Not getting enough miles

[gnuarm]

Use the energy consumption graph under apps section. It is very instructive and helps you manage energy usage and tells you how you are tracking. The car will start yelling at you if you need to stop to charge. I have an MX (100D) and an M3 and using that graph works for both. I drive to Truckee CA from the Bay Area almost every week in many conditions- it is always one stop charging at Rocklin when heading up and no charge stops heading down with 15-25% left at the end.

Do you charge in Truckee? This is a trip I've heard as the reason why someone won't buy a BEV. He thinks stopping to charge on the way up is ridiculous. I suppose he has to buy gas in Truckee but maybe not since the round trip is only 380 miles. Many cars will go that far on a tank of gas easily.

 

[Yinn]

The concern is not if it is totally accurate, but others are saying it is simply a multiplier for the batter charge to produce the EPA rating miles. That would not adjust for season, so one is right and the other is wrong.




So you are agreeing that none of the mileage data Tesla provides is accurate. That's my point. It is absurd that I have to keep manual track of charge and miles when the car is full of computers. In fact, I can't do my own calculations because I have no info on the terrain and how that impacts the consumption.



I have done the same trip a couple of times and a total of 5000 miles mostly trips. I've seen the 5, 15 and 30 mile averages range all over the place. With the cold weather the heater is another wild card which I haven't been able to calibrate.

I'm not used to doing this sort of computations without tools like spreadsheets and calculator programs. None of that is viable in the car.

You Sir have issues. I’m not quite sure why you keep choosing to ignore the fact that reliable information is available, just not where you’re looking.

First off total range will always vary. I don’t care if you’re using an EV, gas or diesel. Tow with any of them and you won’t get the advertised mileage. Fuel up with a 5% ethanol mix in one state, 10% in another and you won’t get the same advertised data. Decrease your speed and have your transmission kick up into a higher rev range, and your mileage decreases.

Then, let’s not pretend official mpg numbers and real life variances only exist on Tesla’s. There are class action lawsuits all over the place on false mpg claims. Mitsubishi, GM, Ford, Hyundai, Honda, Toyota, etc.

My original purpose was not to bring up any of those. My purpose is to tell you there IS reliable information. Built right into your car. It’s in the center screen under the energy graph and is capable of giving you real-time accurate info. If you’re choosing to ignore that, then that’s your prerogative but more than likely you’re just a troll or trying to build yourself up to bring a class action of your own.

Either way, I enjoy the forums to get info and to help where I can. And whatever your mission is here in this thread is beyond me and clear that I am not helping. Best of luck to you

 

[Rocky_H]

The concern is not if it is totally accurate, but others are saying it is simply a multiplier for the batter charge to produce the EPA rating miles.

Yes, that's true. It is a measure of the kWh of energy stored in the battery and converted by a fixed efficiency constant into a different terminology called "rated miles".

That would not adjust for season, so one is right and the other is wrong.

Yes, it would adjust for season, and it does, because the real amount of energy that actually exists in a lithium ion battery that can be extracted from it gets much less when it is very cold because the chemical reactions that let you get energy from a battery do not work nearly as well when cold. So yes, the battery meter in the car does show a slightly lower number in the Winter when it is very cold because it seems to be accounting for that some. That's also what the snowflake and the blue bar that sometimes show up on the battery meter are talking about. It's telling you that right now there will be less energy available in the battery, but once it can warm it up, there will be more energy available. This is just real battery chemistry.

So you are agreeing that none of the mileage data Tesla provides is accurate.

That's false.

The complaint is that the car does the opposite of bending over backwards to provide range info. They simply don't bother to provide good and accurate info on how far you can go.

That's also false.
As @Yinn and others have been trying to explain to you, you are trying to use a screwdriver to drive a nail. That's why you are so frustrated with it not working well. Stop trying to use the fuel gauge as a trip range estimator. When you enter a destination in navigation, it will plot an energy usage plan for that route, taking all of your real energy usage into account, and planning for all of the elevation and approximate speed limits into account for that drive. And it will continue to update every few minutes as you drive to show you an arrival % state of charge. That is incredibly helpful and is the bending over backward to help you that was being talked about. Use the right tool for the job.

