Range and battery charging

[mrobins64495]

Morning all,

I’m sure this has been done to death and I’m also sure I read a post about this but for some reason can’t find it.

I’m in the market for long range, as I need the 320 miles or so.

Reading a few posts, people recommend the battery is only chanted to say 80-90% can someone confirm the range they get from this.

I will typically be doing 150 miles twice a week or so, I’m hoping this is covered under the standard charge pattern.

 

[Jason71]

150 miles is easily be within the normal range at any time of year. I would expect to use 50 - 60% of the battery dependant on how you drive and the time of year.
You said you need 320 though. You will struggle to get that even full to empty on a hot day unless you drive like a nun.
As a rule of thumb on an LR I find I get between 2-3 miles per battery %(I don't drive like a nun) I apreciate the difference between 2 and 3 % is huge in range. Welcome to EV driving

 

[mrobins64495]

150 miles is easily be within the normal range at any time of year. I would expect to use 50 - 60% of the battery dependant on how you drive and the time of year.
You said you need 320 though. You will struggle to get that even full to empty on a hot day unless you drive like a nun.
As a rule of thumb on an LR I find I get between 2-3 miles per battery %(I don't drive like a nun) I apreciate the difference between 2 and 3 % is huge in range. Welcome to EV driving

thanks for the quick reply, that’s a good news!

I certainly did say 320, this is more for the future as were considering moving, slightly further north and whilst it won’t be 300 miles commute I think the SR would be too short assuming it can only realistically do 180 miles or so.

Now I just need to decide between either find a nice inventory model or new. - so much has changed since I looked last year, namely the PCH leases are nearly £1-2k more, and weirdly Tesla is now the cheapest lease provider I can find.

 

[LukeUK]

Last week I drove from Shropshire to South Wales and back, my first long journey (picked the car up at the end of July). Charged to 100% the night before, 150 miles each way, mostly non-motorway, typically 50-60. In theory, I would have made it home with 4 miles capacity remaining, but a 20 minute charge whilst I grabbed some food before driving home meant I arrived with about 40 miles range. All feels very do-able.

I'm not expecting the same range when I do a similar journey to Suffolk, all motorway and dual carriageway, but then at least I can slow charge for the weekend when I get there.

Its 215 miles door to door. In winter, with the heater, lights on etc. I'll be happy if I can get there on one charge, but I'm open to that not being possible. Chargers are popping up all the time so it will turn out alright in the end.

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

Now I just need to decide between either find a nice inventory model or new. - so much has changed since I looked last year, namely the PCH leases are nearly £1-2k more, and weirdly Tesla is now the cheapest lease provider I can find.

Custom order and Inventory are pretty much the same thing - they just allocate inventory to your order if one exists, and if one doesn't, they wait until an inventory car arrives and then allocate it then. The idea you order a car, you get allocated a build slot etc like other makes do just doesn't happen with Tesla. Its why the dates are so unpredictable on delivery.

 

[mrobins64495]

Custom order and Inventory are pretty much the same thing - they just allocate inventory to your order if one exists, and if one doesn't, they wait until an inventory car arrives and then allocate it then. The idea you order a car, you get allocated a build slot etc like other makes do just doesn't happen with Tesla. Its why the dates are so unpredictable on delivery.

That’s interesting. I saw a couple of inventory stocks the other day, in fact I missed out on my ideal spec because I buggered about. They seem to have say 500 or so miles on them but they knock a couple of grand off. It’s not big bucks but it’s likely the only discount you get.

 

[Jason71]

Last week I drove from Shropshire to South Wales and back, my first long journey (picked the car up at the end of July). Charged to 100% the night before, 150 miles each way, mostly non-motorway, typically 50-60. In theory, I would have made it home with 4 miles capacity remaining, but a 20 minute charge whilst I grabbed some food before driving home meant I arrived with about 40 miles range. All feels very do-able.

I'm not expecting the same range when I do a similar journey to Suffolk, all motorway and dual carriageway, but then at least I can slow charge for the weekend when I get there.

Its 215 miles door to door. In winter, with the heater, lights on etc. I'll be happy if I can get there on one charge, but I'm open to that not being possible. Chargers are popping up all the time so it will turn out alright in the end.

