Model Y very poor range/efficiency

[Stook02ss]

Hi there,

I took my first trip in my Model Y today (less than 100 miles on the car). It consisted of primarily highway driving at around 75 MPH on very flat ground. I noticed that I seemed to be getting very poor mileage. When left, I had an estimated 280 miles of range..when I got to my destination that was 141 miles away, I had an estimated 35 miles remaining.

I checked the stats on the return trip, and found that over 141 miles, I used 56 KWh with an average of 400 wh/mile. Temperature was around 32 degrees during the drive.

This seems off to me, and was pretty disappointing.

Let me know if you guys have any ideas.

Also, not sure if it’s related, but I got repeated warnings about cameras being blocked/blinded, despite no visible debris/condensation seen.

I know others have said this already, but it's cold weather and speed. My guess is that just going 65 will net you a descent increase in range.

 

[voxel]

Hi there,

I took my first trip in my Model Y today (less than 100 miles on the car). It consisted of primarily highway driving at around 75 MPH on very flat ground. I noticed that I seemed to be getting very poor mileage. When left, I had an estimated 280 miles of range..when I got to my destination that was 141 miles away, I had an estimated 35 miles remaining.

I checked the stats on the return trip, and found that over 141 miles, I used 56 KWh with an average of 400 wh/mile. Temperature was around 32 degrees during the drive.

This seems off to me, and was pretty disappointing.

Let me know if you guys have any ideas.

Also, not sure if it’s related, but I got repeated warnings about cameras being blocked/blinded, despite no visible debris/condensation seen.

I don’t think you are crazy even though you do drive in cold temps.

I owned a demo Y built in Sept. 2021 and just picked up a 2022 Model Y last week. I tracked my drives via TeslaFi in Oct for a month. I am tracking my drives with the new Y now. I’m noticing really terrible efficiencies in some drives that never happened with the fall Y. The weather is only 10F colder (50F) but there are days when it is 70F and I’m seeing low/mid 300 Wh versus mid 200s on my 2021 Y. And my 2021 had 20” inductions which should have WORSE efficiency than the 19” I have now.

I will continue to monitor my stats and plan to drive along the same route as I did in the fall. Temp wise it’s not drastically different and day I got the Y it was 75F like it was during drives in the fall.

 

[Gooseg8]

It's been ~19 hours since the OP posted and there haven't been any replies from them... might be wise to hold off on spending much more time on this until we hear back.

I appreciate all the thought out responses. I drove to Seattle from Spokane today. This involves a pretty substantial mountain pass. I tried to keep the cabin temperature a bit lower..but still maintained the 75ish for speed. I got 373 Wh/mile. It was around 40-45 degrees, and I can’t really speak to the wind.

But it kinda sounds from reading through replies that I had my expectations a hit high for mileage.

 

[Gooseg8]

I don’t think you are crazy even though you do drive in cold temps.

I owned a demo Y built in Sept. 2021 and just picked up a 2022 Model Y last week. I tracked my drives via TeslaFi in Oct for a month. I am tracking my drives with the new Y now. I’m noticing really terrible efficiencies in some drives that never happened with the fall Y. The weather is only 10F colder (50F) but there are days when it is 70F and I’m seeing low/mid 300 Wh versus mid 200s on my 2021 Y. And my 2021 had 20” inductions which should have WORSE efficiency than the 19” I have now.

I will continue to monitor my stats and plan to drive along the same route as I did in the fall. Temp wise it’s not drastically different and day I got the Y it was 75F like it was during drives in the fall.

I don’t think you are crazy even though you do drive in cold temps.

I owned a demo Y built in Sept. 2021 and just picked up a 2022 Model Y last week. I tracked my drives via TeslaFi in Oct for a month. I am tracking my drives with the new Y now. I’m noticing really terrible efficiencies in some drives that never happened with the fall Y. The weather is only 10F colder (50F) but there are days when it is 70F and I’m seeing low/mid 300 Wh versus mid 200s on my 2021 Y. And my 2021 had 20” inductions which should have WORSE efficiency than the 19” I have now.

