Yes. So if the exterior is 100 and the interior is 100 then over heat protection is working which is what in was saying. Here in SoCal it’s about 85-90 and my interior temps are 100 solid. No wavering up or down during the day.
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Only 74% efficiency?
- Thread starter sweetneet
- Start date
I am convinced that one of the worst things most new owners do is start loading up third party apps that provide a ton of data. Not because the apps are bad (as long as they are configured correctly to let the car sleep) but because new owners especially have no framework to understand all of the data being generated, and then think "there is something wrong with my car!!!!".
Also, if these apps are NOT configured correctly, it has been proven that they also add some to energy usage. If configured correctly they dont add much, but they absolutely can add to energy usage (or drain).
OP there is almost assuredly "nothing" wrong with your battery. Just like in an ICE car, short trips are not as efficient as long trips in an EV (again, just like any other car).
Sentry mode uses 2 miles an HOUR of range or so, without you going anywhere. Cabin overheat protection with AC uses more energy than without, but both use energy.
You have a new car that has all these features (the ability to try to keep the car cooler when parked in the sun, the ability to record incidents around it), but they use energy and you have elected to use them... then wonder why your car shows as "less efficient" than others.
Now, you are going to turn off these features in a chase for "efficiency" for what purpose? So that your "stats app" efficiency meets others?
They dont drive your commute every day, so their usage will be different.
My advice would be to stop looking at the stats app for around a month (simply ignore it) until you get a feel for what your usage patterns are with the information coming from the car itself, not from stats. Use sentry mode if you need to, use your AC if you need to, and dont worry about "turning off stuff" to hit some efficiency number that doesnt mean much of anything. After a month, you will understand more about what and how the car is doing, and can pick back up on the data monitoring with a better understanding of what is going on.
You also likely wont be as worried about something being wrong with your car... as you are now (when it is highly unlikely anything is actually wrong with your battery).
Also, if these apps are NOT configured correctly, it has been proven that they also add some to energy usage. If configured correctly they dont add much, but they absolutely can add to energy usage (or drain).
OP there is almost assuredly "nothing" wrong with your battery. Just like in an ICE car, short trips are not as efficient as long trips in an EV (again, just like any other car).
Sentry mode uses 2 miles an HOUR of range or so, without you going anywhere. Cabin overheat protection with AC uses more energy than without, but both use energy.
You have a new car that has all these features (the ability to try to keep the car cooler when parked in the sun, the ability to record incidents around it), but they use energy and you have elected to use them... then wonder why your car shows as "less efficient" than others.
Now, you are going to turn off these features in a chase for "efficiency" for what purpose? So that your "stats app" efficiency meets others?
They dont drive your commute every day, so their usage will be different.
My advice would be to stop looking at the stats app for around a month (simply ignore it) until you get a feel for what your usage patterns are with the information coming from the car itself, not from stats. Use sentry mode if you need to, use your AC if you need to, and dont worry about "turning off stuff" to hit some efficiency number that doesnt mean much of anything. After a month, you will understand more about what and how the car is doing, and can pick back up on the data monitoring with a better understanding of what is going on.
You also likely wont be as worried about something being wrong with your car... as you are now (when it is highly unlikely anything is actually wrong with your battery).
thanks all! this is all very helpful. today i am turning off Sentry Mode while i'm at work (that's about 9 hours right there) and see what effect it has. it is pretty safe here in general (unless someone is super negligent and gives me a door ding, but i try to park far away for the reason). no way i am goign to review 9 hours of 1-minute clips on a regular basis anyway. i guess i'm at the paranoid stage, much like a new parent with a newborn, having anxiety over this that or the other being wrong 
i kind of want to laugh now that i look back on the ridiculous things i was freaking out over with my son when he was a baby ...
this morning i noticed that at 80% (192 mi) it says i was projected 177 mi of range (since average was 238 Wh/mile), which i guess is not bad (91%) - though then i guess the issue is i'm losing lots of miles just sitting there parked.