 

[Big Earl]

As @Yinn and others have been trying to explain to you, you are trying to use a screwdriver to drive a nail. That's why you are so frustrated with it not working well. Stop trying to use the fuel gauge as a trip range estimator. When you enter a destination in navigation, it will plot an energy usage plan for that route, taking all of your real energy usage into account, and planning for all of the elevation and approximate speed limits into account for that drive. And it will continue to update every few minutes as you drive to show you an arrival % state of charge. That is incredibly helpful and is the bending over backward to help you that was being talked about. Use the right tool for the job.

The in-car trip planner doesn't take temperature, wind or travel speed into account when you first plan your route. All of those variables will get factored in as you drive and the Energy/Trip graph will overlay your actual consumption over its original estimate.

A Better Route Planner combined with weather information is the best trip planning tool for planning trips. It takes 5 minutes to plug in your trip and weather details and get the best information available.

 

[Rocky_H]

The in-car trip planner doesn't take temperature, wind or travel speed into account when you first plan your route. All of those variables will get factored in as you drive and the Energy/Trip graph will overlay your actual consumption over its original estimate.

Generally, yeah. It has to use some number for travel speed, though, as its initial assumption. It's not assuming 20 mph and it's not assuming 120 mph, so it's using some kind of mid-level speed that's related-ish to the speed limits of the road on that route, but each person's speed choices aren't always going to match the calculation's initial assumed guess.

A Better Route Planner combined with weather information is the best trip planning tool for planning trips. It takes 5 minutes to plug in your trip and weather details and get the best information available.

I have heard really good things of that one. I still just use EV Trip Planner, just because I was using that before A Better Route Planner existed, but I have heard that ABRP has a few more features. I just don't usually need to go that detailed like having to figure in wind.

 

[gnuarm]

Here is an example of some of the difficulties I have in my Tesla when driving the paths I have been driving in an ICE car. I drove up yesterday and had dinner with friends, spent the night at their house and drove around a bit. Now my charge is about 17% and I need to do a lot of driving tomorrow. The charger in Gaithersburg is only 25 miles away, but that is over an hour in rush hour traffic and then I'd have to come back this way still in traffic. Instead I will have to go north to Hagerstown and loop through Martinsburg before reaching my first destination, Charles Town, WV. Then Leesburg and Sposylvania, VA. before heading back to central VA.

So I'm first going to have to charge at the Hagerstown Supercharger for 10 minutes to get enough juice to make it to Martinsburg where I can eat breakfast while I finish charging. Then I can do the rest of the driving after an extra 40 miles of driving and an hour charging.

My friend was laughing at my predicament tonight saying that's what I get for buying a "luxury" car comparing this to spending $1500 for an oil change at the Mercedes dealer (I assume they do more than change the oil). The reality is that when you do a fair number of short trips you get terrible mileage in cooler weather (it's not even close to freezing today) because the battery never really warms up. Without a Supercharger on your route a trip of 200 miles is not so easy even with a 300 mile battery.

Google Maps

I did use abetterrouteplanner.com, but it still can't give me a realistic route unless I can give it the average mileage for the trip and I have no way of knowing that. So none of the trip planning tools are really of much use in the sense of being truly accurate. In the end it comes back to needing more chargers. That's why the Bolt and the Jag I-Pace don't sell.

It's about the chargers, stupid. IATCS

 

[neroden]

Did you plug in at your friends' house overnight? It makes a difference.

 

[gnuarm]

Did you plug in at your friends' house overnight? It makes a difference.

You mean the 30 miles I would get? No, I'm not doing that. I'll spend 10 minutes in Hagerstown which I can reach on what I have in the car.

There are a number of things I can see that would help. When the only power I can get is 120 volts at 12 amps, that should at least allow me to bring the battery temperature up which would have left me with more range on the car now since a lot was wasted when running the car with a cold battery. But we don't have that capability.

I see the real problem as the total lack of any Tesla charging facility in Frederick, the second largest city in the state. Not even a destination charger I could connect to while eating a meal. In a one hour lunch, that would get me the same 30 miles charging overnight from 120 volts will get me.

