Model 3 Performance Battery Degradation One Month (Story)

[hcdavis3]

There are always outliers. And you outlied the good way, apparently. There is *nothing* that will chemically add capacity to these batteries over time. So what you are seeing must be a positive accounting situation. And at one point Tesla did say that the RWD folks would be blessed with more usable range. So they may have just opened up your spigot a bit. :shrug: Dunno.

Thanks very much.

 

[DrMatt]

This is quite an interesting thread but very helpful.

My Performance will be my primary vehicle for work, 45-50k miles per year for work alone. Yesterday I took it to work for the first time. I charged to 100% and went 295 miles before getting home at 8%.

Granted I did a couple launches for the coworkers to convert them and my AP was set to 85mph to work.

I had a demo car for testing if it could get to work and back, it fared far better with 21% remaining and driving it like I stole it.

There's two differences that I realized... I had used Sentry, which downloaded 39GB of data before shutting off when I had under 21%. Then the demo car had 2019.20+ software while I'm still back on 2019.15 (I swear I had 2019.25 or something as I swear I had the beach buggy game.).

I believe the rule of thumb for Sentry is 1% per hour, so maybe my car actually fared better since my usage of the car was 12 hours, 4hrs driving and 8hrs of work.

I’m trying to talk myself into the M3P rather than LR and this is great data, can you say what proportion of the drive was at 85mph?
Did you get a new readout without using sentry on the day?
Cheers!

 

[N54TT]

For the past couple weeks I stopped charging everyday. After a few deeper cycles my 90% end of charge went from 266 to 273 as of today. Every charge increasing 1-2miles more than the last. It used to be 277/276 until an update I got in March, after which it dropped suddenly to 273.

Drove quite a bit since, ~3k miles including an 1800 and 450mile road trip with supercharging..otherwise I never really supercharge.
I now have about 12k miles on my 8/18 build and my 100% is back down to 296-297. Figure about 4.2 - 4.4% loss. More than total miles though...i think kWh used would be a better barometer. Too lazy to go out and check though lol.

 

[hoang51]

Hey folks,

I gone through the last couple of pages to see if there was a solution to those who experienced differently than OP who had their battery replaced on their Model 3 P under warranty due to defect. It looks like there wasn't any other solid solution, so I'll go ahead and post the following.

I myself am experiencing loss of range with my Model 3 Performance. I'm currently at 266 miles at 90% SOC just yesterday after Supercharging from about 20% SOC with about 10K miles. I exclusively Supercharge since the begining of ownership. I've read and heard to recalibrate, do the voodoo discharge and recharge method that virtually everybody repeats to one another to try and do. That method hardly works for the most of us, me included, to see 310 miles at 100% or 279 miles at 90%. There was also a campaign bulletin SB-18-16-010 Replace High Voltage (HV) Battery which stated that some batteries weren't wired properly, so the reported SOC/miles were inaccurate, but my local Service Center stated that my car built in July 2018 was not part of it.

Now, I found out that another fellow M3P got a solid solution laid out here on Reddit. It basically requires a visit to a service center and for a Tesla technician to do a CAC reset and owner not let SOC dip below 20% SOC for calibration according to internal notes: Perform CAC reset as per article# Toolbox

Note that there's no public access to that article. Hope this helps many of us to get to the bottom of the range loss over time that might not be battery degradation.

 

[hoang51]

I’m trying to talk myself into the M3P rather than LR and this is great data, can you say what proportion of the drive was at 85mph?
Did you get a new readout without using sentry on the day?
Cheers!

Just to note, the user mistyped the actual consumed range. It was not 295 miles, but 195 miles with 8% SOC left.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Can we all agree that 242 Wh/mi is the magic number to hit ~310 miles in a car that has a 75 kWh pack?

This is correct to the extent the numbers you state are correct, but it has no bearing on what the meter in the car says, or the actual size of the battery pack.

I don't believe it is 242, but most likely 230 wh/mile to hit 310 miles. Thats what I am noticing in my car.

Agreed.
That is what I see as well, very consistently.

The constant for Performance/AWD is 230Wh/rmi. (Rated mile)

230 wh/mile for 310 miles would indicate that the pack in our cars is only ~ 71 kWh. I think that there is general consensus for the pack being about 75 kWh.

Remember the meter is just a meter. It does not reflect actual energy use. It is a measurement. That means you have to calibrate it to understand what it means.

The EPA test documents indicate 78kWh available from a brand new pack. This is measured with current clamps until the battery is completely dead (you would not get to this point).

So, there is more than 71kWh available from a new battery. But there is some undefined reserve energy below zero miles showing, and the meter in the car probably reads a little low. So you won’t see a full discharge read as 78kWh in the car, either!

