Mx100d power usage

[Drkazza]

This is an odd one... so I had a model X 90D for a few months over the summer while I was waiting for my 100D to arrive and I seemed to get 350-450kWh/mi around london, however now I’ve got my 100D AND it’s winter I’m getting more like 600-650

Is this anything to do with the difference between the 100D and the 90D (I suspect not)

Or is it to do with the heating being on (cabin temp only 20deg)

Or is it a dodgy car?


Anyone else with a MX 90 or 100 able to comment


P.s. yes the camouflage tesla on @yiannimize is mine

 

[jb1180]

Driving habits aside, cold temps will certainly increase energy consumption due to battery warming and cabin heating. This is exacerbated by short journeys where frequent heating/cooling cycles take place. Try pre-heating the cabin in the winter months rather than from a cold start and coincide start of journeys with charging completion (if you have home charging).

Wheel size would also make a significant difference, what size wheels were on the 90D and now on the 100D?

 

[Drkazza]

Same wheels (22s)

Hoping someone else can post some real life numbers

 

[WannabeOwner]

it’s winter I’m getting more like 600-650

Not much winter yet - so on that basis 600-650 sounds very very high to me, even if you are flooring it all the way around town!

TBH I'm surprised you were doing 350-450 Wh/mi pootling around town in Summer, although I don't know about MX only MS, and if your journeys are very short that would more likely average out at high Wh/mi (for the journey).

In my MS P90D I get around

320-330 Wh/mi Summer
420-430 Wh/mi Mid-Winter

(Figures from TeslaFi logging, based on whole-month. Car does about 2,000-3,000 mi/month, much of it on dual carriageway, and much of that in rush hour traffic limiting speed to 60-70 MPH)

How are you measuring Wh/mi? Maybe "Total kWh for the month / miles driven is a very different figure to, say, resetting the TRIP and seeing what it is at the end of an average/representative journey?

 

[cezdoc]

MS70 figures, mainly short (5 mile, 20-30 minute) commutes:

July 2016 290 Wh/mi
July 2017 303 Wh/mi

November 2016 468 Wh/mi
November 2017 462 Wh/mi

So up to 60% more in winter (For the record, January was worse!). I'm not surprised the MX is a bit more power hungry as it's a bigger car.

The higher figures in my case are definitely all about the power needed to heat the car from cold. Not only does the cabin draw a lot of power (up to something like 7kW max), it is also heating the battery pack (if you see a dashed orange line indicating limited regen when you start off then the car will be using some power to get the battery up to optimum temperature).

The good news is that it doesn't really affect range on long trips so much - after about 30 minutes the car and battery are warmed up and it needs much less energy to keep it at optimum temperature.

 

[NAALSET]

I am getting similar consumption on MX75D as Op.

 

[DJP31]

The higher figures in my case are definitely all about the power needed to heat the car from cold. Not only does the cabin draw a lot of power (up to something like 7kW max), it is also heating the battery pack (if you see a dashed orange line indicating limited regen when you start off then the car will be using some power to get the battery up to optimum temperature).

Presumably much like an ICE car the performance is also not at its optimum when the car is “cold” as indicated by the limited regen line?

I haven’t seen any on my car yet (Surrey and haven’t seen a winter with the car yet) but doesn’t the power meter also have dotted lines sometimes? Or maybe that only when it’s too hot and the battery needs to cool a bit?

 

[WannabeOwner]

Surrey and haven’t seen a winter with the car yet

Surprised you are not seeing dotted orange "reduced regen" line in mornings now?

 

[cezdoc]

Presumably much like an ICE car the performance is also not at its optimum when the car is “cold” as indicated by the limited regen line?

I haven’t seen any on my car yet (Surrey and haven’t seen a winter with the car yet) but doesn’t the power meter also have dotted lines sometimes? Or maybe that only when it’s too hot and the battery needs to cool a bit?

It doesn't have to get _that_ cold before the dotted lines appear on the power meter - maybe below 10 C or so? (bear in mind I'm in Aberdeen & my car is parked outside though!) - that was what I was referring to when I mentioned limited regen in my post above.

Actually I think the max power isn't usually limited: when it's cold the dotted lines are only at the bottom end, not the top end, so unlike an ICE you have full power from the start when cold, it's just stopping that's the problem! I'm no expert but I think it's because the battery is okay to discharge at low temperatures, it's just the charging part that needs a bit of warmth. I believe it won't charge at all below 0 C, and recall an occasion last winter when it took 10 minutes for the car to ramp up to the full 32A home charger current - I assume it was just running a battery heater for that period before normal charging could safely commence.

The other thing the power meter can show is an indication of some power being drawn when the car is stationary - when the car is not moving the meter is usually on zero, but in cold conditions you can sometimes see a small bit of orange (you can see that switching on the cabin heater has a much bigger impact than, say, heated seats, but in cold weather the drain is there even if all heating is off presumably indicating the battery heater is on). As the scale is in kW anything that registers is a fairly significant draw.