There will soon be a Supercharger in Haymarket, the mid point between my starting point and Frederick. When that is in I can stop for 15 minutes to top up on the way up and stop on the way back if I need a boost. This charger is going in because it is on Rt 66. The rest of the Rt 15/29 corridor is ignored until you get down to Charlottesville, VA. which is on Rt 64. There are still large gaps in the charger map and it will be some time coming before that is filled in.

If J-1772 chargers were ubiquitous, that would help, being able to plug in at every stop. But even these very inexpensive chargers aren't all that common and unless you can connect to them a lot, they aren't all that useful only charging at some 5 kW.

 

[Big Earl]

30 miles overnight might have gotten you to Hagerstown without having to backtrack all the way to Gaithersburg. When I'm traveling out of town, I try to make sure I arrive at my destination with enough charge to drive around and make it back to a Supercharger with a reasonable amount of charge left. I don't know how much time you spent in and around Frederick, but it sure sounds like you didn't arrive with a high enough state of charge.

I did use abetterrouteplanner.com, but it still can't give me a realistic route unless I can give it the average mileage for the trip and I have no way of knowing that.

What does this mean? Are you talking about the field for "reference consumption?" If so, that should auto-populate when you select your vehicle type. Model X 75D is 386 Wh/mi at 65 mph. The system then adjusts that consumption based on your desired travel speed (% over/under the speed limit), temperature and wind.

I wholeheartedly agree that more charging stations are needed. More businesses need to take advantage of the Tesla Destination Charging Partner and Tesla Workplace Charging Partner programs, more cities and towns need to install public J1772 stations in their downtown areas and traditional automakers need to get off their butts and start helping with charging infrastructure.

 

[Rocky_H]

We're having a grand opening for the new location of the goalposts soon.

 

[gnuarm]

30 miles overnight might have gotten you to Hagerstown without having to backtrack all the way to Gaithersburg. When I'm traveling out of town, I try to make sure I arrive at my destination with enough charge to drive around and make it back to a Supercharger with a reasonable amount of charge left. I don't know how much time you spent in and around Frederick, but it sure sounds like you didn't arrive with a high enough state of charge.

Perhaps I didn't explain correctly. Gaithersburg and Hagerstown are virtually the same distance. Hagerstown has some terrain to cross, but I got there fine with 10 miles left. That was mostly because the cold battery has much less charge than reported by the tools. Gaithersburg was to be avoided because the traffic is so insane... literally! DC is the worst traffic in the country, possibly tied with LA.

What does this mean? Are you talking about the field for "reference consumption?" If so, that should auto-populate when you select your vehicle type. Model X 75D is 386 Wh/mi at 65 mph. The system then adjusts that consumption based on your desired travel speed (% over/under the speed limit), temperature and wind.

I don't recall. I tried it just now and when I select my X P100D it enters 402 Wh/mi! Is that the EPA rating??? Everyone is telling me I need to calibrate that number for my driving. I'm pretty sure I can get well below that.

I wholeheartedly agree that more charging stations are needed. More businesses need to take advantage of the Tesla Destination Charging Partner and Tesla Workplace Charging Partner programs, more cities and towns need to install public J1772 stations in their downtown areas and traditional automakers need to get off their butts and start helping with charging infrastructure.

A problem with the whole charging thing is that there are so many different charging interfaces. Chademo, Tesla, CCS and I'm not really sure how the lowly J-1772 fits into those. Is that a slow version of the CCS connector? There's a lot of info out there and I think some of it is not correct.

Anyway, for local use the slow versions of charging (I guess they call them level 2) like J-1772 and Tesla destination charging is fine for times when you can leave a car someplace while you shop or see a movie, etc. But the bottom line is we need a *lot* more fast chargers for traveling in BEVs. I've been doing a lot of trips and as long as I'm on the main highways I'm ok (not good and certainly not great) but as soon as you want to take a slightly less traveled route you are out of range of fast charging.

