Model 3 Performance - Q2/3 2022 LG battery, significantly reduced power at upper end

[blower]

Since I ordered (and now received) my M3P I have been concerned about the switch from the Panasonic 82Kwh 3C batteries that have been used in the M3P up until Q2 2022, to the LG 5C 79Kwh battery. I have researched a fair bit about this newer LG battery and know it is capable of less power output due to higher internal resistance.

Having got my M3P i'm more than impressed by the 0-60 performance, which is fantastic.....however I am less impressed at the performance at higher speeds, especially as you go above 80mph where the torque seems to fall off quite dramatically. Now I knew this was the case with all Model 3's however it seemed noticeably worse than what I felt when I drove a 2021 M3P.

Today i performed some high speed pulls with a dragy, on a perfectly flat road in dry conditions - and measured the 100-200kmh (62-124mph) time....and even though it's pretty quick it is a LOT down on what the previous 2021 M3P can do, and even worse is that it's slower than a LR model that was made in the US or some EU models that had the Pan battery (or a capped 75Kwh version of it), and that's even without acceleration boost.

This is my best 100-200km/h time, with 85% SOC, fully warmed up battery, 12c ambient (I did 5 runs and they were all around 11.2s)

Now 2021 / Q1 2022 M3P's and even LR models with the pan battery (some EU bound models and all US models) produce times sub 10 seconds on the 100-200km/h :

That was from the video below of a Q1 2022 M3P - the last to use the 82 kWh Pan battery. This is an EU MIC model, not US (although same battery)...1.4 seconds faster than what my LG based M3 can do!

Car was stock with 20" uberturbines (although all season tyres)

What's even more crazy is that at 40% SOC the Pan based models look to be pulling better times than an LG at any SOC:

The guys over the German TTF forum have also found the Pan model easily pulls away from the LG model, at speed:

Model 3 Performance 2022 - Panasonic vs. LG

Dieser erste Beitrag wird stetig um neue Daten und Erkenntnisse erweitert. Hintergrund Das Model 3 Performance 2022 wurde beim Wechsel von Quartal 1 auf Quartal 2 signifikant verändert! Der in Q4/2020 eingeführte Panasonic 3L 82kWh NCA Akku wurde durch den in Q4/2021 eingeführten LG Chem...

tff-forum.de

(use google translate to read this thread, but the pics further down show it pulling away)

The 0-60mph is pretty much the same, I can pull 3.3s (3.1s with 1 ft rollout) just as specified and pretty much the same as a pan model (although they do it at anything above 70% SOC where the LG needs 85-90% to pull a 3.3s 0-60).

In short, the LG based model 3's are noticeably down on power at the higher speeds, the power difference starts pretty much as you get to 70mph and increases further the faster you go.

I love the car but it is a bit of a kick in the teeth that they are down so much on power at the upper end - not so much a problem for normal public road (legal) driving but on the track you will feel and notice that for sure.

 

[M3-Ita]

I will follow this discussion as I collect my MP3 tomorrow (LG)
I currently have an MP3 Feb 2021 (Panasonic)
I'm very curious . . . I made the switch because Tesla's offer (for the 2021 car with 30,000 km) was fantastic (higher than what I had paid for the car in 2021)

 

[blower]

I've improved my 100-200 time somewhat - my tyre pressure was 38psi (cold pressure) so upped it back up to 43psi. This reduced the rolling resistance / drag so i managed to get a 10.9s on the 100-200.

I also tried preheating the battery prior to my runs but this made no real difference as I was confident the battery was already warm enough with the high speed driving and long regen's I did prior to the test runs.

Overall i'd say that the LG vs Panasonic results in the LG being about 1 second slower on the 100-200km/h
The 0-60 is 0.1s slower (3.3 vs 3.2) and the 1/4 mile is about 0.2s slower (11.7 vs 11.5)

This will be with both batteries fully warmed up and SOC @ ~90%....i.e best case scenario conditions that you rarely see on any videos such as Carwow (they really are terrible with EV setup on their tests). At lower battery temperatures the performance gap between the 2 should be smaller.

 

[greg249]

I've improved my 100-200 time somewhat - my tyre pressure was 38psi (cold pressure) so upped it back up to 43psi. This reduced the rolling resistance / drag so i managed to get a 10.9s on the 100-200.

