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Loosing charge?

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My first electric car so I'm likely not understanding something simple.

I never fully charged the car, only been charging it to about 80% for in city driving. We are planning a round trip that one way should be 300+ miles, so I set charging to 100%. The car has less than 1k miles of use, so why did 'full' charge only show 321mi range vs. 326mi?

And an hour after unplugging it, the range now shows 320mi. Should I leave it plugged in until we're ready to leave?

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Solution
This is normal. Your Tesla vehicle's battery management system needs time to calibrate. Note: You should only charge to 100% if you need to do so for a trip. You should not leave the Tesla charged to 100% for extended period (especially in warm temperatures. ) Overnight you should be fine. If you have Sentry Mode turned on when parked at your home location the Tesla vehicle will not enter sleep mode and will use about 10X more power than if the Tesla enters sleep mode. You can leave the Tesla plugged in until you are ready to drive.

if your round trip is over 300 miles then you should either plan on charging at your destination or stopping at a Tesla Supercharger at least one time. Bring your Tesla Mobile Connector kit and also the...
This is normal. Your Tesla vehicle's battery management system needs time to calibrate. Note: You should only charge to 100% if you need to do so for a trip. You should not leave the Tesla charged to 100% for extended period (especially in warm temperatures. ) Overnight you should be fine. If you have Sentry Mode turned on when parked at your home location the Tesla vehicle will not enter sleep mode and will use about 10X more power than if the Tesla enters sleep mode. You can leave the Tesla plugged in until you are ready to drive.

if your round trip is over 300 miles then you should either plan on charging at your destination or stopping at a Tesla Supercharger at least one time. Bring your Tesla Mobile Connector kit and also the Tesla J1772 adapter so you can charge at any available public Level 2 charging station.

Enter your home address into the Tesla Navigation system as your Home Location. Enter your destination and the Tesla Navigation system will display recommended charging locations (both Tesla Supercharger locations and also non-Supercharger locations.)

On longer trips you will find that driving for ~2 hours to 2.5 hours, (about 120 to 140 miles) and stopping for ~20 minutes at a Supercharger is the better way to approach road tripping in the Tesla vehicle.

Download the phone app A Better Route Planner (ABRP) onto your phone. Also the PlugShare phone app. ABRP is also available on the web. ABRP will help you to better plan charging stops on road trips in your Tesla vehicle. PlugShare can show you available public charging locations near your location.
 
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Solution
What he said^^^. It might take a while to change life-long ICE car patterns, like the quickest way to make a 300 mile trip.

ABRP will clarify that for you. If you don't already know, unless your trip is at 45-50mph, totally flat, no elevation change or head wind, you will NOT go 300 miles. Max is probably around 240-250,
 
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Many Tesla owners find that it is better to change the battery display from estimated miles to % of charge (this setting is found under the Display settings.) The % of charge is a more accurate reading of the state of the battery than the estimated miles (does not take into account your average speed temperature, elevation changes, or head winds or road conditions.)

For daily driving try and keep the battery state of charge (SOC) between 50% and 80%. When on a trip you will find that Supercharging is quickest when charging from at or under 20% SOC to 70% SOC but not more than 80% SOC (charging just takes too long once the Supercharger charging rate starts to taper down as the SOC approaches 80% to be worth the time to continue Supercharging.)

With the Supercharger network now having 25,000 charging stalls (globally) there is little need to charge above 90% even when leaving on a road trip as there is almost always a Supercharger you can use located every 120 or so miles along the interstate highway system. The Tesla vehicle will start throwing warning messages when the battery SOC drops below 20%. If you need to drive a little further to reach the next Supercharger or your destination you can ignore these messages. (In extreme cases even when the Tesla indicates 0 miles range tests have shown that the vehicle can still be driven ~10 or 12 miles further.) It is not recommended to discharge the battery all the way (there is always a reserve to protect the battery from damage) but it is nice to know that you can drive a little further before you must charge. If you follow the recommended charging stops of the Tesla Navigation system or ABRP you will never have to worry about running out of charge.
 
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Re-thinking ICE road trips isn't easy for some of us. I LOVE uninterrupted long drives, and our "clean diesel" Passat TDI was able to easily go 650 miles between fillups. I like GETTING to my destination, not chipping away at the time by stopping.

At age 66, my back/hips really NEED a stretch every 2 hours, so the 20-70% charging method fits perfectly. It also means (as someone stated here somewhere) that I can drive as quickly or slowly as I want without any range anxiety.

Stopping every 2 hours is actually safer, from the driver's attention perspective. Those 650 mile cruises were rather hypnotic.
 
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