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

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Picked up my new Model 3 about a month ago. I have almost 900 miles on it and the efficiency is disappointing. My old 3 total efficiency is always around 258 - 260 Wh/mi, moving a bit up and down due to weather. My new 3 is at 278 Wh/mi.

Stats is reporting my average driving efficiency around 80%. And this is with me babying it the last 150 miles. My wife has a 2021 Y (August car). She is aggressive, uses the brake a lot, always uses AC/heat and her driving efficiency is 105%. My 3.6 yr old 3 has a driving efficiency of 102%. Her Y efficiency is 269 Wh/mi.

I still have my old 3 so I can compare. Drive to work in old 3 is around 300 Wh/mi with AC/Heat on. It's high due to elevation gain. Drive to work in new 3 without AC/Heat has been right around 300 Wh/mi as well.

New: Model 3 AWD Long Range w/ 19" wheels
Old: Model 3 AWD Long Range w/ 19" wheels

Same tires.

I'm in SoCal so the weather has been normal spring moderate temps. Rarely use heat and often just fan, no AC.
Tires are a couple lbs too low, but that's typical for my other two Teslas.

I've been through this before. My first M3 had even worse efficiency when new. At a few thousand miles it was hovering around 310 Wh/mi. After many many frustrating trips to service, I finally convinced them something was wrong. They eventually got engineering involved and found the rear brake cylinders were sticking just slightly closed. They replaced both and the efficiency numbers dropped like a rock.

A friend of mine got his new 3 a week before mine, and his numbers are significantly better - lower than my old 3 as I would expect. Also SoCal. So I don't think "break in" is something we're dealing with here.
Use ABRP and run the calibrated efficiency measure to check what it thinks your efficiency is.
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As to poor efficiency, there is one more possible cause. Some people have a habit of continuously varying the accelerator position. Some do it because they hunt after the desired speed, for some it is just a peculiar nervous habit, and everybody varies the pedal position at least a little bit, due to the irregular vertical and sideways movements of the car.

Testing for this is easy. Drive the same distance by foot and then again with TACC or Autopilot under otherwise similar conditions. The latter will always improve efficiency, but the interesting question is, by how much?
 
As to poor efficiency, there is one more possible cause. Some people have a habit of continuously varying the accelerator position. Some do it because they hunt after the desired speed, for some it is just a peculiar nervous habit, and everybody varies the pedal position at least a little bit, due to the irregular vertical and sideways movements of the car.

Testing for this is easy. Drive the same distance by foot and then again with TACC or Autopilot under otherwise similar conditions. The latter will always improve efficiency, but the interesting question is, by how much?
Driving with autopilot on (smart cruise control) is one way of discovering that many people who drive on a freeway/autoroute are incapable of driving at a reasonably constant speed :D
 
I'm coming up on 9 years of Tesla ownership - an S, an X and currently a 3

I have always found that driving at a steady 70 or so on freeways (in summer type weather - not cold or wet) I could pretty much match the EPA estimate usage - which is what the 310 pretty much equates to. I know everyone is different, but that's my story :)
Wow. I also have a 3. It was 50 degrees here in the northwest a few days ago. Drove up to Portland at a steady (as possible ) 70. Was nowhere near the EPA estimate. It's a 2021 LR AWD, all stock, flat road ( I-5 ) advice?
 
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Wow. I also have a 3. It was 50 degrees here in the northwest a few days ago. Drove up to Portland at a steady (as possible ) 70.
Was nowhere near the EPA estimate. It's a 2021 LR AWD, all stock, flat road ( I-5 ) advice?
Try using AutoPilot or TAC to maintain a constant speed and adjust your tire pressure between 45-50 psi.
 
The EPA of 300 miles isn't all highway. Its a mix of highway and city. Case in point, I drove mostly city today to get to work and my wh/mi was 150. That implies a range of nearly 500 miles. The EPA methodology is the culprit. They should state 2 numbers...highway and city. I bet Highway is no more than 250 miles at 60mph.
They do, you just have to do math to figure out what the range is. Now should they just show those two numbers and not the combination they currently show? Probably.

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With your Model 3 charged at 100 percent for a road trip. What is the farthest (in miles) have you driven before needing a charge. We live in Northern CA and 65 miles from Napa CA and was told by once person that they could not make a round trip without charging. This does not sound right.
 
Kind of light on the details.

All depends upon the model of 3 they had (LR, SR, etc.), their destination, the weather, any change in elevation, etc. For me with a 2018 LR RWD, I made it from San Jose (starting ~85%) to Kettleman City (ending ~20%), a distance of 170 miles back in late 2018. A couple of months ago I drove to Brookings, OR by way of US101. I started at 90% (275 miles) and Supercharged in Ukiah when the battery was a bit over 20%. Total distance on that drive was 178 miles. So estimating that ~68% of my battery is worth 175 miles, that would put a full 100% charge distance at about 260 highway miles during good (warmish, not cold) weather. Mind you, I'd never plan a drive where the battery charge got lower than 10%, but that's me.
 
With your Model 3 charged at 100 percent for a road trip. What is the farthest (in miles) have you driven before needing a charge. We live in Northern CA and 65 miles from Napa CA and was told by once person that they could not make a round trip without charging. This does not sound right.

It’s hard to imagine any kind of model 3 from recent years not being able to drive 130 miles on roads that are largely flat and temperatures that are moderate. Especially coming from Hopland the hills aren’t much of a challenge. My 2021 model 3 SR+ so far has never gotten less than 180 miles on a ~250 range “tank”, and that was going around 80 Most of the time. Maybe this person you spoke with had a different or older EV?
 
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With your Model 3 charged at 100 percent for a road trip. What is the farthest (in miles) have you driven before needing a charge. We live in Northern CA and 65 miles from Napa CA and was told by once person that they could not make a round trip without charging. This does not sound right.
One, I've never charged up to 100% before starting off on a road trip. If there's a supercharger on your way, then there's very little advantage to not stopping, unless all the pedestals are occupied. Being marginal on charge means you only need a few minutes of charging to get where you're going, right? And, if you're driving that far that you're marginal after starting from 100%, then surely, you're due for a stop, right?

Two, open ABRP, abetterrouteplanner and simulate your actual trip. It uses real-world data, so the better your inputs, the better your results.

Three, I did a 4400 mile trip late Summer, and the longest leg was 173 miles, from 78% to 13% SOC. That means in theory I could have gone 266 miles, but of course, I'd only use 90% of that at most. FYI, I drive 115% of the posted speed limit, as ABRP simulations will show you that the fastest way to complete a trip is to drive as fast as you feel safe, and charge at low SOCs, for me, that's between 10 and 15%.