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In car range vs website
- Thread starter Fursty Ferret
- Start date
HenryT
Active Member
Yes.
Plenty to read on the subject if you are that way inclined, but the short version is above.
Website uses WLTP but the car uses EPA (US standard).... AFAIK ... You may as well just use percentage as we all know that range means little. The energy graph gives a much better idea when on a journey.
Not sure I agree with displaying %, I prefer miles as in summer it's not far wrong. Our trips seem to be between 90 and 105% of the displayed range. I might change my mind in winter!
There's a good explanation of the differences here (Tesla Range FAQ) which also supports the "they use EPA" view. It also explains why some of the older MS and MX cars seem to have a higher range when they don't.
There's a good explanation of the differences here (Tesla Range FAQ) which also supports the "they use EPA" view. It also explains why some of the older MS and MX cars seem to have a higher range when they don't.
You'll change your mind in autumn when you're 10 miles away from the nearest charger
The short answer is the displayed range does not include the battery buffer. It will keep driving for a bit beyond 0 miles.
"Armed with its higher-capacity battery, the Model 3 Long Range had the most buffer range in reserve. It went 22 miles at 65 mph after an indicated zero"
Now I know that still doesn't make 360, but the manual does state the range at full charge is the EPA range... which is 353 currently.
And as for any other discrepancy, that's an even longer explanation. If you are interested in the detail then read through the whole Tesla model 3 battery forum on this site.
"Armed with its higher-capacity battery, the Model 3 Long Range had the most buffer range in reserve. It went 22 miles at 65 mph after an indicated zero"
Now I know that still doesn't make 360, but the manual does state the range at full charge is the EPA range... which is 353 currently.
And as for any other discrepancy, that's an even longer explanation. If you are interested in the detail then read through the whole Tesla model 3 battery forum on this site.
It has been the same in all EVs that I have ever owned. Predicted range is less than published range, actual range is less than displayed range, real range that you can rely on is less than all of them! But then it is the same with every fossil fuel car I have owned the MPG is less than the published figures....
phil4
Member
Just remember that Tesla don't choose to put the WLTP range on their site, they're forced to. So when you're complaining it doesn't do as well as expected, part of that anger should be directed at the governments insisting WLTP is used.
Wol747
Active Member
I'm not sure what keeping the display in %age is supposed to do.
Agreed: the range displayed is what the car calculates is available in the battery ( and remember, it doesn't measure this but continually calculates what has been used and subtracts that from what it "thinks" was available after the last charge) and works out the range left on standard figures. However, after a few months and a bit of spreadsheet work you can judge pretty accurately how the shown range relates to the real world range and use that.
I can't for the life of me see how knowing that your car has 58% battery left helps anyone! It doesn't tell you if you can get to destination or have to find a charger.
Seeing that it has a projected range of 260m and knowing that this is actually 235m IS useful!
Agreed: the range displayed is what the car calculates is available in the battery ( and remember, it doesn't measure this but continually calculates what has been used and subtracts that from what it "thinks" was available after the last charge) and works out the range left on standard figures. However, after a few months and a bit of spreadsheet work you can judge pretty accurately how the shown range relates to the real world range and use that.
I can't for the life of me see how knowing that your car has 58% battery left helps anyone! It doesn't tell you if you can get to destination or have to find a charger.
Seeing that it has a projected range of 260m and knowing that this is actually 235m IS useful!
I've always used miles and you just get to know - warm day, driving at 60ish of less -car will do the range stated, anything different apply some man maths - if worried either show the energy consumption on journey and roughly apply the difference or stick in the destination and let the energy chart do the hard work.
I've never considered anywhere being x% away from where I am
The only argument I've seen put forward by the %ers is that you become ignorant of the actual range, and worse, some then start saying "work on 2 miles per %" which is clearly rubbish given the variability of range, you may as well just say "take 2/3rds of the miles shown" all year round, accepting that for some the maths is a little harder.
