Hi everyone,
I’m new to the group and picked up my ModelY last week. Aside from turning off Sentry model and summon what else can I do to increase efficient?
Also, I don’t have a Chademo adapter and am experience some stress when going to non-Tesla chargers. I’ve heard this port will be phased out and that Tesla will be offering CCS adapters. Any advice?
OK. My one and only claim to fame (other than getting the new Model Y this last Monday, who-hoo!) is that I've been driving a 2018 M3 over the landscape for some 36,000 miles or so. So, I've got "comments" about efficiency.
First off: It's possible to do hypermiling on a Tesla. There are people who do that for a hobby. Don't like the bog-standard 273 W-hr/mile? Turn off everything extraneous (dash cam, overheat protection, Sentry Protection, etc.), don't go up steep hills, or do so slowly, live for downhills, etc., etc. I think I've seen people report sub-200 W-hr/mile numbers - but, frankly, why bother with all this? Unless, like I said, it's a hobby. Best estimates: You lose somewhere south of 5 miles of charge per day when all the $RANDOM stuff is turned on, more if you keep on checking to see if the car is there with the app. And, if the charge gets too low, the car itself will turn off all that stuff.
Second: While it is possible to find places in the US that, when driving from point A to point B, Range Anxiety might be a Thing. But, by and large, those days have come and gone. Tesla has been busy putting up Superchargers across the landscape. Yes, I live on the East Coast. Within ten miles of where I'm sitting, there's three Supercharger stations (blame the I-95 corridor), and that's Not Normal. But, still, SC's are every hundred miles (or less) or so apart on the Interstates. Conclusion: You're not going to run out of electricity unless you really, really work at it.
Third: The EPA and their mileage numbers.. While the EU's W-hr/km numbers are highly suspect (at one point, they
allowed automakers to tape over door handles and door jambs to improve mileage numbers), the EPA's have been pretty much spot-on, gasoline, diesel, or electric. When chugging up and down I-95 during the non-cold months on an M3, the spouse and I pretty much get what the EPA called for.
Now, what can wreck the EPA numbers: The obvious. Playing jackrabbit will do it. Going over 70 will do it. Doing nothing but going
up mountains will do it, but, with a BEV, going down is actually better.
As it happens, I'm a practicing engineer. I like numbers. I like to predict what hardware will do. I fooled with ABRP a bit; it does what it says on the label. But: The general big idea behind ABRP is that when one gets to one's destination, one has a certain amount of charge in the car. The Tesla's NAV program will get one to one's destination, but it's perfectly happy to deliver one there with 10%-15% charge; not enough to go shopping, really. This tends to be more important when one is going to a place sans Superchargers or overnight parking sans charging options. But that's it; both ABRP and the NAV will minimize the time spent charging. And, with eyeballs, just like with a gas car, if one sees that one's not going to have much charge when one gets to where one's going, it doesn't take too many brain cells to figure that a Little More Time at the last Supercharger station might be in order. So, do I use ABRP? Not really.
Now.. Having a car that out-performs a '76 Mustang (and much more quietly) and never flooring it.. that sounds painful. Even if it does wreck the efficiency.
The conclusion: Don't Worry, Be Happy. And Just Drive the Damn Car
