Model 3 SR+ Mileage at Full Charge

[ftmaybe]

My wife bought an SR+ in Dec 2019. It was delivered with est 250 mile @ 100% range according to the screen, and has since dropped to 246 or so. Not really a big deal, but it did make me wonder about tracking degradation over the years as I didn't pay much attention to our PHEVs and kind of wish I had.

Of course the "miles" doesn't necessarily mean anything, as many have stated in many threads I have read, because consumption can vary significantly between conditions. besides climate control and speed and even fwy vs city factors, I have even seen a 10-15% difference going North vs South due to the grade of the road (I believe).

Comparisons have been made about "ICE gas tank" vs "battery", so if the "gas tank" can get smaller over time then maybe I should get a baseline of the battery capacity.

This last saturday I took the car north on the freeway with the intent to drive it until it was almost out of battery, and get a measure of total energy drawn from the battery. I chose the freeway because it would have almost no stopping, eliminating as much regen from the result as I could manage. I also turned down the regenerative braking just in case. Before I headed out: I reset a trip meter to ensure I could track the kWh used metric. Ultimately I ended the trip at a supercharger @ 6% battery showing 45kwh used. so 45kwh was 94% of the battery.

The problem is (maybe), 45kwh is 94% of 47.87kwh, not 54kwh of alleged capacity (I only get that from the model 3 wiki page. Is that correct? I'm not up to speed on the changes Tesla has made to the model 3 since it was released). I've also seen different numbers thrown around for the "rated" wh/mile is uses for calculating range, it seems like the graph shows 210wh/mile on our car but the "rated line" on the graph isn't exactly easy to read as far as what number it is indicating.

So it could be that the trip meter total energy use isn't 100% accurate? or the car is reserving some battery capacity to go below 0? (I have seen people drive on 0 for awhile in videos). if that's the case, are they reserving 6kwh of power below 0 ? Any other suggestions or comments from people here who know more about this?


I will add that according to the car, 94% of the battery only got me 155 miles @ 288wh/mile. However our driving is almost entirely city and I routinely see 200wh/mile or less which would be a 225 mile range. So yeah, the actual miles can vary wildly.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Before I headed out: I reset a trip meter to ensure I could track the kWh used metric. Ultimately I ended the trip at a supercharger @ 6% battery showing 45kwh used. so 45kwh was 94% of the battery.

The problem is (maybe), 45kwh is 94% of 47.87kwh, not 54kwh of alleged capacity

Factors:
1) 250 rated miles is 52.5kWh for the 2020 SR+
2) 0-100% is 95.5% of the energy
3) The trip meter shows about 98% of the energy used.
4) You used 94% of the energy from 0-100%
5) Your full capacity is reduced by 246/250 => 1.6%

246rmi*(52.5kWh/250rmi) = 51.66kWh

51.66kWh*0.955*0.94*0.98 = 45.48kWh

All makes sense. The rated line on your car should be positioned at 215Wh/mi, corresponding to a charging constant of 210Wh/rmi. No idea why that is.

I tried to make this link pretty definitive; it's basically entirely based off of the numbers Tesla provides to the EPA, with the exception of the adjustments made to standardize the energy available:

2020, 2019, 2018 Model 3 Battery Capacities & Charging Constants

I'll keep updating as new information becomes available.

 

[ftmaybe]

Factors:
1) 250 rated miles is 52.5kWh for the 2020 SR+
2) 0-100% is 95.5% of the energy
3) The trip meter shows about 98% of the energy used.
4) You used 94% of the energy from 0-100%
5) Your full capacity is reduced by 246/250 => 1.6%

Nice, those are numbers I was missing. Thanks

95.5% capacity = 0-100% is a standard constant for the SR+ or teslas in general?

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Nice, those are numbers I was missing. Thanks

95.5% capacity = 0-100% is a standard constant for the SR+ or teslas in general?

Seems to be the standard for Model 3. I think % allocated to the buffer is different for other Tesla vehicles. Note at least part of this 4.5% buffer is used during EPA testing.

 

[Sofos]

That's incorrect. If you had an undegraded battery (you don't) you would get:

52.5kWh*0.955 / 0.201kWh/mi = 249.4 miles (100% to 0%)

For 90% start point to 0%, you would get 225 miles at 201Wh/mi.

Since you're at 226 miles at 100%, your 2019 SR+ has a battery capacity of 226rmi*219Wh/rmi = 49.5kWh

So for 90% to 0% at 201Wh/mi, you would get:

49.5kWh*0.955*0.9/201Wh/mi = 212 miles

After your commute this morning, if you started at 90% (44.8kWh for your specific vehicle), you would now be at:

0.9*226rmi - (201Wh/mi*42.4mi)/(209Wh/rmi) = 162.6 rated miles. (36.2kWh)

Thanks for this.
I'm a little confused on these numbers in bold where they came from.

