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Range Loss Over Time, What Can Be Expected, Efficiency, How to Maintain Battery Health

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Picked up a new '21 NCA SR+. Just wanted to check if this is normal range for around 80mph avg (give or take) highway use? This is on a 350 mile return trip home. Temperature is shown is about representative and heat was in use. If you extrapolate this out it is around 147 miles range for 100% to 0% battery. Someone elsewhere said this is abnormal. Sorry for no pick of the energy usage screen. Winds were relatively light but it's possible it might have been at most a 10mph headwind.
 

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Picked up a new '21 NCA SR+. Just wanted to check if this is normal range for around 80mph avg (give or take) highway use? This is on a 350 mile return trip home. Temperature is shown is about representative and heat was in use. If you extrapolate this out it is around 147 miles range for 100% to 0% battery. Someone elsewhere said this is abnormal. Sorry for no pick of the energy usage screen. Winds were relatively light but it's possible it might have been at most a 10mph headwind.
10mph headwind in Oklahoma? Haha, unlikely.

This seems normal. Traveling at what is effectively 90mph does not lend itself to good efficiency. You didn't take a picture of your Wh/mi trip meter, which would have been the key to this puzzle.

Your NCA 2021 battery is 53.5kWh or so including the buffer. Anyway it looks like 147 miles with 51kWh so the trip meter would have indicated 0.99*0.955*53.5kWh/147 = 343Wh/mi, which is pretty normal for a bit of heat use and a stiff headwind with airspeed of 90-95mph and speed of 80mph.

High, but expected for such a trip. If you've got a good headwind you may well need to slow down a lot to make your destination if it's a long run.
 
Hello everyone

I can’t find a good source of data on range loss over time for our Model 3’s. Just lots of discussion. So let’s have a poll of model 3s on this forum!

I’ve looked and can’t find a thread like this on the Model 3 forum. But excuse me if I’m wrong.

To help provide some consistency in how we all reply, I’d suggest we disregard the range that Tesla quote. ie: EPA, WLTP etc.

Let’s use the difference between the most miles you’ve ever shown on a full charge and the current displayed 100% charge.

So for me in my 9-month old MIC M3 with the LG Chem E5D battery:
My max range is currently showing 336 miles.
The max range ever shown was 344 miles from new.
So I calculate the range lost as 2.3% at 5000 miles.

So what’s your total range lost from the maximum ever shown?

i realise this isn’t scientific as it’s impossible to make the poll on this basic website that asks age, miles and range, but hey let’s just put some data on the Tesla forum and see what happens!

So tell us, how’s your Model 3 range holding up?
 
Hello everyone

I can’t find a good source of data on range loss over time for our Model 3’s. Just lots of discussion. So let’s have a poll of model 3s on this forum!

I’ve looked and can’t find a thread like this on the Model 3 forum. But excuse me if I’m wrong.

To help provide some consistency in how we all reply, I’d suggest we disregard the range that Tesla quote. ie: EPA, WLTP etc.

Let’s use the difference between the most miles you’ve ever shown on a full charge and the current displayed 100% charge.

So for me in my 9-month old MIC M3 with the LG Chem E5D battery:
My max range is currently showing 336 miles.
The max range ever shown was 344 miles from new.
So I calculate the range lost as 2.3% at 5000 miles.

So what’s your total range lost from the maximum ever shown?

i realise this isn’t scientific as it’s impossible to make the poll on this basic website that asks age, miles and range, but hey let’s just put some data on the Tesla forum and see what happens!

So tell us, how’s your Model 3 range holding up?
Wait, what happened there moderator? Where’s the poll gone?
 
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Hello everyone

I can’t find a good source of data on range loss over time for our Model 3’s. Just lots of discussion. So let’s have a poll of model 3s on this forum!

I’ve looked and can’t find a thread like this on the Model 3 forum. But excuse me if I’m wrong.

To help provide some consistency in how we all reply, I’d suggest we disregard the range that Tesla quote. ie: EPA, WLTP etc.

Let’s use the difference between the most miles you’ve ever shown on a full charge and the current displayed 100% charge.

So for me in my 9-month old MIC M3 with the LG Chem E5D battery:
My max range is currently showing 336 miles.
The max range ever shown was 344 miles from new.
So I calculate the range lost as 2.3% at 5000 miles.

