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

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Every week I’m losing 1-2miles on my SR+ With 24kmi. Estimated range of 210 when slider set to 100. Was told the initial degradation would ease off, but it’s been on a constant pace since I got the car. It’s turning into a game for me at the moment and I’m looking forward to 199miles at full charge.


Pretty ridiculous seeing a LR model 3 with 100,000+ miles that lives only off super chargers have less degradation than mine. Obviously a contributing a factor is the LR battery.

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You haven't lost that range. Your battery needs recalibration and you'll gain back all the range that you have lost.

Charge it up to 90% each day and let it be. Most days, I use 5% of the range and I still charge it to 90% each night. My car is also always plugged in whenever possible.
 
You haven't lost that range. Your battery needs recalibration and you'll gain back all the range that you have lost.

Charge it up to 90% each day and let it be. Most days, I use 5% of the range and I still charge it to 90% each night. My car is also always plugged in whenever possible.
That simply doesn’t work if the capacity isn’t there!

i’ve been told that and tried every recalibration things possible, it’s simply missing capacity since we got it and BMS estimates don’t drift alot.

I have same issue, car is 9months old and I’ve been following and trying all recalibration/charge habits and options for 8 months now. Car still has only 208 of the /240-250miles (rated range). There is no software fix for the few people that got shafted without a solution.

*edit*
If you still have doubt, read my other posts. We only have 39.x kWh useable on a 90% charge, scandalous for a new car
 
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After a year and 14k miles with the model 3 SR+ and owner of a original Tesla Roadster for 4 months I think I realized what the issue is. When I first got the model 3 the car used to charge to 214m at 90%. About 2 weeks ago charge would only get 193 at 90% so I was going through same thing you guys are going through.

Let me explain first that the roadster displays a Ideal range and a Estimated range based on your driving; almost like the energy screen for the passed 30 miles for the model 3 the Roadster shows the same thing as estimated range based on your driving.

So I believe that the model 3 works the same way; so I tried driving like a normal ice car for two days and sure enough my car charges to 197-200m again on the mobile indicator screen.

Now discussing this when you first got the car there is no estimate to take the average from. Which 90% of 240m is average 214-216 so that's why it was charging to this number when you first received the car; not because your battery is degrading.

If you think about it the Tesla car is "on the go" mobile desination chargers so why would it display the actual battery range? I actually agree on this it should display the estimated range of the charge based on your driving; which in this case if it is doing this then it really is charging to your 204 miles. Just displaying the estimated range based on how you drive daily.

If you drive like a ice car and take it really slow and use the re-gen to the max you will see on the energy screen the car can achieve 260-300m range.

So there is absolutely no point stressing if the car can achieve well above 200m range..

If in any case it is your battery degrading then it's under warranty; if it gets to 150m charge at 90% then we have issues.
 
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You haven't lost that range. Your battery needs recalibration and you'll gain back all the range that you have lost.

Charge it up to 90% each day and let it be. Most days, I use 5% of the range and I still charge it to 90% each night. My car is also always plugged in whenever possible.

I don’t believe this to be correct. I have done numerous “recommended procedures”, however none had worked. Especially the 10/20% to 90%.
 
I don’t believe this to be correct. I have done numerous “recommended procedures”, however none had worked. Especially the 10/20% to 90%.
I feel you. It’s really sad and unfortunately everyone first assumes it is just you, can’t be true.

It’s probably also a “factory” fault like I concluded my SR+ battery is. Some of the bricks are probably defect but not enough to trigger errors and warnings so you aren’t covered under warranty.

It’s capacity dropped so fast most likely because the full capacity was never there, the BMS only had to learn it’s not there from the start. (Through charge cycles)

My current example from SR+ 9months old:

Lowest brick cell (Resting) voltage: 3.098V
Higest brick cell (resting) voltage: 3.178V

Even peaks at 106mV imbalance (which is huge!) when slowly driving. The above however is while staying parked with HVAC on to drain to 2% with 0.9 kWh remaining. (Again, trying to ReCaLiBrate the battery)

The battery is only “as good” as it’s weakest brick. Once the worst brick reaches minimum voltage, it’s done for the other bricks also

Tesla probably scraps fully produced battery packs under 46 kWh but not above.

