaust fumes.

 

[Gasaraki]

Sure - going 75-80 dropped it to probably 23-25 mpg, but normal daily driving where my commute was 80% hwy at 60-70mph, I only had to fill up a 10 gallon tank about once per week and no, I wasn't sitting there for 15 minutes LOL.

For Teslas, you're lucky if you get the max speed at superchargers (which, btw destroys your batteries) and you have to sit there for over an hour just to go from say 10% to 90%. And that's if you're lucky that a supercharger is anywhere near where you live, anywhere near your destination. For gas stations you pull over, it's 5 minutes fueling time pretty much any city/any town/anywhere in the country.

The fact is, these cars really are very inconvenient in 2020. Yes, if you have a set up where you can plug in over night at home, that's great. But what if you forget? Then it's hours of waiting in the middle of the day or likely driving out of your way to supercharge for 20-30 minutes.

Also, back on this same phantom drain topic, really kills the whole "SO MUCH CHEAPER THAN ICE!!!!!!!!" conversation. My LR M3 AWD is getting something like 50 usable kwh and that takes me 150 miles. Where I live, gas in 1.70/gallon and electricity is like 10-12 cents a kwh (depending on the rate)...knowing that 1) it takes me 100kwh to actually go 300 miles, that's around $10.00, not including the fact that you actually lose energy while charging that's not transferred into the car. So throw another 20-30% on there and all of a sudden, you are at $12-13. How about some wind? probably another $2-3.

My gf's prius gets a legit 40-50mpg, with a 7-8 gallon tank that she fills every 8-9 days and it costs her what? $14-16?

There are just a lot of promises with EVs and their abilities and I don't believe consumers are aware that they are very misleading. With all that being said, I love the drivetrain of the car. I've fine with paying a premium to drive it each mile (even with electricity supposedly cheaper) I love no sounds or shaking...but only getting 150 miles on 80% of the battery is f-ing awful and I wouldn't buy again knowing that.

From this post, it sounds like you really need to do more research and learn more how to use an EV. Unfortunately, EVs have a learning curve.
1-Don't charge to 90% at a supercharger or any highspeed charger for any EV. Charging rates in all EVs ramp up to max when they are between 10-50%. After that, the charge rate drops rapidly to protect the batteries. By charging to 90%, you are wasting time. Stop more often for short charges, 20 min max.
2-You have a 10 gallon tank in your car... ok. Don't know what car has a 10 gallon tank. You fill it once a week. If you drive 80 and you only get 25MPG in your car with a 10 gallon tank...... Yeah, i'm sorry. That just doesn't make any sense. Doesn't look like you drove your ICE car at all.
3-"For Teslas, you're lucky if you get the max speed at superchargers" I always get max speed at superchargers.
4-Gas in your area is only 1.70/gallon but your electricity is 12 cents a kwh? What kind of place is this? Gas and electricity cost usually correspond to each other. Cali has high gas and high electricity costs, etc. Around where I live, gas is around $2 and I pay .09kwh for electricity. Teslas are not for everyone. They are high powered luxury cars and comes with lots of drawbacks.

I don't think EVs are for you. They are not for everyone. There are benefits and drawbacks to every vehicle. If you are that resistant to EVs then I would stick with ICE cars.

 

[camalaio]

From this post, it sounds like you really need to do more research and learn more how to use an EV. Unfortunately, EVs have a learning curve.
1-Don't charge to 90% at a supercharger or any highspeed charger for any EV. Charging rates in all EVs ramp up to max when they are between 10-50%. After that, the charge rate drops rapidly to protect the batteries. By charging to 90%, you are wasting time. Stop more often for short charges, 20 min max.
2-You have a 10 gallon tank in your car... ok. Don't know what car has a 10 gallon tank. You fill it once a week. If you drive 80 and you only get 25MPG in your car with a 10 gallon tank...... Yeah, i'm sorry. That just doesn't make any sense. Doesn't look like you drove your ICE car at all.
3-"For Teslas, you're lucky if you get the max speed at superchargers" I always get max speed at superchargers.
4-Gas in your area is only 1.70/gallon but your electricity is 12 cents a kwh? What kind of place is this? Gas and electricity cost usually correspond to each other. Cali has high gas and high electricity costs, etc. Around where I live, gas is around $2 and I pay .09kwh for electricity. Teslas are not for everyone. They are high powered luxury cars and comes with lots of drawbacks.

I don't think EVs are for you. They are not for everyone. There are benefits and drawbacks to every vehicle. If you are that resistant to EVs then I would stick with ICE cars.

We had very opposite takeaways from their statements. They clearly understand more than the average person about EVs now, especially after experiencing it. That doesn't mean they don't feel frustrated with the reality though, which is an entirely expected and valid feeling.