Tomorrow I am back to TN to see a friend having a surgery today. She wants to go home in my car because she thinks it has more leg room and is easier to get in and out of. I'll need to charge in the airport in Chattanooga. I wonder who thought that was a good location for a Supercharger... a PAY parking lot. lol So much for free Supercharging.

 

[gnuarm]

I don't know how much time you spent in and around Frederick, but it sure sounds like you didn't arrive with a high enough state of charge.

Yes, I never arrive with a high enough state of charge anywhere. It is always a struggle to get charged at destinations. Sunday the battery started near 90% reading almost 250 miles. By the time I got to Frederick I think it was just a bit under half, maybe 120 miles left. A bit of driving around town and it was down to 50 by Monday night when I parked. That wasn't 70 miles of local driving, maybe 40. When the battery is cold the capacity number is crap because it's in % and the question is % of what? So this morning I started with 47 miles reading on the gauge and by the time I was on the highway (about 1 mile, two lights) it was down to 42 miles. On the highway it did better leaving me with 10 miles after driving 27.

 

[strider]

I'm sorry but I get the feeling that you made the jump to an EV too early. You clearly expected more from the car and infrastructure than exist today. This is no different than gas stations 100 years ago. They were NOT ubiquitous like they are now. Early drivers had to do a lot of planning to reach their destinations. Now, not so much. It will be the same with chargers.

Imagine a few years in the future where your friend also owns an EV. Now you're charging at 30mph overnight vs 3mph on 120V. That means you have a full battery in the morning and can go on with your trip without the scrambling around like you have to do now.

Assume that the "fuel gauge" will NOT adjust. As others have stated, it is simply showing an amount of kWh in the battery but run through a formula to calculate miles. Do NOT use it as a range estimator. Multiple people have told you this but you keep arguing with them. If you can't stop yourself from using it as a range remaining, switch it to %.

When on trips you should use the Energy App in the car and/or the nav system itself. It gives you TONS of information about your energy use and pretty good estimations of energy remaining at your destination. It takes elevation into account but not weather (though you get the weather factor once you start driving and it uses your recent history to update its calculations). Yes, the battery heater can be annoying when it spikes your usage at the beginning of your drive. But, again, in the future, battery chemistry improvements will allow the car to operate at lower temperature. Plus, in the above where your friend has 240V available then you can pre-condition prior to departing and warm the battery with shore power (or someday have a charge algorithm that allows you to tell the car when to complete charging so you have a nice warm battery).

At the end of the day, you can either take our advice or you can sell the vehicle. We are here to tell you how the vehicle works and how to use the vehicle most effectively. If you would rather argue with us we will stop helping you.

 

[strider]

Anyway, for local use the slow versions of charging (I guess they call them level 2) like J-1772 and Tesla destination charging is fine for times when you can leave a car someplace while you shop or see a movie, etc. But the bottom line is we need a *lot* more fast chargers for traveling in BEVs. I've been doing a lot of trips and as long as I'm on the main highways I'm ok (not good and certainly not great) but as soon as you want to take a slightly less traveled route you are out of range of fast charging.

I'm sorry to tell you but the way you drive is not like most of the population. Very few people drive as much as you do in a day.

As destination charging becomes more prevalent, you will be able to safely arrive with an empty battery for an overnight charge (just like at home). If you start drawing circles around the SCs that covers a lot of the country. Are we there yet? No. But it's a chicken and egg problem, just like it was w/ gas stations and ICEs. Until there are more EVs on the road, chargers won't get built.

Not to mention, you are complaining about getting free energy. Are you seriously listening to yourself?

You keep coming back here to complain but won't actually listen to anyone. Please just sell the car. It's clearly not compatible with your life at this point. You could have learned all of this stuff by coming here prior to buying. You would have avoided a costly mistake.

 

[gnuarm]

You Sir have issues. I’m not quite sure why you keep choosing to ignore the fact that reliable information is available, just not where you’re looking.

I don't want to argue with you. None of the available info is accurate and useful. If it were, there would be no problem.