What does it mean (simplified)? You can get a brand new Model 3 SR+ with either 46 kWh up to 54.45kWh (the second is where the EPA and WLTP rating is based on). This is at least advertising very much in favor of advertised range.

Not all batteries are created equally, I have yet to find someone with a worse pack then us. (We got it this low!)
 

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That simply doesn’t work if the capacity isn’t there!

i’ve been told that and tried every recalibration things possible, it’s simply missing capacity since we got it and BMS estimates don’t drift alot.

I have same issue, car is 9months old and I’ve been following and trying all recalibration/charge habits and options for 8 months now. Car still has only 208 of the /240-250miles (rated range). There is no software fix for the few people that got shafted without a solution.

*edit*
If you still have doubt, read my other posts. We only have 39.x kWh useable on a 90% charge, scandalous for a new car

That really sucks and I'm sorry to hear this.

Are you able to describe your charging habits? I'm trying to figure out what may have caused this severe degradation other than just being unlucky with a borderline bad battery.
 
That really sucks and I'm sorry to hear this.

Are you able to describe your charging habits? I'm trying to figure out what may have caused this severe degradation other than just being unlucky with a borderline bad battery.
Sure.

I have my own Tesla wall charger (11kW max) and charge to 80/90% and rarely supercharged. Normally it stays between 40-90% but we also tried numerous calibration methods for 8 of the 9 months we own it, nothing helped.

In first month of owning the car I already planned a SeC visit about the capacity, it had -10% already first charge.

everything “works” but the worst is immediate value loss on my dreamcar and the charge limit between Superchargers has to be set higher then needed: i.e. 95% instead of 80
 
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That simply doesn’t work if the capacity isn’t there!

i’ve been told that and tried every recalibration things possible, it’s simply missing capacity since we got it and BMS estimates don’t drift alot.

I have same issue, car is 9months old and I’ve been following and trying all recalibration/charge habits and options for 8 months now. Car still has only 208 of the /240-250miles (rated range). There is no software fix for the few people that got shafted without a solution.

*edit*
If you still have doubt, read my other posts. We only have 39.x kWh useable on a 90% charge, scandalous for a new car

Thats crazy. I can relate though. My AWD LR will max out at a rated 279 miles of 310 new. I've tried every battery calibration procedure that I've come across and I've never had a notable difference. One thing that stands out in my case is all the recent updates cause my battery to tank 5-10 miles. I can get 279 now and over time it works its way to about 288 then an update comes up and it drops to 279 again. This has happened the past 3 or 4 updates and just happened again this week. It makes me think BMS has something to do with it. Tesla service is no help unless its below the warrantied 30%. They just send the default reply. Anyway, I just wanted to say you're not alone in your frustration.
 
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Sure.

I have my own Tesla wall charger (11kW max) and charge to 80/90% and rarely supercharged. Normally it stays between 40-90% but we also tried numerous calibration methods for 8 of the 9 months we own it, nothing helped.

In first month of owning the car I already planned a SeC visit about the capacity, it had -10% already first charge.

everything “works” but the worst is immediate value loss on my dreamcar and the charge limit between Superchargers has to be set higher then needed: i.e. 95% instead of 80
I'd keep escalating your issue. If you get no satisfaction with Tesla, take your issue to the local consumer protection agency. Obviously, I don't know who that is in Eindhoven, all I know about Eindhoven is the football club is PSV!
 
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Try this and report your result....

Look at any of the consumption graphs. Take the Wh/ml and range.
Note battery % (as a fraction).

kWh = (Wh/ml x remaining range) / (battery % x 1000).

Ex. (240 x 110) / (0.5 x 1000) = 52.8kWh

I always get 52.5kWh as the answer. But not tried since V10.0, will report back.

Just re-calculated after 10k miles.

Now getting 49.77kWh with same calculation.... Down 5.2%.

Will check again in a few days as first time i have ran this calc in a long time.
 
I guess this is the degradation thread eh?

