If 24 kWh per 100 miles is EPA best/reported consumption, what is typical for great, average and poor driving?

[rmunson1]

I know most of the reasons YMMV (hills, wind, A/C, heavy braking/acceleration), but I'm hoping that there are some general expectations that are 'known.'

1. That is, if you have no hills, no wind, no A/C and cruise at low speeds without braking - do people really see 24kWh per 100 miles? Leaving 'no wind, no A/C, no hills as a constant...
2. And, if you 'just drive' how many more kWh are required to achieve 100 miles?
3. And, if you drive crazy bad (weaving through traffic, braking, accelerating rapidly), what numbers would you see? Does it double? Triple? Up 25%?

I have no idea, thus the post. Hoping someone has some data to share. My attempts to search were unable to address this query. Thanks.

 

[SVDNN]

Typical is 300wh/mi. Aggressive is more, conservative is less

 

[rmunson1]

Typical is 300wh/mi. Aggressive is more, conservative is less

Thx

 

[LargeHamCollider]

This depends on what model 3 you have. 300 is way too high for a LR RWD, SR or AWD With aero wheels even with aggressive driving. A performance on 20" tires with moderately aggressive driving will get you to 300. In AZ with LR RWD 3 on aero wheels with moderately aggressive driving I get 247. Colder climates will be worse.

 

[KenC]

I know most of the reasons YMMV (hills, wind, A/C, heavy braking/acceleration), but I'm hoping that there are some general expectations that are 'known.'

1. That is, if you have no hills, no wind, no A/C and cruise at low speeds without braking - do people really see 24kWh per 100 miles? Leaving 'no wind, no A/C, no hills as a constant...
2. And, if you 'just drive' how many more kWh are required to achieve 100 miles?
3. And, if you drive crazy bad (weaving through traffic, braking, accelerating rapidly), what numbers would you see? Does it double? Triple? Up 25%?

I have no idea, thus the post. Hoping someone has some data to share. My attempts to search were unable to address this query. Thanks.

My lifetime efficiency for a 2018 LR-AWD is 243kW/mile. My reference efficiency as calculated by ABRP is 235Wh/m at 65mph. At 75-80mph, it's about 265Wh/mile.

 

[ysaliens]

On a 2021 Performance 3 I routinely get 350kW/mile when it's 95F outside AND I do short trips of 3-5 miles. That's normal driving mind you and it's high mainly because short trips means the AC spends the whole trip trying to cool down the car on nearly full blast but then the trip is over.

With longer trips it averages down to 300.

 

[Ren.OG]

My '21 M3P hovers around 270 on light driving around 75mph highway, hills/wind yes but no A/C.
This include zipping around a few slow Prius'.

I can see 240wh/m being possible on a SR with a light-footed slow driver which is that 24kWh/100miles.

The past few days I been on it heavy and i'm seeing 300wh/m by the end of the day. (30kWh/100miles)

I drive about 100 miles daily.

 

[gearchruncher]

You need to ask exactly what year, in what climate, and what tires/wheels the car uses. Newer cars have heat pumps, cold weather is always a killer, tire choice can mean 20% more drag. My cars get the best range when I'm actually using a bit of A/C.

My Model 3's lifetime average is actually higher than my Model X

 

[m a x i m u s]

Took a small road trip last week in Southern California and I was at 320. When I take short trips of a few miles, I’m usually at 740

 

[Spuzzz]

2018 model 3 LR RWD. In warm temps I strive for 240 wh/mile and locally that is easy to achieve. On a freeway trip maybe 280. My lifetime wh/mile, which includes 3 Ohio winters and many roadtrips, is 258 wh/mile. You can do much better than that in Danville.

For just driving, without consciously trying to conserve, I would say 265.

For crazy driving, hard braking, etc….I would expect north of 350.

 

[Xebec]

A lot of factors - but it does take work to hit the 24kWh/100 miles rating. You basically need: Aero wheels (covers help, and the 18" wheels are better than the 19s for efficiency), full pressure tires (45 psi), stock tires (i.e. the Michelins are pretty efficient, aftermarket tires *will* reduce efficiency). In those conditions, you can hit that at 65-70 mph on reasonable weather days.