i noticed that for the past 5 miles i drove (highway rushhour traffic- i used Autopilot) it says i only used 218 Wh/mile which i understand is below the rated value of 225 Wh/mile so pretty good. i am curious to see how it does now with sentry mode turned off. then i will also try turning off overheat protetction and maybe just cool it down few minutes before i head out (curious to see which eats more range - constantly needing to keeping it cool to 100F for 9 hours or just having to cool it down from 160 F down to 74)
i kind of want to laugh now that i look back on the ridiculous things i was freaking out over with my son when he was a baby ...this morning i noticed that at 80% (192 mi) it says i was projected 177 mi of range (since average was 238 Wh/mile), which i guess is not bad (91%) - though then i guess the issue is i'm losing lots of miles just sitting there parked.
i noticed that for the past 5 miles i drove (highway rushhour traffic- i used Autopilot) it says i only used 218 Wh/mile which i understand is below the rated value of 225 Wh/mile so pretty good. i am curious to see how it does now with sentry mode turned off. then i will also try turning off overheat protetction and maybe just cool it down few minutes before i head out (curious to see which eats more range - constantly needing to keeping it cool to 100F for 9 hours or just having to cool it down from 160 F down to 74)
@sweetneet there is nothing wrong with your car. Your problem is your obsession with “efficiency “ numbers which has nothing to do with actual efficiency. If you want to get EPA rated range, drive out on an interstate for a few hours at under 70 mph. If you want to use the car’s unique features such as cabin overheat protection and sentry mode, that takes energy. It doesn’t mean your car isn’t “efficient “. The problem is the terminology the third party app uses and your lack of understanding of it.
My advice, delete the stats app, chill out, and just enjoy your car.
I think you will be shocked at the difference when you turn these two settings off. Sentry Mode at 9 hours is worth about 18 miles and COP with AC in that heat with direct sun could be worth 10-12 miles or range. So, you may be losing 30 miles of range while your car is parked.
COP with AC is a trade off IMO. Having the AC compressor turning on and off all day and wasting energy to keep the cabin at 105 degrees just seems silly but that is just me. It may help the interior age more gracefully but I am not sold on keeping the electronics cool argument. Most of the electronics are not even visible in the cabin and if it was critical to keep them within a small range of operating temperatures then Tesla would have designed it that way. It is yet another thing we should not obsess about.
Ryefry
Member
I would charge up and check Stats app right as you get to work to see what the efficiency of just the trip is. It should be pretty easy to get over 100% on just the trip in DFW without doing anything special.
Great post. But "short trips", for me, is some of my most efficient usage. Short trips are off highway for me. And off highway I usually hit under 200 wh/mi (AWD, 19" wheels). Also off highway is more opportunity to use natures A/C (open windows). My "short" commute 5 miles each way consistently gets around 200 wh/mi (my car isn't hot at all in the morning and not terrible in the evening due to afternoon shade (which is no accident)). The killer for many folks is speed. No Cabin overheat or Sentry for me. I crack the windows and put up a sunscreen on hot clear days, like I've done for the last 30 years. I understand that's not an option for everyone that say might park at the train station every day, if I had to do that I'd consider cabin overheat. Sure would be nice to remotely control windows.
One other point regarding apps. 1 week OP has not gathered a whole lot of statistics to judge anything. Nor has he learned how to drive more efficiently.
Folks need to keep wh/mi and "phantom drains" (Liithium loss, Cabin protection and Sentry) seperate. The Stats app, I believe includes phantom drain and but then OP talks about seeing miles drop on his meter faster than what he is covering in distance. Those are two completely different things.
Like you mentioned regarding new users loading up apps. New users also turn on all the power hungry "phantom toys" (Sentry and Cabin Overheat). I shut that all off on day one, turned on chill (doesn't effect mileage, but helps tame my brain) and creep (also no effect either way, but safer to begin with for sure) and get a good base line of how efficient the car can be. I also did run an app at first (Stats App) and disabled it's background processing (only polls when it's in foreground), all I use it for is seeing what versions are coming now.
