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

[AlanSubie4Life]

Bjørn N did the 100% M3P 2021 on SuC in the last livestream of 2020. and nominal full / remaining kept creeping up to 80.6kWh when charging was still running at 1-3 kW for almost 30 minutes, displayed Range was 498-499

About 1h30 in

Sadly he did not capture the open-circuit cell voltage at 80.6-80.7kWh. He showed 4.2V/4.18V while being charged. Unfortunately that is not helpful; it’s not clear how these cell voltages are adjusted/corrected by the BMS and CAN bus reporting (if at all) for reverse current flow.

About 4.2V would indicate no more capacity is available, but really need open-circuit, no charging, no climate use, to be sure.

Oh well. If I missed something let me know.

The mystery remains!

We do see here that 499rkm or possibly higher is the cap. 499rkm is what you’d get with 161.5Wh/rkm at 80.6kWh, so it’s not conclusive that we can’t get higher values, with this data.

He had ~498.4rkm at ~80.54kWh. And about ~498.6rkm at ~80.56kWh. So that gives pretty good accuracy on the constant. About 161.6Wh/rkm.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

This is a Norwegian with his TM3P

Requires a login. Can you screen capture the relevant info?

EDIT: Thanks. Very high! Wonder if his range was limited to 499rkm as well?

 

[Marius A]

Requires a login. Can you screen capture the relevant info?

EDIT: Thanks. Very high! Wonder if his range was limited to 499rkm as well?

No idea, it's a screenshot from a Facebook group, Teslanytt. I don't have FB so I can't check if he says anything in the comment/description

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

81KWH => 498 km Full Rated Range

Based on Bjorn’s video, this report is likely incorrect. 81kWh would display 501rkm, or at least 499rkm (if that is Tesla’s display cap - TBD). Bjorn’s video gives excellent resolution on the constant. A 3km discrepancy would be huge.

 

[TimothyHW3]

This is a Norwegian with his TM3P

See how nominal remaining + to charge complete (limit set to 100%) match the number of nominal full pack?

On the LR E3D those numbers don't match and add up to about 75.5kWh.

 

[Marius A]

See how nominal remaining + to charge complete (limit set to 100%) match the number of nominal full pack?

On the LR E3D those numbers don't match and add up to about 75.5kWh.

Yeah, but I assume that's all the LR needs to achieve the 580 WLTP rating?

 

[TimothyHW3]

580 WLTP rating?

Nobody knows, that is 130Wh/km real world consumption - very, very hard to achieve even in the summer...
I was reffering to the post above that questioned wether the E3D was capped and how to test it.

And the fact remains that the 2020 September build cars with 560 WLTP rating have more real world range than the 580 WLTP rated October builds. And they also charge faster...

 

[Marius A]

Nobody knows, that is 130Wh/km real world consumption - very, very hard to achieve even in the summer...
I was reffering to the post above that questioned wether the E3D was capped and how to test it.

And the fact remains that the 2020 September build cars with 560 WLTP rating have more real world range than the 580 WLTP rated October builds. And they also charge faster...

Just like ICE vehicles, the rated consumption is pretty much impossible to achieve in normal situations. It's "the best you can hope for"
So september owners were a bit lucky. Not as lucky as Stealth owners,though.

 

[FredMt]

Hi,

I definitely would like to get the 580km that Tesla is advertising, are we collecting information that could be used to hopefully get to that level? In any case, I have a better picture now, so Type BB (P) 1104423 00 P (if I am reading it properly). I can probably get a better shot tomorrow during day time, but hopefully this is good enough.

For reference it s perfectly good: E3D Panasonic reference. So ok.
For range you have to take into account that 580km is WLTP range ( standard use in Europe) and your Tesla use EPA range (US standard). You never get this 580km wltp on your display, this value is for homologation in Europe.
Your range max for your European LR 2021 E3D is actually about 550km EPA, like we said before.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

2020 September build cars with 560 WLTP rating

It’s true they had that rating - but were they tested? I have asked for a link to this test of the 2020 vehicle before, but no one has provided it. @FredMt provided the basic history earlier. All I am aware of is an early 2019 rating of 560km. Do you have other information, or are you just going to slap a disagree on this?

To be 100% clear: I agree with the rest of your statement: 2020 vehicles have more range under ideal conditions than the 2021s, because 2021s have less accessible battery capacity. I am disagreeing with your statement that 2020 vehicles actually were tested to 560km WLTP.

I’m not disagreeing with the statement that 2020s had a WLTP rating of 560km (they did!), either. I’m just saying that that did not reflect the actual vehicle performance. Not explicitly stating that confuses the point for people, I think.

