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Model 3 now 322mi range
- Thread starter McFlurri
- Start date
ElectricIAC
Good-Natured Rascal
Bigriver
Member
There was a LR RWD range bump about a year ago to 325 miles. It was a software thing and was hit or miss on whether RWD owners ever saw a difference in the displayed rated range.
The 322 miles being discussed is specific to LR AWD, which changed in the car configuration around Nov 2019. I believe it was a minor hardware tweak since earlier AWD owners have not reported increases. Thus your June 2019 car is expected to be 310-ish, more or less.
insaneoctane
Well-Known Member
There was no change in the hardware, to increase the range in newer models. They have the same batteries and the same drivetrain.
I don’t think they actually increased anything. Maybe there was less humidity when the EPA did their new test. Maybe the pollen count was low. Either way I doubt anything actually changed in real world conditions.
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That's not entirely true, Tesla did release some free upgrades addressing performance/range. Once thing to note is that to consistently get the rated range, you can turn on things that will decrease your battery, or drive too fast, the road has to be perfectly level and it can't be too hot or too cold. Oh, and your tire pressure has to be right, I run 50psi which is well below the burst rating of the tires, so it's safe to do so.
while there was rumor of an update to improve range over the fall of 2019 it never happened
There was a software update to increase performance but not range in the fall
Bwettt
Member
Bigriver
Member
I’m not sure how you can say that. Tesla is forever changing things. Their design process is an evolution and they don’t announce most of it.
ElectricIAC
Good-Natured Rascal
S/X were different and while Tesla at least in the past has been all about “if there’s an improvement, we don’t sit on it”, It can cost drastically more to phase in new processes and materials on a mass produced model than it did on the legacy models.
Bigriver
Member
I don’t see that Tesla is treating the model 3 design evolution any differently than the S/X. This seems to contain a rather long list of changes in the 3:
Design and specification changes between Tesla Model 3 2018 and 2020 model years and between LR AWD and SR+ models | TinkerTry IT @ Home
These are all ones that an owner can observe. It would take a tear down of the cars to find all the differences.https://tinkertry.com/differences-b...018-to-2020-for-all-tesla-model-3-trim-levels
ElectricIAC
Good-Natured Rascal
AlanSubie4Life
Efficiency Obsessed Member
1) The EPA doesn't do the test, Tesla does. Unless EPA does a random audit.
2) Here is the raw data from the tests. Getting 7% better efficiency in the tests (2018 AWD -> 2020 Performance 18") is unlikely to be random noise. The RLHP (Road Load Horsepower at 50mph) was reduced by 6% in 2020 which explains a lot of it - but that may be because the vehicle provides better coastdown performance than it did previously, which would be a significant factor, as coastdown includes drivetrain losses, not just tire rolling resistance and aero. They may well have improved the freewheeling behavior of the front motor and the rear motor (but I really don't know). Of course it could also have been a subtle Michelin tire compound change on the MXM4 (I think unlikely)!
Note on the SR RWD RLHP only dropped by less than 2%, while efficiency improved by about 4% from 2019 to 2020. Sort of suggests the front motor coasting performance could be a factor (also rules out the tires being a major factor in the 6% change).
ElectricIAC
Good-Natured Rascal
Interesting observations. Wonder if one will see these improvements if you had to have your front DU replaced...
AlanSubie4Life
Efficiency Obsessed Member
I am not saying this is due to a hardware change. I am also not saying there was not a hardware change. It's already well known that there are revisions of the drive units. Which revisions might be better than others and how much is controlled by software, I do not know.
To the extent possible, Tesla will apply efficiency improvements to older vehicles, and already users have reported this (it is difficult to quantify/verify those reports). But Tesla applying improvements has nothing to do with the range shown on the battery gauge: as everyone knows, that is completely decoupled from efficiency.
There's really no reason, in theory, if the hardware is identical, that a 2019 showing 310 rated miles of range can't be exactly as efficient and have the same range as a 2020 showing 322 rated miles of range. Only the available energy and the efficiency matter.
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ElectricIAC
Good-Natured Rascal
Would like to see improvements in logic regarding front motor usage, especially at highway speeds.
Dan203
Active Member
Maybe. I drive like a madman most of the time so there is zero chance I'll ever get that range.
Believe me if they changed hardware that effected range like this, people would know about it. All the range increases have been software tweets and EPA underestimates.
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