New 90D Owner - Range Anxiety & Questions

[Ojas Ray]

Hello,

Just picked up my 90D last thursday, and I am LOVING IT, but I am also extremely concerned about the rated range I am seeing.

I charge my car daily to 90% at home - even before I leave my driveway, it shows me 140ish rated range. Keep in mind, i do park the car outdoors, but i also preheat for about 20-25 mins in the morning, and before leaving work. My commute is about 50 miles round trip - mostly highway. I go about 70-75mph.

Over the weekend, I barely drove the car, and yet the rated range was 120ish... what am i doing wrong here?? I have tried different heating on / off / etc but I have yet to see my rated range say 160 +

The battery on the dash shows me 262 at 90%... but i was told not to go by that...

any help

 

[msnow]

Hello,

Just picked up my 90D last thursday, and I am LOVING IT, but I am also extremely concerned about the rated range I am seeing.

I charge my car daily to 90% at home - even before I leave my driveway, it shows me 140ish rated range. Keep in mind, i do park the car outdoors, but i also preheat for about 20-25 mins in the morning, and before leaving work. My commute is about 50 miles round trip - mostly highway. I go about 70-75mph.

Over the weekend, I barely drove the car, and yet the rated range was 120ish... what am i doing wrong here?? I have tried different heating on / off / etc but I have yet to see my rated range say 160 +

The battery on the dash shows me 262 at 90%... but i was told not to go by that...

any help

Confused. You say it's showing "140ish rated range" but then you say you see 262 rated miles at 90% charge which sounds correct. Where are you seeing the 140 rated mikes after your 90% charge?

 

[number12]

Confused. You say it's showing "140ish rated range" but then you say you see 262 rated miles at 90% charge which sounds correct. Where are you seeing the 140 rated mikes after your 90% charge?

Consumption data vs dash

How cold is it where you are?

 

[Ojas Ray]

Consumption data vs dash

How cold is it where you are?

its been in the 30s - i live in northern NJ

 

[msnow]

its been in the 30s - i live in northern NJ

So you're going from 262 to 140 rated miles before you have driven at all?

 

[Ojas Ray]

So you're going from 262 to 140 rated miles before you have driven at all?

My dash shows me 262 miles --- and the energy graph shows me 142 - even before i do anything...

 

[msnow]

My dash shows me 262 miles --- and the energy graph shows me 142 - even before i do anything...

If you mean the Tesla Energy App then it would show projected range based on a destination you inputed into the Nav under the Trip tab or a projected range based on instant or average consumption based on past driving of 5, 15 or 30 miles.

 

[Brass Guy]

It looks like the OP is referring to the "projected range," probably on the energy app.
If that's the case, cold does kill range; especially early in the drive. If you make short trips in the cold, the range will be very bad.
On longer trips the hit won't be as bad, but if it's below freezing outside you can still expect a good 30% hit or even more.

As an experiment if you want to see the numbers look better, preheat the car toasty, get in, turn off the heat and turn on range mode (which among other things turns off - or at least diminishes - the battery heater) then drive a couple of miles. Use the seat and steering wheel heaters because their energy use is truly minimal. If there's not too much stop and go and your driving "nice," you'll see much better projected range. Don't forget to turn range mode off afterwards - preheating the car heats the battery if the car's plugged in, but I'm pretty sure range mode will inhibit the battery heater then too.

I still use the rated range displayed, but owning the car for over 3 years I have a pretty good idea how my driving and heater use will affect the range. In a way, I guess I see the rated range as a portion of battery use, but since I'm used to it I don't use the percent display option many owners prefer.

 

[TexasEV]

I think the preheating messed up the projected range calculation. All that energy used for no miles driven. Projected range on the energy app is only meaningful when it has data to project from-- the energy you used over the last 5, 15, or 30 miles.

 

[ecarfan]

I charge my car daily to 90% at home - even before I leave my driveway, it shows me 140ish rated range

Please specify exactly where on the center display you see the "140ish rate range" and is that after you enter a destination into the nav but before you start driving, or is that after you start driving and if so at what point in the drive does that number appear; after 1 mile, 5 miles, 10 miles? Thanks.

 

[tnt1971]

I have an 85D for about 9 months now. Recently is the first cold I have experienced. Most of my driving is in the NYC metro area and suburbia, so 75MPH is all but a dream here. I have also taken numerous road trips now.

You need to average 290 wH/mile to get the rated range. That is extremely difficult to do in the cold. On a good day when it is below 40 degrees, I am at about 350. Many times it hovers around 400. Using a simple math trick called division, my real world range based on the 350 to 400 wh/mile is between 179 and 205, at 90% versus the normal 244. Add some preheating and the fact your car is parked outside (search around here for posts on "cold soaked" batteries), and even with your larger battery 144 is not hard to believe.

One trick, on short trips particularly, is to use range mode. That generally gets me into the low 300s, but forget having a toasty cabin.

The projected range is just that, a projection. I have seen the car get 230 wh/mile on a cool summer day with no climate control on. That would put me way over the projection, so the 290 wh/mile is a middle of the road number, in my experience.

Congrats on the car. Good luck and enjoy it. Just realize that it does cost as much as a gasoline car to run in the current environment with the low gas prices and high energy prices (like in NYC at 25 cents a kWh).

 

[Boatguy]

You need to average 290 wH/mile to get the rated range.

My S90D consistently measures 271-275Wh per rated mile. For example.

kWh consumed: 33.5
Odometer miles driven: 113
Change in rated miles = 122 (from observation at start and end of trip)
Wh/mi = 296
Wh/RM = 275

 

[tnt1971]

My S90D consistently measures 271-275Wh per rated mile. For example.

Looks like you are in San Francisco. I can believe that in that weather. Northeast winters are a different animal. Also, if you do any pre-conditioning without the car plugged in, that energy is not calculated in the kWh used and also the vampire drain.

 

[Boatguy]

Looks like you are in San Francisco. I can believe that in that weather. Northeast winters are a different animal. Also, if you do any pre-conditioning without the car plugged in, that energy is not calculated in the kWh used and also the vampire drain.

All correct. I was just suggesting that the loss of RM while driving may be more at a rate of 270-275W/RM rather than 290.