Percentage or Miles/Kilometers : which do you use and why?

[AlanSubie4Life]

You are relying on a standardized value within a calculation instead of the immediate variables effecting efficiency. This isn't how scientific calculation works for a very good reason.

I see a lot of words here. I said I want to know how much energy I have left to use before my battery energy meter reads zero. Can you please explain a better way to determine that?

How does a scientific calculation work, in this case? Again, please keep in mind I want to know how much energy I have left. I don't want to know how far I can go (because that is impossible to determine in general no matter what).

 

[darth_vad3r]

How is that relevant to my real life needs? EPA conditions being controlled within a specified assumption is completely irrelevant to my commutes and environmental demands. There is no scientific or statistical relevancy between that formula and each individuals owner's driving demands.

You know, I think what you really want is a range display customizable not to your last X distance driven but some customizable efficiency number.

Something you could set and then stay the same. e.g. if the car uses 219 Wh/mi but you are a hypermiler who drafts semis and commutes downhill to work both ways, you can change the display to use 150 Wh/mi.

If you have a lead foot and always gun it off the line and travel 75 mph on average, then you could choose 300 Wh/mi.

These two example options would result in the battery gauge miles reading double from each other.

This could work really great... for ONE driver. As soon as a second driver steps in they won’t know if they can trust the gauge like they are used to in their own car.

Really the gauge should show some standard unit of energy, like kWh, unfortunately most people don’t think in kWh (yet?) so a “standard unit of energy” for now is an EPA mile. It’s not a unit of distance. It’s a unit of energy.

 

[jerry33]

Consistent irrelevancy is NOT what I want.

Everyone understands that. I have stated this....point being that the OPTION should be there to change the view as it is in an ICE car.

What options? The gas gauge is the gas gauge. It shows from full to empty. Honestly, I don't really understand why you're so against what's shown. Before the trip graph, rated or ideal miles and the energy graph were it. It was pretty easy to estimate if you had enough using the following procedure: If the energy graph showed more than the rated range, you were okay, otherwise not and you had better slow down to make it (or find some additional electrons). Now it's easier.

 

[darth_vad3r]

Consistent irrelevancy is NOT what I want.

Everyone understands that. I have stated this....point being that the OPTION should be there to change the view as it is in an ICE car.

Consistent irrelevancy is relevant if it is consistent, therefore it is not irrelevant.

 

[Silicon Desert]

Not surprising to see some people believe percentage is the only way to go and others think mileage is it. Personally I like miles, but probably just the way my brain is wired. I've tried both ways for extended periods of time. Fortunately no right or wrong answer here.

 

[LandToSea]

What options? The gas gauge is the gas gauge. It shows from full to empty. Honestly, I don't really understand why you're so against what's shown. Before the trip graph, rated or ideal miles and the energy graph were it. It was pretty easy to estimate if you had enough using the following procedure: If the energy graph showed more than the rated range, you were okay, otherwise not and you had better slow down to make it (or find some additional electrons). Now it's easier.

To simplify this, personally I would like to have the CHOICE to select trip graph calculation always visible in place of the EPA calc, no matter what function screen is open.

 

[darth_vad3r]

Because I want to know how much energy I have left. This is a portable, (mostly) unfiltered quantity I can use myself to get a "feel" for what I can do based on where I'll be driving, how fast, etc.

Between this information and the trip % estimator, it's just about perfect; everything I could need to know is provided.

You are relying on a standardized value within a calculation instead of the immediate variables effecting efficiency. This isn't how scientific calculation works for a very good reason. There is a better way and the car is capable of producing that data is the point. Whether anyone here "likes" what they are currently getting is not relevant to the facts.

Did you miss he said “portable”. The current method is kWh remaining multiplied by a constant for your model car.

It’s as close as you can get to seeing direct kWh remaining in the battery without checking the CAN bus or a stats app.

This is exactly how scientific calculation works. If it makes you feel better, use a sharpie to cross out “miles” and call them “energy units” or “floozits”. That’s what they are, and they are consistent from drive to drive, from driver to driver, and from car to car. No ambiguity, not irrelevant — consistent.

If you want the option to display guessed miles, I would hope Tesla changed the text to highlight that “guessed miles” so that if I borrowed your car I wouldn’t be misled by the completely irrelevant-to-me guess.

Think about a rental car, what’s the most relevant way to show the energy gauge? When I get in the car WTH does the last person's driving have to do with me?

 

[jerry33]

To simplify this, personally I would like to have the CHOICE to select trip graph calculation always visible in place of the EPA calc, no matter what function screen is open.

V9 messed this up badly. It used to be that was available, now it's only available if you put the camera on the bottom of the screen. (The percentage shown at the bottom of the Nav turn list is the same percentage as the trip graph).

