Performance -- lower power when battery not fully charged??

[drew4392]

I might be late to the party here... but I just came across a mentioning that the Performance doesn't have full power at anything less than a full charge. Is that true??

Perhaps I was naive to think the Performance acted similarly to the Taycan in that it used full power until the battery was empty.

If this is true and that power drops off, is it linear? Does power decrease exponentially as the battery becomes more empty?

Thanks!

 

[Black306]

Yes, it’s true. In an ICE car, gasoline injected into the engine will have the same amount of energy whether the gas tank is full or near empty.

For an EV, power output of the motors is dependent on the voltage of the batteries. However, as power is consumed from the battery, voltage goes down. Any of us as kids playing with electric RC cars would have experienced this early on.

Here is a good article and video on the subject.

Tesla Performance Model 3 Dyno Testing At Various SOC | Mountain Pass Performance

 

[drew4392]

Thanks for this! Really helpful. So key is 75% SOC or above. The drop off below 75% is significant!

Porsche must increase power to compensate for this. Despite the moniker of 'Performance', I guess the key focus of a Performance Model 3 or any Tesla for that matter is practicality and usability vs high-performance all-the-time (like with the Taycan).

And here I thought I'd be able to only charge once a week

 

[Tessaract]

Thanks for this! Really helpful. So key is 75% SOC or above. The drop off below 75% is significant!

Porsche must increase power to compensate for this. Despite the moniker of 'Performance', I guess the key focus of a Performance Model 3 or any Tesla for that matter is practicality and usability vs high-performance all-the-time (like with the Taycan).

And here I thought I'd be able to only charge once a week

You still can charge once a week, unless you spend your entire week at a dragstrip.

 

[G26okie]

Thanks for this! Really helpful. So key is 75% SOC or above. The drop off below 75% is significant!

Porsche must increase power to compensate for this. Despite the moniker of 'Performance', I guess the key focus of a Performance Model 3 or any Tesla for that matter is practicality and usability vs high-performance all-the-time (like with the Taycan).

And here I thought I'd be able to only charge once a week

I am pretty sure the Taycan's performance also drops as the SoC decreases. When I read about them being able to do back to back pulls without degradation I believe they mean overheating as the Model S suffers from that.

 

[drew4392]

You still can charge once a week, unless you spend your entire week at a dragstrip.

Your sarcasm aside, 70 WHP is a very discernible difference, and impacts day-to-day enjoyment. Even staying within PSLs, the stop light springs, passing, etc, will be a different experience with 70 WHP less. This is especially true when someone spends $$ more to get the faster trim. Anyway, all good, it's where we are with this close to gen 1 Model 3 EV tech

 

[Jenremoved]

Unless you are literally going all out at every opportunity below 75%, it is not noticeable. The car is still very quick compared to 99% of other vehicles on the road.

 

[Lunares]

The Taycan shows the same degradation vs SoC. Possibly slightly less power degradation due to their higher voltage (I have not seen a Dyno graph yet)

The Taycan maintains it's 0-60 mph and 1/4 mile times better than a Model S due to the issues the S has with motor overheating, not SoC. The model 3 does not have this issue.

 

[SigNC]

surely somebody will dyno a taycan soon at different SoC.

 

[ElectricIAC]

I might be late to the party here... but I just came across a mentioning that the Performance doesn't have full power at anything less than a full charge. Is that true??

Perhaps I was naive to think the Performance acted similarly to the Taycan in that it used full power until the battery was empty.

If this is true and that power drops off, is it linear? Does power decrease exponentially as the battery becomes more empty?

Thanks!

Yes power drops off fairly lightly until about ~75% then proceeds to fall off a cliff due to Tesla wanting to protect the battery from too heavy of a draw. This could be remedied by a 100kWh pack in the future.

 

[Tessaract]

Your sarcasm aside, 70 WHP is a very discernible difference, and impacts day-to-day enjoyment. Even staying within PSLs, the stop light springs, passing, etc, will be a different experience with 70 WHP less. This is especially true when someone spends $$ more to get the faster trim. Anyway, all good, it's where we are with this close to gen 1 Model 3 EV tech

It was a gentle sarcasm, only. The peak power is definitely fun when conditions allow. But as someone who lives in a snowy climate where winter road conditions frequently make HP irrelevant, I have to confess that I have very few sympathy neurons available for an expectation of using 100% of peak power 100% of the time...

 

[ElectricIAC]

It was a gentle sarcasm, only. The peak power is definitely fun when conditions allow. But as someone who lives in a snowy climate where winter road conditions frequently make HP irrelevant, I have to confess that I have very few sympathy neurons available for an expectation of using 100% of peak power 100% of the time...

For the ICE owner migrating to a BEV consistent performance (or lack thereof) can be a huge system shock.