I do shrop to South wales a lot by the same direct non motorway route (well I did before covid) . I destination charge so don't worry about range. taking the direct route in winter I was doing 300w/m. did it last week for the first time in our slightly warmer summer weather and got 280 on the way and 260 on the way back. My most efficient drive to date was a motorway trip a couple of weeks ago. i kept the cruise control set to 73 and averaged 240w/mile. so motorway is not necessarily worse. depends how you drive
215miles should be doable even in winter but you are right it will be tight. at 300w/m that would use 88% of the battery. I did a long trip in Feb and I think I was a little over that I think but I was cruising at 76 fully loaded with 4 people and luggage. I recon cruising at 70 I would have been under that. if a supercharger is on route its often easier just to stop for a comfort break and then you don't have to worry about it.

 

[LukeUK]

(picked the car up at the end of July).

I meant June. Can't edit it now.

 

[LukeUK]

I do shrop to South wales a lot by the same direct non motorway route (well I did before covid) . I destination charge so don't worry about range. taking the direct route in winter I was doing 300w/m. did it last week for the first time in our slightly warmer summer weather and got 280 on the way and 260 on the way back. My most efficient drive to date was a motorway trip a couple of weeks ago. i kept the cruise control set to 73 and averaged 240w/mile. so motorway is not necessarily worse. depends how you drive
215miles should be doable even in winter but you are right it will be tight. at 300w/m that would use 88% of the battery. I did a long trip in Feb and I think I was a little over that I think but I was cruising at 76 fully loaded with 4 people and luggage. I recon cruising at 70 I would have been under that. if a supercharger is on route its often easier just to stop for a comfort break and then you don't have to worry about it.

TeslaFi logged an average of 222 Wh/mile for the day. The best leg was 209 Wh/mile. Driving around site with the air-con on was up in the 600s.

I drove at the speed limit, or was in traffic. I was testing TACC for the first time, with a handful of overtakes for tractors, but I wasn't pretending it was a track day.

The car was empty, save for my laptop and site kit.

There's only one charger with CCS at the M4 J47 services and it's ecotricity, so I guess I was lucky that it was working.

You can still get to the Instavolt chargers at Leominster, even though the diner is shut, and there's a relatively new?, slightly cheaper 50kW charger in Church Stretton, though it's Clenergy, so yet another app, account, etc.

 

[Dilly]

I’ll do the odd trip to East Sussex, 198 miles door to door and use their Zappi once there.
I reckon if I stay below 70mph (if that’s possible in a Tesla!), I should get all the way without stopping summer or winter.
More likely to need to empty the bladder than charge the car!

 

[LukeUK]

More likely to need to empty the bladder than charge the car!

Yup, similarly, took me longer to eat tea than it did for the car to gain enough charge to complete the journey home without issue.

 

[VanillaAir_UK]

On our LR, 230-240 miles seemed to be the norm trip range in winter, thats averaging around 300Wh/mile. A brief supercharger stop whilst stopping for a pee will add ~20% approx 50 miles. Don't forget to leave enough juice to reach first stop of return journey. If you need 320 miles, I would consider at a couple of brief stops for battery and bladder.

 

[Adopado]

I certainly did say 320, this is more for the future as were considering moving, slightly further north and whilst it won’t be 300 miles commute I think the SR would be too short assuming it can only realistically do 180 miles or so.

The way I'm reading your posts suggests that you are expecting to charge up and then run the battery down as far as you can stretch .. then charge up again. This is rarely the best strategy for use of an EV. With home charging you can always plan to have as much as you will need for the day, and that may just mean short top-ups. When on longer trips, even if the car can technically cover the distance in one hop, you may choose to top up en route ... i.e Supercharge or other fast DC charge. This may mean that you arrive at your destination with more charge so can cover extra miles there or can go longer on the way back before worrying about a low state of charge. 300 mile trips are highly likely to require a charge stop (but with a LR it could be short ... don't plan to waste time "filling up" just as much as you need unless you are having a lunch break or whatever). An SR+ will obviously cover all the same distances but for longer trips will need more, or longer, topping up.

 

[mrobins64495]

The way I'm reading your posts suggests that you are expecting to charge up and then run the battery down as far as you can stretch .. then charge up again. This is rarely the best strategy for use of an EV. With home charging you can always plan to have as much as you will need for the day, and that may just mean short top-ups. When on longer trips, even if the car can technically cover the distance in one hop, you may choose to top up en route ... i.e Supercharge or other fast DC charge. This may mean that you arrive at your destination with more charge so can cover extra miles there or can go longer on the way back before worrying about a low state of charge. 300 mile trips are highly likely to require a charge stop (but with a LR it could be short ... don't plan to waste time "filling up" just as much as you need unless you are having a lunch break or whatever). An SR+ will obviously cover all the same distances but for longer trips will need more, or longer, topping up.

