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Quite disappointment with my new Model 3's range. Should I be?

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Since you picked up in Dec., I'm guessing it's in the high-40s when you're commuting. Do you have heat set to 70F or so? If so, that's probably consuming about 30-40 Wh/mi. on average. It's in the 50s during my commute and my efficiency (LR RWD) goes from about 215 Wh/mi. in summer to 245 Wh/mi. in winter just due to cabin heating.
 
I don't think he is having range anxiety. He is concerned that there is something wrong with his battery and not getting the correct amount of capacity. If I owned the car, instead of leasing, I would want to make sure my batteries checked out and were able to get the full capacity that I paid for.

My Performance Stealth doesn't get anywhere near the 310 mile range but I don't do anything to try to achieve it. I never precondition, warm up while plugged in, I mash the pedal whenever I can safely, and drive with the heater on. On my Mid-Range I had before this, I bought it, not leased, so I was carefully trying to track such items to make sure my batteries were solid.

Reads as range anxiety. He clearly has enough battery to get where he wants and hasn’t read the plethora of posts on here discussing the EPA best case scenario number.
 
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Getting ~250kw / mi averaged over the whole journey.

(0.12*310rmi*230Wh/rmi + 0.1*310rmi*230Wh/rmi)/(31mi+29.8mi) = 258Wh/mi

Story checks out (other than your units). (There is up to 10% error here because you quoted starting and ending % rather than rated miles at beginning and end of each segment.) Looks like it is uphill for you on the way to work and slightly downhill on the way home, since your efficiency is substantially better on the way home (though it could have also been due to climate control use).

You need to see that trip meter number be about 230-235Wh/mi if you want to get 310 miles out of the batttery to 0%. Note that the EPA test which provided the 310 rated mile number drives until the battery is dead, and you have a 4.5% buffer below 0%/0rmi, which is completely exhausted in the EPA test (which drives for perhaps 15-20 miles on the dyno after the display hits 0%!). So if you were to use that buffer (do not attempt to), you could travel ~325 miles at an average of 230-235Wh/mi.

Or, alternatively, look at it as: Out of the box, you only get 95.5% of the EPA range available to you, due to this buffer. So you should only expect 310rmi*0.955 = 296 rated miles if you drive at the "rated" value, and you do not want to go into the buffer (stay above 0%). That rated efficiency is about 245Wh/mi. So if you do that, you'll get 310rmi * 234Wh/rmi / 245Wh/mi = 296mi.

Some links:

(I got the % improvement on the SR+ wrong somehow...)
2020, 2019, 2018 Model 3 Battery Capacities & Charging Constants

Not updated with 2020 Performance numbers yet (there are changes for 2020 Performance, but not for 2020 LR AWD yet):

Lines & Constants & Calculations
 
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These have been enormously helpful replies. Thank you so much. I was trying to 'like' them, but for some reasons I can't. Thank you again!
Thank you for choosing to drive electric! After a few months you’ll forget about most of this stuff. After a few years you’ll forget about what it was like to drive a jerky, noisy, smelly and expensive gas vehicle. I recently loaned out my 8.5 yo Leaf to a neighbor while I was on a road trip. I had to really think about giving them advice, since it’s been so long. I forgot to tell them to use cruise control because it’s so easy to speed without those ICE noise clues.:p
 
You're driving 80% of the EPA estimate. That's a mixed cycle with less freeways (and lower speeds on them).

By the way: if you rarely drive with the state of charge out of the 20%-80% range those state of charge percentages are also not that reliable; the BMC needs to have some cycles from fairly close to 0% to farily close to 100% to calibrate itself. Not too often, since it degrades the battery faster, but if you have none of those cycles the BMC's estimate for state of charge becomes more inaccurate as well.

It's also fairly cold and these are short drives (although my gues is that in California the effect is less severe). In other words: the extrapolation is probably slightly invalid for this reason as well. The hit on range from a cold battery when starting to drive for a short ride (and the fact that you usually heat your car) is quite severe (at least below 10-15° C).

Great explanation.

Does the BMC recalibrate if you start doing your best practices above? ( eg before you sell or trade, start driving EPA style and charge 20 to 100% etc)

Also on a side note, what do you think of SR lock protecting the battery at 100% but messing with the BMC calculations.
 