Regarding point (2), remember the context for this discussion -- phantom/standby drain, something that gas vehicles don't have. They mentioned most of their commute is actually not at the higher speed too. This implies something like 50mi/day very roughly. And indeed, their original post w.r.t. the Model 3 says ~165mi over 3 days, about 55mi a day. It all makes sense.

What doesn't make sense to many, is that getting about the EPA rated efficiency while driving in an ICE will get you an expected amount of range, but this is not true for an EV over the course of a few days due to standby drain. The EPA rating is absolutely achievable with the Model 3 on a 60-70mph highway with the AC on in my experience. But as explained in my first post on this thread, there are "normal" things that can take a significant amount of energy that you're not expecting. This is not a general EV problem, as others EVs tend to do far better regarding standby losses than Tesla. Tesla also sometimes enables battery-draining features (like Summon Standby) without the owner's knowledge via updates, complicating... well, complicating everything really. You almost have to be in these forums to keep a tab on that stuff, that's crazy. It's still not even mentioned in the manual as a battery-draining feature.

 

[dmurphy]

4-Gas in your area is only 1.70/gallon but your electricity is 12 cents a kwh? What kind of place is this? Gas and electricity cost usually correspond to each other. Cali has high gas and high electricity costs, etc. Around where I live, gas is around $2 and I pay .09kwh for electricity. Teslas are not for everyone. They are high powered luxury cars and comes with lots of drawbacks.

Sure - gas here is about $1.88 here. Electricity is $.155/kWh. Welcome to New Jersey.

 

[Silicon Desert]

short trips take more power just like in an ICE car...

Really? Can you explain why I have never seen this in 4 years of owning the MX. My 4 mile drive down to the shopping district and back home is no different than a longer 200 mile drive down to the bay area and back. So I am puzzled. What am I missing? There is nothing to warm up like in an ICE car. I guess I haven't thought about it much since I have not seen a difference.

 

[camalaio]

Really? Can you explain why I have never seen this in 4 years of owning the MX. My 4 mile drive down to the shopping district and back home is no different than a longer 200 mile drive down to the bay area and back. So I am puzzled. What am I missing? There is nothing to warm up like in an ICE car. I guess I haven't thought about it much since I have not seen a difference.

Well, for one see this post:

It's kind of both.

The number is very real, and the same thing happens for ICE vehicles. When you first start moving, it requires a lot of power to accelerate. If you look at just the energy during acceleration time, it will indeed be a lot! But as you maintain speed, the energy required to accelerate gets overshadowed by how much energy it takes to maintain that speed.

For two, see the owner's manual under "Factors Affecting Energy Consumption":

Short trips: It takes energy to bring the cabin and Battery to a specified temperature when starting the vehicle. You may see a higher average consumption when the vehicle is used for very short trips while climate controls are enabled.

The first quote you'd only see in the first few seconds or minutes depending on the drive (and was from a thread where those first few seconds were being asked about). The second you'd mostly see in cooler climates, but can occur for hotter ones as well. Notably, if you precondition the cabin, you won't see the initial increased consumption on any in-car energy graph. The main factor they're talking about is the increased climate control power to bring it to a comfortable temperature at the start.

 

[jjrandorin]

Really? Can you explain why I have never seen this in 4 years of owning the MX. My 4 mile drive down to the shopping district and back home is no different than a longer 200 mile drive down to the bay area and back. So I am puzzled. What am I missing? There is nothing to warm up like in an ICE car. I guess I haven't thought about it much since I have not seen a difference.

If you check your model X when you first start driving, you will see that your wh/mi is much different than if you are driving for a while. You must have never looked at it, like you said. battery heating, additional A/C or Heat to the cabin to raise or lower the temperature, etc etc, just like an ICE car.

if you take a 4 mile trip, and start from home, unless you JUST finished charging your car a few minutes ago, there is ZERO chance of it rolling off "4 miles" for that 4 mile trip.

Maybe thats what you are missing because you never looked? Check it next time.

 

[hgmichna]

Heating or cooling a car uses energy. But on top of that a piston engine has a sharply increased fuel consumption while the engine is cold, due to fuel condensing in the pipes and cylinders, not only in winter. An electric motor does not have that. Its efficiency is very high, pretty much regardless of temperature.

The battery of an electric car can be warmed up in winter, which also uses energy. But it does not have to. If you drive gently and not too fast, you can start out with a cold battery, which will gradually warm up while driving.

Also, in many cases the car is connected to a charger at home, so warming up the car consumes energy, but does not reduce range. Remember, the Tesla has a setting for the intended departure time, so the car is charged and preconditioned as planned.