No, you’re reading it wrong, the intention is not to fill to 300 miles every day and run it dry. That being said if I’m commuting in the morning and then to the office and back, stopping to charge isn’t always going to be an option and thus realistically I’d rather be sure.

 

[VanillaAir_UK]

Thats not really how you run an EV. Its not a petrol/diesel car. You probably want to rethink your strategy to keep within 70% battery capacity and charge more frequently when it has no impact on your normal patterns such as when asleep or having a break. Especially important when it cools when range will decrease by another 20-30% and frequent short journeys will take their own toll.

For reasons outside our control, we lived for a few months doing what you intend. We had to charge every 6 days and our typical daily drive was under 15 miles plus a 20 mile round trip to charge.

If you have not already found it, A Better Routeplanner is a useful resource. Don't forget to change default settings to add weather conditions.

 

[mrobins64495]

Thats not really how you run an EV. You probably want to rethink your strategy to keep within 70% battery capacity and charge more frequently when it has no impact on your normal patterns such as when asleep or having a break. Especially important when it cools when range will decrease by another 20-30% and frequent short journeys will take their own toll.

For reasons outside our control, we lived for a few months doing what you intend. We had to charge every 6 days and our typical daily drive was under 15 miles plus a 20 mile round trip to charge.

Not to get into a debate around charging strategy, but I’m not sure I’ve stated anywhere that I don’t intent to charge to a certain level frequently. In fact I have another post around charging points.

The question posed was two fold, the first being that I’ve seen a few posts around charging to 80-90% and if that’s correct. The second being what mileage people see from that, as the basis of our purchase was the ability to do those longer range trips when commuting without having the need to stop, if need be.

 

[Jason71]

TeslaFi logged an average of 222 Wh/mile for the day. The best leg was 209 Wh/mile. Driving around site with the air-con on was up in the 600s.

I drove at the speed limit, or was in traffic. I was testing TACC for the first time, with a handful of overtakes for tractors, but I wasn't pretending it was a track day.

The car was empty, save for my laptop and site kit.

There's only one charger with CCS at the M4 J47 services and it's ecotricity, so I guess I was lucky that it was working.

You can still get to the Instavolt chargers at Leominster, even though the diner is shut, and there's a relatively new?, slightly cheaper 50kW charger in Church Stretton, though it's Clenergy, so yet another app, account, etc.

222wh/m that's impressive. Doesnt sound much fun though . I am lucky to have free destination charging in Swansea. Wales is a bit of a desert for rapid charging. The Leomster instavolts have always been my emergency option though I prefer to go Lientwardine when it's not flooded. Was not aware of the New Church Streton charger. I will take a look.

 

[darkNstormy]

I have a M3LR. I regularly do a trip where I set off on Friday morning to work (20 miles) in County Durham, will usually charge to about 92%. Then drive to Cheshire after work. About 130 miles. I usually have about 30-40% left in the battery when I arrive. If I anticipate doing some more driving shortly after my arrival, I'll detour via Burtonwood SC and charge enough to arrive with 80%. Only have 3-pin UMC charging at my destination (for now!)

 

[Adopado]

The question posed was two fold, the first being that I’ve seen a few posts around charging to 80-90% and if that’s correct. The second being what mileage people see from that, as the basis of our purchase was the ability to do those longer range trips when commuting without having the need to stop, if need be.

Generally charging to 80 to 90% daily is optimal but 95 or 100% is ok if it's a rare occurrence. So for a regular long commute 90% seems reasonable to plan for. Can you comfortably plan to end up with 10%ish and plug in immediately? But will you need to arrive at your destination with, say 25% because there's likely to be another shorter use of the car required before it goes on charge? If the actual route has Superchargers then a 10 minute stop might be all that's needed to arrive with a higher charge remaining. You need an M3 LR owner to give you the numbers but do bear in mind that those will change depending on your right foot, the temperature, wind, rain, snow etc.

 

[LukeUK]

222wh/m that's impressive. Doesnt sound much fun though .

Don't worry, I did have some fun, but I admit I was also wanting to see what I could manage as a benchmark, on my first long run.

Was not aware of the New Church Stretton charger. I will take a look.

In the carpark opposite the co-op, so easy to pop in for a drink/snack/etc. Easy to get to from the crossroads as well.

There's also one in Ludlow, but it's right in the centre, not convenient to get to at all.