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Range anxiety is just dumb if you live on either coast or within a major metropolitan area. These same concerns would never exist in an ICE car - another point made to me on this forum.
I respectfully disagree. My wife drove my SR+ from our home in South OC to Burbank one evening and although I'm supposed to have a range of 240 miles and the round trip should have been 165 miles, she had to stop at a charging station a little before midnight to get a quick charge or she wouldn't have made it home. I gotta tell ya, my wife is a 5ft 65 year old woman I don't like her having to stop anywhere in the middle of the night for any reason especially for a quick charge. She will no longer drive the 3 anywhere but to the local grocery store, she drives her ICE everywhere else (it has a range of 400+ "real" miles).

So "dumb" or not, range anxiety is a real f*****g thing.
 
I've been hedging my bets when it comes to battery best practices, check back with me in 10 years and we'll compare notes to see if what I'm doing makes any difference whatsoever (probably not!) ;)

This (no kidding) is what I'm doing
  • Using the "middle" of my battery for M-F commuting. I use about 40% each day, so I charge to about 70% and arrive home with 30%.
  • Charge to 90% on friday night to allow pack equalizing and BMS calibrations to occur over the weekend. I drive my truck on the weekend, so the car "rests" for a couple days.
FWIW, with the mild weather in SoCal, and a horrible amount of slow traffic, I easily manage to get my rated miles nearly every day. 120 mile round trip commute and I use about 40% of my LR AWD battery. This includes sentry on during work hours.

Edit: Forgot to mention: Aero covers on, pressure set at 42.
 
The funny thing is, most people don't get rated range in their gas car either, they just never pay attention. And with this car it's full every day for you without stopping anywhere else, so it's more convenient than gas normally!
I just think how BEVs are sold vs. how ICE vehicles are traditionally sold, it's an unfair comparison. I've never driven or owned an ICE vehicle where the range was "320 miles on a single tank". they provide you different numbers, based on driving, and recently added the "mixed" driving number, which was supposed to be more realistic. from there you could "guesstimate" the expected range of the tank and prepare accordingly. my tank is 16 gallons and i'm averaging 21 MPG, therefore I have 32 miles of "range" before I should think about filling up.

most of the ICE vehicles were somewhere in that high/low range. my STi could EASILY get 17 MPG if I ragged on it, but with my combined/average daily, i would have an expectation of how much "range" i was actually getting.

I think what might be more helpful for new buyers is some sort of rated range based on wh/mi and then demonstrate the differences based on the climates of the purchase. buying in Florida? your hi/low range will probably be 200-250wh/mi, which will provide x miles of range based on the battery you're buying. buying in Montreal? your hi/low range will probably be 300-350wh/mi...

i think the biggest problem is the blanket "this vehicle gets xxx range", which is bunk.

there was a decent video posted a while back where the guy demoed a bunch of BEVs and "tested" their real-world range. just about every vehicle only made 80% of their stated range (Tesla and Kia being in the top %).
 
As others have stated, a really important thing for a new EV owner to understand is that using your heater takes up a lot of power. Unlike a gas car, which "wastes" ~80% of the energy in the gasoline as heat already (which you can pump into your cabin for "free"), an EV has to intentionally use battery power to generate heat.

Gas car = free heat, as much as you can stand
EV = heat costs you range... possibly a lot if its really cold out, or if you really like being warm, etc...

Whenever possible, pre-heat your car on cold days while still plugged in.

Also, the bay area is very damp, so odds are you're having to run heat and defrost (A/C) to keep your windows from fogging up. So your heater is having to keep you warm while also combating the cooling effect of the A/C being on to keep the humidity down. This is normal in any car, but again, more of a drain on an EV than a gas car.
 
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My high school physics teacher --->
suicide.gif


;)
 
I respectfully disagree. My wife drove my SR+ from our home in South OC to Burbank one evening and although I'm supposed to have a range of 240 miles and the round trip should have been 165 miles, she had to stop at a charging station a little before midnight to get a quick charge or she wouldn't have made it home. I gotta tell ya, my wife is a 5ft 65 year old woman I don't like her having to stop anywhere in the middle of the night for any reason especially for a quick charge. She will no longer drive the 3 anywhere but to the local grocery store, she drives her ICE everywhere else (it has a range of 400+ "real" miles).

