"You only need the range if you actually need the range" applies of course
But once a month I would definitely be thinking about Long Range ... over last 4-ish years with MS90 I have been out-of-range about twice a month. I winced at the cost of LR price-premium when I originally bought it, and justified it with Man Maths, but in practice the time saved has been very worthwhile.
A further issue that I perceive is Supercharger occupancy. During my ownership I have had to wait just once, and that was for all of 5 minutes, and I have had one other occurrence where I was last-man-in and someone else had to wait ... but that was at a 2 stall site (Ah! The Glorious Early Days !!). Model-3's will mean far more Supercharger occupancy over the next few years. I have recently changed to Raven which looks like it will mean my Supercharging drops to a couple of times a year, instead of two days a month
Comparing my old Longer Range 90 to the Shorter Range 75 that I could have bought (and saved a bundle on):
I have a regular journey Grantham Supercharger - York - Grantham. That is really tight for the 90 LR, but usually some traffic / roadworks makes it possible. Definitely not possible in a SR 75. The alternative is charging at Woodhall on the way back and that adds 15 minutes detour, an extra stop/go, and a few minutes more charging (for the detour).
For the 75 SR: ABRP suggests charging at Leeds, but that only has two stalls, so i would choose Woodhall instead which (in a SR 75) would add 25 minutes to the overall journey time.
Then there will be the times when I can reach destination with no charge on LR, but would need a splash-and-dash in the SR. Even a splash-and-dash adds 5 minutes getting into, and out of, the services. And if I was unfortunate and had to Pair ... or queue
... that would add more delay ...
And the times when I only need to charge the LR to 70-80%, but the SR would have to be charged well into Taper which takes much longer. (80% - 90% in my LR 90 takes nearly 15 minutes, compared to 5 minutes for 10% increments up to 70%)
And the LR 90 charges at a higher voltage than the SR 75 ... so charges faster (more miles-per-minute added)
lastly, when I sell the car it will lose, say, 50% ... so I am actually just "financing" 50% of the extra sticker price.
Unless there is something dramatically worse about Model-3 than Model-S (or your "winter" is -20C rather than my 0C-5C
), IME 30% is grossly pessimistic. Bjorn does have a (recent) video comparing Model-3 and Model-S winter consumption, and it suggests that heating the car takes more energy in Model-3. That video was a bit superficial so hopefully he will do something more in-depth, but it might be that Model-S insulation is better, or Model-3 heater less efficient (but surely resistive heater is just watts-to-degrees-heat?)
On short journeys, yeah. But if you can charge at Home/Work that is not an issue (other than relevance to running-cost). ICE is not great on short trips either ... and in ICE you will probably get there before the cabin even starts to warm up
On long journeys my February figure for long journeys is 10% worse than my mid Summer consumption (in Model-S). In deep snow it would be far worse ... but on those days I am not going to venture out on a 150 mile trip.
personally I would have Winter Tyres before AWD in winter. AWD helps with "go" but does nothing for stopping ...
FWIW I've gone from MS 90P to bog standard MS LR. I very rarely used the Performance, and the cooking-version is pretty mighty. Off the line the P makes a difference, but mid-range overtaking ... not much.
I don't know the figures for the Model-3 but I wonder how the 40-70 compares between P and LR?