So what’s your total range lost from the maximum ever shown?

i realise this isn’t scientific as it’s impossible to make the poll on this basic website that asks age, miles and range, but hey let’s just put some data on the Tesla forum and see what happens!

So tell us, how’s your Model 3 range holding up?
3yr old LR-AWD
Max range currently showing: 311miles
Max range ever: 310miles, it's all within the rounding error.
Range lost: 0% at 27,000 miles
 
3yr old LR-AWD
Max range currently showing: 311miles
Max range ever: 310miles, it's all within the rounding error.
Range lost: 0% at 27,000 miles
To be clear to those reading the thread, this result appears to be highly unusual. No other reports of zero loss (or even close) that I am aware of.

If you want to try to duplicate it, store your car in Maine and charge it to 60% fairly consistently. Occasional road trips and Supercharging are allowed. (You will almost certainly not duplicate it.)
 
My battery has around 10% degradation after 2 years and 18k miles.
The car shows 282 miles if I were to charge to 100%, AND scanmytesla also shows 10% degradation.

If the battery already lost 10% capacity, then shouldn't we be able to charge it up to 100% and have that effectively be the same as when charging to 90% on a new battery?
I have used supercharger very rarely.
I always kept my daily charging at 90% or below.
Since there is less acceleration below 50% SOC, with the degradation and charging to 90% after degradation, I only have 40% of battery to use before acceleration is diminished.

If it's advised to normally charge no more than 90%, does it make any sense to increase that if battery capacity is already diminished?
When it will be 25% down to 232 miles max charge, we still would have to charge to 209 to stay within 90% daily soc????
 
My battery has around 10% degradation after 2 years and 18k miles.
The car shows 282 miles if I were to charge to 100%, AND scanmytesla also shows 10% degradation.

If the battery already lost 10% capacity, then shouldn't we be able to charge it up to 100% and have that effectively be the same as when charging to 90% on a new battery?
I have used supercharger very rarely.
I always kept my daily charging at 90% or below.
Since there is less acceleration below 50% SOC, with the degradation and charging to 90% after degradation, I only have 40% of battery to use before acceleration is diminished.

If it's advised to normally charge no more than 90%, does it make any sense to increase that if battery capacity is already diminished?
When it will be 25% down to 232 miles max charge, we still would have to charge to 209 to stay within 90% daily soc??
The advice you are going to receive is that 10% after 2 years is within the range of reasonable loss. In addition, the rate of degradation is higher in the first year and is likely to slow. You should not charge to 100% regularly. As for typical charging, the advice you will hear is that higher SOC at higher temps will increase degradation. So depending on your climate, you could consider lowering your daily SOC or at least using the feature that doesn't charge until you are ready to leave. The closer to 50% SOC the slower your degradation will be. You will need to find a balance between your daily SOC needs, your desire for max performance and your desire to limit degradation. Alternatively, you can just forget about it and keep doing what you are doing because your battery is fine.
 
The closer to 50% SOC the slower your degradation will be.
Minor edit - but as data from @AAKEE has posted, if you want to minimize the rate of capacity loss (looking primarily at SOC), your maximum SOC should be limited to 55% or lower. Some additional cycling losses will happen if you go below 20% SOC, but overall for storage purposes since your typical car sits around 95%+ of the time, the lower your average SOC, the better.

I have found that while charging to 50% may be better overall for capacity loss, charging to 55% seems to let the BMS do a better job of estimating capacity. Or at least charging to 55% instead of 50% makes the project range numbers go higher so I feel better about it anyway, LOL. I typically charge back up to 55% between 20-30% and only charge higher if I need the range.

With cooler weather and battery temperatures, SOC is less critical. Arrhenius' generally rules the rate of capacity loss which dictates that approximately for every 10C increase in temperature, the rate of chemical reaction doubles.
 
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Minor edit - but as data from @AAKEE has posted, if you want to minimize the rate of capacity loss (looking primarily at SOC), your maximum SOC should be limited to 55% or lower. Some additional cycling losses will happen if you go below 20% SOC, but overall for storage purposes since your typical car sits around 95%+ of the time, the lower your average SOC, the better.

Actually the research test data tell us that the lower the SOC, the lower the calendar aging will be.
And the smaller the cycles is, the lower the cyclic aging is.
Also the lower the cycles is positioned in the SOC span the lower the cyclic aging is.
Theres no increased degradation in capacity for cycling below 20%. Actually, if cycled between 20 and 10% the battery almost lives forever.