First off total range will always vary. I don’t care if you’re using an EV, gas or diesel. Tow with any of them and you won’t get the advertised mileage. Fuel up with a 5% ethanol mix in one state, 10% in another and you won’t get the same advertised data. Decrease your speed and have your transmission kick up into a higher rev range, and your mileage decreases.

I don't care about gas or diesel engines because I've never had a problem with fueling them. End of story. BEVs are an entirely different game because you have to PLAN AHEAD to be able to charge them up. So don't bother comparing them at all.

Then, let’s not pretend official mpg numbers and real life variances only exist on Tesla’s. There are class action lawsuits all over the place on false mpg claims. Mitsubishi, GM, Ford, Hyundai, Honda, Toyota, etc.

I've never seen official mileage ratings on the Teslas other than the range on the dashboard for a full battery charge. That has nothing to do with the EPA.

My original purpose was not to bring up any of those. My purpose is to tell you there IS reliable information. Built right into your car. It’s in the center screen under the energy graph and is capable of giving you real-time accurate info. If you’re choosing to ignore that, then that’s your prerogative but more than likely you’re just a troll or trying to build yourself up to bring a class action of your own.

Yes, real time HISTORY. That is not a forecast or Tesla would be able to use it to accurately forecast the miles to go on the current charge. Several people have said I can do my own forecasting using the information the car provides. If the car has all the needed info, why isn't the forecasts it provide more useful?

Either way, I enjoy the forums to get info and to help where I can. And whatever your mission is here in this thread is beyond me and clear that I am not helping. Best of luck to you

I agree. Best of luck to you too.

 

[Big Earl]

The mileage on the dashboard is EPA rated range, which does not account for wind or weather and is wildly misleading in all but ideal driving conditions. If you don't like it, change the display to % and calculate range yourself based on the information you have available. The navigation trip planner will take traffic and elevation into account, but not weather and speed until after you've started your trip and it has a chance to compare your actual usage to the originally estimated usage.

Maybe at some point the car will take weather data into account and you'll be able to get a more accurate trip plan before you set off. Until that happens, you have to do some thinking for yourself.

 

[gnuarm]

As destination charging becomes more prevalent, you will be able to safely arrive with an empty battery for an overnight charge (just like at home). If you start drawing circles around the SCs that covers a lot of the country. Are we there yet? No. But it's a chicken and egg problem, just like it was w/ gas stations and ICEs. Until there are more EVs on the road, chargers won't get built.

Perhaps you were out of the room when someone mentioned that Tesla is making 1,000 model 3s a day? Within a year there will be another 50,000 on the road. If Elon has his way it will be another 100,000. The time to build up the charging infrastructure is now. In fact, this infrastructure has been touted as why Tesla won't have any serious competition for five years. If they don't get on the stick and build chargers at a rate to keep up with the car sales, they will find themselves out of date and an also ran.

Not to mention, you are complaining about getting free energy. Are you seriously listening to yourself?

I can't believe you are actually claiming that. There is nothing free about using prepaid energy. I paid a very high price for what I got.

You keep coming back here to complain but won't actually listen to anyone. Please just sell the car. It's clearly not compatible with your life at this point. You could have learned all of this stuff by coming here prior to buying. You would have avoided a costly mistake.

I think you are being rather silly. This is a discussion group. Perhaps you are not in a discussion you should have entered.

 

[gnuarm]

The mileage on the dashboard is EPA rated range, which does not account for wind or weather and is wildly misleading in all but ideal driving conditions. If you don't like it, change the display to % and calculate range yourself based on the information you have available. The navigation trip planner will take traffic and elevation into account, but not weather and speed until after you've started your trip and it has a chance to compare your actual usage to the originally estimated usage.

Maybe at some point the car will take weather data into account and you'll be able to get a more accurate trip plan before you set off. Until that happens, you have to do some thinking for yourself.

I don't get why people want to blame me for the numbers Tesla provides. Really? It is unreasonable to ask for more accurate range information??? This is a tough crowd.

 

[Big Earl]

I don't get why people want to blame me for the numbers Tesla provides. Really? It is unreasonable to ask for more accurate range information??? This is a tough crowd.

I'm just trying to help you out with your trip planning. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[gnuarm]

I appreciate the help.