I love this car, but.....

[TheWhiteEGG]

Model 3 AWD DM LR
Purchase: 06/30/2019
Current Date: 09/19/2019

Total miles: 8,490 miles
Average wH/mile: 247


The car is ALMOST perfect in almost every way.
I travel a lot. This car is a blast to drive and soooo smoooth. However, battery is the biggest draw back.
A full charge to 100% is always 306 miles.

However, I pushed my limits with the range anxiety recently because I was having some questionable range.
For the 4th time to this date, I have tested the complete range of this car. Charging xx% to 100%.at each interval and running to as low as 3%. I have had battery issues with vampire drain but it completely stopped when i turned the car off.

Trip 1: 08/16/19 - 08/19/19
Total miles driven: 267 miles
Average wH/mile: 235
Remaining Percentage: 3%
A/C: On

Trip 2:: 08/19/19 - 08/24/19
Total Miles Driven: 283
Average wH/mile: 219
Remaining %: 4
A/C: On

Trip 3: 08/24/19 - 08/30/19
Total Miles Driven: 269
Average wH/mile: 232
Remaining %: 2
AC: ON

Trip 4: 08/30/19 - 09/09/19
Total Miles Driven
Average wH/Mile:257
Average wH/mile: 244
Remaining %: 3
A/C: On

Range Anxiety is real. However, I question more on the real life battery expectancy. Why is there such a big discrepancy.
I would love to get a full 300 miles or even 310 miles as advertised but I can barely come close to it. Its a beautiful car but I want to know if any other owners are experiencing anything like this? I am planning to take this to the service center but time is a little limited.

 

[Daniel in SD]

It’s really not great for the battery to go from 100% to 3% super often. Why not just plug it in more often?
All your efficiency and range data looks perfectly normal. Plenty of threads about all that.
I’ve got the same car and my lifetime average is 317wh/mi. It really depends how you drive!

 

[qdeathstar]

do you have regen turned on? maybe use autopilot more often... when ever i’m on a long trip i always end up having more range that advertised...

 

[qdeathstar]

these aren’t continuous drives? No wonder you aren’t getting the range you expect, the car uses energy just sitting parked, you should charge it whenever possible.

 

[brkaus]

Biggest factors are speed and wind.

temperature makes a big difference if cold.

Rain on the road is more resistance.

short drives will require the car to condition the battery frequently.

Etc

 

[WhiteSpeed]

I have the same car. I have not run it full range on the battery, in fact I have never charged it to 100% I think the highest I ever got was 94%. Not because it won't, I just stopped it before. I use mine for urban use only. Rarely take it on long trips, just back and forth to work, and around town. I knew it was an urban vehicle when I bought it, so no expectation of road trips. I agree, the M3 needs a battery with twice the capacity to be a total ICE replacement. I think we are on the cusp of such a battery, but I love the car for what I got it for.

 

[DopeGhoti]

Literally everything in the car is powered by the battery. A range of 310 miles is 310 miles of the car doing nothing but propelling itself forward - preferably with some regeneration on some downhill slopes thrown in. A/C drains the battery. The audio system drains the battery. Headlights drain the battery. The dashcam drains the battery. The sonar drains the battery. You get the idea.

 

[TheWhiteEGG]

It’s really not great for the battery to go from 100% to 3% super often. Why not just plug it in more often?
All your efficiency and range data looks perfectly normal. Plenty of threads about all that.
I’ve got the same car and my lifetime average is 317wh/mi. It really depends how you drive!

I completely agree with you that draining the battery to a super low percentage can be questionable and maybe not healthy. I didnt plug it in more often because I wanted to test the true range of the vehicle. I thought," heck, Maybe I can go more than 310 miles.." It is just sad that Im driving 55 mph - 60 mph to achieve the highest efficiency as possible.

do you have regen turned on? maybe use autopilot more often... when ever i’m on a long trip i always end up having more range that advertised...

Regen is turned on and have never been touched since i bought the car. I have used auto pilot previously but I noticed it kept surging back and forth trying to comply with the every day roads. This happens a lot when drivers move in and out of your lane when you are on a constant cruise. Then comes the sensors that sense the driving lanes. It always want to center me a bit to the right...Either I am too close to a car/semi or wall.
Most of my daily trips are 100+ miles. It can go as far as 120 miles to 160 miles varying on the days. Shutting everything off (sentry, wifi, cabin over heat) helped a lot with the vampire drain I had initially with the car.
I will try a super long trip and I can report back to you guys. Yes, it will be a 300 mile trip. Theoretically, I should have an extra 6 miles or 10 miles in doing so.

these aren’t continuous drives? No wonder you aren’t getting the range you expect, the car uses energy just sitting parked, you should charge it whenever possible.