I havent tried using 50% SOC so I havent seen the difference from my regular 55% when it comes to the BMS capacity calculations.

My M3P sleeps with about 25-35%, and get charged to 55% which is below the 57% true SOC threashold but it isnt standing at 55% during the weeks, only during the weekends.
Its 12 months old since build, 11 months and Im still around 80.3-80.4kWh nominal pack, and a full charge put me around 81kWh actual capacity(nominal remaining) at 28500km/18000mi.
This despite seing some bigger cycles the last two weeks, three full charges and one 4% and one 7% SOC before charging on a trip. I am convinced that my NFP levels and seeing full range in the screen(or less than 1% loss in range) is because the degradation is quite low for me due to using the battery in a way that produce less degradation.

I live in a cool environment so the temps during storage is limited, also it sits in a grarage thats isolated like a house most of the time not used = keeps battery temps down during the few hot weeks we have.
 
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To be clear to those reading the thread, this result appears to be highly unusual. No other reports of zero loss (or even close) that I am aware of.

If you want to try to duplicate it, store your car in Maine and charge it to 60% fairly consistently. Occasional road trips and Supercharging are allowed. (You will almost certainly not duplicate it.)
While I don’t have the data for KenC’s usage, and environment I would say that it would be possible to get away with a very small degradation.
As the 77.8kWh pack is known to reach a initial capacity above 78kWh( ?) and the degradion threshold is about 76(?), it would be very possible to stay above that threshold for quite long.

The main degradation factor is calendar aging, and not cycles for the most people.
My own calculations put me at about 1.5 to 2% calendar aging for the first year, and about 0.5% for the cycles( including some SuC).
As calendar aging is following a scheme thats about “lessens with the square of time”, calendar aging will “appear to disappear” quite early if the calendar aging is small(due to low SOC and low ambient temps). On the other hand, high average SOC when the car stands and high ambient temps will show high calendar aging and also a long time until the calendar aging appears to have stopped.(it doesnt stop but as it lessens with the square of time the curve will eventually look very flat).

If you keep the degradation from time low( SOC at sleep) you could be at some 2% (apparently stopped) after two-three years, and the degradation from cycling could be as low as 0.25% if you dont drive much.
I would guess theres headroom for 3.5% degradation before the range starts dropping if the capacity when new was about 79kWh and the threshold is about 76?
(Values just picked from memory from other threads).

High ambient temps will make it harder to keep the full range, and the capacity above the degradation treshold. On the other hand, using ideal SOC when the car sleeps in high ambient temps will make a much bigger difference in calendar aging. For me with cold climate I might have 3-4% instead of 1.5-2% after one year and for a hit climate the numbers could be 3% instead of 7%.

DD6389B5-6B2C-42CD-85FB-A6333AAD7729.jpeg







6F35D4EB-2E1C-442A-8949-905CD85B5AA6.png


Im at 80.3-80.4kWh after 28500km/18000mi, the range was “full”(507-508km) at the last full charge(less than two weeks). I had a small dip in range after a software update recently(NFP down to 79.7 or so) but the range came back quite quick. I have some big DoD’s and SuC lately which also took the NFP briefly below 80, but as son as the regular pattern was used it got back to 80.3-80.4.

I recon that my calendar aging is virtually gone by now( so small it doesnt appear) and daily use would not cause that very high degradation so I guess I would stay very close to the full range for quite some time.
I did get a new job recently(will retire from the old job) and the new job is 230km away, but only driven to about once each three weeks.
I will get deeper cycles and also park outside for one week each trip. This may cause slightly higher degradation than if I continued to use it like today. Still it will sleep below 57% so I do not think there will be a big difference.
0180D67F-6370-4CFD-A194-8C5A47923B10.jpeg
 
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As the 77.8kWh pack is known to reach a initial capacity above 78kWh( ?) and the degradion threshold is about 76(?), it would be very possible to stay above that threshold for quite long.
Yes I have mentioned that before here - it may be less than a couple %.

I agree it is possible, but I would just say it is unusual to see just 2-3% loss after nearly three years. It’s not the norm. I know a lot of Tesla owners with this vintage of vehicle and most are seeing some capacity loss. (280-300 miles on 2018/2019, which technically started at ~318mi, with 310mi visible.)