37,000km and I'm going decidedly good, but I think my numbers might hold some meaning anyways. Early 2019 LR AWD Model 3, originally rated for 499km (website now lists at 518). If you go by the old range calculation I'm only down 2.4%, but going by actual kWh capacity it's probably closer to 5%. If you go by the new range calculation, it's about 6% degraded.

I'm down to 487km displayed at 25C battery temp after sitting. It was as low as 485km. The additional "2km" happened after something similar to "calibration" (charged as high as it let me, 98%, discharged to... 9%?, and charged back up). It's absolutely insignificant and I still think the calibration stuff is just confirmation bias. I also lost displayed range doing something like this once.

I absolutely think this is down to battery lottery. We do drive gently and follow fairly good charging practices, but about 31% of our charging (by kWh) has ended up being DC Fast Charging due to trips (mostly Supercharging probably, but a good amount of CHAdeMO). Keeping it in the garage (which fluctuates between about 10C-25C depending on season) probably also helps.

Almost all the range drop occurred in the last 12,000km (which was where we did a decent chunk of our Supercharging as well). SMT reported somewhere around 76.8kWh 6000km ago. It's now around 73.6kWh. This period also had the car being soaked in the cold outside more. It was interesting to correlate cold and increased DC Fast Charger usage with sudden drops in capacity for an otherwise very well performing battery. Note that at 76.8kWh, the car still reported 499km due to reasons I'm sure have been discussed in this thread.

I honestly think there's something uncharacteristically good about our battery. Achieving rated efficiency has been a breeze for us, and we often get 130Wh/km at highway speeds (either with windows down or the AC going). There's also very little imbalance under heavy load, even at low SoC.

No humblebrag intended, I just think it's good to have perspective on what's maybe "normal" or "good" to compare to. Sorry if it makes anyone feel bad though!

I feel you. It’s really sad and unfortunately everyone first assumes it is just you, can’t be true.

It’s probably also a “factory” fault like I concluded my SR+ battery is. Some of the bricks are probably defect but not enough to trigger errors and warnings so you aren’t covered under warranty.

It’s capacity dropped so fast most likely because the full capacity was never there, the BMS only had to learn it’s not there from the start. (Through charge cycles)

My current example from SR+ 9months old:

Lowest brick cell (Resting) voltage: 3.098V
Higest brick cell (resting) voltage: 3.178V

Even peaks at 106mV imbalance (which is huge!) when slowly driving. The above however is while staying parked with HVAC on to drain to 2% with 0.9 kWh remaining. (Again, trying to ReCaLiBrate the battery)

The battery is only “as good” as it’s weakest brick. Once the worst brick reaches minimum voltage, it’s done for the other bricks also

Tesla probably scraps fully produced battery packs under 46 kWh but not above.

What does it mean (simplified)? You can get a brand new Model 3 SR+ with either 46 kWh up to 54.45kWh (the second is where the EPA and WLTP rating is based on). This is at least advertising very much in favor of advertised range.

Not all batteries are created equally, I have yet to find someone with a worse pack then us. (We got it this low!)

Bittersweet, but I'm glad you realize you don't really have anything to "gain" or "calibrate" at this point. Every post I've seen from you has made me feel so sorry for your experience. I don't hold Tesla, as a corporation, in a very positive view to begin with. Not helping out someone who clearly has a bad batch of a product is just shitty operation, period.
 
I'd keep escalating your issue. If you get no satisfaction with Tesla, take your issue to the local consumer protection agency. Obviously, I don't know who that is in Eindhoven, all I know about Eindhoven is the football club is PSV!
Well today I went in SeC for a huge dashboard rattle (second time!) this time they fixed it. At the take in, the Tesla mechanic asked me if I liked the car, I said yes except for the capacity loss and that Tesla couldn’t say anything about that last SeC visits, because it’s company secret the State of Health of the battery..

He then said, we will fix the rattle and I will informally also check the capacity and come to you In waiting room.

Without actually telling me directly I have huge capacity (CAC) loss, he told me with a “tell it all” face expression that there is some deviation in the fleet and there is a top and the bottom in the fleet which will have differences.

Without breaking his “it’s Tesla confidential secret” rules or directly telling me, made it clear to me I am at the bottom of the fleet data, but (gave me a sad pity face) also told me Tesla finds this acceptable and within specs...

