Range in app?

[Morriscoombes]

It’s a curious obsession that only seems to apply to EVs.
If you talk to ICE owners they often pretend their economy is far better than the truth.
Yet it’s almost the opposite here.

why is that? My theory is that it’s an analogue to digital thing — folks seem to think that an EV has a fixed digital range because ‘reasons’

 

[pghstochaj]

Still missing the point.

Simple technical query. Should the app and car reported range after charging be the EPA or WLTP range (and therefore close to 350 miles at 100%) as per the manual and Tesla webchat, or should it be something else.

If it should be rated range, why is mine 50 miles too low. Does that mean there is an issue with the battery pack which is resulting in a shorter reported rated range.

Not:

Why don’t I get the quoted range
How do I hide that the range quoted isn’t what I achieve
Why does range vary
Why did I buy a car gullible enough to believe the rated range

it matters as if it should report rated range and I’m 50 miles down, I may need it to get looked at as then in use, the real range achieved will be commensurately shorter.

not sure if this has hit a nerve with many proud owners, but it’s a valid question given the contents of the manual and it results in concern if the manual is wrong, or the car is wrong.

 

[KaiM]

Forget what the manual says, the consensus from owners is that the app charge at 100% should not show 352 miles for a M3P and what you are getting is what the rest of are getting.

 

[UrbanSplash]

My year old LR showed 310 ish on the app at 100% on collection. It now shows 275 ish.

I haven’t driven regularly, and rarely do long drives. It’s very erratic use. I just presume the car has no real chance to estimate range etc properly, and not that the battery capacity is vanishing at an alarming rate.

 

[Drew57]

Still missing the point.

Simple technical query. Should the app and car reported range after charging be the EPA or WLTP range (and therefore close to 350 miles at 100%) as per the manual and Tesla webchat, or should it be something else.

If it should be rated range, why is mine 50 miles too low. Does that mean there is an issue with the battery pack which is resulting in a shorter reported rated range.

OK, answering these two specific questions as you ask:

Should the app and car reported range after charging be the EPA or WLTP range (and therefore close to 350 miles at 100%) as per the manual and Tesla webchat, or should it be something else. We are in Europe & I believe that means it 'should' be EPA (may explain the confusion with your US web chat, they use WLTP). The fact is it isn't as per the manual for all of us and that's why we say change to % and stop worrying, if Teslas manual states it incorrectly then so be it, not a big deal to those posting here.

If it should be rated range, why is mine 50 miles too low. Does that mean there is an issue with the battery pack which is resulting in a shorter reported rated range. It's low because the car is continuously recalculating based on recent behaviour & conditions. This forum is clearly the wrong place to tell you if you have a problem with your batteries - many of us try to reassure you that what you see is what we see & I can understand you don't like to hear that. Maybe you bought the wrong car.

I guess we all tried to reassure you to stop stressing as we see similar fluctuating range but unless we say 'yes your batteries are faulty' you won't be satisfied. I won't tell you that, we are trying to reassure and calm you.

Please drive as I mentioned previously & displayed range in the app will go up if that's what you want.

 

[pghstochaj]

It’s a curious obsession that only seems to apply to EVs.
If you talk to ICE owners they often pretend their economy is far better than the truth.
Yet it’s almost the opposite here.

why is that? My theory is that it’s an analogue to digital thing — folks seem to think that an EV has a fixed digital range because ‘reasons’

It is absolutely not this or unreasonable belief in rated range versus real range. I am fully aware of the difference.

You buy a car which has a rated 0-60 of 5 seconds.
You are fully aware that achieving 5 seconds depends on your ability and it might be a lot slower.
When the car arrives, it has a statement on the car computer stating rated 0-60 in 6 seconds.

or

You buy a car which has a rated 50 MPG.
You are fully aware that achieving 50 MPG depends on various conditions.
When the car arrives, it comes with paperwork saying that the rated MPG is 40 MPG.

This is nothing to do with EV range anxiety, it's simply whether the app is supposed to report rated range or not and if so, why mine is 50 miles lower than the rated range, and is this an issue.

People seem intent in changing the question or answering a different question.

 

[Drew57]

I hope you are within the timescale to return the vehicle. For most people owning a new car, let alone a Tesla is a joyful experience. I'm so sorry that this car has brought you so much anxiety, stress and unhappiness (I answered both your questions to the best of my limited ability)

 

[pghstochaj]

OK, answering these two specific questions as you ask:

Should the app and car reported range after charging be the EPA or WLTP range (and therefore close to 350 miles at 100%) as per the manual and Tesla webchat, or should it be something else. We are in Europe & I believe that means it 'should' be EPA (may explain the confusion with your US web chat, they use WLTP). The fact is it isn't as per the manual for all of us and that's why we say change to % and stop worrying, if Teslas manual states it incorrectly then so be it, not a big deal to those posting here.