Phantom drain can be greatly reduced by having sentry, summon standby, and climate deactivated.

 

[Rocky_H]

I think it's rather insane how many people think $1.70 per gallon gas is normal and long term sustainable. It is really supposed to be more than twice that.

 

[Silicon Desert]

If you check your model X when you first start driving, you will see that your wh/mi is much different than if you are driving for a while. You must have never looked at it, like you said. battery heating, additional A/C or Heat to the cabin to raise or lower the temperature, etc etc, just like an ICE car.

if you take a 4 mile trip, and start from home, unless you JUST finished charging your car a few minutes ago, there is ZERO chance of it rolling off "4 miles" for that 4 mile trip.

Maybe thats what you are missing because you never looked? Check it next time.

thanks, yes I have noticed that increased energy shortly after first starting and I have read information in the manual. for whatever reason I don't see any significant difference in energy use between short trips and long ones. I rarely charge the car between those short trips. My short trips are actually 8 miles, 4 miles each way and to the doctor it is about 20 miles total and of course the long trips are a couple hundred miles. Still, no difference. I guess I should be happy.
I think you misunderstood what I said. I didn't say I never looked. I said I never seen a difference between long trips and short trips.
Thanks for the info however.

 

[jjrandorin]

thanks, yes I have noticed that increased energy shortly after first starting and I have read information in the manual. for whatever reason I don't see any significant difference in energy use between short trips and long ones. I rarely charge the car between those short trips. My short trips are actually 8 miles, 4 miles each way and to the doctor it is about 20 miles total and of course the long trips are a couple hundred miles. Still, no difference. I guess I should be happy.
I think you misunderstood what I said. I didn't say I never looked. I said I never seen a difference between long trips and short trips.
Thanks for the info however.

This is the model 3 forum so you are talking about in your model 3, correct? Also, if I understand you correctly, you state that your wh/mi total is pretty much exactly the same for your "4 mile each way" trip as your long "couple hundred mile" trips. Is that also correct?

 

[house9]

One last note on the dryer outlet situation, I have an extension cord, Im just going to leave that plugged in and use the other end to switch between the car and outlet, that should eliminate destroying the plug.

I have heard mention on these boards of “The Dryer Buddy 2-way splitter” might be a better option than an extension cord?

 

[jjrandorin]

I have heard mention on these boards of “The Dryer Buddy 2-way splitter” might be a better option than an extension cord?

I think thats a pretty expensive part to still have to "run a cord through an open door" which is what this OP is doing.

 

[smatthew]

Your points are entirely valid. In the 13 months we've owned the car, we've forgot to plug it in overnight about 4 times or so. 3 of those were plan-altering mistakes since everywhere we go is at least 45km away, and not necessarily with any sort of fast charger around. Even with habits, sometimes you just get home absolutely beat and it skips your mind. Or you have full hands and forget to come back. Avoidable, absolutely, but happens. Unless you have an extremely flexible life, it's hard to be OK with needing to charge for at least 2 hours before you can go on with your day.

I use TeslaFi and have a rule setup where at 8pm if the car is parked at home, and the battery is <80%, and the charger isn't connected, I get a message on my phone reminding me to plug in.

 

[Silicon Desert]

This is the model 3 forum so you are talking about in your model 3, correct? Also, if I understand you correctly, you state that your wh/mi total is pretty much exactly the same for your "4 mile each way" trip as your long "couple hundred mile" trips. Is that also correct?

Great question. We are a 4 Tesla family, so yes I was talking about the 3. BUT, I see the same for my MX, I don't know about the two MS cars since I don't drive those and they belong to other family members. Yes sir, that is correct I see the same wh/mi on long and short trips almost all the time. I look at the screen when I get back and I also occasionally go look in TeslaFi.

However, I think you folks answered the reason why. My cars are in a well insulated temperature controlled garage so it does not appear to be any power needed to cause any change to the battery. I don't usually have the car charging either. And I don't use air conditioning or heating on those short trips. After a closer review, I see that on a few occasions it is actually the opposite status on the M3 that some people say. I use MORE energy Watts per mile on my long trips and that makes sense. I am driving faster and using air conditioning or heating all the time. So yea, mostly always the same. I would not say "exactly" the same, but about 1-2 % difference.

 

[CyberGus]

I'm still floored by how much power a Tesla uses when in standby functions (+300W!), such as Sentry Mode. A Macbook Pro running at full tilt is 30-40W, and down to maybe 5W when mostly idle.

I know it needs a powerful computer for the many driving functions, but why so much current when it's just sitting there? Is Elon using his fleet of Teslas to mine for Bitcoin?