Also are you saying my capacity is only 49.5 at 100% or 36.2kw/h?

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Also are you saying my capacity is only 49.5 at 100% or 36.2kw/h?

219Wh/rmi is from a new 2019 SR+ having 240 rated miles and a battery capacity of at least 52.5kWh.

52.5kWh/240rmi(EPA) = 219Wh/rmi(EPA) rmi(EPA) are not the same as the rated miles displayed, though you can use the value at 100% to calculate your maximum pack energy.

So, since your 100% charge is 226 rated miles, your full pack capacity is: 226rmi * 219Wh/rmi = 49.5kWh. That is at 100%.

The 36.2kWh is what you will be at when you are at 72% SoC:

SoC = ( 36.2kWh - 0.045*49.5kWh) / (49.5kWh - 0.045*49.5kWh) = (33.97kWh/47.27kWh) = 71.9%

SoC always excludes the buffer of 4.5% of your full capacity from the calculation. It's a representation of what is the % of the energy you have remaining above the buffer.

At 100% you have 49.5kWh available, of which 47.3kWh is allocated to your 0->100% or 0rmi -> 226rmi of energy. (note that 47.3kWh/226rmi = 209Wh/rmi, 4.5% less than 219Wh/rmi(EPA))

At 72% SoC, you have 36.2kWh remaining, of which 34kWh is remaining above 0%/0rmi.

 

[Sofos]

219Wh/rmi is from a new 2019 SR+ having 240 rated miles and a battery capacity of at least 52.5kWh.

52.5kWh/240rmi(EPA) = 219Wh/rmi(EPA) rmi(EPA) are not the same as the rated miles displayed, though you can use the value at 100% to calculate your maximum pack energy.

So, since your 100% charge is 226 rated miles, your full pack capacity is: 226rmi * 219Wh/rmi = 49.5kWh. That is at 100%.

The 36.2kWh is what you will be at when you are at 72% SoC:

SoC = ( 36.2kWh - 0.045*49.5kWh) / (49.5kWh - 0.045*49.5kWh) = (33.97kWh/47.27kWh) = 71.9%

SoC always excludes the buffer of 4.5% of your full capacity from the calculation. It's a representation of what is the % of the energy you have remaining above the buffer.

At 100% you have 49.5kWh available, of which 47.3kWh is allocated to your 0->100% or 0rmi -> 226rmi of energy. (note that 47.3kWh/226rmi = 209Wh/rmi, 4.5% less than 219Wh/rmi(EPA))

At 72% SoC, you have 36.2kWh remaining, of which 34kWh is remaining above 0%/0rmi.

Ok that makes sense, I was under the impression that my 2019 was rated at 250 not 240.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Ok that makes sense, I was under the impression that my 2019 was rated at 250 not 240.

It was definitely rated at 240 rated miles, with a constant of 219Wh/rmi(EPA) (maybe 218.75Wh/rmi ). The 2020 is rated at 250 rated miles, with a constant of ~210Wh/rmi(EPA). (Minimum of 52.5kWh for both vehicles before capacity loss becomes apparent.)

Again, when measuring discharge, since 4.5% of the energy is reserved below 0, for actual displayed rated miles, the values of the constants for discharge are 4.5% less than the above constants. Plus it appears the trip meter might miss about 1-2% (you could only see this from a CAN bus reading, not sure about the exact discrepancy or the reason for it - if the CAN bus knows about it there's really no reason for there to be a discrepancy... - but it is small in any case).

 

[pl8dlikafiddle]

View attachment 510218

December 2019 build date. 394-397km full "rated" range. (246-247 miles)

Jealous.

Based on those numbers, that’s resulting in calculated 51.7 kWh battery capacity.

In comparison, mine shows 48.5 kWh when it’s on the high side of the rounding error.

For the record, I exceed the rated range of 240 mi during my commute when traffic is present. But that’s not the point - some BMS’ are either severely off or there is actual kWh missing from some batteries.

 

[Sofos]

Jealous.

Based on those numbers, that’s resulting in calculated 51.7 kWh battery capacity.

In comparison, mine shows 48.5 kWh when it’s on the high side of the rounding error.

For the record, I exceed the rated range of 240 mi during my commute when traffic is present. But that’s not the point - some BMS’ are either severely off or there is actual kWh missing from some batteries.

Which is why I'm asking if there is a way to reset the range estimator. You should be able to do that.
Btw Im jealous too, I don't know how you get those numbers .

 

[Sofos]

219Wh/rmi is from a new 2019 SR+ having 240 rated miles and a battery capacity of at least 52.5kWh.

52.5kWh/240rmi(EPA) = 219Wh/rmi(EPA) rmi(EPA) are not the same as the rated miles displayed, though you can use the value at 100% to calculate your maximum pack energy.