Semi continuous. Long drives. Maybe 1.5 to 2 hours one way and another on the way back.
I toggle between percentage and miles on "display" and i rarely lose any battery life (least I had now is maybe 1 to 2 miles while parked at work).

I try not to charge it everywhere possible. Although, it is "advised" to keep at 90% or always plugged in, what happens if i experience battery degradation quicker than usual? Would that be covered by Tesla?

Biggest factors are speed and wind.

temperature makes a big difference if cold.

Rain on the road is more resistance.

short drives will require the car to condition the battery frequently.

Etc

Most roads that I drive on at flat. 99.99% flat, dry heat. No uphills or down hills. And our area does not receive any rain throughout the year.

I have the same car. I have not run it full range on the battery, in fact I have never charged it to 100% I think the highest I ever got was 94%. Not because it won't, I just stopped it before. I use mine for urban use only. Rarely take it on long trips, just back and forth to work, and around town. I knew it was an urban vehicle when I bought it, so no expectation of road trips. I agree, the M3 needs a battery with twice the capacity to be a total ICE replacement. I think we are on the cusp of such a battery, but I love the car for what I got it for.

I think you are right on this. This vehicle is best suit for urban use only. Grocery store, maybe 15 mile loop. Long trips are a maybe? If this car can achieve 350 miles on a single charge with some left over, it would be ideal.

Literally everything in the car is powered by the battery. A range of 310 miles is 310 miles of the car doing nothing but propelling itself forward - preferably with some regeneration on some downhill slopes thrown in. A/C drains the battery. The audio system drains the battery. Headlights drain the battery. The dashcam drains the battery. The sonar drains the battery. You get the idea.

A/C drains the battery but I watched some videos on youtube showing a comparision and it shows that A/C doesnt really affect mileage concerns. I hope that is true. I dont blast the media, I purposely turn off the head lights everytime in "off" position. The center pad is put at 10% and sonar is as is.


Overall, I just hope this car can sustain a 300 mile loop/trip. I will report back to you guys when I have that planned out. I really want to get the best of this car. I personally didnt think that the car sitting would have a major impact because my vampire drain have been solved after the 5000 mile. I lose maybe 1 or 2 miles or none if at all overnight.

 

[jmaddr]

Have you ever tried this with an ICE car? You’ll have similar results. IE, take the highway mpg and multiply it by the tank capacity to get you max range and attempt the same thing (30mpg and a 16.4 gallon tank should give a range of 492 miles)? I think you’ll find range anxiety works in that case too. The EPA set the 310 based on their standard testing, just like they do with ICE. Driving habits in both cases heavily determine the range. Some can get more, most get less.

 

[ewoodrick]

Model 3 AWD DM LR
Purchase: 06/30/2019
Current Date: 09/19/2019

Total miles: 8,490 miles
Average wH/mile: 247


The car is ALMOST perfect in almost every way.
I travel a lot. This car is a blast to drive and soooo smoooth. However, battery is the biggest draw back.
A full charge to 100% is always 306 miles.

However, I pushed my limits with the range anxiety recently because I was having some questionable range.
For the 4th time to this date, I have tested the complete range of this car. Charging xx% to 100%.at each interval and running to as low as 3%. I have had battery issues with vampire drain but it completely stopped when i turned the car off.


Range Anxiety is real. However, I question more on the real life battery expectancy. Why is there such a big discrepancy.
I would love to get a full 300 miles or even 310 miles as advertised but I can barely come close to it. Its a beautiful car but I want to know if any other owners are experiencing anything like this? I am planning to take this to the service center but time is a little limited.

Taking the battery down to <10% ain't the best thing that you can do, unless you need to.
Trip stop and start miles doesn't make the EPA numbers, which is what the gauge is based upon.
Were you ever able to get the published range out of your ICE? Probably never tried it, if I had to take a guess.

So, go try this on. Find a long path this weekend for a trip that's on 55 mph side roads and go take it. Stay at 55 and see what happens. Slow down to 40 and see what the energy graph is telling you.

If you are having to put your car to sleep, something is wrong. Do you have any third party apps running?

And yes, ALL cars have questionable range when compared to their EPA numbers.

But if you want to get the range, find a 500 mile stretch where you can go 30 mph and complete it with 10%+ battery left! It has been done.

 

[jerryfan2000]

Your 230W/Miles looks very good. I think it is also the w/m Tesla uses for rating the battery range. So ideally, if you drive the car from 100% in one trip, you should get 300-300miles no problem.

 

[MP3Mike]

I try not to charge it everywhere possible. Although, it is "advised" to keep at 90% or always plugged in, what happens if i experience battery degradation quicker than usual? Would that be covered by Tesla?

