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Model 3 SR+ LFP Battery Range, Degradation, etc Discussion
- Thread starter Baluchi
- Start date
Hi team …. I am an owner of an Australian SR plus and am achieving some pretty amazing results. A 100% charge indicates 263 miles and actual results of in excess of 309 miles when driven with care….no degradation apparent at all after three months.
Under your charge screen do you see separate limits for daily and trip, or just a single charge limit?
US uses EPA that is a little lower range than WLTP that I think most of the rest of the world use (including UK). While the WLTP test is a little optimistic at times, the test is a little more consistent than the EPA.
I keep going back to this graph (New Tests Prove: LFP Lithium Batteries Live Longer than NMC - OneCharge) and a 1-2% drop in the first several months appears to be normal for LFPs.
I wonder what the lfp SR+ cars that are younger are doing? Would a 4-week old car still be at 253 (age of batteries) or would it have dropped to 249 (temperature)?
Doubt you will ever find out because the 55 kWh LFP pack was a very limited run here in the USA that only sold briefly back in September. Most October cars were NCA. November+ switched to a different 60 kWh pack that starts out at 272-275 miles for most new owners.
I'm still waiting for a 2022 RWD which I assume will have the 60 kWh LFP pack. I've been following this thread in order to learn more about real-world experience with this pack. All my other EVs used NMC cells and saw zero or very little degradation. The highest was my 2017 Bolt EV which was down 3% usable capacity after 3-years and 30K miles. The best was a KIA Niro EV that showed zero loss after 1 year and 10K miles. Sounds like both the NCA and LFP Tesla packs will show much higher degradation after similar use.
Another difference appears to be high self-discharge. Never experienced that before. My battery SOC was always exactly the same or slightly higher after leaving the cars parked for up to 2 weeks. Does the high idle drain on Tesla's continue if you disable all network connectivity, sentry, etc.? Has anyone tested what happens if you disconnect the 12V battery when not using the car for extended periods?
Sentry mode has a huge impact on idle drain. 3rd party apps that ping the car can also prevent it from entering deep sleep and increase drain. But if the car is allowed to go in deep sleep (sentry mode off, climate off, no apps pinging the car), then the idle drain appears to be very minimal. The most I've let mine sit so far is a couple of days, but the loss was less than 1% (i.e. didn't indicate on the display).
Regarding capacity loss, I don't think the reported range when full is necessarily an accurate indication of battery capacity. The reported range reduction could be due to BMS calibration error - and people have reported recovering lost range via allowing the BMS to re-calibrate.
With my Ford Focus Electric, the proper way to measure battery capacity was to charge the battery to full, reset the trip meter, and then blast the heater until the battery was drained. The trip meter would show the total energy consumption which you compared to battery capacity. Given the larger battery of the Model 3 and the fact we have heat pumps, running the heater would be a very slow way to drain down the battery, but the same concept applies - to really know the battery capacity you need to drain the battery and measure what you get out of it.
I don't know about extended periods, but I typically have the same battery percentage after parking for a couple days--or maybe it drops by 1% over that time. I think the idle drains are most likely due to people leaving Sentry on, or maybe constantly checking apps that wake the car out of its sleep mode.
If I were a bettin' man, I'd say that Kia probably just used buffer space to make it appear like the battery wasn't degrading at all. I've heard that's a trick that some car makers use to put owners at ease about capacity loss. In other words, everybody really starts with 105-110% of their stated capacity, and as it degrades the BMS allocates that extra space to keep it at 100% for as long as possible.
For those concerned about "cold" weather efficiency and range, I have some numbers from a mini road trip to report from my 2022 LFP Model 3 delivered Nov 13th, 1140 total miles since new.
This morning I drove from San Jose to Half Moon Bay (84.5 miles round trip, including 65 miles interstate, 15 miles state highway, and about 4 miles local) in moderate to heavy rain, 52-56 deg F temp (I know, not really cold, but hey, that's what we get here). Terrain is rolling hills. Due to road conditions (some flooding) I set the autopilot to 60 mph for the interstate portions. The state highway is quite twisty, 45 mph posted, which is about what I did.
Round trip I saw 220 Wh/mi (19 kWh total usage). I started with 100% battery (273 mile reported range), preconditioned before leaving, and am now at 68% (186 miles remaining, but 242 miles projected based on my last 30 miles average consumption of 170 Wh/mi).
