Range anxiety, winter performance and more concerns need help overcoming

[ben1628]

I can confirm LR Model 3 charging at 50 KM/hr.

 

[5_+JqckQttqck]

Yep, range halved for city driving / short trips due to cabin heating cycles. For a long drive, the rated 450km @90% would probably get you 350kms easily driving at 100kph on the highway.

 

[bijan]

Yep, range halved for city driving / short trips due to cabin heating cycles. For a long drive, the rated 450km @90% would probably get you 350kms easily driving at 100kph on the highway.

OP said he wanted to drive 120-130 km/h and didn't want to drive 100 km/h. It's going to be closer to 50% at -20C and at 120-130km/h. I got just under 80% of EPA rating in October at 12C driving at average of 117km/h.

358 km driven, 450 km rated range used (I charged past 90%). Also I have AWD which gives worse range though.

Edit: Oops, wrong OP. Must have got my threads confused! The numbers still stand though.

 

[Struja]

Hi all,

I'm posting this in the Canada section because I feel my concerns over range anxiety are more hyper-specific to Canada than anywhere else. I currently live just north of Waterloo or ~40km from the Cambridge supercharger.

My concerns over range anxiety come from a few points:

• How harsh does our sometimes -40c winters actually impact range? I've seen plenty of tests where people go to -20 or so but none so far with our harsh winters
• I've read a lot from people in Ontario concerned about the lack of chademo adapters and their vehicles. What current adapters are currently available for Tesla's and what should I expect from those?
• How often are charging stations (either malls, superchargers, etc) actually busy enough that you can't find a spot? I worry that I'll find a spot and need a charge but then have to wait 20-30 minutes for one to open up and then spend another 30+ minutes charging. Not ideal.

In terms of what I'm looking at, I'm leaning heavily towards the long-range Model 3 AWD (which I'll also have winter tires on). Since there's a lot of backroads where I am, not having AWD really worries me. I've seen a lot of talk that Tesla's RWD traction is great in the winter with snows on, that also seems to be more isolated to people driving in cities, not country-road whiteouts. Can anyone speak to this?


Thanks a lot in advance!

When I bought my S, I had a lot of the same concerns (although being in Toronto, a lot more charging options). I frequently travel to Michigan so my concern was range and moreso, winter range.

On the coldest days I experience up to 40% loss in range. My car's current 90% (after some battery degradation) is about 415km (the smarter guys on here will explain why using km for range on an electric car isn't always smart).

In any event, that could put my total range down to about 250km on the absolute worst days (I also run winter tires and my car is AWD). Now, if I know I am going on a long trip, I will charge to 100% and that will get me over 275km in range (on the coldest days after a potential 40% loss in range). I really can't think of a scenario (for the way I drive) where that is not enough. (The distance between the Woodstock SC and the Comber SC is 185km so for my driving that would be the longest stretch between SC's).

There are other issues to contemplate in the winter though. For example, if you are parking outside, you will have more vampire drain than if you are garage parked in a fairly well insulated garage (like mine). If you are parked outside and your battery is cold soaked, it will be less efficient until it starts to warm and you'll have no regen in the very cold days. I am now through my 2nd winter with my car and I have never run into a problem with range. Having said that, I am of the frame of mind that you "can never have too much range"... so if Tesla came out with a 1000km battery for the S, I'd be in line for it right away!

 

[Lon12]

You know I like to use % charge instead of distance.
I transitioned to that many years ago after doing a few long distance trips.

 

[ASC9177]

Real World.

I drove from Brampton to Bancroft yesterday. Charged to 100%. And in -20C, the remaining charge was 15%. That is driving on average 5-10km/h (cruise control/AP) over the speed limit, with front seat heater on at 2, temp around 21C. This trip was just around 270km. I have 19" winters as well.

The cold will kill your range, no doubt. Far more than I expected.

Charging is also less effective in the cold. I used the municipal charger yesterday and it took 12hrs to 90% at 30A, 200V.

I have not been happy with the recent price drop and poor after-sales customer service, but that is for another day...

 

[Gerk]

The worst I've seen so far was on some of the really cold days in the Toronto area and in really bad bumper-to-bumper traffic was 50% loss. But you also have to consider on those days it took me 2.5-3 hours to drive 42km one way, so in the really cold weather (and assuming also really hot weather running the AC) the length of time running the cabinet heating/cooling makes a big difference as well.

 

[bijan]

Driving at 130 km/h hit 58% efficiency at just about 0C today. So could easily hit 50% on the highway at -20C if driving fast.

 

[Birdman325]

How far is Brampton to Bancroft ?

 

[bijan]

How far is Brampton to Bancroft ?

Google says 272km

 

[Birdman325]

15% remaining? Sounds about right. I had similar results from Toronto to Kingston which is about 255 km

 

[AmandaC]

Lots of good responses here, so just to address your last question, I charge outdoors on a NEMA 14-50 at 32A and in cold weather (-20) it takes about an hour of warming before it hits the 49 km/hr typical rate. Sometimes it even stays at zero for a while. The point being, the reduction due to cold is not for the whole time, so at most you’re looking at an extra hour. (Preheating will also slow down the charge rate, but really it only needs 5-10 minutes before you leave.)

The exception was when we had the frozen locking pin issue that limited charging to 16 A, but that was resolved with the new actuator.

 

[shellderp]

It really never gets down to -40c in Waterloo, windchill doesn't count. There was that one freak day we hit -35c 4 years ago, and funny enough I saw a tesla on the road that day, so that answered my question whether they can run in extreme cold

Data archives for University of Waterloo weather station
>Also of note was the low temperature we saw on Family Day (Feb 16) which was -34.9°C, beating the previous low of -32.3°C on January 27, 2005