Is it real? Very likely. I know @KenC is not making it up. And probably the BMS is not broken.

How much calendar aging sticks to theory, I do not know. But there does seem to be some correlation with warm climates.

All I can say is Tesla knows very well exactly how much is random and how much is due to environmental factors.
 
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Actually the research test data tell us that the lower the SOC, the lower the calendar aging will be.
And the smaller the cycles is, the lower the cyclic aging is.
Also the lower the cycles is positioned in the SOC span the lower the cyclic aging is.
Theres no increased degradation in capacity for cycling below 20%. Actually, if cycled between 20 and 10% the battery almost lives forever.

I havent tried using 50% SOC so I havent seen the difference from my regular 55% when it comes to the BMS capacity calculations.
Yes, I agree with you based on your data. My point was that a battery cycling life test from say 10-50% rather than 25-50% will produce deeper cycles and usually result in faster capacity loss. But once you've already cycled the battery (say you discharged more than normal), there's really no reason to rush to recharge, and in fact you're better off letting it sit at low SOC as long as possible before recharging.

I guess one question might be is how much loss is done by a cycle down to 10% vs 20% compared to how much loss is done when sleeping at 10% vs 20%. If you don't sleep at all at 10% before recharging, you might end up losing more capacity.

All this is probably lost in the noise, though, assuming you're already charging to 50-55% and not charging to 90%.

FWIW I started charging to 50% when COVID hit and noticed a steady decrease in rated range, as low as mid-upper 280 miles (M3 RWD LR). But after a couple trips with charges to 80-90% and now a steady regimen of charging at 20-30% up to 55% it's been as high as 305 miles recently.

Here's a pic from TeslaMate from May through now (all the data I have):
2021-11-20_03-15.png
 
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From the recent posts, it seems like taking delivery in Winter is best for the battery as it will be parked at low ambient temperatures. I take delivery of a M3P in about two weeks (EDD in signature.)

Armed with this info, this Winter I plan to:
* Keep the car in my unheated garage (stays around 40°F/5°C in winter)
* Keep the charge limit around 50% SoC
* Not charge over 50% except immediately before driving when I will need the range (my electricity is not on a TOU plan)

During the remainder of the first year:
* Get an air conditioning unit large enough to keep the garage cool in Summer, preferably no higher than 75°F/24°C
* Continue keeping the “sleep” SoC low as above
* Try to keep the total mileage under 5000mi/8000km in the first year (this might be harder than expected)
* Minimal or no Supercharging

Since the first year or so is crucial in terms of calendar aging, I want to avoid the frequently-reported 10% capacity loss after the first year.

Questions:
Is there anything else I should plan to do in the first year to minimize the early degradation?

Does anyone know the SoC the packs are charged to before being put on trucks/trains/ships for delivery to sales/pickup centers?

Is there any way to request a lowered SoC percentage at pickup? I’d rather them not charge past 70% if possible. The last two (used) cars I have bought from Tesla were charged to 100% SoC, and had probably sat at that charge level for days.
 
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From the recent posts, it seems like taking delivery in Winter is best for the battery as it will be parked at low ambient temperatures. I take delivery of a M3P in about two weeks (EDD in signature.)

Armed with this info, this Winter I plan to:
* Keep the car in my unheated garage (stays around 40°F/5°C in winter)
* Keep the charge limit around 50% SoC
* Not charge over 50% except immediately before driving when I will need the range (my electricity is not on a TOU plan)

During the remainder of the first year:
* Get an air conditioning unit large enough to keep the garage cool in Summer, preferably no higher than 75°F/24°C
* Continue keeping the “sleep” SoC low as above
* Try to keep the total mileage under 5000mi/8000km in the first year (this might be harder than expected)
* Minimal or no Supercharging

Since the first year or so is crucial in terms of calendar aging, I want to avoid the frequently-reported 10% capacity loss after the first year.

Questions:
Is there anything else I should plan to do in the first year to minimize the early degradation?

Does anyone know the SoC the packs are charged to before being put on trucks/trains/ships for delivery to sales/pickup centers?

Is there any way to request a lowered SoC percentage at pickup? I’d rather them not charge past 70% if possible. The last two (used) cars I have bought from Tesla were charged to 100% SoC, and had probably sat at that charge level for days.
You are overthinking it.