MASTER THREAD: 2021 Model 3 - Charge data, battery discussion etc

[Dave EV]

It definitely helps, but it's less clear whether it will actually have any effect on the actual rate of capacity loss for Tesla users in any substantive way (we don't know what the dominant factors / contributors are for Tesla packs).

Just a datapoint for my 2018 Model 3 RWD w/26k miles - manufactured in April 2018, so slightly off-topic for this thread given that Tesla has gone through at least one chemistry tweak since then.

TeslaMate reports that my car is parked 97-98% of the time for the past few months - It probably isn't parked for less than 93-94% of the time if I were still commuting (about an hour a day of driving at most), so calendar based aging of the cells is going to be the dominant aging factor.

This means you want to keep the cells at a low SOC and low temperature. Over the life of the car, I've probably put no more than the equivalent of 100 cycles on the car if I was going from 100-0%, but many partial cycles.

I've only been really keeping track of reported capacity accurately for a few months thanks to TeslaMate and ScanMyTesla, but it reported 310 miles when new. In Mar 2019, Tesla bumped the range up to 325 miles, but I never quite hit that number. No surprise given the relatively rapid capacity that is apparent the first year. I saw 320 miles or so, but it was always around 310-315 miles for the next year when COVID hit.

Pre-COVID, charging behavior was typically charging to 70% (~220-225 miles), then to recharge at around 30-35% (~100 miles) a couple times a week. Optimal strategy would have been to charge daily or every other day to 50%, but I'm too lazy to plug in every day and I was basing my expectations of battery life on the Model S and X which appeared to resist capacity loss extremely well even if you charged to 90% daily.

Since COVID in the last 1+ year range has dropped faster and has settled to around 295 +- 5 miles for the past 6+ months, despite charging mainly to 50-60%, which in theory should be better. I attribute most of this to the BMS losing calibration a bit, but who knows. If you take the BMS at face value, my car is about 10% down from new which seems to be typical. TeslaMate reports the average SOC to be 45% over the last few months.

What would the capacity loss be if I always charged to 90% instead of 50-70? No idea. But even if it were the same, I would probably still only charge to 80-85% since at 90% there is some loss of regeneration in sub 70F temperatures which is annoying.

 

[Szatan]

It isnt certain. For some Reason SR+ with VIN 300+ got the old drive unit again (3D1). VIN lower than 300 with delivery in August and September all have the new DU (3D6).

My VIN is LRW3E7FJ5MC289420 this would mean I'm getting old drive unit? I wonder is there is a point to cancel or ask for a car with different VIN so I get newest drive unit.

 

[eivissa]

My VIN is LRW3E7FJ5MC289420 this would mean I'm getting old drive unit? I wonder is there is a point to cancel or ask for a car with different VIN so I get newest drive unit.

8th digit is "J" and 289 is below 300. You get the new rear motor 3D6

 

[Szatan]

8th digit is "J" and 289 is below 300. You get the new rear motor 3D6

Awesome thanks for confirmation. They are saying here than 3D1 vs 3D6 have increase in power from 202kW to 220kW but I'm not sure if it's correct are SR+ suppose to have 330hp which would mean 235kW?

https://min.news/en/auto/95a89b8bf7c9b38fa46e00c9ac83caf6.html

Its a shame I would miss on increased battery size but I don't want to wait all the time for every small upgrade in pipeline, would rather enjoy car now.

 

[grzywek]

8th digit is "J" and 289 is below 300. You get the new rear motor 3D6

What about Long Range? I have this VIN LRW3E7EK2MC3005XX on my invoice with delivery estimation for ~26 Aug.

 

[eivissa]

What about Long Range? I have this VIN LRW3E7EK2MC3005XX on my invoice with delivery estimation for ~26 Aug.

Also Drive Unit Cat 2 (3D7) identified by a "K".

See below:

Just a quick advice for anyone receiving a Model 3 in Q3/2021. The new Drive Unit Cat 2 can be identified via the 8th digit of your VIN:

SR+ = J
LR = K
P = L

Any other letter is Drive Unit Cat 1.

 

[eivissa]

Awesome thanks for confirmation. They are saying here than 3D1 vs 3D6 have increase in power from 202kW to 220kW but I'm not sure if it's correct are SR+ suppose to have 330hp which would mean 235kW?

https://min.news/en/auto/95a89b8bf7c9b38fa46e00c9ac83caf6.html

Its a shame I would miss on increased battery size but I don't want to wait all the time for every small upgrade in pipeline, would rather enjoy car now.

It's hard to know which information is valuable and correct these days...

The European type certificate says that 3D1 and 3D6 have exactly the same power output (239kw peak / 100kw 30 minutes).

But then this type certificate also says that the SR+ NCA's rear motor (3D5) only outputs 208kw peak / 88kw 30 minutes.

