Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

Model Y excessive battery drain

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
This is a common concern by owners that check miles achieved vs. miles estimated.

Usually find the they have something turned on like security cameras, automated interior cooling, or are not realizing your car uses some juice just sitting in the garage. They don't realize it uses additional juice when cooling or heating a car multiple times with short trips between.

All sorts of thing effect battery efficiency.

If you really want to "test" your consumption, take one longish trip with reasonable speeds (55) and use cruise control as much as possible. This is the condition that EPA ratings are calculated.

Doing lots of short trips, and adding up all the miles used will most always result in more juice being used than the gauge indicates.

After a while, new owners quit obsessing about these thinga and learn to just enjoy the ride.

Uncle Paul,
I would be ecstatic if I were averaging 300 Wh/mi. (My avg is 379 according to Tesla). I can't enjoy the ride when I'm charging up after only 130 actual miles when I should be getting at least 225 at a minimum.
I don't lose much mileage when the car sits in the garage overnight, maybe 2 miles, usually just 1 mile ticks off. Battery gauge drops like a rock once I start driving. It doesn't matter if it's a short trip or longer trip. Averages about the same of me getting about 52% of the battery's range, which, IMO, is unacceptable.
 
Here's a snapshot of my last 13 miles drive using the 15 mile range energy graph.
Trip was 6.5 miles one way (13 round trip) with abot 3.5 of it on a highway never exceeding 60 mph. A/C set to 72 with fan speed on 5
Regen on standard All other functions such as sentry and overheat turned off.
Started w/ 143 on the battery gauge and ended w/ 122 miles on the battery read out. Lost 21 miles on the battery for a 13 mile trip, which is a little better than what I was averaging. I did sit in traffic with about 2 miles left on the trip. View attachment 584489 .
Can anyone help me and determine what it going on here?
The entire trip I'm well above the ideal Wh/mi of 260.

Your Wh/mi of 448 is insanely high. If your driving style isn't crazy, I do wonder/worry if something in your car is not right. Maybe something is on that is consuming a lot of energy? Maybe something is faulty and abnormally using higher than normal energy? Maybe regen braking is faulty and it isn't regenning for you?

I dunno, but it seems like you're onto something. Overall, the Wh/mi on that screenshot is def above avg.
 
You really need regen on standard . why did you set it to low?

I don't really like how the vehicle drives when on standard regen, but will do it if it helps with the range. I just did a 13 mile trip w/ regen on standard and no change to the efficiency.
Battery consumption is still too excessive even for driving with regen on low. I don't think I should be losing 48% of the battery's range b/c the regen is set on low.
Do you?
 
Your Wh/mi of 448 is insanely high. If your driving style isn't crazy, I do wonder/worry if something in your car is not right. Maybe something is on that is consuming a lot of energy? Maybe something is faulty and abnormally using higher than normal energy? Maybe regen braking is faulty and it isn't regenning for you?

I dunno, but it seems like you're onto something. Overall, the Wh/mi on that screenshot is def above avg.

drx10,
Thanks for the help. My appt w/ the Tesla service center can't come quick enough for me. I'm stressing out about it. A +$50k vehicle should not be giving me stress. I should be enjoying it Right now I feel my Y is a POS and I got ripped off and Tesla doesn't seem to care much. They're telling me my vehicle is "operating without fault".
If the service center tells me everything is fine, I'm getting rid of the vehicle.
 
Your wh/mi is very high for 65 mph average. mine is 274 - 300 and that’s at 70 mph, those Uber wheels are very heavy at 68 Lbs each but once you start rolling that shouldn’t be an issue unless you have lots of up hills in your commute.

The next time you go for a ride and park, lightly touch your Rotors, they should be cool to the touch. If they are hot then the brake pads are dragging against it. There hasn’t been any issues with the caliper glide pins getting stuck but with a wh/mi of what you posted 379 that’s a concern.

Next long 20 mile trip set your regen to low. This will allow the ride to roll and not cause you to step on it to get it moving hard again. 68 Lbs per wheel takes A lot more force to get the car moving.

One last thing you can do to prevent jack rabbit starts and to lessen Voltage lag is to set it to Chill mode. This will reduce the initial stress on the battery when starting to move also.

Hope that helps, to us 379 wh/mi is going pretty fast, if you’re saying you are keeping it at 65 and not punching it, then there has to be something else going on.

Fred
 
Last edited:
I don't really like how the vehicle drives when on standard regen, but will do it if it helps with the range. I just did a 13 mile trip w/ regen on standard and no change to the efficiency.
Battery consumption is still too excessive even for driving with regen on low. I don't think I should be losing 48% of the battery's range b/c the regen is set on low.
Do you?