Yes, it is slightly uphill on the way out and downhill return. Averages were 229 Wh/mi for the trip out (57 min) and 211 Wh/mi for the return trip (52 min).
I am very impressed. The car did awesome and it was a fun and relaxing trip in poor conditions. I can't wait to take it on a longer trip! Based on these numbers, I think the 241 Wh/mi that ABRP uses for the 65mph baseline in this car is slightly conservative, which is good.
This morning I drove from San Jose to Half Moon Bay (84.5 miles round trip, including 65 miles interstate, 15 miles state highway, and about 4 miles local) in moderate to heavy rain, 52-56 deg F temp (I know, not really cold, but hey, that's what we get here). Terrain is rolling hills. Due to road conditions (some flooding) I set the autopilot to 60 mph for the interstate portions. The state highway is quite twisty, 45 mph posted, which is about what I did.
Round trip I saw 220 Wh/mi (19 kWh total usage). I started with 100% battery (273 mile reported range), preconditioned before leaving, and am now at 68% (186 miles remaining, but 242 miles projected based on my last 30 miles average consumption of 170 Wh/mi).
Yes, it is slightly uphill on the way out and downhill return. Averages were 229 Wh/mi for the trip out (57 min) and 211 Wh/mi for the return trip (52 min).
I am very impressed. The car did awesome and it was a fun and relaxing trip in poor conditions. I can't wait to take it on a longer trip! Based on these numbers, I think the 241 Wh/mi that ABRP uses for the 65mph baseline in this car is slightly conservative, which is good.
That is definitely true. What you get from the BMS is just an estimate and can't be completely trusted. Owners should not obsess over small reported fluctuations.
I always did my capacity tests on the Bolt and Niro just as you described. Charge to 100%, then drive down to 0% and see how many kWh I could pull out of the pack. Didn't want to risk getting stranded so always finished the last 1% by running heat at maximum in my garage.
You are correct. The KIA does have a large buffer above its rated 64 kWh capacity. No way to know how much of that buffer is being used. All I know is that myself and other owners never experienced any capacity or range loss. Some even after 50K miles on odometer. I think it's a combination of their battery chemistry and use of buffers. Another benefit to their buffers was that full regen was always available even at 100% SOC - up to max 130 kW. The Bolt would not allow regen at 100% SOC but it would quickly return to max 70 kW regen after only a couple minutes on the road. Each car has its pros/cons. Looking forward to getting my Model 3 to see how it compares.
I think you are going to be pleasantly surprised. I never owned a Bolt or a Niro, but I did own a Ford Focus Electric, and I loved it - thought it was an amazing little car. But the Model 3 is lightyears ahead of my little Ford.
Guys wondering if anyone has same issue or am I doing something wrong? Australia. Tesla Model 3 2021 Mid October Built. Shanghai Factory. LFP Battery. Apparently this one comes with a larger 62KW battery. Looking at usage 27KW used and the fact that only 33% of charge left I can conclude that is 27KW is 67% of battery capacity - the usable capacity is 40KW. If I am trusting the numbers, I am lucky to get 300km with a normal mixed driving. As you can see average usage is 133 Wh/km.
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Based on numbers I've seen with my LFP car, the only way you will get stated range, is to drive from full to empty in a single day with minimal (or no) parking. See my post above from earlier today (I have a US car so everything is in miles....they told us we were going metric back in the 1970's but I digress). The 2022 US LFP cars are 272 miles EPA rated, and I would guess use the exact same battery pack as you (most likely 60kWh usable, and a few more kWh for buffer). The 220 kWh/mi I saw over my trip indeed works out to 272 miles for 60kWh.
If you look at your kWh consumed since last charge, then at your % charge remaining, you will notice <kwh used>/(1-<% remaining>) starts out around ~60kWh on the first drive after a charge, but equates to a smaller and smaller number as the car spends more idle time (due to the various idle drains). In your example, the car has consumed ~20kWh while parked to maintain temperatures, operate sentry mode, run 3rd party apps you may have installed, and various other functions, which is about what I see over a few days driving.
Fantastic - thank you so much for the detailed response and great to hear all adds up. Silly me forgot idling usage. Also got the Tessie App (which has lots of detailed data) yesterday and did some driving and charging today. The App shows 60.3 KW usable capacity of the battery.
At -30 highway speed, you'll be lucky to get 200km. I've seen a guy from winnipeg on YouTube got something like 170km.
But what I know. We don't get so low in Montreal and don't have the car yet.
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