When Bjorn Nyland did his 90%- 10% drag run test with the SR+ 2021 NCA (3D5) vs the SR+ 2021 LFP (3D1) both were having the exact same battery power and rear power of 240KW.

It's all a bit puzzling, but rest assured we will have some comparison tests with Dragy and SMT in late August / September.

 

[Korgmatose]

At least the initial late 2020 "2021" E3D soft-capped panasonics still has some OK charging speeds after 15000 kms on the od

o

 

[kerbyOT7]

I did a quick test while charging my battery the other day. I charged it via a 120v outlet from 31% to 81%. It took about 33 hours and 24 minutes. I ended up getting about 39 kWh. Quick math means that my full battery is 78 kWh. I'm guessing I have the 82 kWh battery (78 kWh usable and 4 kWh below 0). Does this sound right to you guys?

My car M3LR was manufactured and delivered a little over a month ago in June from Fremont.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

I ended up getting about 39 kWh.

In general you cannot determine the capacity of your battery from the charging screen. The energy added does NOT reflect the energy added.

This energy is always just:

rated miles added * (77.8kWh/~353mi).

miles added multiplied by the charging constant (so it’s wrong, since displayed rated miles do not contain the same energy as the charging constant, it can be lower by as much as 4.5% for vehicles below the degradation threshold - displayed rated miles do not include the buffer contribution).

So in your case with 353 miles at a full charge and ~177 miles added that works out to 39kWh. (This does not imply your battery capacity is 78kWh.)

It’s actually difficult to determine how much energy was actually added. Because we don’t know the exact charging efficiency.

Cannot use this formula:

177mi*0.955*77.8kWh/353mi = 37.3kWh

The reason being that with a new car your capacity is somewhat more than 77.8kWh most likely. This formula will work later in vehicle life. It is within perhaps 1-2% now.

This would imply charging efficiency of 77.5% which would likely be slightly low with a 120V outlet this time of year. It might be as high as 79%. (But would need to know exact voltage of your install under load.)

Anyway you likely added about 38kWh and your battery is about 79-80kWh capacity; with a 3.6kWh buffer, 50% would be about 38kWh.

Your numbers are in the ballpark anyway.

Later in life when you’re right at the degradation threshold of 77.8kWh, you’ll add 177 miles and it will be 37.3kWh rather than 38kWh. Of course it will take slightly less time to charge as well (37 minutes less). And at that point onwards the “constant” will stop changing and it will be less confusing (each displayed mile added will just contain 0.955*77.8kWh/353 of energy). Haha.

Anyway it is exceedingly likely you have the 82kWh battery with about 80kWh of capacity (not possible to know precisely - could even be 81kWh!), though it is very hard to be certain due to the charging efficiency issue. It seems that all US AWDs are being built with that battery now, that’s the reason I think it is likely, not really from any of the data.

 

[AAKEE]

Sure, I guess I should have made that clear. It definitely helps, but it's less clear whether it will actually have any effect on the actual rate of capacity loss for Tesla users in any substantive way (we don't know what the dominant factors / contributors are for Tesla packs). Of course in general Tesla packs will behave as any other lithium cell, but we just don't know what causes capacity loss as measured by the BMS. There doesn't seem to be a clear connection or correlation between user behaviors and capacity loss observed. Certainly age and mileage matter a lot. But it's less clear whether the SOC average over that time period strongly determines the result.

Precautionary principle says you use lower SOC if you can, though.

The Panasonic NCA cells that occurs quite often either is the same cells and in some cases they are not the same but very closely related.

I think it is possible to predict the degradation quite close to the actual cell degradation.

The BMS seems to be a bit of, at least for the 2170L cell and this early.

I drove my ’21 M3P down to zero % a couple of days and the last 5% took a bit longer than it normally should have done. I still had 3.12V on the cells when I parked it in the garage, AC, lights etc still running.
The open circuit voltage should be a little higher and I guess there was a little more than 4.5% true SOC left.
Charged to 50%, still got NFP= 80.5( actually it climbed 0.1)
Then charged to 90% to the day after and a few hours after that to 100% and got NFP 81, and nominal remaining 81.5.

Local Temps is dropping so mostly below 20C, I think the NFP will climb in the colder weather.

 

[YKAY]

• E was also in the model 3 LR VIN were we know it is the 75kWh LG pack. There is still a possibility that E is also valid for the 82kWh pack.
• Drive units in Q3 from Shanghai are called J (SR+), L (Performance) and K (Long Range). All are designators for the Drive unit Cat 2. So that confirms it for the Y as well.

Interesting and useful thread, you seem to have a lot of knowledge.

I just found that these vin decoders have some (future?) battery types (position 7), e.g.:

F = Lithium Battery - China
H = Lithium-Ion Battery - High Capacity
S = Lithium-Ion Battery - Standard Capacity
V = Lithium-Ion Battery - Ultra High Capacity

Is it reasonable to assume one of these being the new LG 82kWh pack?