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

I don't want to have to leave the graph open to monitor the level. It seems intuitive to use that data as the battery indicator volume always visible instead of the useless number derived from an EPA data.

To simplify this, personally I would like to have the CHOICE to select trip graph calculation always visible in place of the EPA calc, no matter what function screen is open.

Again, just reiterating - for what you want, all you need to do to get what you want is to plug in a navigation destination. You don't have to have anything up in the foreground - the prediction of where you will be at upon arrival is in the upper left of the nav screen. You don't have to pull up the energy page at all. (Maybe it's possible to get this to disappear if you maximize one of the other apps, and it's possible improvement is required here - I haven't played a lot with it but the times I've used it, it has been amazingly accurate and I've never had to pull up the trip planner to know what I was going to arrive with - it just said it right on the screen, upper left hand corner, below the nav information.)

Practically, I'm not sure what else you really need. For daily commuting, you'll usually know you are going to make it (unless you have an extremely long commute). For arbitrary drives, you're going to plug in a destination, and it will predict whether you will make it.

There's really no other way to display specifically how far you can go. There's actually no way for the car to display that unless it knows where you are specifically going. And even then initially it is a guess, and it will update it as best it can as time goes by, based on conditions. Furthermore, if you know you're going to start with dry conditions and hit torrential rains and a headwind halfway through, mentally you're going to need to account for that - there's no way for the car to get that estimated (currently) with the inputs it has. Certainly with high resolution weather forecast data there is potential down the road to account for this (actually I don't know whether they account for winds or weather at all, but I don't think so).

 

[Rocky_H]

for what you want, all you need to do to get what you want is to plug in a navigation destination. You don't have to have anything up in the foreground - the prediction of where you will be at upon arrival is in the upper left of the nav screen. You don't have to pull up the energy page at all.

Minor nitpick: Tesla partially broke that functionality in v9 too, which I have told them about a couple of times. There are three display modes for Nav, and only one of the three will display the % remaining estimate. That is a pretty bad fail. North up or Forward up won't display the %. It will only display if you are on the way zoomed out "Whole Trip" view that isn't very helpful for seeing your upcoming turns.

Although, is the Model 3 horizontal single display different on that than the S/X?

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Minor nitpick: Tesla partially broke that functionality in v9 too, which I have told them about a couple of times. There are three display modes for Nav, and only one of the three will display the % remaining estimate. That is a pretty bad fail. North up or Forward up won't display the %. It will only display if you are on the way zoomed out "Whole Trip" view that isn't very helpful for seeing your upcoming turns.

I have a Model 3 with recent software. I didn't notice any problems this weekend when I used it, but it's entirely possible that there is some way to occupy the screen with another app so that the % estimate disappears - maybe this happens when you pull up the music app to fill the entire screen, I don't know. But in general, I'm just saying I didn't have any problems.

I haven't played around with the various Nav display modes either. It was working for what I was using - I'm fairly sure I had North up set.

 

[darth_vad3r]

Minor nitpick: Tesla partially broke that functionality in v9 too, which I have told them about a couple of times. There are three display modes for Nav, and only one of the three will display the % remaining estimate. That is a pretty bad fail. North up or Forward up won't display the %. It will only display if you are on the way zoomed out "Whole Trip" view that isn't very helpful for seeing your upcoming turns.

Although, is the Model 3 horizontal single display different on that than the S/X?

I have a Model 3 with recent software. I didn't notice any problems this weekend when I used it, but it's entirely possible that there is some way to occupy the screen with another app so that the % estimate disappears - maybe this happens when you pull up the music app to fill the entire screen, I don't know. But in general, I'm just saying I didn't have any problems.

I haven't played around with the various Nav display modes either. It was working for what I was using - I'm fairly sure I had North up set.

Hmm... I’m going to have to check closely next time I’m in the car. I looked at online screen shots and don’t see the remaining % in the few examples I found. I know that I see remaining % when I punch in nav, but is that because it starts in “trip” view initially? I usually change to the compass view. I like how the compass icon updates to show your heading (in addition to the traditional forwards facing guidance map). On this icon actually, did they change how that worked recently? Did it always show the current mode you were in, or did it used to show the icon of the mode it would switch to when you tapped it? I only noticed the updating compass recently

 

[darth_vad3r]

@Rocky_H @AlanSubie4Life ya it’s kinda limited on the 3 as well.