So "dumb" or not, range anxiety is a real f*****g thing.


Do you actually expect to get 240 though? Seems like this issue could have been avoided with proper planning and assuming you will not get the EPA best case scenario range. Sorry to hear she doesn’t enjoy the car for long drives anymore.
 
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I respectfully disagree. My wife drove my SR+ from our home in South OC to Burbank one evening and although I'm supposed to have a range of 240 miles and the round trip should have been 165 miles, she had to stop at a charging station a little before midnight to get a quick charge or she wouldn't have made it home. I gotta tell ya, my wife is a 5ft 65 year old woman I don't like her having to stop anywhere in the middle of the night for any reason especially for a quick charge. She will no longer drive the 3 anywhere but to the local grocery store, she drives her ICE everywhere else (it has a range of 400+ "real" miles).

So "dumb" or not, range anxiety is a real f*****g thing.

Sorry you're running into that situation but it sounds like you needed to get the long range or wait for an EV with longer range that fits your needs better. Hopefully that trip was a one off and not a daily thing.
 
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My wife drove my SR+ from our home in South OC to Burbank one evening and although I'm supposed to have a range of 240 miles and the round trip should have been 165 miles, she had to stop at a charging station a little before midnight to get a quick charge or she wouldn't have made it home. I gotta tell ya, my wife is a 5ft 65 year old woman I don't like her having to stop anywhere in the middle of the night for any reason especially for a quick charge. She will no longer drive the 3 anywhere but to the local grocery store, she drives her ICE everywhere else (it has a range of 400+ "real" miles).

So "dumb" or not, range anxiety is a real f*****g thing.
Good point.

We own an ICE vehicle in addition to the Model 3, and we wouldn’t do it any other way.

FWIW...there is a well lit Tesla Supercharging station in Burbank just up the street from Tesla’s facility on San Fernando road with quite a few stations...should your wife decide to take the Tesla to Burbank.
 
Not sure why you would be disappointed anyway. Range seems to more than enough for your needs and you aren't paying for the electricity (I'm assuming since you charge at work) What's the problem?

I disagree with this sentiment. I can definitely understand how someone (especially one new to EVs) would be disappointed with a 320-mile EV getting far less than that.
 
True. EPA mileage and rated range numbers are seldom achieved in actual every day driving except by "range optimizing" drivers who make a goal/game out of it. No offense to range optimizers out there.

Yes, but with ICE vehicles there's no concern of degradation, which is probably the root cause of this type of range anxiety (especially from people newer to EVS).
 
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Yes, but with ICE vehicles there's no concern of degradation, which is probably the root cause of this type of range anxiety (especially from people newer to EVS).
I understand your point, but as a 19 year owner of an ICE vehicle that began life with average of 16.5 mpg, and ended at 12 mpg, I respectfully disagree.

We have experienced the same average mpg degradation on all the ICE cars we have owned over the years, although generally the degradation has happened slowly over time.

What is true is that ICE mpg remains more consistent through the seasons (although it DOES vary).
 
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I understand your point, but as a 19 year owner of an ICE vehicle that began life with average of 16.5 mpg, and ended at 12 mpg, I respectfully disagree.

We have experienced the same average mpg degradation on all the ICE cars we have owned over the years, although generally the degradation has happened slowly over time.

What is true is that ICE mpg remains more consistent through the seasons (although it DOES vary).
That's fascinating and I can verify. With my previous ICE car I kept a detailed fuel log. Looking at the data, my avg mpg declined from 19.0 in 2012 to 15.9 in 2019. I had never sliced the data that way, but the downward trend is definitely there.
 
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I understand your point, but as a 19 year owner of an ICE vehicle that began life with average of 16.5 mpg, and ended at 12 mpg, I respectfully disagree.

We have experienced the same average mpg degradation on all the ICE cars we have owned over the years, although generally the degradation has happened slowly over time.

What is true is that ICE mpg remains more consistent through the seasons (although it DOES vary).
ICE mpg in cold climates does NOT remain consistent.

My data comes from 170k miles in a Prius which averaged 51mpg in the summer and 42mpg in the winter. 18% drop.

Our S (28% drop) and Roadster (21% drop) are not too different from the Prius. We haven't had the ≡ long enough to detect what to expect there.
 
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