Performance not getting 310 miles promised

[Cowby]

I had a very similar experience during my first couple of charges with terrible range on the P3D, but since then I have charged all the way to 100% and used it until the battery came down to 10% or so and I have seen improvement in the range. I have tracked this only once now and in that instance I got 250 miles (with 60% freeway speeds upto 75mph and 40% city driving). Check the snapshot that I took, 215 miles driven since the last charge with 34 miles left (11% remaining battery) and the energy consumption meter was actually projecting 41 remaining miles. Even if I go with the lower value (34 miles), I have successfully got 250 miles, averaging 282 Wh/mil.

And here is the kicker: I have custom aftermarket staggered 20" Vossen wheels with open spoke design and 285 wide tires at the rear (have done everything to kill efficiency ) and still managed to get 250 miles. I'm tracking again and so far have driven 70 miles with 68% battery remaining.

My suggestion is, if you havent already charged all the way to 100%, please do so atleast 3 to 4 times and drive it all the way down to 10%. The BMS will start to adapt and make the battery more efficient.

View attachment 366169

One thing I want to mention, if you are parking outside the cold temperature can have a noticeable effect on the range as the temp has been down to 30's the last few days/weeks in socal area, it is back to upper 40's now though.

@Dan_LA if you ever see a Burgundy Model 3 in the area, that would be me

View attachment 366171

Is this a Sig red color?!? If it’s oem, then I’m super jealous! Congrats!

 

[StellarRat]

You're driving 75 mph+ you're not going to get close to the rated range. That's all there is to it.

 

[mswlogo]

327 Mi/h for 1,033 miles driven... *sugar*... the RWD I was getting 130 Wh/Mi cruising on freeway to work... 65mph... that was the lowest I got... didn't know M3P would be 3x.

Your complaint should be why is the RWD exceeding EPA rating. Not that your Performance is not meeting it. Elon was smart how he spec’d The cars.

20” wheels, cool weather, driving 75+ mph. 327 wh/mi sounds about right.

That’s about 23% below EPA rating. I don’t think EPA tested 20” tires because it was an option when tested.

You’ll probably be closer to EPA rating when it warms up.

BTW if your temperture is on 68F (AC on or not) and it’s less than 68F outdoors, your heat is ON.

Your claim of 130 wh/mi on RWD is exceeding EPA rating by 93%. That’s a bit hard to believe for lifetime of 10,000 miles. Guess they accidentally put in a 2020 Roadster battery in it.

 

[electrictorque]

I have a M3P 18inch wheels no aero caps with 3k miles since September and my lifetime is 245wh/mi I'm in NJ so it has been cold...

 

[mpmeyer]

The German configurator shows 30km (~19mi) less for the M3P vs D.

530km (331mi) vs 560km (350mi). Both more optimistic than US EPA. But they indicate a difference between the models.

 

[JeffK]

The German configurator shows 30km (16mi) less for the M3P vs D

View attachment 366225

View attachment 366226

Nice, I wonder what test WLTP does that illuminated the difference between the models.

 

[Troy]

@Dan_LA,

There are two reasons why your P3D has less range than your LR:

1. Both EPA tests (LR and LRD/P) were performed with the 18" wheels. LRD/P scored 296 miles in EPA highway test compared to 318 mi for the LR. In case you are wondering how it ended up at 310 miles if the score was 296, that's because EPA rated range combines city and highway scores. City score has 55% weight compared to 45% for the highway score and all Model 3 cars have higher scores in the city test. The actual EPA rated range numbers were 309 miles for LRD/P and 334 miles for LR. Tesla used an alternative multiplier to increase LRD/P's score from 309 to 310 and they have voluntarily reduced LR's score from 334 to 310. So that's why both cars ended up at 310. However, the important thing is, when both were tested with 18" wheels, the highway score was 296 vs 318.
2. You get less range with the 20" wheels compared to 18". If the P3D were tested with 20" wheels, it would have scored 269 miles instead of 296.

Here is a detailed breakdown:

• The Model 3 Performance version has 310 miles EPA rated range.
• However, EPA rated range is calculated from 55% of EPA city range and 45% of EPA highway range. The EPA highways score was 296 miles for P3D.
• However, the car was tested with 18" wheels. If it were tested with 20" wheels, EPA highway range would have been 269 miles.
• However, that range corresponds to 68 mph. At 75 mph, it drops to 240 miles.
• However, A/C, cold weather and road surface will also affect range. To be clear, if the weather is cold, you will still lose some range even if the roads are dry and A/C is off because batteries don't perform as well in cold weather.

I recommend checking out my range table here: teslike.com/range. It's based on EPA highway scores. If you scroll down around 40% of the page, there is a section called "Is EPA rated range a good measure to compare the range of different Tesla cars?" I recommend reading that section.

Edit: Here is a table that explains things better:

 

[Troy]

Here is another interesting detail where the advertised range numbers don't reflect the actual difference. This time the issue is between LR and MR:

EPA highway range:
Model 3 LR: 318 mi
Model 3 MR: 251 mi
Difference: 67 mi

EPA city and highway combined range (aka EPA rated range):
Model 3 LR: 310 mi (actual score is 334 but it was lowered to make the P3D look good)
Model 3 MR: 264 mi (264 is the actual score)
Difference: 46 mi

Related blog post: Model 3 Mid Range has 251 miles highway range according to EPA - Teslike.com
I wrote this blog post a few weeks ago. It has screenshots from EPA documents. Interestingly, the first screenshot happens to show both the 260 miles and 264 miles EPA rated range numbers for Model 3 MR. 264 miles is the actual score but Tesla voluntarily lowered it to 260 miles. That was a good move. They should have lowered it to 251 miles which is the highway range. However, city range is 274, therefore combined range was 264. For some reason, they have now stopped with the voluntary reduction. It's back to 264 mi.