No, I don't, but I also don't think there is single cause here .. probably just an accumulation of smaller causes, including regen. Force yourself to drive with standard regen for 3-4 days, you will get used it quickly, and it does make a difference, though as you note its not massive (it also makes one-pedal driving a reality, which is super-nice once you get used to it).
 
Make sure you are measuring a round trip. The weather was nice today, so i didn't need the AC, and there was some traffic that helped with the wind resistance and dropped my speed some. Going to work is downhill, so I only used 176 Wh/mi. By the time I got back home, it was at 209 Wh/mi.

Going to downhill to work.
20200904_082917.jpg


Round trip. (Took the back roads home, so my round trip was a little better than my normal highway 230 Wh/mi.)
20200904_182135.jpg


If all my driving was a nice smooth good weather commute (Covid traffic is still light), I'd have a 74000/209=350 mile range. My lifetime average, which includes the heavy-footed honeymoon period, is 247 Wh/mi. This is a 74000/247=300 mile range, and is slowly improving.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: MorrisonHiker
Here's a snapshot of my last 13 miles drive using the 15 mile range energy graph.
Trip was 6.5 miles one way (13 round trip) with abot 3.5 of it on a highway never exceeding 60 mph. A/C set to 72 with fan speed on 5
Regen on standard All other functions such as sentry and overheat turned off.
Started w/ 143 on the battery gauge and ended w/ 122 miles on the battery read out. Lost 21 miles on the battery for a 13 mile trip, which is a little better than what I was averaging. I did sit in traffic with about 2 miles left on the trip. View attachment 584489 .
Can anyone help me and determine what it going on here?
The entire trip I'm well above the ideal Wh/mi of 260.

What are your tire pressures?
 
I agree with others that your energy consumption wh/mi is unusually high. I just took a long road trip (>4hr) last week, and I got ~280wh/mi at mostly 75mph highway speed. I ran AC at 72F (with outside temp at 85-90F) with tire pressure of 40psi. I have a Model Y LR AWD with 19" Gemini wheels. The difference between standard and low regeneration shouldn't have that much of an impact on energy consumption for your short trips. Something else is going on if it's not your brakes acting up.
 
How often are you using the brakes? If you still use the brakes as you did on an ICE car, that will greatly reduce regen, especially if you don't have it set to Standard regen.

I rarely use the brake pedal unless it is for an urgent stop. 99% of the time, I can just take my foot off the accelerator.
 
I have been tracking my odometer mileage vs. what the range on the battery gauge displays for the past 2 full charges.
I have set the battery to stop charging at 80% as recommended. This gives me 256mi based on the battery gauge..
I traveled 99mi based on the odometer reading, yet the battery gauge shows just 69mi left, meaning based on the battery gauge, I traveled 187mi. Under 2k total miles on the vehicle.
A/C is turned off and fan set to "1" after each use, sentry turned off and overheat set to off. My travel of 99 miles is from several short trips w/ none more than 20 miles round trip on roads mainly w/ 25-45mph speed limits- local driving only.

Tesla tech did a history check and claims my vehicle is, to use their words, "operating without fault" and says my Wh/mi is 379 and needs to be at 260 Wh/mi for max driving range. Tesla also suggested, I don't charge until 20% is left on the battery gauge.
I don't drive aggressively and usually keep to the speed limit -maybe 5mph over. I don't think I've gone more than 65mph on my limited travel on a highway. No hills as I live in flat FL. I drive with the a/c set to 72 and turn it on every time I get in. Car is garaged and out of the sun. The foul stinky socks smell each time I start the a/c is a whole different issue.

Has anyone else had this much battery drain? If so, how was is corrected? How did Tesla handle the issue?
Right now, Tesla is saying nothing is wrong with the vehicle, Based on the numbers, I say they're wrong, but don't know where to go to complain and/or get it corrected.
Sorry for the long post- just extremely frustrated with the vehicle's performance and Tesla's (lack of) response
Any help and suggestions is greatly appreciated
I am having exactly the same problem with my Model Y 2021. The battery is functioning at about 50 percent. This problem just started - I have only 11,000 miles on my car.
 
I am having exactly the same problem with my Model Y 2021. The battery is functioning at about 50 percent. This problem just started - I have only 11,000 miles on my car.
What did Tesla say? Do you own the "Performance" edition or "long-range"? If you own the Performance, I found that you need to have the vehicle in "chill" mode. Even in chill mode, battery range is far short.
 
What did Tesla say? Do you own the "Performance" edition or "long-range"? If you own the Performance, I found that you need to have the vehicle in "chill" mode. Even in chill mode, battery range is far short.
First thing change from miles to percent charge if you haven't already. And have you tracked range on any longer trips? Say 100 to 200 miles on one charge?