 

[DJP31]

Surprised you are not seeing dotted orange "reduced regen" line in mornings now?

Sorry, slightly unclear post, I was referring at that point to the power meter being limited, not the limited regen section. Yes, even if balmy Surrey the orange line is now evident

 

[DJP31]

It doesn't have to get _that_ cold before the dotted lines appear on the power meter - maybe below 10 C or so? (bear in mind I'm in Aberdeen & my car is parked outside though!) - that was what I was referring to when I mentioned limited regen in my post above.

Actually I think the max power isn't usually limited: when it's cold the dotted lines are only at the bottom end, not the top end, so unlike an ICE you have full power from the start when cold, it's just stopping that's the problem! I'm no expert but I think it's because the battery is okay to discharge at low temperatures, it's just the charging part that needs a bit of warmth. I believe it won't charge at all below 0 C, and recall an occasion last winter when it took 10 minutes for the car to ramp up to the full 32A home charger current - I assume it was just running a battery heater for that period before normal charging could safely commence.

The other thing the power meter can show is an indication of some power being drawn when the car is stationary - when the car is not moving the meter is usually on zero, but in cold conditions you can sometimes see a small bit of orange (you can see that switching on the cabin heater has a much bigger impact than, say, heated seats, but in cold weather the drain is there even if all heating is off presumably indicating the battery heater is on). As the scale is in kW anything that registers is a fairly significant draw.

@cezdoc you make a very good point about maximum power but limited stopping ability - not a good combination! I haven't been through a winter with mine yet, last year I was in the period commonly referred to as the Long Wait . I was of course permanently plugged in to anything Tesla related and remember reading posts from horrified owners reporting 1,200 Wh/m on short drives, wing mirrors not opening and windows not dropping. Very interesting about the power meter showing use when stopped and the slow ramping of charging, I'll bear those in mind.

 

[WannabeOwner]

I believe it won't charge at all below 0 C, and recall an occasion last winter when it took 10 minutes for the car to ramp up to the full 32A home charger current

Recommend charging "on arrival" rather than "before departure", in Winter, for that reason. I suppose scheduled charging, during the night, is always going to have to do battery-warming first, followed by charging, during Winter.

In particular try to avoid driving to hotel and then short journey to Supercharger the following morning ... it will be a very slow start to charging if the battery is cold. Of course if the Supercharger is a decent distance from hotel then battery will be warm by the time you get there.

wing mirrors not opening and windows not dropping

Bjørn Nyland has just done a YouTube about that (already cold enough for that effect in Norway); I think he must have felt that he was being misquoted - that Teslas have a fault - so he followed up with a video of his neighbour's Volvo, for sure a car designed for Scandinavia, rather than California , and that had all the same problems, and worse - as 12V battery that became flat because of the cold.

The key difference with Tesla is that you can pre-warm the car from the comfort of your bathtub! or whatever, rather than having to carry a kettle of hot water out to unfreeze the front door windows before opening them. Although that doesn't help with frozen Tesla wing mirrors (Bjørn said he changes the settings on his to "non folding" during the winter).

Apologies if obvious: if you have a regular routine then its worth looking at scheduled pre-conditioning so the car warms up ready for you. I haven;t fully evaluated it as yet, but I've been playing with TeslaFi scheduled events - they allow events based on day of week, time, location (e.g. Home/Work) and whether the car is plugged in or not and so on.

I've set up TeslaFi to warm the car in the morning Mon-Fri, if at home, whether plugged in or not (normally not during the week), and then to warm up if at work AND plugged in (normally the case) shortly before end of the working day.

I probably need to remember to turn that off when on holiday!

 

[DJP31]

I've set up TeslaFi to warm the car in the morning Mon-Fri, if at home, whether plugged in or not (normally not during the week), and then to warm up if at work AND plugged in (normally the case) shortly before end of the working day.

I probably need to remember to turn that off when on holiday!

@WannabeOwner interesting you mention TeslaFi. I’ve posted a question on the Facebook group about that today. I subscribed primarily to double check my uncorking had been successful before I left the SC, and am coming to end of the trial period.

I can’t make my mind up whether it’s worth it for the £5PM plus unknown additional vampire drain. I don’t ‘need’ any of the functionality per se, but the info is quite interesting nonetheless. The scheduling is something I hadn’t considered, and you obviously feel it’s of some value.