I will continue to monitor my stats and plan to drive along the same route as I did in the fall. Temp wise it’s not drastically different and day I got the Y it was 75F like it was during drives in the fall.

Yea I am obviously very new to the Tesla game, but the mileage I have been getting seems exceptionally low

 

[Stook02ss]

Yeah, just remember speed is your enemy just as much as the cold.

 

[voxel]

Ok... after few more days the TeslaFi data is looking like my fall 2021 data.

75% highway 25% city driving (65-70mph on highway, and 25-35 on city streets) is 250-ish Wh/mile or about 3.9 mi/kWh.

And the return trip (50% city and 50% highway here):

 

[Gooseg8]

Ok... after few more days the TeslaFi data is looking like my fall 2021 data.

75% highway 25% city driving (65-70mph on highway, and 25-35 on city streets) is 250-ish Wh/mile or about 3.9 mi/kWh.

View attachment 765695

What do you think that was causing it?

 

[voxel]

What do you think that was causing it?

No idea.. maybe the car just need to be charged a few times to be calibrated?

First day I was seeing horrible numbers like 380 and 430 Wh/mile. For trips that took 20 miles should not be 2.6 mi/kWh. The first day I picked up the Y it was 70-75F and beautiful. Perfect day. Even the Tesla SA remarked it was perfect weather at delivery.

 

[Gooseg8]

No idea.. maybe the car just need to be charged a few times to be calibrated?

First day I was seeing horrible numbers like 380 and 430 Wh/mile. For trips that took 20 miles should not be 2.6 mi/kWh. The first day I picked up the Y it was 70-75F and beautiful. Perfect day. Even the Tesla SA remarked it was perfect weather at delivery.

Bizarre.

I drove back from Seattle last night. Still around 425 Wh/Mi. It was like 30 degrees though.

 

[voxel]

Bizarre.

I drove back from Seattle last night. Still around 425 Wh/Mi. It was like 30 degrees though.

EVs are terrible in cold weather. Not unique to the Model Y. I owned a Mach-E and still am on the forums and folks get 50-60% of their range.

At -5C (which is about 30F)

Results at 90 km/h (56 mph):
(386 Wh/mile)

Results at 120 km/h (75 mph)
(515 Wh/mile)

Ford Mustang Mach-E Winter Range Test By Bjorn Nyland

Ford Mustang Mach-E, in its top of the line Long Range, All-Wheel Drive version, was recently range tested by Bjorn Nyland in winter conditions.

insideevs.com

 

[Gooseg8]

EVs are terrible in cold weather. Not unique to the Model Y. I owned a Mach-E and still am on the forums and folks get 50-60% of their range.

At -5C (which is about 30F)

Results at 90 km/h (56 mph):
(386 Wh/mile)

Results at 120 km/h (75 mph)
(515 Wh/mile)

Ford Mustang Mach-E Winter Range Test By Bjorn Nyland

Ford Mustang Mach-E, in its top of the line Long Range, All-Wheel Drive version, was recently range tested by Bjorn Nyland in winter conditions.

insideevs.com

Ahh, I guess that would be pretty close to my experience.

 

[jcanoe]

Bizarre.

I drove back from Seattle last night. Still around 425 Wh/Mi. It was like 30 degrees though.

Higher than expected consumption could be caused by a brake pad that is rubbing against the brake rotor. After you drive hold your hand close to but not touching the brake rotors. If one of the rotors seems to be warm then you may have a stuck brake caliper.

 

[sleepydoc]

Just for reference, the EPA estimated range of the Model Y correlates to right about 250 Wh/mi.

We drove up to our cabin earlier and got about 425-450 Wh/mi. (fairly windy, -9º C)

 

[WindPower]

The other thing I’ve found in the cold weather is phantom power drain: I lose about 4% overnight. I turn off my Tesla app when I get home from work to reduce power drain as much as possible but I’m still losing power when my Y’s sitting in my garage. And last week when I parked for 4 days at the airport, state-of-charge went from 71% to 44% in 4-1/2 days.