 

[eivissa]

Interesting and useful thread, you seem to have a lot of knowledge.

I just found that these vin decoders have some (future?) battery types (position 7), e.g.:

F = Lithium Battery - China
H = Lithium-Ion Battery - High Capacity
S = Lithium-Ion Battery - Standard Capacity
V = Lithium-Ion Battery - Ultra High Capacity

Is it reasonable to assume one of these being the new LG 82kWh pack?

Personally I found VIN decoders to be not very useful with Tesla's...in contrast to BMW for example.

Especially with the Model 3 only know of E and F in regards to the battery. F being LFP and E basically everything else (NCA/NMC).

 

[yon1000]

Right now the UK site( and other countries that receive the Chinese version) of the M3 LR AWD still show 580km range and delivery for November.
It seems that the chart is wrong by claiming that Q4 delivered cars will have 82kWh. maybe in the beginning of 2022.
I wish there was a range test comparison between the 2021 M3 LR AWD LG vs Panasonic to see the real world difference of those claimed 34km between the LG and the Panasonic, especially in the 120-130 km/h.
Right now I'm supposed to be getting the MiC M3 LR AWD next month and I'm extremely disappointed and thinking about cancelling order trying to postpone it to November but I probably would be getting the same LG 75kWh battery in November as well..

 

[eivissa]

It seems that the chart is wrong by claiming that Q4 delivered cars will have 82kWh.

You might have failed to spot it, but the top part of the chart is US market and the lower one is EU market. UK and Israel are none of the two last time I checked.
US LR/P are now fully transitioned from 77,8kWh to 82,1kWh Panasonic NCA. EU has the 82kWh Panasonic since Q4/2020 and had the 82kWh LR for one quarter in Q2/2021 with Tesla communicating that it will be back by Q4/2021. Though the most recent development is that all cars are supposed to be coming from China and with the knowledge that a 82kWh LG pack has been certified for the EU LR, we can surely expect that this will be the battery powering the LR in Q4/2021. Probably allso the Model Y MIC from Q4/2021.

I wish there was a range test comparison between the 2021 M3 LR AWD LG vs Panasonic to see the real world difference of those claimed 34km between the LG and the Panasonic, especially in the 120-130 km/h.

Björn Nyland did a test with both. The 82kWh Panasonic broke his 1000km record for all EV's. The 75kWh was not too convincing...The cars for Q3/2021 have the new drive unit so no matter the battery, they might all be a little more efficient.

thinking about cancelling order trying to postpone it to November but I probably would be getting the same LG 75kWh battery in November as well..

I doubt that the 75kWh LG pack is still produced in november. My guess is that, by then LG has fully shifted to the 82kWh 5L pack. Personally I would postpone my order until the first Q4/2021 cars have arrived or at least until the first customers received their registration papers.

 

[Ofarlig]

US LR/P are now fully transitioned from 77,8kWh to 82,1kWh Panasonic NCA. EU has the 82kWh Panasonic since Q4/2020 and had the 82kWh LR for one quarter in Q2/2021 with Tesla communicating that it will be back by Q4/2021. Though the most recent development is that all cars are supposed to be coming from China and with the knowledge that a 82kWh LG pack has been certified for the EU LR, we can surely expect that this will be the battery powering the LR in Q4/2021. Probably allso the Model Y MIC from Q4/2021.

Might be why there are no 82 kWh Panasonic packs available at Tilburg, I thought they would stock some replacement packs to be honest but if they are going for LG packs from china going forward that might be why they didn’t. I am having to wait for one from the US to be sent to Sweden after mine went poof at the 1 month mark.

 

[Ylannl]

My 1 month old E3LD shows a rated range of 431km @ 100%. This seems very low to me compared to the numbers in this thread. When I picked it up it was even only showing ~415km. Could this be a calibration issue? Should I be concerned?

 

[eivissa]

My 1 month old E3LD shows a rated range of 431km @ 100%. This seems very low to me compared to the numbers in this thread. When I picked it up it was even only showing ~415km. Could this be a calibration issue? Should I be concerned?

Are you looking next to the battery icon or in the energy tab?

The only source for rated range is looking next to the battery icon when km instead of percentage is set.

Anything below 566km is concerning!

 

[Ylannl]

The only source for rated range is looking next to the battery icon when km instead of percentage is set.

Anything below 566km is concerning!

I am looking next to the battery icon, not in the energy tab. I’ll contact Tesla about it. But is there any chance this will fix itself?

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Should I be concerned?

Yes. A picture just to make sure something has not been misinterpreted would be nice.

Very unlikely to recover, but this is such an outlier event who knows. Every now and again things like this have shown up, and they often lead to battery replacement due to some other detected issue (not directly the rated range loss, which will not qualify for replacement).