 

[WannabeOwner]

I don’t ‘need’ any of the functionality

Hehehe ... "Need" eh?

plus unknown additional vampire drain

I don't think you need to worry too much about that, the TeslaFi guy has worked really hard to get the car to Sleep (but, yeah, you might have to fiddle a bit until you get it how you'd like it to be)

The Scheduling is a recent feature, its my wife's car that leaves early for work and I've been guessing what time she will leave so haven't been entirely successful at getting it to come on in time ... some folk will no doubt have more rigid travel arrangements, but it shows what a First World problem that is ...

I have not yet, once, managed to remember to turn on Climate (from phone APP) when paying the bill in a restaurant ...

My wife has successfully remembered 10 minutes before leaving for work during the Summer when the car is hot and I expect she will remember in the Winter too (she moaned at me that the APP wanted her to log in yesterday and she couldn't remember the password ... so proof that she had tried - and yet another 1st world problem ...)

If TeslaFi would just provide the graphs that TeslaLog has I would drop my SUB to TeslaLog.

TeslaLog provides Vertically aligned graphs of Trip Stats (SoC, MPH, ELevation), Wh/mi, Temperature, Charge state.

You can drag the slider and the little car moves along the route (and the map PANs when necessary) and the marker moves on the Trip Stats graph in Sync too, along with updated text for the data for that point; I think that's pretty neat and definitely answers the question that I have of "Why were the figures so LOW/HIGH at that point and where was I?" ... e.g. "Ah, just EXITING / COMING UP the slip road at that junction". Here's a zoom of the key bit.

Whereas TeslaFi, for the same trip, has this (TeslaFi has mouse-over on the graph for Data Point Values). (Both provide the raw data too)

Overall TeslaFi is the far more refined presentation and interface, and has far more features, but I do like the TeslaLog Trip Graphs.

Oh ... and TeslaLog has GeoTag (or somesuch name). Draw a Polygon around the local Supermarket carpark and it will leave Climate on for 30 minutes whenever parked there. It will show you where you parked in that vicinity recently too ... e.g. if you drop SPROG off at Dance/Music/whatever then you can figure out a suitable Polygon to cover all the side-streets where you are likely to park (TeslaLog "locations" are Polygons, whereas TeslaFi are Circles with configurable centre-point and radius)

Not sure how long the Trial is, but probably not really enough to get a feel for the Calendar display? Whether I can justify the SUB I'm not sure, but I do find it useful for "Where was I on XXX" - I do refer to the Calendar, and then drill-down for individual drives to remind myself what time I arrived / Where I went & When etc. The cash-value [of charging] thing is not something I use, but someone who logs business mileage might find it useful. The Heat Map of journeys over the month is a neat trick ... not sure it's specifically useful though.

I have used TeslaFi to make note of the month-long Wh/mi average in the various Summer vs. Winter months to help with range-planning, and I will probably use it to review battery degradation over time

Here's what a month looks like:

Helpful to know that I drove for 33 hours, 6 minutes and ... 6 picoseconds!

I've marked the locations for Home, Work and my Mistress (clearly another 1st world problem that some folks will have to consider ...)

 

[pdx3181]

You all have any concerns about providing your Tesla log in info in order to get Teslafi to work?

I am admittedly a bit more paranoid than your average bear, but I have concerns about that. I'm probably not as concerned about the site owner as a hack, etc. I don't want all my personal info (loan application, home address, insurance info, etc.) being available on the web.

 

[DJP31]

@WannabeOwner what a reply , and the data is astonishing. If you ever to need to provide an alibi I reckon you'll have it covered .

I've set the schedule thingy to start the HVAC just before its time for me to go home, so it'll be interesting to see if that works. Interestingly it seems to have missed out one very short drive this afternoon from one tagged location to another.

Also interesting to see it's 333 feet of elevation from work to home.

I think I've lured us rather off topic

 

[WannabeOwner]

any concerns about providing your Tesla log in info in order to get Teslafi to work?

If you are technically-inclined you can generate a Token yourself (i.e. using code that only runs on your computer and talks direct to Tesla's servers, and then just PASTE that Token into the TeslaFi form).

If you change your Tesla Password then all the tokens you have issued are invalidated, so maybe that would be enough in the event of a hack? - assuming you know that it has happened. But, yeah, there is some risk.

 

[pdx3181]

If you are technically-inclined you can generate a Token yourself (i.e. using code that only runs on your computer and talks direct to Tesla's servers, and then just PASTE that Token into the TeslaFi form).

If you change your Tesla Password then all the tokens you have issued are invalidated, so maybe that would be enough in the event of a hack? - assuming you know that it has happened. But, yeah, there is some risk.

Thanks. No technical inclination here - at all - regrettably. But thanks for the FYI.

 

[cubbie]

Same wheels (22s)

Hoping someone else can post some real life numbers

Hi I have size 20 wheels and getting anything from 357 to 430 just on short journeys

 

[JonG]

Does giving them a token rather than your email and password help with the security? They still know where your car is and have whats required to drive off in it don't they?