Model 3 (Stealth) Performance - 5y ownership, service history + high battery degradation?

[stonelance]

Hi everyone! I haven't posted in a while but I just came up on 5 years of ownership of my M3P- or whatever people are calling them these days (essentially an AWD model + performance\track mode). I thought I would do a little review of what the last 5 years have been. In particular I'm concerned about battery degradation which seems worse than the average I have seen of other owners.

Car: Red Model 3 Performance, without the wheel and tire package, with black interior, Autopilot, FSD
Ordered: 2016 online during the announcement
Delivered: Aug 9th, 2018
Full PPF: ~2018
Location: Primarily in the Seattle area, with occasional road trips to Canada and other parts of WA
Mileage: 28,380
Current rated range at 90% SOC: ~235 miles
Lifetime avg energy efficiency: 312 Wh/mi. During the first several years with stock wheels and tires I was right around 300Wh/mi. After my first tires needed to be replaced I went with winter tires. I also bought separate aftermarket rims+summer tires. The combination of those two seems to be more in the 320-330Wh/mi range.
- Winter: Stock 18" aero rims without the covers + VIKINGCONTACT 7 XL (as of October 2021)
- Summer: Signature 19" SV302S rims + MICHELIN PILOT SPORT 4S (as of March 2021)


More detailed stats from "scan my tesla":

• Nominal full pack: 64.6kWh (full pack when new 77.8kWh) - 17% battery degradation assuming these numbers are right
• DC lifetime charge: 2149 kWh
• AC lifetime charge: 9207 kWh
• Regenerated lifetime charge: 2813 kWh
• Energy use: 8968 kWh
• Stationary energy use: 1513 kWh

(these numbers don't add up so I'm not really sure how Tesla is reporting these)


Service appointments: 6

• Sept 2018:
  • Address Issues from delivery
    • Scratches on the hood
    • Budging rubber seals on rear door (they just put hockey tape over it...)
    • Small paint chips
    • Panel + headlight misalignment
• Jan 2020
  • Address Issues from delivery
    • Provide Dual Motor Performance badge missing from delivery (I debadged the car, so they didn't install them. although they forgot to give me the red underline)
    • Scratches on the chrome trim around the door (replaced)
    • Budging rubber seals on rear door (replaced)
  • Service bulletins
    • Replace charge port pin deadfronts
    • Adjust hood latch
    • Replace battery breathers (Was having very noticeable banging during winter charging and driving)
  • Other
    • Phone As Key very unreliable at times, but service unable to do anything about it. Got better at some point in the future when I bought a new phone, but then an Android system update seem to have made it bad again. It was especially bad near the rear right side of the car (not enough antennae coverage in the car there I'm told)
• June 2020
  • Install HW 3 computer
• Dec 2021
  • Warranty Covered Repair
    • Replaced Inverter - Rear Drive Unit after getting BMS_a035 error
    • Seal trunk lid after water ingress that would slosh around in there
• April 2022
  • Service bulletins
    • Seal Upper Control Arm Ball Joints
  • Warranty Covered Repair
    • Replaced PCS after getting PCS_a019 error during AC charging
• July 2022
  • Insurance covered windshield replacement (rock chip + crack)
• Pending Service Bulletins:
  • Rear harness recall (waiting on parts, for almost a year now...)

At some point I had a service appointment scheduled about the concerning amount of battery degradation i was seeing as my VIN was also close to a window where there were many cars with known battery lifetime issues, but the service team cancelled my appointment. I guess this is becoming more interesting with the recent news about the service team celebrating cancelling these types of appointments.


Other Tesla experiences:
- I ordered 2 wall connectors in Dec 2021 to install and get a tax rebate before the end of the year. I received them promptly, but one of them was very clearly not in the original box, and was dead on arrival. I contacted Tesla support multiple times over the next month or two to get a replacement, but other than someone asking for pictures I never got a response. I ended up having to put a claim in with my credit card company to get the cost refunded, and didn't get a replacement ordered until the end of April. At least in that time the price had dropped substantially, so I ended up saving a bit of money for the wait and hassle.


Summary:
Overall I've been really happy with with the car. Now that it is out of warranty I do worry about the upcoming maintenance a lot more. I have heard of many people having the AC charging issues and it is $2k to fix out of pocket. I'm lucky I noticed my issues just before the warranty period was over. I'd like to think that they have installed improved parts, but I've heard of new M3s with the same issues, so that seems unlikely.

The battery degradation also seems like an issue, although unfortunately at the current rate not one that will be bad enough to hit the 30% loss threshold by the time the warranty is up at 8 years. I'm predicting I will have 29.99999% battery loss when the warranty expires Hopefully it has leveled off and will not get much worse. The low efficiency plus the battery loss means realistically I only have 150-200 miles of range. Fortunately we got our refresh Model X last year, so I generally don't use the Model 3 for road trips any more. I just hope it doesn't end up with the same kind of battery issues, otherwise I might be done with Tesla.