So, since your 100% charge is 226 rated miles, your full pack capacity is: 226rmi * 219Wh/rmi = 49.5kWh. That is at 100%.

The 36.2kWh is what you will be at when you are at 72% SoC:

SoC = ( 36.2kWh - 0.045*49.5kWh) / (49.5kWh - 0.045*49.5kWh) = (33.97kWh/47.27kWh) = 71.9%

SoC always excludes the buffer of 4.5% of your full capacity from the calculation. It's a representation of what is the % of the energy you have remaining above the buffer.

At 100% you have 49.5kWh available, of which 47.3kWh is allocated to your 0->100% or 0rmi -> 226rmi of energy. (note that 47.3kWh/226rmi = 209Wh/rmi, 4.5% less than 219Wh/rmi(EPA))

At 72% SoC, you have 36.2kWh remaining, of which 34kWh is remaining above 0%/0rmi.

Another question on this.
So if someone sees exactly 240miles they are getting exactly 52.5kwh. Does that mean that at 49.5kwh that I have there is a battery degradation or "missing" about 3kw/h. How come others see these numbers whereas I don't with a good efficiency.Is mine not showing the buffer as you mentioned.

 

[MexiCanuck]

June 2019 SR+ delivery.

Charging pattern: HPWC nighly, typically starting around 25-30%, charging to 80%

Odometer: 28,000 km (17,400 miles)

I have done a <20% to 100% charge five or six times to balance the battery cells.

Current rated range per Telsafi and Stats for Tesla app: 349 km (217 miles)

I’m not thrilled with this level of degradation after six months and 28,000 km.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

So if someone sees exactly 240miles they are getting exactly 52.5kwh. Does that mean that at 49.5kwh that I have there is a battery degradation or "missing" about 3kw/h.

Yes. 240 miles with a 2019 SR+ is 52.5kWh (at least).

How come others see these numbers whereas I don't with a good efficiency

The results have no relationship to how you drive (except in the sense that if you drive really inefficiently you’ll put more cycles on your battery for a given number of miles and wear it out more quickly, I guess).

 

[Sofos]

Yes. 240 miles with a 2019 SR+ is 52.5kWh (at least).



The results have no relationship to how you drive (except in the sense that if you drive really inefficiently you’ll put more cycles on your battery for a given number of miles and wear it out more quickly, I guess).

So with that said if there is a group of us or a "bad" batch that have less kwh battery does it make sense to investigate this? This is weird percentage loss on a new car.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

So with that said if there is a group of us or a "bad" batch that have less kwh battery does it make sense to investigate this? This is weird percentage loss on a new car.

I guess it depends on how you want to spend your time: I think it is unlikely you will get anything out of it, but I’m not trying to discourage you; I’m just a natural pessimist.

Your warranty is for 30% degradation in less than 8 years or 100k miles, whichever comes first. Only then do you get something...

There are plenty of owners with 25 miles of range loss on their LR vehicles. Not that unusual.

Even Tesla says to expect this to happen!

Tesla will say your results are in the normal range - and they will probably not be BSing you. It seems relatively normal.

 

[pl8dlikafiddle]

So with that said if there is a group of us or a "bad" batch that have less kwh battery does it make sense to investigate this? This is weird percentage loss on a new car.

We have no grounds. Warranty is clear at 70%.

I wonder if there was a battery version change...similar to the Model S/X 90 that is seeing great results for the V3 batteries but terrible degradation on the V1 and V2 batteries.

How many of you June-September SR+ folks willing to remove your frunk liner?

 

[Matsayz]

We have no grounds. Warranty is clear at 70%.

I wonder if there was a battery version change...similar to the Model S/X 90 that is seeing great results for the V3 batteries but terrible degradation on the V1 and V2 batteries.

How many of you June-September SR+ folks willing to remove your frunk liner?

View attachment 510548

Link me to the steps on how to remove it and I will try this weekend

 

[pl8dlikafiddle]

Link me to the steps on how to remove it and I will try this weekend

Here’s a video of how to remove the frunk liner. Do this at your own risk.

And the HV battery tag can be seen on the lower portion of the cab wall/firewall through some accessories when putting your head/camera where the arrow is on the photo below. Please watch for the battery coolant tubes - apparently those aren’t replaceable. If the fittings break at the battery, you will need a new battery. Don’t lean on the tubes.

 

[Sofos]

Here is my latest with an actual mileage charged at 90%.
Since last charge shows I got 180 actual miles so far 32kwh with 177 wh/mi efficiency. According to my trip I still got 6% left

 

[Sofos]

Here is my latest with an actual mileage charged at 90%.
Since last charge shows I got 180 actual miles so far 32kwh with 177 wh/mi efficiency. According to my trip I still got 6% left

By the way this should be approximately 215 total at 100% that's a huge loss within a few months.

Another Edit: trying to understand this as it seems I would be at 38kwh at 100%.