 

[mswlogo]

Your sarcasm aside, 70 WHP is a very discernible difference, and impacts day-to-day enjoyment. Even staying within PSLs, the stop light springs, passing, etc, will be a different experience with 70 WHP less. This is especially true when someone spends $$ more to get the faster trim. Anyway, all good, it's where we are with this close to gen 1 Model 3 EV tech

You'll notice the difference at the track. Assuming you don't drive it like you would at the track on public roads you won't notice the difference. If you do, you probably have bigger problems.

 

[dfwatt]

For the ICE owner migrating to a BEV consistent performance (or lack thereof) can be a huge system shock.

Well, there are other trade-offs in a positive direction for Ev technology. Although performance drops off as your state-of-charge goes down, try getting Max performance from an internal combustion engine at altitude, or in really hot weather. It ain't happening. Even just 80° significantly drops horsepower output from most internal combustion engines compared to say 50 degrees. Don't talk to anybody living in the Rocky Mountains about performance degradation in EV vehicles.

 

[ElectricIAC]

Well, there are other trade-offs in a positive direction for Ev technology. Although performance drops off as your state-of-charge goes down, try getting Max performance from an internal combustion engine at altitude, or in really hot weather. It ain't happening. Even just 80° significantly drops horsepower output from most internal combustion engines compared to say 50 degrees. Don't talk to anybody living in the Rocky Mountains about performance degradation in EV vehicles.

I’m well aware of this dynamic however at high altitudes or high heat you adjust your initial expectations or you adjust the vehicle’s specifications (boost if applicable or other power adders)

That being said, charging your car is faster and more convenient than the other alternatives. I’d be curious to see what the power curve vs SoC of P85/90/100D S/X looks like in comparison to the P3D.

 

[dfwatt]

I’m well aware of this dynamic however at high altitudes or high heat you adjust your initial expectations or you adjust the vehicle’s specifications (boost if applicable or other power adders)

That being said, charging your car is faster and more convenient than the other alternatives. I’d be curious to see what the power curve vs SoC of P85/90/100D S/X looks like in comparison to the P3D.

So if you can adjust your expectations of performance in relationship to ICE Vehicles why can't you do that in relationship to electric ones? As for adjusting boost that is only an option for people who have the ability to change firmware affecting a turbocharger. And that's risky, expensive, and voids the warranty most of the time.

I think that the constancy of performance and actually better performance at higher temperatures and stable performance at altitude are two of the great ace cards in the EV deck. If you're interested in Max performance all you have to do is get your charge state above 85% and you're good. That's a lot less hassle then recalibrating your turbo. And there's not much you can do to improve performance in an internal combustion engine when the intake temperatures skyrocket. You just have to live with the reduced power.

For sure one of the hassles of course for track guys is the rapidly dropping state of charge with most tracks not having superchargers. This means obviously a very limited number of laps with full or close to full power. This is a bummer but hopefully will get better.

 

[afadeev]

You'll notice the difference at the track.

You would, and I do, notice EVERYWHERE I drive.
I've learned to re-calibrate my throttle inputs when SOC is below 60%. That's just part of EV live.

On track, however, a far bigger problem is the requirement to rapidly recharge the battery sometime soon after session #2.
I get 1,000-1,350 Wh/mi consumption rate, and for a typical 1.5 mile lap, that equals ~2.0% battery SOC drop. 30 minute session =~20 laps ~= the battery is drained ~40% after each session).

In other words, you MUST have a Tesla SuperCharge nearby, or you will only be able to run 2 out of 4 sessions on a typical day.

Similarly for autoX, your best runs HAVE to be the first 2-3 runs in the morning.
In the afternoon, when everyone is getting faster, you will not be improving.
This can get frustrating.

Assuming you don't drive it like you would at the track on public roads you won't notice the difference. If you do, you probably have bigger problems.

If you can't notice 70HP power drop, we are not the ones with problems.

 

[Sutton 3P]

An important thing to keep in mind is that SOC has almost no effect on 0-60. It’s once you’re accelerating above those speeds that charge matters. As someone who commutes in the greater New York area, driving between 30-80 mph, I find the car has very little practical degradation above 50% SOC.

 

[Dolemite]

It is true and it sucks, but the car is still fast as *sugar* even at a lower SoC. I've wrecked very fast cars in my P3D- @ ~30% on public roads, even from a roll. The car is still considerably powerful even when it's not cranking out 550+ hp (or whatever).

 

[Mrcarcrazy]

I am pretty sure the Taycan's performance also drops as the SoC decreases. When I read about them being able to do back to back pulls without degradation I believe they mean overheating as the Model S suffers from that.

Yep. Porsche lies...look at dragtimes YouTube video where he times a “turbo” and then a “turbo S”. Turbo was at higher SoC And painfully close times. Germans are lying to the world again, be cautious.