This issue of “how much energy is available” in the battery has been discussed in various forums in a quite contentious manner in the past!

However, the EPA docs I believe are quite definitive as they are using calibrated equipment and the tests are designed to be reproducible. The links have been posted elsewhere here...

I'm looking at nothing but the math here.

You’re looking at the meter too - and it likely is reading a couple % low. I have heard the meter tends to read on the low side, but becomes a bit more accurate for very high consumption numbers (i.e. it is not linear either!).


In any case, I can assure you that in every test I have done so far, if I hit 230Wh/mi consumption, I can travel the same number of miles as I lose off my range.

Kind of off-topic from this thread, but it has become a subject of discussion here so I thought I would chime in.

 

[diamond.g]

Hey folks,

I gone through the last couple of pages to see if there was a solution to those who experienced differently than OP who had their battery replaced on their Model 3 P under warranty due to defect. It looks like there wasn't any other solid solution, so I'll go ahead and post the following.

I myself am experiencing loss of range with my Model 3 Performance. I'm currently at 266 miles at 90% SOC just yesterday after Supercharging from about 20% SOC with about 10K miles. I exclusively Supercharge since the begining of ownership. I've read and heard to recalibrate, do the voodoo discharge and recharge method that virtually everybody repeats to one another to try and do. That method hardly works for the most of us, me included, to see 310 miles at 100% or 279 miles at 90%. There was also a campaign bulletin SB-18-16-010 Replace High Voltage (HV) Battery which stated that some batteries weren't wired properly, so the reported SOC/miles were inaccurate, but my local Service Center stated that my car built in July 2018 was not part of it.

Now, I found out that another fellow M3P got a solid solution laid out here on Reddit. It basically requires a visit to a service center and for a Tesla technician to do a CAC reset and owner not let SOC dip below 20% SOC for calibration according to internal notes: Perform CAC reset as per article# Toolbox

Note that there's no public access to that article. Hope this helps many of us to get to the bottom of the range loss over time that might not be battery degradation.

Can Mobile Techs perform the CAC reset? Or will us Hampton Roads folks have to take a trip to Richmond?

 

[birjman]

I'll add my data point. I have an AWD Model 3. It has 9600 miles on the odometer.

I was routinely getting 274 miles at 90%, 304-307 miles at 100%. Since the 16.2 update dropped, I noticed a sudden drop in rated range. I now get 266 miles at 90%, 294 miles at 100%. I keep the battery SOC mostly between 30-90%, rarely charge to 100% (just twice in the past 3 months). I had the SC do a remote diagnostic and I got a call back stating "there is no hardware issue with your car at this time".

This morning, I starting charging at 30% to 90% and ended with 262 miles. Its the creep downward that bothers me the most, especially losing 20-25 miles off the top end could mean the difference between being able to skip a Supercharger on a long trip and having to stop early.

I have tried deep discharges (to less than 30 rated miles on the range) and charging to 90% but it has made no difference in this continued sudden drop in rated battery capacity.

This is identical to my experience, almost to the mile. My car was built July 2018.

The Tesla Service Center closest to me ran a diagnostic ~2 weeks ago and claimed everything was normal and the rated range is based on my "driving style". My lifetime efficiency is 245 Wh/m and that's with heavy A/C blasting in 100+ degree temps every day....I don't think my driving style has anything to do with the rated range plummet.

 

[N54TT]

Hey folks,

I gone through the last couple of pages to see if there was a solution to those who experienced differently than OP who had their battery replaced on their Model 3 P under warranty due to defect. It looks like there wasn't any other solid solution, so I'll go ahead and post the following.

I myself am experiencing loss of range with my Model 3 Performance. I'm currently at 266 miles at 90% SOC just yesterday after Supercharging from about 20% SOC with about 10K miles. I exclusively Supercharge since the begining of ownership. I've read and heard to recalibrate, do the voodoo discharge and recharge method that virtually everybody repeats to one another to try and do. That method hardly works for the most of us, me included, to see 310 miles at 100% or 279 miles at 90%. There was also a campaign bulletin SB-18-16-010 Replace High Voltage (HV) Battery which stated that some batteries weren't wired properly, so the reported SOC/miles were inaccurate, but my local Service Center stated that my car built in July 2018 was not part of it.

Now, I found out that another fellow M3P got a solid solution laid out here on Reddit. It basically requires a visit to a service center and for a Tesla technician to do a CAC reset and owner not let SOC dip below 20% SOC for calibration according to internal notes: Perform CAC reset as per article# Toolbox

Note that there's no public access to that article. Hope this helps many of us to get to the bottom of the range loss over time that might not be battery degradation.