 

[Zoomit]

Unless the BMS is out of calibration, which is a distinct possibiliy, this would be very high degradation over 5 years and only 28k miles. Can you describe your AC charging and storage habits with this car?

• To what SOC was it typically recharged?
• What was a typical depth of discharge (how low was it before recharge)?
• What were typical SOC levels during storage?
• Was it typicall recharged just after being driven or just before being driven?

 

[stonelance]

I've generally always had it set to charge to 90% other than the occasional time i road tripped which I would go up to 100% before leaving. I generally don't plug in every day, but probably every few days. I never let it sit any length of time under 50-60%. I don't use scheduled charging so in general it charges right after I plug in, which is usually right after driving home. I've let the battery discharge down to ~20% range before charging back up to 90% occassionally since i heard that helps calibrate BMS, but it generally hasn't made much difference. I notice some battery capacity lost in the first year or so, it seemed to level off until during the pandemic and i had some free super charging miles so I charged up at a local urban supercharger and it seemed to have another drop in capacity around that same time. I'm not sure if that is just because it happened to calibrate during the super charging, or what.

 

[Big Dog]

I haven an Apr-18 Model 3LR with 29k miles and get 255 mi when charging to 85%.

 

[Shelburne]

As a comparison, my 2020 M3LR has just under 22,000 miles on it. It's range with 18" wheels was rated by Tesla as miles 323 miles, but the larger wheels reduce that range slightly. When I picked it up in 2020, someone at the Tesla service center told me that with the larger wheels I could expect the range to be about 310 miles. I drive conservatively: no rapid acceleration, and rarely go over 70mph. Over the lifetime of the car the Kwh per hour is now listed on the touch screen as 271, and winters here in New England are tough on Kwh. I charge the car maybe twice a week on average and rarely to more than 80%. About once a month I let the SOC go down to around 25% before charging. Recently I charged the car to 90% for a long drive and the range, as shown on the touch screen indicated 287 miles before starting that trip. I'm no expert at all about this but, yeah, to me it looks like your car's battery is underperforming

 

[Zoomit]

I've generally always had it set to charge to 90% other than the occasional time i road tripped which I would go up to 100% before leaving. I generally don't plug in every day, but probably every few days. I never let it sit any length of time under 50-60%. I don't use scheduled charging so in general it charges right after I plug in, which is usually right after driving home. I've let the battery discharge down to ~20% range before charging back up to 90% occassionally since i heard that helps calibrate BMS, but it generally hasn't made much difference. I notice some battery capacity lost in the first year or so, it seemed to level off until during the pandemic and i had some free super charging miles so I charged up at a local urban supercharger and it seemed to have another drop in capacity around that same time. I'm not sure if that is just because it happened to calibrate during the super charging, or what.

It sounds like your car has been stored at high SOC (90%) for a significant portion of the last 5 years. This most certainly increased calendar aging of the battery cells verses if it was stored at a lower SOC. So even though the cyclic-induced degradation might be less, with relatively few cycles and low DoD for it's age, I’m not surprised that the degradation is high.

You stated that you "never let it sit any length of time under 50-60%." For reference, I rarely let my car sit any length of time OVER 60%. I am particularly sensitive to storage SOC since my car stored in a hot environment.

I still suspect you might be able to recover some apparent capacity with a better BMS calibration. The fundamental technique is to let the battery sit for a few hours while asleep (no sentry, no app use, etc.) at low (0-10%) SOC and then charge it to high SOC (100%) and let it rest again. So you drain it down to ~5%, let it sit a few hours so it can measure a stable Open Circuit Voltage on the HV battery, then charge it up to 100% and let it sit for a few hours. Try that again at say 10% and 95% and it provides another set of data for the BMS to predict how the battery voltage corresponds to available energy. The most significant user error I've seen in this forum is not letting the battery adequately rest at both ends of the calibration charge. The BMS needs to measure that stable OCV to have that calibration data.

There are tens of thousands of posts on this forum concerning these topics.

General calibration: BU-603: How to Calibrate a “Smart” Battery
Macbook battery calibration: Feature Explanation: Calibration Mode
One of many long threads: Range Loss Over Time, What Can Be Expected, Efficiency, How to Maintain Battery Health

 

[stonelance]

It sounds like your car has been stored at high SOC (90%) for a significant portion of the last 5 years. This most certainly increased calendar aging of the battery cells verses if it was stored at a lower SOC.

Isn't 90% the recommendation from Tesla?

 

[johnny_cakes]

Isn't 90% the recommendation from Tesla?

Tesla's recommendation is up to 90% for non-LFP batteries, but they allow you to set it to anything between 50% and 90% for daily driving. 90% is fine and it will keep the degradation below 30% during the warranty period but it won't minimize degradation. For that you need to keep your average SoC lower. More info: Range Loss Over Time, What Can Be Expected, Efficiency, How to Maintain Battery Health

Update: with Tesla's latest software update, they now give a warning if you set your limit above 80%.