Or you could turn the A/C off and drive a few slow laps at Texas Motor Speedway. You’d be miserable but your efficiency number would be great!
I really think these apps like Stats and TeslaFi need to come with a warning label that they may be dangerous to your mental health. I’m not kidding.
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Yes, yes, yes. But don't park under sap dripping trees or ones with birds that like to poop a lot
Crack windows too, assuming you're a short distance away through the day in case a storm rolls in.
One charger I found was under a black walnut tree. There were giant walnuts dropping everywhere and the ground was stained black. Thanks, but no thanks.
Back on topic: I keep one trip counter on long-term, never reset status to see how I'm doing overall. I reset the other when I'm starting a new driving pattern, like all short-terms for a while or at the start of a road trip. Those numbers have some meaning.
ClydeO
Member
After 3 months of owning my M3, I've come to the conclusion with if you want/expect 90% + eff, you have to drive like a "Grandpa, along cornfields in Kansas, on a 59 degree day, with a strong tail-wind."
My experience so far.... 83% in the city..... 70-81% on the freeway on long trips.
My experience so far.... 83% in the city..... 70-81% on the freeway on long trips.
To the OP.
I would leave Sentry mode ON. Leave Overheat protection ON. Forget about the efficiency number. That's actually what I do
You are only doing 14miles on your commute. Plenty of battery to do your commute, have all the nice features turned on at the same time, and then just charge up again, while you sleep.
So if you turn off all the features, You save maybe 10 miles of range? Would that stop you running out of of electric (no)?
How much would 10miles of electric cost you? How much would it cost you IF IT WERE A GAS car?
If it was gas at 30mpg $4/g = $1.33
As its electric at 130mpge = $0.30
Is it worth 30 cents to keep the car interior cooler, so it doesn't degrade, and be able to see if someone dings your car?
(Sentry tells you when there is an alert, and you only have to scan 1 minute of footage per alert)
Sentry is probably MORE useful at work, where you can go find the culprit, than generally out on the street. At least you can possibly do something about what you see.
I would leave Sentry mode ON. Leave Overheat protection ON. Forget about the efficiency number. That's actually what I do
You are only doing 14miles on your commute. Plenty of battery to do your commute, have all the nice features turned on at the same time, and then just charge up again, while you sleep.
So if you turn off all the features, You save maybe 10 miles of range? Would that stop you running out of of electric (no)?
How much would 10miles of electric cost you? How much would it cost you IF IT WERE A GAS car?
If it was gas at 30mpg $4/g = $1.33
As its electric at 130mpge = $0.30
Is it worth 30 cents to keep the car interior cooler, so it doesn't degrade, and be able to see if someone dings your car?
(Sentry tells you when there is an alert, and you only have to scan 1 minute of footage per alert)
Sentry is probably MORE useful at work, where you can go find the culprit, than generally out on the street. At least you can possibly do something about what you see.
darth_vad3r
Well-Known Sith
Yep, this is why i don't park under trees at work even though it's shady. Here in the South the pollen and sap from these is something else. My husband parked my old car once under a tree at his work and i sh!t you not (pun intended, ha), at the end of the day it was covered in sap and had like 30 bird droppings! blechYes, yes, yes. But don't park under sap dripping trees or ones with birds that like to poop a lot
Crack windows too, assuming you're a short distance away through the day in case a storm rolls in.
i do use a sunshade for the windshield which i think does help. but i can sense lots of heat comes through the glass top, especially around noontime.
re: the apps, my workplace WiFi access to the Tesla server so neither Stats or Tesla app is able to regularly poll the car while i'm here (unless i disable wifi, on the few times i want to check the app).
with Sentry mode off, i noticed that after 2 hours i lost just 1 mile range (and this is with cabin overheat protection on and it is 90 degrees already, no shade). i am pretty sure before i was losing 1.5- 2 miles an hour before...so that 15 miles for typical day just sitting there - so sentry mode must have been draining it quite a bit.