TL;DR - if you can look out the window and have a basic understanding on what reduces range, you can convert miles to a realistic range and/or modify your driving if necessary fairly easily. And I'm not a Doctor of mathematics, physics or the weather
WLTP and EPA are pretty close - and while the car not always being able to do the range (which it can in summer) is a factor of the testing approach, Teslas decision to show EPA in the car and not WLTP is a Tesla one and showing WLTP would take away one of the variables. It would be good for new owners to see the rated range on the dash even if they can't achieve it except for a few months a year
If I'm not sure I stick in my destination which will then give an entirely sensible estimation of range that understands elevation, weather etc. that's usually within a few %.
The mileage figure on the dash is just battery% x EPA Range, so it's really just the same data said a different way. I'm more comfortably using percentages, my phone doesn't display it's battery in minutes. I know if have 80% that's full, at 20% I need to be planning to charge, and at 10% to start panicing.
Jason71
Well-Known Member
The problem with EPA and WLTP and all the others is that they are all a combined range of various types of driving but all anyone really cares about is highway range since that is what you will get on a long journey when range matters
I'll never understand why people use the miles display in car.
When you use your phone, or any other device with a battery, you have percentage, because if you rely on "minutes left" or whatever then as soon as you do something intensive then that's going to drop massively anyway.
You could be browsing on your phone all day, it says you've got 30 minutes of charge left (assuming that you're going to carry on browsing), then you decide to play the latest game and that 30 minutes turns into 10 minutes, or less.
With a phone it's no big deal if it runs out prematurely, but in a car I'd prefer to behave as if I know I need to find somewhere to charge at a certain percentage. If I relied on the number of miles it said I have left, to the point where I postpone charging because the car is telling me I have enough to get to a charger further on, then what happens if there is suddenly a greater load on the car (e.g. rain, headlights coming on in the evening, etc) that reduces the "miles left" faster than travelled miles? Suddenly I might not be able to make it.
Percentage also has the benefit of being a 0 - 100 range, and since the car can do at 2 or 3 times that, then percentage isn't going to drop as precipitously as miles anyway.
When you use your phone, or any other device with a battery, you have percentage, because if you rely on "minutes left" or whatever then as soon as you do something intensive then that's going to drop massively anyway.
You could be browsing on your phone all day, it says you've got 30 minutes of charge left (assuming that you're going to carry on browsing), then you decide to play the latest game and that 30 minutes turns into 10 minutes, or less.
With a phone it's no big deal if it runs out prematurely, but in a car I'd prefer to behave as if I know I need to find somewhere to charge at a certain percentage. If I relied on the number of miles it said I have left, to the point where I postpone charging because the car is telling me I have enough to get to a charger further on, then what happens if there is suddenly a greater load on the car (e.g. rain, headlights coming on in the evening, etc) that reduces the "miles left" faster than travelled miles? Suddenly I might not be able to make it.
Percentage also has the benefit of being a 0 - 100 range, and since the car can do at 2 or 3 times that, then percentage isn't going to drop as precipitously as miles anyway.
A car does pretty much one thing - it moves you. If your phone did just one thing like only make telephone calls then “call minutes” would be a fantastic measure.
Yes indeed, but the call minutes would be a real measure of what you've used and what's available. That's not the case with the miles read out on a Tesla. You may drive 5 miles but the car deducts 7 miles from your total! It's a strange notion ... and you still have to do a calculation in your head to judge more accurately what range you've really got... so why not stick with percentage, which when you've used 5% means you've used 5% ... yes you need to translate your percentages into miles at some point but the energy graph does a much better job at that task. Which ever way you do it there is a calculation required (and both can work of course and it really boils down to the same thing) but I prefer to base my calculation on the nearer approximation of reality, which is the amount of battery left expressed as a percentage. Anyway since recent GUI changes it's easy to swap ... you pays your money and you make your choice!
A minute of talk time on a mobile will use varying amounts of power depending on how good the reception is so it would be exactly the same - not all minutes are created equally just as not all miles are in the real world.
To be honest, I don't really care what others use, I only care that I'm told I'm wrong because I use miles. So I'm with Dr Foster in that its not difficult to use miles
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