Range at Motorway Speeds

[JimGreen]

I'm seriously considering the Tesla Model 3 (Long Range) as a company car, i commute between Hull and Manchester on a daily basis, along the dreaded M62 travelling at Motorway Speeds of 70mph and a bit, the journey is 100 miles each way.

Taking into account the my constant and relatively high speed and the distance i'll be travelling, how close to the claimed range should I be able to get, or will travelling at this speed reduce the range significantly..... ???

 

[Revelation]

You should be fine. I only have a 100 mile round-trip commute and driving around for lunch; I usually use between 35-40% SoC with speeds of 77-80 mph. Temperature and weather will have an impact as well.

 

[JimGreen]

Many Thanks

 

[DirtyT3sla]

You won't be getting 310 or whatever they're claiming now (322?) but you should easily get 230-250. Unless it gets really cold... then 200 miles would worry me a bit, but you could adjust driving behavior to make up at the middle/end of the drive if needed.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

I'm seriously considering the Tesla Model 3 (Long Range) as a company car, i commute between Hull and Manchester on a daily basis, along the dreaded M62 travelling at Motorway Speeds of 70mph and a bit, the journey is 100 miles each way.

Taking into account the my constant and relatively high speed and the distance i'll be travelling, how close to the claimed range should I be able to get, or will travelling at this speed reduce the range significantly..... ???

Conservatively, expect about 270Wh/mi so for a new car that will give you about 274 miles of range.

77.6kWh*0.955/270Wh/mi = 274 miles.

If you have to use the heat, that is about 3 hours total heat at say 2kW. That is 6kWh.

That takes your range to:

(77.6kWh*0.955 - 6kWh)/270Wh/mi = 252mi.

But ideally you do something like 90% to 10% daily. So that is only 80% of the amount above the buffer:

((77.6kWh*0.955*0.8)-6kWh)/270Wh/mi = 220 miles

Don’t forget to account for 10% loss of capacity in the first year!!! This is quite common and long term you will certainly get there:

((77.6kWh*0.9*0.955*0.8)-6kWh)/270Wh/mi = 198 miles.

Probably you can do better than 270Wh/mi with no heat use (I think you could do about 250Wh/mi with aeros if the roads are dry), but trying to worst case it here.

Remember that you probably cannot use any features (sentry, etc.) if you do not want to do any charging during the day; the budget will be too tight. Sentry uses 250Wh/hr (it is 250W). Good to budget for about 1kWh of vampire drain per day, too.

I think you can do it without charging and keeping in the 90-10% range, but long term it may be tight especially on cold wet days. But obviously you could charge to 95-100% as needed and the car will be fine. The 6kWh of heating could be a lot higher on very cold days (I would say 12kWh would be reasonable over 3 hours in most UK cases).

If you can destination charge conveniently obviously it is no problem; I am assuming you do not want to fiddle around with any daytime charging

 

[user212_nr]

You do have some superchargers in Leeds, so you won't get stranded in a worst case scenario unless you don't pay attention.

As others have said, you should be fine except maybe in extreme cold weather.

You can probably make it work, though it would be best if you can get a charge both at home and at your destination. In the UK, there is significantly more power available to you at a regular socket than we have in the US, so that means that you can get a non-trivial charge simply by plugging your car in to the nearest electrical outlet for 3-8 hours.

I won't say I know the exact power of the UK sockets, but I believe it is 13A, 230V, 50hz, which is approximately double what we have.

That will double your range from "322" to 400-600 and you can even get the SR+ in that case. The lower price will pay for any charging equipment (though your employer is paying so get the better one).