i do really like sentry mode and my kids get a kick out of reviewing the footage and people gawking at the car or being surprised at flashing headlights when folks get too close. the problem with sentry mode is that it records the events, but then it seems difficult for me to find the offending events later. when i return to the car it will say "2 events recorded" - then if i press the camera button and it shows the saved icon, later when i check saved clips it seems to put way more than 2 sets of recordings in there (i know there are 3, one for each camera) - it seems to put much more than that and i have to sift through. yeah i know, first world problems and all that
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The alert being reported happens (usually) in the last captured segment (which might be less than 1 minute). You might get lucky and pick the right camera first time, you may have to scan 3 cameras.
So, somewhere between 1 and 3 minutes if you look at the whole last minute. The incident might be in the first few seconds of the last minute.
Definitely don't have to scan 30 minutes worth before you find the time incident you are looking for. If you do, then do it in reverse, and you'll find the incident in seconds.
i must say, good points everyone and thx for talking me down.. it all gives me a lot of food for thought.
thank u, i think this is what i get too. when there are 3-4 alerts that is a lot of video to sift through. i usually just review the front dashcam videos. what's funny is often times one of the alerts is me coming back to the car. haha
thank u, i think this is what i get too. when there are 3-4 alerts that is a lot of video to sift through. i usually just review the front dashcam videos. what's funny is often times one of the alerts is me coming back to the car. haha
AlanSubie4Life
Efficiency Obsessed Member
You will find that you need to see a car-indicated efficiency (in the bottom left hand card on the screen) of 215Wh/mi to get one rated mile used per one mile traveled, for the SR+. That's the number you should keep in mind, not 225Wh/mi. And remember this meter only applies when you are driving. It doesn't include any of the use while you're parked (which as you've discovered can be considerable). The meter in the car ONLY counts energy use when the car is NOT in Park.
215Wh/mi should be quite easily achievable in the SR+ on flat ground, when you're not on the freeway, as long as you are moving. I wouldn't skimp on AC - it uses about 1kW or even considerably less once the temperature stabilizes (obviously depends on the outside temperature and humidity!), so if you're traveling an average of 40 mph, that will add only 25Wh/mi (1000W/40mph) to your consumption. And at 40mph you'll be getting FANTASTIC SR+ efficiency (well below 200Wh/mi) so you'll have the budget for it. Just never touch the brakes above 5mph and try to use minimal regen (keep the green bar as short as possible) and you should be golden.
It's true that to get the actual rated range you need an ACTUAL efficiency of about 227Wh/mi in one continuous drive. The true battery capacity of a new SR+ battery is 54.5kWh. But the car doesn't indicate the actual efficiency precisely (it's just a meter and it doesn't display actual true energy use - you'd want to see something like 215-220Wh/mi indicated for this theoretical rated-range trip). In addition, to get this actual rated range, you need to drive about 5 miles past 0 rated miles, which could be stressful.
Sentry automatically saves the recordings. You should not need to press the camera button to save the clips. If you press the button you'll save (possibly) duplicate clips.
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Don't be fooled by that 130 mpge.
Gas is under $2.50 gallon where I live = $0.83
Electricity is around $0.26 kWh where I live, at say 250 wh/mi that is 2.5 kWh (from the battery), but that's not what it cost to get those kilowatts into the battery. Let's be generous and say 90% charging efficiency. So it really takes 2.75 kWh of electricity to get 2.5 kWh out of the battery. So that comes to ~$0.72 to drive 10 miles. 14% cheaper than a 30 mpg vehicle (that's not that great).
There are huge variables on what folks pay for electricity, local fuel prices, and charging efficiencies (high volts & amps is more efficient).
Some people only pay $0.07 kWh. That would be 1/4 the cost to go 10 miles, only $0.19.
If you piss it away on Sentry and Cabin Overheat protection you'll be worse than 30 mpg ICE vehicles in most parts of the country.
If you don't immediately notice a "door ding" you'll have an awful lot of video's to review to find it. And good luck finding the culprit and getting your money back to fix it.