As far as I can tell, the 2020 cars were never retested with WLTP. If they had been, they probably would have have about 600km range (we will never know). This has already been discussed. This follows from looking at the 2020 Performance Model 3 (18” Stealth) efficiency in EPA testing. We can be pretty sure the AWD 2021 would not be worse. In fact, it’s about the same, maybe slightly better (looking at EPA measured efficiencies). But with less battery capacity available. So it ends up at 580km, not 600km.

Accusing Tesla of being slimy or sketchy or whatever term was used into this discussion just adds a judgement which obscures the facts. I am not saying I approve of Tesla’s approach here, to be clear. Owners should be aware that Tesla’s primary interest is to sell cars that meet or exceed the government specs. They do not inherently look out for owners unless that also is in Tesla’s interest (often interests align, but not always).

Re: other people’s questions - These are WLTP numbers and will not be displayed in the car, as has been already been discussed.

 

[Acxxu]

Hi,

I have a new M3P (variant E3D, version Pp2s5N) with VIN of 8365xx which I picked up 2 days ago. The car has all the new features including new headlights.

Just charged it until "Charging Complete", so with 100% (SoC) and a cold car in -7'C it shows 496km / 308 miles (1015 km in the odometer). Unfortunately my OBD-2 reader is still on the way for any ScanMyTesla readings. Do you guys need any further data still?

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Hi,

I have a new M3P (variant E3D, version Pp2s5N) with VIN of 8365xx which I picked up 2 days ago. The car has all the new features including new headlights.

Just charged it until "Charging Complete", so with 100% (SoC) and a cold car in -7'C it shows 496km / 308 miles (1015 km in the odometer). Unfortunately my OBD-2 reader is still on the way for any ScanMyTesla readings. Do you guys need any further data still?

Since you don’t have SMT there is not much else needed. Your car has at least 80.1kWh capacity. It may have more if it is warmer.

 

[Npap]

For reference it s perfectly good: E3D Panasonic reference. So ok.
For range you have to take into account that 580km is WLTP range ( standard use in Europe) and your Tesla use EPA range (US standard). You never get this 580km wltp on your display, this value is for homologation in Europe.
Your range max for your European LR 2021 E3D is actually about 550km EPA, like we said before.

To be fair, as we have said before, even with EPA it is 353 miles, so 565km not 550.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

To be fair, as we have said before, even with EPA it is 353 miles, so 565km not 550.

EPA is not equal to WLTP though. 353 EPA miles looks to be equivalent to about 600km WLTP, FWIW. Not 580km. Because 580km is done with 75kWh. And 353 miles is done with 77.8kWh (actually 78.5kWh but that is a detail).

If you hypothetically converted a new 2021 Performance to a Stealth (wheels and tires) it would have about 620km WLTP range.

 

[Npap]

Still, if the car is set to display EPA data, then if we switch to km it should display 565km for the 2021 LR version.

 

[FredMt]

To be fair, as we have said before, even with EPA it is 353 miles, so 565km not 550.

We are talking about UK car... so his 77,8kWh battery is capped at 75kWh, so i confirm display in car is no more than about 550km EPA depend of the constant (to be fair with 137Wh/km it s 547,44km)

 

[TimothyHW3]

should display 565km for the 2021 LR version

And it would've, if Tesla didn't soft lock the european batteries.
(77.5kWh capacity /13.7 constant)*100km is exactly 565km

But since they soft lock it to about 75.4, it shows 550km.

battery is capped at 75kWh

75.4 or 75.5 roughly, not 75.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Still, if the car is set to display EPA data, then if we switch to km it should display 565km for the 2021 LR version.

No, that’s incorrect. While this is different than the past, you are in Europe. You have a 580km WLTP vehicle. This is likely equivalent to a 548-550km EPA vehicle.

So your car shows exactly what it “should” given the WLTP rating, which apparently is what has to be met in Europe.

Again, the prior version of the vehicle (2020) probably would have had a range of 600km WLTP (534km EPA (332 miles, the EPA result for the 2020 Performance 18” before voluntary reduction), lower than 568km due to no heat pump, but that does not effect WLTP), but since it was not retested, they just gave it the 2019 value of 560km WLTP (which was 499km EPA, 310miles).

I’m trying to explain this from a few different angles, but now that we have all the numbers, it does seem to make sense.