That poster and others that I have seen that were able to get something done by Tesla, CAC reset or new battery, all had one or two things in common that we(and most others) don’t. They had a more significant loss in mileage...30+ miles and or a warning message. My 90% is down to 266-267 and 100% at 296-297 as well. That’s a 14miles loss...1/2 of what that owner had. Unfortunately unless we take a greater hit or throw a warning message...looks like Tesla considers us all normal degradation....which very well possibly could be. If I start seeing that 30+ loss...than I’ll have the service center take a look at it.

 

[hoang51]

That poster and others that I have seen that were able to get something done by Tesla, CAC reset or new battery, all had one or two things in common that we(and most others) don’t. They had a more significant loss in mileage...30+ miles and or a warning message. My 90% is down to 266-267 and 100% at 296-297 as well. That’s a 14miles loss...1/2 of what that owner had. Unfortunately unless we take a greater hit or throw a warning message...looks like Tesla considers us all normal degradation....which very well possibly could be. If I start seeing that 30+ loss...than I’ll have the service center take a look at it.

I'm not sure if there is any one else on this forums just requested CAC reset was denied since that Reddit post. It is worth a request if the car needs to go in for something else to not waste time. I know I'm not doing it promptly but when my car goes in for the spoiler mounting and badging, I'll make a mention of it. Not a priority to fix it now. But it's reassuring that this appears to be a calibration issue and not battery degrading.

For anybody else who tried to follow through with that information from Reddit, please post your outcome whether good or bad here so that we know what to expect. I know I will do the same later down the road.

 

[007Bond]

Just did a huge weekend trip few weeks back with many superchargers and a few destination chargers. Actually had something odd happen at a supercharger. So charged at home to 100% with the Tesla wall charger got my normal for now 300 miles. Took off charging several times and got to destination. Charged that night with Tesla destination charger to 90%. Drove all over that day few supercharges and the the next am used the Tesla destination charger to go to 100% same old 300 miles. Took off that day hit a few superchargers and then stopped for food at one. Totally forgot I still had it set for 100% so when I see the app the car is at 100% but recalculating, then 5 min to 100% even though it is already at 100%, again recalculating for at least 5 min and then again 5 min left. Remember this whole time it is already at 100% but keep doing this recalculation for at least 5 min then says 5 min left. So I notice while doing this total miles is gong up each time by a mile. Eventually wife gets pissed and wants to go so I never let it totally finish but now my 100% is 304. So somehow this supercharger and it's several recalculating sessions gave me 4 miles I have not had for a long time back. Once I got home with 10% left charged with the Tesla wall charger to 90 and extrapolated was still 304. Now I wonder if I had just let it finish whatever it was doing would I have even more. Note while it was doing this each time it switched between 5 min and recalculating you could hear this power humming from under the car really weird never heard this before. So now I wonder if DC charging to 100% has some mystical power to get your battery back to max where AC charging cannot.

So now few weeks later the extra range is holding so to me this indicates less of an actual battery problem more of a calibration balance matter. I have heard a few others have this supercharger to 100% balance and say it can take a few hours to finish but when it does they have gained several more miles. It kinda seems logical that DC to DC would be more direct and possibly balance better.

 

[aus1ander]

Hey folks,

I gone through the last couple of pages to see if there was a solution to those who experienced differently than OP who had their battery replaced on their Model 3 P under warranty due to defect. It looks like there wasn't any other solid solution, so I'll go ahead and post the following.

I myself am experiencing loss of range with my Model 3 Performance. I'm currently at 266 miles at 90% SOC just yesterday after Supercharging from about 20% SOC with about 10K miles. I exclusively Supercharge since the begining of ownership. I've read and heard to recalibrate, do the voodoo discharge and recharge method that virtually everybody repeats to one another to try and do. That method hardly works for the most of us, me included, to see 310 miles at 100% or 279 miles at 90%. There was also a campaign bulletin SB-18-16-010 Replace High Voltage (HV) Battery which stated that some batteries weren't wired properly, so the reported SOC/miles were inaccurate, but my local Service Center stated that my car built in July 2018 was not part of it.

Now, I found out that another fellow M3P got a solid solution laid out here on Reddit. It basically requires a visit to a service center and for a Tesla technician to do a CAC reset and owner not let SOC dip below 20% SOC for calibration according to internal notes: Perform CAC reset as per article# Toolbox

Note that there's no public access to that article. Hope this helps many of us to get to the bottom of the range loss over time that might not be battery degradation.

So my car is in for service right now for a couple other issues but I had them check the battery since my charge at 100% is now down to 284 miles. They told me there is nothing wrong with the HV pack and there is no degradation -- just ignore the miles and switch to %. I was understandably frustrated with this response and brought up the Reddit article above. Waiting to hear back now.

 

[aus1ander]

I am convinced that in most instances this is a software issue with the BMS and not a hardware issue with the HV battery -- with the exception of people with the recalled HV batteries.