 

[ucmndd]

Isn't 90% the recommendation from Tesla?

No, nor has it ever been.

 

[johnny_cakes]

No, nor has it ever been.

What about this?

 

[Travis64]

2023 m3p 5k miles already at 302 miles at 100%

 

[johnny_cakes]

2023 m3p 5k miles already at 302 miles at 100%

Originally 315 miles at 100%? If so, then 4% degradation which seems pretty normal in the first year. Should taper off as calendar degradation (the primary form of battery degradation in the first 5 years or so) tapers off with the square root of time.

What do you usually set your charge limit to?

 

[3sr+buyer]

I never let it sit any length of time under 50-60%. I don't use scheduled charging so in general it charges right after I plug in, which is usually right after driving home.

NCA batteries tend to have higher calendar age degradation when they are at greater than about 55% state-of-charge. It looks like your battery has spent almost all of the time at greater than about 55% state of charge, so it is not surprising that your battery is on the high side of degradation.

 

[Travis64]

Originally 315 miles at 100%? If so, then 4% degradation which seems pretty normal in the first year. Should taper off as calendar degradation (the primary form of battery degradation in the first 5 years or so) tapers off with the square root of time.

What do you usually set your charge limit to?

90%
Car is only 6 months old a d i bearly get 200 miles from 90%

 

[stonelance]

NCA batteries tend to have higher calendar age degradation when they are at greater than about 55% state-of-charge. It looks like your battery has spent almost all of the time at greater than about 55% state of charge, so it is not surprising that your battery is on the high side of degradation.

But I can't imagine my charging behavior is that different than most people that would plug in their car regularly, and it seems most people have had much better experience with degradation? There can't be that many people setting their charge limit to 50%

So the question i have then is, should I just stick to 90% and hope the battery degrades enough to hit the warranty replacement, or do I just need to set the charge limit way lower and cross my fingers that i get another 5-10 years out of it?

 

[johnny_cakes]

But I can't imagine my charging behavior is that different than most people that would plug in their car regularly, and it seems most people have had much better experience with degradation? There can't be that many people setting their charge limit to 50%

This poll should give you an idea of what people set their charge limit to. It seems that 80% SoC is most common and only 22% of the people who voted set their charge limit to 60% or less (probably the people who have seen @AAKEE's charts on calendar aging ):

What Percent is Your Tesla Charged to While at Home?

Just curious what others keep their Tesla's charged to at home and why. I assume if you drive your car daily I'm sure it would be a higher percentage like 80 or 90%, depending on the distance you need to drive. But what if you only drive your car say, a few times a week?

teslamotorsclub.com

So the question i have then is, should I just stick to 90% and hope the battery degrades enough to hit the warranty replacement, or do I just need to set the charge limit way lower and cross my fingers that i get another 5-10 years out of it?

If we believe that calendar aging tapers off at the square root of time and you've experienced 17% degradation after 5 years, then with the same charging habits your degradation will be ~ 22% after 8 years. Maybe slightly higher if you factor in cyclic aging as it becomes a larger factor as the battery gets older. Unlikely that you'll get to 30% before the warranty expires though, and even if you did, it's unlikely that you'll get a new battery from Tesla. Tesla just needs to give you a refurbished battery that'll stay below 30% degradation until the warranty expires.

My math for calendar aging if anyone wants to check: sqrt(8) / sqrt(5) * 17% = 22%

 

[johnny_cakes]

90%
Car is only 6 months old a d i bearly get 200 miles from 90%

If you need 90% but you want to adopt the low SoC strategy, you can use scheduled departure to have your charge limit reach 90% shortly before you start your daily commute. That way, your battery's average SoC will be minimized while you still get your full 90%. I'm not saying you need to do this, but it's a strategy that many people in this forum have adopted.

 

[stonelance]

If you need 90% but you want to adopt the low SoC strategy, you can use scheduled departure to have your charge limit reach 90% shortly before you start your daily commute. That way, your battery's average SoC will be minimized while you still get your full 90%. I'm not saying you need to do this, but it's a strategy that many people in this forum have adopted.

Yeah, unfortunately (or rather, fortunately ) I don't have a regular commute. I drove a lot more before the pandemic, so it is true that I probably don't need anything near 90% any more

 

[ucmndd]

So the question i have then is, should I just stick to 90% and hope the battery degrades enough to hit the warranty replacement

I’m not aware of a single case where a Tesla has experienced >30% degradation in 8 years/120k miles (without the battery outright failing). It’s extremely unlikely you’ll hit that threshold.

Tesla picked that number knowing it will basically never happen.

 

[Travis64]

If you need 90% but you want to adopt the low SoC strategy, you can use scheduled departure to have your charge limit reach 90% shortly before you start your daily commute. That way, your battery's average SoC will be minimized while you still get your full 90%. I'm not saying you need to do this, but it's a strategy that many people in this forum have adopted.

I only charge once a week at a free charge pt charger and run it down to about 20%