It wad really nice to for once have a Tesla mechanic “care” for once trying his best.

TLDR: Tesla mechanic indirectly told me battery capacity is on the very low end of fleet, but that Tesla finds this within specs..

I guess this is the degradation thread eh?

37,000km and I'm going decidedly good, but I think my numbers might hold some meaning anyways. Early 2019 LR AWD Model 3, originally rated for 499km (website now lists at 518). If you go by the old range calculation I'm only down 2.4%, but going by actual kWh capacity it's probably closer to 5%. If you go by the new range calculation, it's about 6% degraded.

I'm down to 487km displayed at 25C battery temp after sitting. It was as low as 485km. The additional "2km" happened after something similar to "calibration" (charged as high as it let me, 98%, discharged to... 9%?, and charged back up). It's absolutely insignificant and I still think the calibration stuff is just confirmation bias. I also lost displayed range doing something like this once.

I absolutely think this is down to battery lottery. We do drive gently and follow fairly good charging practices, but about 31% of our charging (by kWh) has ended up being DC Fast Charging due to trips (mostly Supercharging probably, but a good amount of CHAdeMO). Keeping it in the garage (which fluctuates between about 10C-25C depending on season) probably also helps.

Almost all the range drop occurred in the last 12,000km (which was where we did a decent chunk of our Supercharging as well). SMT reported somewhere around 76.8kWh 6000km ago. It's now around 73.6kWh. This period also had the car being soaked in the cold outside more. It was interesting to correlate cold and increased DC Fast Charger usage with sudden drops in capacity for an otherwise very well performing battery. Note that at 76.8kWh, the car still reported 499km due to reasons I'm sure have been discussed in this thread.

I honestly think there's something uncharacteristically good about our battery. Achieving rated efficiency has been a breeze for us, and we often get 130Wh/km at highway speeds (either with windows down or the AC going). There's also very little imbalance under heavy load, even at low SoC.

No humblebrag intended, I just think it's good to have perspective on what's maybe "normal" or "good" to compare to. Sorry if it makes anyone feel bad though!



Bittersweet, but I'm glad you realize you don't really have anything to "gain" or "calibrate" at this point. Every post I've seen from you has made me feel so sorry for your experience. I don't hold Tesla, as a corporation, in a very positive view to begin with. Not helping out someone who clearly has a bad batch of a product is just shitty operation, period.

Thanks for the extensive reply. Glad yours is great!

I am actually still rooting for Tesla (while I think that’s actually stupid also), I have some Tesla merchandise, hold a few stock, a normal Guy that saved for (years!) for his Model 3 SR+ that finally was able to get one... Then within first month I find out it is basically below the SR(non!) plus...

Then get told “Within Tesla specs” ...

I am considering light legal action, OR making a video on Youtube, let’s say a mini documentary..
Since I have an electrical degree and all car mechanic licenses and also DIY experience in building own battery and BMS, that is something interesting or newsworthy..

It also seems like famous people or “influencers” get special treatment from Tesla, while the average guy like me is someone they try to avoid... I have to “fight” for every problem The car has all the time and need multiple appointments to fix 1 of the things.

Glad I don’t get the “JuST rECaLiBraTe” replies and such and people actually listen here..! Very much appreciated.
 
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Glad I don’t get the “JuST rECaLiBraTe” replies and such and people actually listen here..! Very much appreciated.
According to what I've been told there is no "recalibrate" despite what people write on the net. I following the owners manual and only charge to 100% for long trips. I don't let battery woes keep me up at night.

"Model 3 has one of the most sophisticated battery systems in the world. The most important way to preserve the Battery is to LEAVE YOUR VEHICLE PLUGGED IN when you are not using it. This is particularly important if you are not planning to drive Model 3 for several weeks. When plugged in, Model 3 wakes up when needed to automatically maintain a charge level that maximizes the lifetime of the Battery. NOTE: When left idle and unplugged, your vehicle periodically uses energy from the Battery for system tests and recharging the 12V battery when necessary. There is no advantage to waiting until the Battery’s level is low before charging. In fact, the Battery performs best when charged regularly."