I also tried preheating the battery prior to my runs but this made no real difference as I was confident the battery was already warm enough with the high speed driving and long regen's I did prior to the test runs.

Overall i'd say that the LG vs Panasonic results in the LG being about 1 second slower on the 100-200km/h
The 0-60 is 0.1s slower (3.3 vs 3.2) and the 1/4 mile is about 0.2s slower (11.7 vs 11.5)

This will be with both batteries fully warmed up and SOC @ ~90%....i.e best case scenario conditions that you rarely see on any videos such as Carwow (they really are terrible with EV setup on their tests). At lower battery temperatures the performance gap between the 2 should be smaller.

Do you know what the 0-60 time is at say 50% SOC for the LG battery. How much of a time difference are we talking compared to 3.3 seconds at 90% SOC

 

[blower]

Do you know what the 0-60 time is at say 50% SOC for the LG battery. How much of a time difference are we talking compared to 3.3 seconds at 90% SOC

Got some more results:

70% SOC
0-60: 3.4s

60% SOC
0-60: 3.45s
1/4 mile: 11.9s

50% SOC
0-60: 3.5s
1/4 Mile: 12.0s

So it's dropping off but not by huge amounts....I expect the 100-200km/h is dropping by more though.

 

[PITA]

I've got a September 2021 Model 3 Performance (uk spec, made in China) and it feels quick.

But can anyone tell me what size battery and manufacturer type it is?

 

[blower]

I've got a September 2021 Model 3 Performance (uk spec, made in China) and it feels quick.

But can anyone tell me what size battery and manufacturer type it is?

It will have the 82 kWh Panasonic.

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

It will have the 82 kWh Panasonic.

Have you pulled the build codes to check? The 82kwh batteries didn’t make it to the UK in the LR like they did in most of Europe, I wonder if it was the same for the P? I could easily be wrong, but a number of people have assumed the pack had been upgraded because they see it on videos from other countries. Richard Symons looked a bit of an idiot when he compared two LR cars and declared the new battery offered no additional range only to be told the two cars had the same battery.

That said, the carwow video had a drag race of LR v P and the LR pulled harder at speed, the LR could have had the pano battery and the P the LG..

 

[MrT3]

The 82kwh batteries didn’t make it to the UK in the LR like they did in most of Europe, I wonder if it was the same for the P?

All the 2021 M3Ps in the UK were 82 kWh Panasonic batteries, and all Q1 2022 I believe.

 

[blower]

Have you pulled the build codes to check? The 82kwh batteries didn’t make it to the UK in the LR like they did in most of Europe, I wonder if it was the same for the P?

The performance Model 3 has always been Panasonic, worldwide, right from the very start....in 2021 and Q1 2022 it was the 82 kWh - Q2 onwards EU models are LG 79 kWh and US still have the 82 kWh Panasonic....

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

The performance Model 3 has always been Panasonic, worldwide, right from the very start....in 2021 and Q1 2022 it was the 82 kWh - Q2 onwards EU models are LG 79 kWh and US still have the 82 kWh Panasonic....

View attachment 860505

I've seen that chart before and it's been wrong in the past, which probably explaines why it's now so busy for the LR in 2021. The change over of batteries was pretty confusing, but fair enough, the P model did seem to stick with the BT42/E3LD battery until it became the BT43/E5LD

 

[blower]

I've seen that chart before and it's been wrong in the past, which probably explaines why it's now so busy for the LR in 2021. The change over of batteries was pretty confusing, but fair enough, the P model did seem to stick with the BT42/E3LD battery until it became the BT43/E5LD

Yeah the chart does get updated now and then over on tff-forum.de
The info on the LR was confusing for 2021 - seems Tesla were shoving in whatever battery they had available due to the worldwide shortages.

The best is the Panasonic 75 kWh - which doesn't actually exist. Tesla capped the output the 3C 78 kWh to 75, just so it didn't have better capacity than the LG 5C 75 kWh they were supposed to be using.

 

[PITA]

The performance Model 3 has always been Panasonic, worldwide, right from the very start....in 2021 and Q1 2022 it was the 82 kWh - Q2 onwards EU models are LG 79 kWh and US still have the 82 kWh Panasonic....