The Model 3 battery warranty is for 70%. So if your 100% charge dropped below 217 miles your battery would qualify for replacement under the warranty. (In other words you don't want to abuse your battery.)

 

[Daniel in SD]

When you add in the 3 mile per day vampire drain (which I agree is shameful) it looks like you’re getting about 310 miles of range.
It sounds like you have very unique requirements in a vehicle. I’ve taken plenty of long trips even though I drive way less efficiently than you. I find if I’m using supercharging I can do a 15 minute charge every two hours. You can also charge while eating or sleeping which doesn’t add any travel time at all. And of course on a day to day basis I just plug in when I get home and unplug when I leave in the morning . I’ve never driven enough around town to need to charge during the day.

 

[Zcd1]

...If this car can achieve 350 miles on a single charge with some left over, it would be ideal...

Why would you expect the car to be able to go 10%+ further than its rated range?? It won't, so save yourself the trouble of worrying about it.

Overall, I just hope this car can sustain a 300 mile loop/trip...

It also won't do a 300 highway miles loop, so don't bother to try that either. In exclusively around-town driving, it likely would do 300+ miles.

 

[Marrus]

Taking the battery down to <10% ain't the best thing that you can do, unless you need to.
Trip stop and start miles doesn't make the EPA numbers, which is what the gauge is based upon.
Were you ever able to get the published range out of your ICE? Probably never tried it, if I had to take a guess.

So, go try this on. Find a long path this weekend for a trip that's on 55 mph side roads and go take it. Stay at 55 and see what happens. Slow down to 40 and see what the energy graph is telling you.

If you are having to put your car to sleep, something is wrong. Do you have any third party apps running?

And yes, ALL cars have questionable range when compared to their EPA numbers.

But if you want to get the range, find a 500 mile stretch where you can go 30 mph and complete it with 10%+ battery left! It has been done.

Not bashing Tesla at all but your comment about ALL cars having questionable range isn’t true. Our family has BMW’s, Mercedes and Tesla S and X cars. All our BMW’s easily exceed their MPG ratings without question, the Mercedes cars do not. The Teslas can maintain their rated bar graphs on highway trips if kept no more than 72 mph but I have never tested them to see what that actually equates to in mile range.

 

[North75]

Trip 2:: 08/19/19 - 08/24/19
Total Miles Driven: 283
Average wH/mile: 219
Remaining %: 4
A/C: On

So if he had gone all the way to 0 on this one, it would have been about 294 miles. That's getting pretty close to the theoretical max.

I was under the impression that the car would get the rated range at 230 Wh/mi. I would have expected him to be able to get the full 310 at 219. Is the 230 not the actual rated efficiency?

 

[gilscales]

I knew it was an urban vehicle when I bought it, so no expectation of road trips

Haha, that's funny! I find this to be my favorite and most capable road trip car I have ever owned, I bought our 2018 LR SRW in 4/18 and have put 33k miles on it now, a little planning is all it takes but in CA you are almost certain to be close to a supercharger.

With autopilot and the fact that the car forces you to take a break every 3 hours or so you definitely arrive more refreshed at your days end.

 

[MP3Mike]

So if he had gone all the way to 0 on this one, it would have been about 294 miles. That's getting pretty close to the theoretical max.

I was under the impression that the car would get the rated range at 230 Wh/mi. I would have expected him to be able to get the full 310 at 219. Is the 230 not the actual rated efficiency?

But that 283 miles was driven over 6 days. So who knows how much energy was spent on other things like Sentry mode, cabin overheat protection, time in park, normal vampire drain, etc. How many small drives were included?

 

[Daniel in SD]

So if he had gone all the way to 0 on this one, it would have been about 294 miles. That's getting pretty close to the theoretical max.

I was under the impression that the car would get the rated range at 230 Wh/mi. I would have expected him to be able to get the full 310 at 219. Is the 230 not the actual rated efficiency?

It was over 5 days so that's about ~15 miles of vampire drain.

Purchase: 06/30/2019
Current Date: 09/19/2019

Total miles: 8,490 miles

You're on pace for 40k miles a year. At least you're saving money on gas! Life is full of tradeoffs.

 

[AdamMacDon]

Similar to fuel economy ratings on ICE cars, the range metric is EXTREMELY optimistic. I think it only applies if you have an old granny driving the car, with no AC or heat on, no headlights on, in perfect, dry weather, at the perfect temperature and maybe a higher altitude with less wind resistance. Start enjoying that instant torque and watch that number drop rapidly. I drive pretty aggressively, and I run the AC/heat all the time. My comfort and enjoyment of my $60,000 car is more important to me than some arbitrary range figure.