When I start nav, I see the full list of directions and % estimate at the bottom of that list, while the map shows “trip” view. When you switch the map to “N” up or “compass” guidance view, the turn by turn directions list collapses and hides the % along with all but the next few turns. I hadn’t paid close attention to this before, but when you later uncollapse the direction list by sliding/dragging it down using the bottom ‘grip’, the map view switches back to “trip”. So “zooming out” on the list (which lets you see predicted arrival % after the list) forces a “zoom out” on the map. Probably not a bug, but a debatably poor UX design choice. Someone probably decided “if they want to see the whole list of turns, they must want to see the map view to see all those turns as well”... and that may well be the case many times, but not always, and certainly there were times I uncollapsed the list to see the %. Probably I wasn’t paying close attention to the map because I wasn’t really using nav to guide me, but just to check on % estimate while driving to a known location.

 

[Rocky_H]

Probably not a bug, but a debatably poor UX design choice.

I would not be as generous as to call it "debatably". It's an idiotic choice.

“if they want to see the whole list of turns, they must want to see the map view to see all those turns as well”

That part kind of could possibly make sense.

there were times I uncollapsed the list to see the %. Probably I wasn’t paying close attention to the map because I wasn’t really using nav to guide me, but just to check on % estimate while driving to a known location.

But hiding the % makes NO sense. It is really stupid forcing people to reach over there and try to get a finger on that list of directions to slide it down, or press the map format icon 1 or 2 times just to get a glance at the % number as you drive, which you do need to keep an eye on fairly regularly as you drive on longer trips.

 

[jerry33]

But hiding the % makes NO sense. It is really stupid forcing people to reach over there and try to get a finger on that list of directions to slide it down, or press the map format icon 1 or 2 times just to get a glance at the % number as you drive, which you do need to keep an eye on fairly regularly as you drive on longer trips.

Agreed that V9 could hardly be worse and it's far less convenient than V8 where both the camera and the map with the percentage were visible all the time (and way worse than V6, which was the best interface so far), but on long trips I seldom look at the percentage (or the miles) unless there is some reason to believe it will be close (strong headwinds, other bad weather, or a longer than standard distance between charging stops). All you need do to see the percentage is to move the rear camera screen down a bit and the percentage will show.

 

[David29]

I don't want to have to leave the graph open to monitor the level. It seems intuitive to use that data as the battery indicator volume always visible instead of the useless number derived from an EPA data.

To amplify what someone else said above, you can simply display the miniature version of the Energy application in the right-hand or left-hand side windows in the instrument cluster. Those side windows are configurable, with several choices (tire pressures, trips, energy, audio, etc.)
I rarely use the full-size Energy app on the mail screen.

At least, you can if you have a Model S or X, which is what I assumed. If you have a Model 3, maybe you have to display the full-size Energy app. Not sure. Sorry if I made a false assumption about what model car you have!

 

[pdx_m3s]

Percentage. The "Energy" feature at least provides a range estimate based on past driving, but even then it's sub-optimal. Range should really only be considered on a go-forward basis using the trip planner.

Quoting battery SOC in miles just seems gimmicky. Range is very complex and shouldn't be boiled down to [battery SOC%] * [EPA range].

 

[darth_vad3r]

Percentage. The "Energy" feature at least provides a range estimate based on past driving, but even then it's sub-optimal. Range should really only be considered on a go-forward basis using the trip planner.

Quoting battery SOC in miles just seems gimmicky. Range is very complex and shouldn't be boiled down to [battery SOC%] * [EPA range].

It’s not “[battery SOC%] * [EPA range]” though.

Note two things wrong: (a) It’s not %. (b) It’s not EPA range.

It’s more like [battery estimated kWh remaining] * [internal constant of mi/Wh for your car]
e.g. 25 kWh * (1 / 219 Wh/mi) = 114 mi

In fact SoC% itself is based on two other factors, the current kWh estimate above and the current max capacity estimate kWh (which can be diferent than when you got the car).

 

[pdx_m3s]

It’s not “[battery SOC%] * [EPA range]” though.

Note two things wrong: (a) It’s not %. (b) It’s not EPA range.

It’s more like [battery estimated kWh remaining] * [internal constant of mi/Wh for your car]
e.g. 25 kWh * (1 / 219 Wh/mi) = 114 mi

In fact SoC% itself is based on two other factors, the current kWh estimate above and the current max capacity estimate kWh (which can be diferent than when you got the car).

You're splitting hairs. What matters is that it is not based on real-world variables. It's battery capacity remaining multiplied by a fixed mileage efficiency metric. I may have used the wrong terminology, but you confirmed what I was trying to get across: that it's just a static figure indexed to battery capacity remaining.

 

[darth_vad3r]

You're splitting hairs. What matters is that it is not based on real-world variables. It's battery capacity remaining multiplied by a fixed mileage efficiency metric. I may have used the wrong terminology, but you confirmed what I was trying to get across: that it's just a static figure indexed to battery capacity remaining.

What better way to measure absolute battery capacity remaining than in units of energy (“rated miles”) other than actual real units of energy (kWh)?

“%” is a dimensionless unit of an unknown “100%” level which can change over time.