View attachment 860505

OK great, so I might just have got lucky with the 'Goldilocks' car...

82 kWh battery, heat pump, matrix headlights, Universal Mobile Charger, 1 year Premium Connectivity free

 

[blower]

OK great, so I might just have got lucky with the 'Goldilocks' car...

The real goldilocks are the Q1 2022 M3P's.....they got the AMD Ryzen MCU3 and the newer hairpin 3D6 rear motor as well as the Pan 82 battery. The hairpin motors have a bit more power at the upper end so when combined with the Pan battery that can actually deliver the power, they are the fastest Model 3's out there.

 

[PITA]

The real goldilocks are the Q1 2022 M3P's.....they got the AMD Ryzen MCU3 and the newer hairpin 3D6 rear motor as well as the Pan 82 battery. The hairpin motors have a bit more power at the upper end so when combined with the Pan battery that can actually deliver the power, they are the fastest Model 3's out there.

I'm not so sure...

I seem to remember reading that the newer AMD Ryzen cars used more battery power, so were less efficient?

Think I'm happy with mine

 

[Jason71]

I'm not so sure...

I seem to remember reading that the newer AMD Ryzen cars used more battery power, so were less efficient?

Think I'm happy with mine

I get the impression that the Op is more interested in speed than efficiency

 

[HaroldK]

Really interesting findings. I read through the thread from the German Tesla forum (linked above) about this a few weeks ago. I saw someone mention there that the LG was a touch faster 0-70 kph (~45 mph), but from there the Panasonic was faster. Is this true? Anyways a bit disappointed that 2022 M3P is slower than 2020, should be other way around but ok..

 

[clerks]

Interesting discussion. I bought a late Q4 2021 M3P and raised some similar questions as the 2021 model was found in several tests to be slower than the 2019 M3P particularly at lower SOC. There were several reports on this and I never did get a satisfactory answer other than to just live with it. Seems like a similar potential issue going on here which would make it 2X worse than the 2019s if true. I have since sold my M3P and lurked here but the performance absolutely and noticeably dropped after about 75 SOC on my 2021. It is less noticeable 0 to 40 but I was pretty disappointed in the fact that it's really only a 3.3 second car for about the first 20 miles from a charge. For those M3P owners who value performance, the best remedy is to keep the SOC high but of course that has it's own drawbacks in terms of degradation. My biggest gripe was the lack of disclosure from Tesla on the issue generally (i.e. performance drops at a lower SOC) or specifically (the new 2021 batteries have faster fall off than a 2019). Sure the folks here were aware of it, but for the average joe this is not something that you would figure out in researching a car. I got roasted pretty hard on the old Tesla forum for complaining about it and less so here. There was a brief controversy about low temperatures causing further performance degradation which was never really sorted out either. Ultimately, I accepted the fact that even at 3.5 or 3.6 seconds, it's still damn fast (for example, still faster than my 2023 RS3) so these are first world problems. Still when you are spending 65k, the details matter. Good luck OP.

 

[Dangerous Fish]

If you really want to get into this in more detail I'd advise you get an ODB conversion cable, dongle and Scanmytesla or similar so you can see exactly what your pack temperature as and what power and torque the motors are putting out.

Pack temperature and SoC are both very important for maximum performance. The Model 3 can take a long time to get the pack to the optimum temperature so you really need to be measuring it rather than just hoping it's warm enough.

 

[blower]

If you really want to get into this in more detail I'd advise you get an ODB conversion cable, dongle and Scanmytesla or similar so you can see exactly what your pack temperature as and what power and torque the motors are putting out.

Pack temperature and SoC are both very important for maximum performance. The Model 3 can take a long time to get the pack to the optimum temperature so you really need to be measuring it rather than just hoping it's warm enough.

Agreed and it is something i'm going to do next year when the temperatures warm up again.

One area where the LG does perform better than the Pan is in colder temperatures. The battery naturally warms up faster (due to higher internal losses), and the different battery chemistry lends it self to better performance at lower temperatures anyway. Also at low SOC (<30%) the power falls off a lot less than the pan.

The panasonic, as described on the TFF forums - is a diva. It is capable of a lot higher peak power under ideal conditions - but this evens out and can even be surpassed by the LG under poor battery conditions (low SOC and low temperature)