 

[sleepydoc]

The other thing I’ve found in the cold weather is phantom power drain: I lose about 4% overnight. I turn off my Tesla app when I get home from work to reduce power drain as much as possible but I’m still losing power when my Y’s sitting in my garage. And last week when I parked for 4 days at the airport, state-of-charge went from 71% to 44% in 4-1/2 days.

That's not normal - do you have sentry mode turned on? You should have 1% (or less) drop per day (see this post)

 

[voxel]

That's not normal - do you have sentry mode turned on? You should have 1% (or less) drop per day (see this post)

Not normal but not unheard of. Spoke to a woman at a SC who said the same thing to me. She left her newish Model 3 at the airport for three days at 60% and when she returned it was dead. Not 12V dead. The main was 0% and I asked about Sentry and she told me she turned that off (she was savvy).

 

[gx9901]

The huge drains over 3~4 days must indication some issues. My car was in the shop for around 45 days in December/January and IIRC it lost about 25% of charge. I don't know for sure but I think the car was outside for a lot of those days. The first day I think the sentry mode was on but after that I only turned it on when I wanted to check the sentry mode video through the app. I think it might have lost 1~2% per day during those days. A week or so into it they put the car in service mode and the drain was noticeably less.

 

[boulder.dude]

Not normal but not unheard of. Spoke to a woman at a SC who said the same thing to me. She left her newish Model 3 at the airport for three days at 60% and when she returned it was dead. Not 12V dead. The main was 0% and I asked about Sentry and she told me she turned that off (she was savvy).

This doesn’t sound like a credible story (20% phantom drain per day). I wouldn’t worry about it.

 

[voxel]

This doesn’t sound like a credible story (20% phantom drain per day). I wouldn’t worry about it.

I don’t know about 0% dead. That may not been the case. She also told me her 12V battery died driving out of Tesla service center parking lot (after a service visit) and they asked her trigger Roadside Assistance. Lol.

Her car has had a few issues.

Talking to folks at SCs is interesting. One guy I met yesterday had two rejected Model Y deliveries because Tampa Tesla damaged both during transport and then on the third Y smashed the bumper and forced him to take delivery or they would cancel his order. His bumper was mostly fixed but you can see where they made the repair. One Model 3 owner was showing his extended family LightShow and he didn’t know about custom shows. I brought out a USB stick with Imperial March on it and we had a little bubble/dance show with his kids in a Wawa parking lot while other cars stopped to watched. Tesla ownership is weird.

 

[DanDi58]

Winter driving requires more energy, perhaps as much as 40% more energy, than driving the rest of the year. There are things you can do to improve your efficiency, other things that are beyond your control.

1) Slow down; lower your cruising speed by 5 MPH for an estimated improvement in range and efficiency of almost 10%. When you lower your cruising speed by 10 MPH then you can expect an improvement of almost 20%.

2) Check your tire pressure (before driving.) Set tire pressure to the recommended pressure or a few pounds higher for best rolling efficiency.

3) Use the seat heaters and the steering wheel heater as the energy used by these cabin accessories is negligible compared with using the climate control for cabin heat.

4) Precondition, preferably while plugged in, before driving. The Tesla app will notify you when the desired cabin temperature has been reached. Fully precondition the Model Y until the passenger cabin has reached your preferred temperature, then a bit longer.

5) Set the climate control to the desired temperature and leave it alone. Use the recirculate cabin air setting but be aware that this may cause the windows to fog up so you may have to periodically turn this setting off to clear the windows.

The following are largely beyond your control:

1) wet or snow covered roads

2) head winds

3) outside air temperature below 32F

4) increases in elevation.

Wish we cold sticky this so we don't see multiple 'why is my range bad?' threads.....!