I certainly understand why people are upset, but the question is: does the vehicle meet the WLTP range of 580km? And I believe the answer is: with ~75kWh I think it would. It doesn’t make it better, I know, but a lot of the confusion here stems from (in most of 2020) Tesla selling a ~600km WLTP vehicle in Europe, labeled as a 560km vehicle. They were over-delivering, and now they are just delivering as promised, and now people are upset! (And I understand that - they were sold a car with less range than prior years, even though it looked like WLTP range increased (even though it actually decreased, but looked like an increase, due to the false negative advertising of the 2020 vehicle)!)

I’m searching for other ways to explain this.

Again, when trying to piece together what happened, keep in mind the WLTP equivalency ratios have changed:

WLTP:EPA
In 2019/2020 it was about 1.12:1.
Due to scalar adjustment of ~6.3% for heat pump which increased EPA numbers, the ratio is now:
1.056:1

These ratios probably aren’t too consistent amongst manufacturers, but probably work ok within a given car line from Tesla.

So, the savvy European buyer would have done this:
1) Knowing the ratio must now be 1.056 due to heat pump change, look at EPA range of 568km, and calculate 600km WLTP (568km*1.056)

2) Then observe that the car being purchased is just 580km WLTP.

3) Then conclude that that must mean the vehicle being purchased has a smaller battery capacity than that in the US.

 

[Freddy1]

LR 2021 AWD
Vin 831xxx
NMC battery ? Same cells that's in Hyundai Kona EV and Chevy Bolt EV ?

 

[artofsnow]

Got my M3 in Europe few weeks back, came from China with LFP CATL batteries only to realize below issues, started with tesla forums only to realize that communication flow was being blocked so trying to see explore this new platform and find out others are also impacted and suggestions on how to address


1) Charges super slow even at fast 150 kw V2 Tesla super chargers at 32kw, 2.5x slower than other US M3 and on 50 kw DC faster charges 12kw 4 times slower than US made M3
2) Can not charge 100% , first stopped at 85% , now at 94%. Battery levels show surge later but never exceed 94%
3) Range is low, but given the above issues , it is difficult to say what is the real range and in a cold start 5C , the energy meter hill goes beyond the 600 kw top limit..

Those are the 3 "well known" issues with the LFP battery in the cold, unfortunately ... the story came out in the news in early December, reports from China, just before the first ship with Shanghai made TM3 SR+ arrived in Europe and, since then, owners from different European countries (Germany, France, Spain ... which is not such a cold country) have reported the same. You can find several youtube videos showing/explaining this and some articles like Tesla Model 3 with LFP Battery Has a Cold and Range Problem | Torque News .

Regarding the "solutions" to those 3 issues:
1) Poor SUC charge speed ... some owners have been told by Tesla that this should be addressed in an upcoming software release. Owners using Scan My Tesla app have noticed that the car seems to struggle to heat up / precondition the battery before reaching the supercharger, even after the long highway trip. This might be caused by the fact that LFP battery pack is made of 108 prismatic cells (versus almost 3000 cylindric cells for the US-made SR+) so the battery heating system is completely different.
One thing to note about the LFP charge rate/speed is that it doesn't reach the same peak rates as the NCA/NCM batteries at low charge levels but it is pretty stable/flat. So if you are doing a 10% to 90% charge at a supercharger, it will be slightly slower than it is with the "older" batteries but it is not as bad as it first looks (the LFP will catch up at higher charge level). Now, I agree that it's not ideal if you plan to make several short charges (like 10% to 60%), which is what other Tesla owners usually do on long trips.

2) Looks like you are affected by the LFP calibration issue, which is also known (some battery cells have lower charge levels than other). Solution recommended by Tesla for this is to do a calibration:
- discharge until you reach <10% battery
- leave the car like that for a few hours
- charge the car up to 100% (hopefully)
- let it plugged in for a couple of hours after it has reached 100%
I understand that this is not an easy thing to perform if you are living in an apartment and don't have your own home plug.
Mine doesn't seem to be as badly affected as yours ... I can charge up to 97-99% (varying) so I haven't done the calibration yet because I only have the mobile charger for the time being to charge (so going from 10% to 100% at 2kW would take a long time)

3) Looks like the cold-temperature efficiency of this LFP SR+ is not very good indeed ... I've read reports saying that staying under 200Wh/km is hard to achieve in temperatures below 5°C. Not sure why ... maybe because it is spending a lot of energy trying to heat up the battery.
My Model 3 is currently showing ~188Wh/km average since I got it (< 3 weeks - ~500km). I've managed to make highway trips at 165Wh/km average but after pre-heating the battery at home or charging at destination ...