Sunday the winds were averaging 10-13mph with 30 mph gusts from NE (direct headwind). source: NOAA's National Weather Service - National Climate
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Love my Tesla, but almost got stranded because of way out of whack mileage estimate
- Thread starter carrerascott
- Start date
Oops, look at my face turning red... In my defense, all but one of the ICE cars I've owned were too old to have this and relied solely on the E---F indicator. That's what I was getting at.
@carrerascott - I think you could've made it home on a single charge. Reason is that when the display reads 5 miles remaining, you actually have more like 20 miles to go. Do you remember what the number was for kW since last charge?
I would've done the same thing you did though and not chanced it, so I'm not saying you did anything incorrectly. I just think that you would've gotten something like 200 miles out of 250 rated instead of just 180. 80% of rated range is not bad for those conditions you were experiencing.
I would've done the same thing you did though and not chanced it, so I'm not saying you did anything incorrectly. I just think that you would've gotten something like 200 miles out of 250 rated instead of just 180. 80% of rated range is not bad for those conditions you were experiencing.
GlennAlanBerry
Member
I don't think you can or should rely on having some 10-15 mile "hidden reserve" in the pack over and above what the range display is indicating. Pushing that idea is a good way to have more people miscalculate and actually run out completely.
Odenator
Member
Carrerascott, just curious, what was your average Wh/mile to Greensboro and what was it coming back? I drive with the energy display on the 17" screen if I'm in any way concerned that I won't have enough miles. And to parrot everyone else, you actually did very well for crappy conditions and I'm kinda jealous about the range you got. On my last trip from Portland, OR to Olympia, WA (116 miles, raining in the upper 30's-40's, driving 70 mph), I averaged about 470 Wh/m which took my effective range to 139 miles.
hockeythug
Active Member
All I remember from Elon's recent Europe trip was that real-time traffic data was going to added in 6.0.
Right by all means. I just think that TM when too far in expanding the miles below 0 reserve. It used to be more reasonable (like only a couple miles), but now that I know there is signicant capacity "hidden" from me I'm more likely to treat the 0 mile warning less seriously. I end up looking at % SOC rather than rated range when I'm really getting low.
NigelM
Recovering Member
The LA-NY road trip guys were testing trip planning which takes weather conditions into account. I understand it was pretty accurate although I'm sure folks will get caught out by changing weather if they rely too heavily on the car doing the thinking.
scottf200
Well-Known Member
Multiple things taken into account. Listen to this from about 8 to 10 minutes.
Tesla Motors challenges German Carmakers in their Home Country 1/2 - YouTube
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Cool. He says "elevation and windspeed", so we have an official statement -- though it's from Elon and he also said "December" soooooo.
This is the same guy that says he's going to go to Mars and zip people between cities in giant tubes.
OMG, just kidding! Wrong crowd?
Would you mind expanding on what you mean by "TM when too far in expanding the miles below 0 reserve". As far as I can tell, if there has been a change in reserve, it has only been a couple of miles, and even that I can't fully confirm yet.
Unfortunately that isn't quite true. 252 to 254 at 100% would be very nice to see for a number of us who cars are charging only into the low 240s at 100%.
I'm not sure that Tesla's mileage estimator is out of whack at all. If you go to Your Questions Answered | Tesla Motors and set the speed to 60, outside temp to 32, and wheels to 21" their estimator shows 223 miles of range with heat on. Taking the 223 number and, subtracting 13 miles for age puts their estimator at 210, not accounting for wind/rain/snow. Carrerascott drove 180 miles, had 5 remaining shown, plus ~15 reserve, which puts him at ~200. That would make the estimator within a few percent with some unknown real world tradeoffs in this case for wind/rain/snow/exact temperature/hypermiling. I don't think I'd call that out of whack.
Peter
That's reasonable but probably not best for most people to try unless they are ok with getting stranded on the side of the road. Especial for people new to EV driving. They should treat zero as 'pull over now' and either find at least a 110V outlet to plug in and maybe call tow truck or find how far closed quicker charger is and how many hours of charging will be needed.
I was painfully reminded of this taking my neice to TPA this morning through a driving rainstorm with 20 mph winds against me in our Leaf. Wound up driving 40 through St Pete but made it. Going slower ( if you can safely) is faster than charging.
After 42k miles on my P85 I can say IMO that definitively wind has the most affect on range. Way more so than temperature or snow. I drive 100+ miles each way daily (200miles daily), and I've set CC to the same speeds in hot weather vs cold weather, snow vs dry weather, and high headwind vs no headwind, and by far it's the wind that makes the most difference. There's times I can do 85+mph and get like 360kW/mi, and there's times I'll do the same and that'll cost me 550kW/mi, and the thing that makes the biggest difference is whether or not I am driving into high WINDs.
This is the same guy that says he's going to go to Mars and zip people between cities in giant tubes.
OMG, just kidding! Wrong crowd?
SpaceX is going to Mars in my lifetime, I have no doubt. I just turned 60. I estimate humans will get there on a SpaceX rocket before 2034.
He never said he would build the Hyperloop, he just offered up the preliminary engineering analysis free of charge.
ChadS
Last tank of gas: March 2009
Many details on what eats range HERE.
32 degrees is a 13% hit to range. Drizzle is only 2%, but light snow may be 10%, say 5% average hit for your trip. Your speeds were fine so no hit there. Looks like no elevation change to speak of. That's an expected 18% hit, which means a 199-mile trip would be expected to take about 235 miles of range. You were using about 20% more than that...but you mentioned winds.
A 12mph headwind would probably add about 20% to your consumption. As yobigd notes, that's a very serious factor (especially when combined with the other bad weather you encountered, which required both heat and AC to keep the windows clear). That's why I always leave a big buffer - 50% of the distance I am going. Any trip over 175 miles, I have a charging stop planned. Even though I usually don't need it because conditions are usually not that bad.
The only time I ever ran out of gas was because of heavy headwinds while driving through South Dakota.
32 degrees is a 13% hit to range. Drizzle is only 2%, but light snow may be 10%, say 5% average hit for your trip. Your speeds were fine so no hit there. Looks like no elevation change to speak of. That's an expected 18% hit, which means a 199-mile trip would be expected to take about 235 miles of range. You were using about 20% more than that...but you mentioned winds.
A 12mph headwind would probably add about 20% to your consumption. As yobigd notes, that's a very serious factor (especially when combined with the other bad weather you encountered, which required both heat and AC to keep the windows clear). That's why I always leave a big buffer - 50% of the distance I am going. Any trip over 175 miles, I have a charging stop planned. Even though I usually don't need it because conditions are usually not that bad.
The only time I ever ran out of gas was because of heavy headwinds while driving through South Dakota.
Excellent point. That's my main critiscism of the trip planner. Elevation, fine, that's a no brainer. But, wind speed AND direction can vary substaintially, so by the time I make it to a certain point in my trip the projection from the trip planner has a decent chance of no longer being accurate. Needless to say, I won't put too much faith into those estimates.
There was a significant change in 5.x that was labeled as an improvement to the range calculation algorithm. It has been speculated over and over in the decreasing range thread that this is why our 90% and 80% charges are different than what we observed before on 4.x. As to why new cars still charge to 272 miles instead of 10 less than that, well I'm still baffled.
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Todd Burch
14-Year Member
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