 

[alloverx]

Well perhaps they should fix the BMS to avoid this customer impacting issue, or if they cant fix it say why?

 

[birjman]

I charged to 100% for the first time in a few months this morning and capped out at 295 (LR RWD) so that's a 9.2% degradation over 9000 miles.

I'll be doing a couple long stretches with supercharging over the next few days, if stalls aren't busy I'll try to go 20/30->100% a few times and see if I notice any changes.

Points of possible interest -- my lifetime efficiency is 246 Wh/mi but my last 4-5 months are probably closer to 280 with hot FL weather. Don't use cabin overheat but do use sentry mode everywhere except home.

 

[Rob144]

Hey Guys,
So my last thread must have been deleted for some reason, unsure why but here is the run down of what happened for me.

Around 3 weeks ago I realized at 90% charge I was only getting a range of 263 Miles - I thought this was odd and defiantly lower than everyone I had spoken to that had RWD cars. I reached out to several P3D owners and surprisingly more than 40% of them had a similar issue.

At first I assumed the battery just needed a re-balancing / calibration ect. So I dropped the battery to 5% and then supercharged it to 100%. Range was still only 292 miles. At this point I was getting a bit worried over 5% battery degradation in the first month seemed really high performance car or not. I called Tesla service and set up a remote diagnostic check. (this was last wednesday)

They monitored the battery until Yesterday and just got a call back today. Faulty cell - the pack has to be replaced.

Just a FYI - If you think something might be wrong get it checked. Numerous people kept barking at me stating that the car shows an adjusted range based on driving habits - I knew this was false and went directly to Tesla. I can still drive the car until the new pack comes in which is good..

anyway. TLR 292 miles full charge after 40 days - Bad Cell - Getting a new Pack

Ok I was thinking I was crazy. My M3 is getting no where near the miles it says I’m supposed to get. Thx for the tip. Just the other day I lost 50 miles of range on a 130 mike trip Now I did hit it hard on the first leg but on way back I nursed it and still lost about 30 miles of range. I’ll have to get it checked out. Was beginning to think Tesla was over exaggerating the range the same way traditional car mfr overestimated MPG.

 

[hoang51]

Ok I was thinking I was crazy. My M3 is getting no where near the miles it says I’m supposed to get. Thx for the tip. Just the other day I lost 50 miles of range on a 130 mike trip Now I did hit it hard on the first leg but on way back I nursed it and still lost about 30 miles of range. I’ll have to get it checked out. Was beginning to think Tesla was over exaggerating the range the same way traditional car mfr overestimated MPG.

I don't think you're going to win with this argument that Tesla exaggerated the claimed EPA miles. Unless you're driving exactly like how the EPA miles were derived, you're not going to get the rated EPA miles. I know this because my foot is too happy to achieve that 3.x seconds acceleration fun almost daily. But if I drive the car like a grandpa like almost everybody else on the road, it'll definitely get closer to the EPA rated miles.

 

[hoang51]

...
So now few weeks later the extra range is holding so to me this indicates less of an actual battery problem more of a calibration balance matter. I have heard a few others have this supercharger to 100% balance and say it can take a few hours to finish but when it does they have gained several more miles. It kinda seems logical that DC to DC would be more direct and possibly balance better.

I've exclusively Supercharged for the life of my M3P. I haven't set 100% charging limit yet, but I'm at 90% limit nowadays and see 266 miles consistently for the past few Supercharges. No way I'm going to change it to 100% limit if I'm not road tripping to just satisfy a test of trying to reset the range issue. It would do more harm than good to the battery.

 

[hoang51]

So my car is in for service right now for a couple other issues but I had them check the battery since my charge at 100% is now down to 284 miles. They told me there is nothing wrong with the HV pack and there is no degradation -- just ignore the miles and switch to %. I was understandably frustrated with this response and brought up the Reddit article above. Waiting to hear back now.

Hopefully they will just do the reset for you instead of giving you the standard response. Make sure you definitely get the reset, because it's a win win situation. You can tell them if it works, the service center now has a valid solution to address this issue instead of giving others a run around response. I know I'd highlight the positives to urge them to do it rather than to give them hell for it.

 

[alloverx]

I've exclusively Supercharged for the life of my M3P. I haven't set 100% charging limit yet, but I'm at 90% limit nowadays and see 266 miles consistently for the past few Supercharges. No way I'm going to change it to 100% limit if I'm not road tripping to just satisfy a test of trying to reset the range issue. It would do more harm than good to the battery.

I think supercharging the battery for every charge would already be (slightly) damaging the battery. Be interesting to see if the BMS eventually throttles your charging rate seeing its counting the number of fast charging sessions. Presumably the limit is higher than the MS and MX due to superior M3 cooling.