 

[hdAge]

Is this a Sig red color?!? If it’s oem, then I’m super jealous! Congrats!

It is not OEM, a two tone Autoflex candy paint. Dont want to hijack this thread, but you can find more here here Two tone Burgundy/Black Autoflex paint on Model3

Btw, multiple people have said the paint looks very close to Signature Red.

 

[EV Enthusiast]

This has been a very helpful thread for me. I have already gone from 42psi to 45psi and have my next road trip next week. Will be anxious to see the improvement. My experience on my first road trip was close to what Dan is explaining. But I was on I10 and going 80-85 mph.

 

[kbecks13]

But I was on I10 and going 80-85 mph

Here's a fun experiment i did on a long trip with little traffic - try setting your speed to a few different settings (i did 70, 75 and 80) and drive at that speed for 5 miles and watch your energy graph for an average. I saw a difference of approx 30 wh/mile going from 70 to 75 for example.

 

[Perry]

Hi,

Is there anyone having issues with Performance range? After 1,000 miles driven and 10,000 driven RWD, I am not getting even 200 miles I guess... while they advertise 310 miles.

Cheers!

-Dan

Same here I get about 140 miles from 100% to 0 SOC with no AC or heater usage. Less if I use climate control.

 

[Perry]

Today I used 30% of my battery to go 50 miles.

Wow! that's really good. I went the same from San Jose to San Francisco (50 miles) on route 35 and used 50% of my battery.

 

[ModelNforNerd]

@Dan_LA,

There are two reasons why your P3D has less range than your LR:

1. Both EPA tests (LR and LRD/P) were performed with the 18" wheels. LRD/P scored 296 miles in EPA highway test compared to 318 mi for the LR. In case you are wondering how it ended up at 310 miles if the score was 296, that's because EPA rated range combines city and highway scores. City score has 55% weight compared to 45% for the highway score and all Model 3 cars have higher scores in the city test. The actual EPA rated range numbers were 309 miles for LRD/P and 334 miles for LR. Tesla used an alternative multiplier to increase LRD/P's score from 309 to 310 and they have voluntarily reduced LR's score from 334 to 310. So that's why both cars ended up at 310. However, the important thing is, when both were tested with 18" wheels, the highway score was 296 vs 318.
2. You get less range with the 20" wheels compared to 18". If the P3D were tested with 20" wheels, it would have scored 269 miles instead of 296.

Here is a detailed breakdown:

• The Model 3 Performance version has 310 miles EPA rated range.
• However, EPA rated range is calculated from 55% of EPA city range and 45% of EPA highway range. The EPA highways score was 296 miles for P3D.
• However, the car was tested with 18" wheels. If it were tested with 20" wheels, EPA highway range would have been 269 miles.
• However, that range corresponds to 68 mph. At 75 mph, it drops to 240 miles.
• However, A/C, cold weather and road surface will also affect range. To be clear, if the weather is cold, you will still lose some range even if the roads are dry and A/C is off because batteries don't perform as well in cold weather.

I recommend checking out my range table here: teslike.com/range. It's based on EPA highway scores. If you scroll down around 40% of the page, there is a section called "Is EPA rated range a good measure to compare the range of different Tesla cars?" I recommend reading that section.

Edit: Here is a table that explains things better:

After ALLLLL that, is it bad that my thought was "draft more big trucks to try and hit that Dyno score?"

 

[happyzod]

Just went on a 40 minute trip today. ~ 30 miles including some city but mostly highway. 90% of it was on autopilot driving between 60 and 70 mph. Key points are

- I was using 18 inch wheels but with aero covers off. (Performance Stealth)
- It was raining
- It was 40 degrees F, I had manual defogging on but no heat (Set temperature to 60F, fanspeed to 1, only defogging, no AC, no recycling air). Instead, I used a cigarette lighter heater to heat myself with seat heaters and a sweater. Felt very comfortable inside.
- Did 2-3 of 20-65 accelerations.

Here are the results of my trip. That's 287 miles range.

 

[JeffK]

Wow! that's really good. I went the same from San Jose to San Francisco (50 miles) on route 35 and used 50% of my battery.

If that's with no heat, you might want to ask the service center if it's one of the VINs that requires a battery replacement

I know people keep marking my post as funny, but every day with heat it's pretty consistent 27-30% drain for a 50 mile round trip commute to work. It was only around 20% in the fall. Mostly freeway at 70-80 mph on EAP.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

If that's with no heat, you might want to ask the service center if it's one of the VINs that requires a battery replacement

I know people keep marking my post as funny, but every day with heat it's pretty consistent 27-30% drain for a 50 mile round trip commute to work. It was only around 20% in the fall. Mostly freeway at 70-80 mph on EAP.

Yeah does seem like a lot to use 750Wh/mi. It is possible the heat is in his tires though; he has 4000 miles on the clock and they are half gone. Worth doing an extremely sedate drive and making sure everything is normal.

 

[HyperMiler]

Even though there are fewer parts to break in in EVs, shouldn’t efficiency increase over the first 10,000 to 20,000 miles? It has been my impression that things improve after a while by 5% in EV and up to 10% in ICE compared to new.

 

[JeffK]

shouldn’t efficiency increase over the first 10,000 to 20,000 miles

No, why would it?

Efficiency should stay the same and range should decrease very slightly as the battery degrades a little bit.

Of course, if your first couple thousand miles is in the winter your next couple thousand miles in the spring and summer might appear more efficient but that's due to the difference weather.

 

[HyperMiler]

Because seals, gears and bearings are comparatively stiff and have not settled very well. In ICE vehicles this is more pronounced because of piston friction and more gearing, but should be different from zero even in EVs.