MY Long Range - how is cold weather range?

[brucet999]

A friend in Golden, CO is thinking of buying a M3 or My, but he makes regular trips to the Sand Hills of Nebraska, via North Platte. 317 miles would work in summer for the 225 mile leg to Ogalalla SC, arriving with 29% if he started at 100%. The second leg is 216 miles to FIL's home, with no charging stations along the way, so he might arrive with about 10% if he supercharged to 80% at Ogalalla.

But in winter temperatures below 0ºF, Can he make it at all? Even MY would take a looong time to charge to 100%, especially at sub freezing ambient temp.

 

[MP3Mike]

317 miles would work in summer for the 225 mile leg to Ogalalla SC, arriving with 29% if he started at 100%.

Not if he drives at any normal freeway speeds. (He wouldn't get the rated miles.)

 

[jeremymc7]

I never get published rates even not in winter weather. With the heater on, seat heaters on, radio, driving at higher speeds. Rated miles are a limited conditions.

 

[SSedan]

I know almost nothing about the Y but I do know something about driving a Tesla I cold weather. Own a 2014 S P85 the last 3 winters near Green Bay.

Winter, "efficiency" on your daily commute is horrible due to frequency of cabin heating vs miles travelled. Range on a road trip is hurt but not as badly because you aren't reheating the cabin.
Nav will coach you to slow down and you can reduce heat use if range is becoming a concern, so getting stranded seems unlikely. You can supercharge beyond 80% too, yes it slows but you can do it, and remember to preheat before leaving the supercharger.

Daily driving in cold temps due to my short commute and lack of heated parking I can see spikes of energy use tripling, I can see my spring/fall 275wh/mile go to 520 even though I do so app based preheating which doesn't register. Despite those scary numbers I have no problems with the 183mile stretch be to the next westbound supercharger with a car down to 242@100%.
Y with a heat pump will surely do better.

 

[VikH]

A friend in Golden, CO is thinking of buying a M3 or My, but he makes regular trips to the Sand Hills of Nebraska, via North Platte. 317 miles would work in summer for the 225 mile leg to Ogalalla SC, arriving with 29% if he started at 100%. The second leg is 216 miles to FIL's home, with no charging stations along the way, so he might arrive with about 10% if he supercharged to 80% at Ogalalla.

But in winter temperatures below 0ºF, Can he make it at all? Even MY would take a looong time to charge to 100%, especially at sub freezing ambient temp.

Use A Better Route Planner. Put in worst case scenario with a head wind and low temps.

 

[Rocky_H]

I have a fascination with plotting routes with Teslas to see how they would work. But I find something common on these forums that is frustrating. New owners come asking about, "Can this work?" checking on some nail-biting tight distance when they are intentionally skipping over Superchargers. If it's potentially tight, don't skip them, and take a quick 10-15 minute break to make it easy.

317 miles would work in summer for the 225 mile leg to Ogalalla SC, arriving with 29% if he started at 100%.

I just looked at that route, and you are driving right by the Supercharger in Brush, CO. It's halfway. Just use it.

The second leg is 216 miles to FIL's home, with no charging stations along the way, so he might arrive with about 10% if he supercharged to 80% at Ogalalla.

You never mentioned a specific city, and I see dozens of places listed as "Sand Hills" in Nebraska, so hard to say where this second leg of the route even is. But I noticed you mentioned the term as "charging stations". People new to electric cars are sometimes hung up on that idea that they need a "filling station" for electric vehicles. But these cars can charge from just about any source of AC electricity, which every building has. So the other thing is that in rural areas that generally might not have big cities enough to have "charging stations", that means they frequently have campgrounds and RV parks. (Although, yes, I realize that's more a thing in scenic places with hiking and such, rather than flat Nebraska.) I've charged at RV parks before, so that may be another possibility if you can spare an hour for a lunch stop to add an extra 30-40 miles into your battery along the way.

You can check Plugshare for all kinds of charging options, although it is pretty sparse there. And sites like Allstays.com or RVParky.com show campgrounds that would have electrical hookups.

 

[Pilot1226]

PlugShare is great. And as @Rocky_H suggested, just stop at a supercharger. The new v3’s give you a ton of range in just a few minutes. I think the tester from a Model 3 thread got like an 80% charge in 30 minutes, 50% in 10? 250 kW charging is glorious

 

[TomServo]

And the wild card in these discussions is the impact the new Heat Pump will have on the winter range. Until this fall/winter we really don't know the answer to that question. I guess our good friend Bjørn Nyland will give us an in-depth review.

 

[MP3Mike]

I guess our good friend Bjørn Nyland will give us an in-depth review.

When he can get his hands on a Model Y. (Which Tesla said won't be until after GigaBerlin is completed, unless some company imports a US spec one.)

 

[Puma2020]

Dress warmly, don't turn on the heaters and you are still likely to need to re-charge (and maybe warm up).
Cold air is more dense than warm air so it takes more energy to push through it.
Plus you are likely to have a head/tail wind along the route.
In the summer, I'd go via McCook, NE, just because they have an awesome disc golf course there. Plus some geocaches.


Try planning the route using ABRP. Very usable and it'll give you an idea on what charging might be needed.
For summer, change the settings to use 250wh/mi. In winter use 300 or 350 and get an idea of what might be needed.
A Better Routeplanner

 

[brucet999]

PlugShare is great. And as @Rocky_H suggested, just stop at a supercharger. The new v3’s give you a ton of range in just a few minutes. I think the tester from a Model 3 thread got like an 80% charge in 30 minutes, 50% in 10? 250 kW charging is glorious

No superchargers in NE except I-80 route, so no help on 214 mile leg from Ogalalla to Newport in Sand Hills.

 

[SSedan]

And the wild card in these discussions is the impact the new Heat Pump will have on the winter range. Until this fall/winter we really don't know the answer to that question. I guess our good friend Bjørn Nyland will give us an in-depth review.

Oslo winter temps are comparable to Chicago, lots of us in the USA, heck the destination the OP is talking about has a January low temp about 10f lower than Oslo, granted higher daytime temp.

Norway is kept "warm" by the water, he does great videos but contrary to popular belief isn't pushing the cold limits.

 

[CO_MY]

No superchargers in NE except I-80 route, so no help on 214 mile leg from Ogalalla to Newport in Sand Hills.

There is a supercharger past Ogalalla in Gothenburg, NE which would make it only 156 miles due north to Newport. Also, in O'Neill, NE about 40 miles east of Newport is a highly rated (9.0) Tesla charger on Plug Share. Getting off the highways definitely makes it more of a challenge but this seems like it would work.