To increase the chance of hitting that you can also:
- Preheat/cool the car before you go with the car plugged into the wall
- Go for longer trips

We've done winter highway trips with minor elevation changes (PA ski trip) at ~ 70 mph and exceeded 280 miles effective range on our LR Model 3 (2018 - aero wheels). (We did about 250 miles and had 15% left). Now that the car is a few years old, and has the factory roof racks, I'm assuming we'd get about 10% less range in the same conditions. We did primarily use heated seats, and did have to turn on/off the heater to defrost the windshield at times - so this was a little more effort than most people would be willing to do.

My gut take is -- go the 19" or 20" wheels with stickier tires, and consumption will go up 10-15%. Go 75-80 mph instead of 70 and you'll see another 10-15% on top of that. Drop tire pressure a few lbs for comfort and that's how you can easily take a long range Model 3 from 24 kWh/100 miles to 31 kWh/100 miles.

 

[Webeevdrivers]

A typical Sunday drive on the secondary and terciary highways for us with max speed limits of 80 KMH and many times less than that is about 144 watts per kilometre. Sometimes better.

 

[Sam1]

With my HVAC running max in Vegas, I'm currently about 425 wh/mi lol

 

[Gasaraki]

I've gotten 180wh/m all the way to 380wh/m. Not including short periods where it can go to 600wh/m.

 

[Gasaraki]

This depends on what model 3 you have. 300 is way too high for a LR RWD, SR or AWD With aero wheels even with aggressive driving. A performance on 20" tires with moderately aggressive driving will get you to 300. In AZ with LR RWD 3 on aero wheels with moderately aggressive driving I get 247. Colder climates will be worse.

300 is not "way too high". If you have a strong headwind going 75mph, you'll get 400+ wh/m easily.

 

[RLEE]

My lifetime average on my 19 sr 18" aero 45psi is 208wh/mi over 27k miles. That includes 1 winter on winter tires (viking contact 7). Typical 55mi daily commute is about 170 to 190 wh/mi except in winter. Long distance highway drive (65 to 75mph) I typically get closer to 230 to 260wh/mi.

 

[jsmay311]

People are conflating the EPA rating, which includes charging losses (aka plug-to-wheels), with the Wh/mile consumption number reported on the screen, which does not include charging losses or vampire drain (aka battery-to-wheels). The former is significantly higher than the latter.

For example: the lifetime battery-to-wheels efficiency (the number on the screen) for my 2018 LR-RWD is 239 Wh/mi. But the actual efficiency is 304 Wh/mi, which is 27% higher. (The EPA rating for my car is 26 kWh / 100 miles.

As for what’s achievable for the on-screen number in the “no hills, no wind, no A/C and cruise at low speeds without braking” scenario, it depends on how low of speeds you’re talking about. But sub-200 Wh/mi would be easily achievable if you go slow enough, like 50mph.

 

[gearchruncher]

People are conflating the EPA rating, which includes charging losses (aka plug-to-wheels), with the Wh/mile consumption number reported on the screen, which does not include charging losses or vampire drain (aka battery-to-wheels).

Only the EPA's MPGe includes charging losses. I don't see MPGe anywhere in this thread.

Very few people even get the EPA range in any real driving, which is not plug to wheels, but just energy on board, and is the same as Wh/mile.

 

[jsmay311]

Only the EPA's MPGe includes charging losses. I don't see MPGe anywhere in this thread.

Where did you get that idea??

The EPA’s MPGe and kWh/100_miles ratings are one in the same, with a simple conversion formula used to get from one to the other.

MPGe = [33.7 kWh/gallon] / [kWh/mile]
or
kWh/mile = [33.7 kWh/gallon] / MPGe

You’ll see that all EPA MPGe and kWh/mile ratings align with this formula. For example, the OP mentions 24 kWh/100_miles, which is the rating for the 2021 Model 3 Standard Range Plus, which is rated at 142 MPGe…

[33.7 kWh/gal] / [142 MPGe] = 0.237 kWh/mi

0.237 kWh/mile rounds up to 24 kWh/100_miles.

 

[rmunson1]

Thanks for the many comments, all extremely helpful and much appreciated.