If it should be rated range, why is mine 50 miles too low. Does that mean there is an issue with the battery pack which is resulting in a shorter reported rated range. It's low because the car is continuously recalculating based on recent behaviour & conditions. This forum is clearly the wrong place to tell you if you have a problem with your batteries - many of us try to reassure you that what you see is what we see & I can understand you don't like to hear that. Maybe you bought the wrong car.

I guess we all tried to reassure you to stop stressing as we see similar fluctuating range but unless we say 'yes your batteries are faulty' you won't be satisfied. I won't tell you that, we are trying to reassure and calm you.

Please drive as I mentioned previously & displayed range in the app will go up if that's what you want.

OK so the range stated by the app is not intended to be the rated range (whether EPA or WLTP). Despite what Tesla says (manual and webchat), this is actually a range that takes various factors into consideration. Do you have any evidence for this please? Are you sure your car doesn't have an issue which you are now ignoring?

Not sure why Tesla owners constantly say "maybe it's not the car for you". You mean because I expect a car to do what it says in the manual? Hmm. I am not at all stressing out, I am trying to work out whether it is an issue that needs to be looked at, or if the manual is wrong. So far, there is just a lot of anecdotal information to say that the app does not always report the expected rated range.

 

[pghstochaj]

I hope you are within the timescale to return the vehicle. For most people owning a new car, let alone a Tesla is a joyful experience. I'm so sorry that this car has brought you so much anxiety, stress and unhappiness (I answered both your questions to the best of my limited ability)

Haha, thanks for using your limited ability to answer a technical question.

The most stressful part of ownership so far is the disbelief of defensiveness in this thread.

 

[Kenners]

I think Tesla should do a software fix to automatically show the advertised EPA range at 100%, then we can have lots of threads discussing why the range is totally unrealistic and how we never even get close to the range the car says it will do at 100%.

 

[KaiM]

OK so the range stated by the app is not intended to be the rated range (whether EPA or WLTP). Despite what Tesla says (manual and webchat), this is actually a range that takes various factors into consideration. Do you have any evidence for this please? Are you sure your car doesn't have an issue which you are now ignoring?

Not sure why Tesla owners constantly say "maybe it's not the car for you". You mean because I expect a car to do what it says in the manual? Hmm. I am not at all stressing out, I am trying to work out whether it is an issue that needs to be looked at, or if the manual is wrong. So far, there is just a lot of anecdotal information to say that the app does not always report the expected rated range.

If it’s an issue, the same issue is appearing in every UK car

 

[LukeUK]

I used to have a Mazda 6, great car. Pretty standard, in terms of ICE specifications.

55.4 MPG combined cycle, WLTP.

Typically, it reported around 48-49 MPG on the in-car display.

I have 3 years' worth of spreadsheet data showing that it averaged around 46 MPG - company car, so I needed the data for expenses claims.

I don't think that the data I had for my car would directly/exactly apply to any other Mazda 6 out there.

How is this any different to your situation?

Trying to be constructive, why don't you start a poll for 2021 model 3 owners with the same spec as yours, and ask them to report their displayed range? That would give you an idea on whether your figure is an outlier or not.

 

[-monky-]

If it’s an issue, the same issue is appearing in every UK car

This.

OP - I accept lots of people weren’t originally answering your direct question, but lots of us now have. The experience of everyone in the UK is the same. It doesn’t match the manual. We’re all in the same boat. None of our cars is faulty, or all of them are. Empirical evidence suggests the former.

But you’re not going to get a different answer from a bunch of people with a shared experience (which is also your shared experience) if you just keep asking the same question. Tesla will have to give you the answer directly.

 

[pghstochaj]

This.

OP - I accept lots of people weren’t originally answering your direct question, but lots of us now have. The experience of everyone in the UK is the same. It doesn’t match the manual. We’re all in the same boat. None of our cars is faulty, or all of them are. Empirical evidence suggests the former.

But you’re not going to get a different answer from a bunch of people with a shared experience (which is also your shared experience) if you just keep asking the same question. Tesla will have to give you the answer directly.

Is nobody else curious about this then? Tesla webchat said it is wrong, but I assumed they were wrong.

 

[pghstochaj]

I used to have a Mazda 6, great car. Pretty standard, in terms of ICE specifications.

55.4 MPG combined cycle, WLTP.

Typically, it reported around 48-49 MPG on the in-car display.

I have 3 years' worth of spreadsheet data showing that it averaged around 46 MPG - company car, so I needed the data for expenses claims.

I don't think that the data I had for my car would directly/exactly apply to any other Mazda 6 out there.

How is this any different to your situation?

Trying to be constructive, why don't you start a poll for 2021 model 3 owners with the same spec as yours, and ask them to report their displayed range? That would give you an idea on whether your figure is an outlier or not.

It is completely different to the question. That is "rated" vs. "real world" economy. Once again, this is a question of whether the app should report the rated range or a calculated range. The manual states rated, so mine should say 352 miles, but it in fact says 304 miles. Hence the question.

 

[Glan gluaisne]

Haha, thanks for using your limited ability to answer a technical question.

The most stressful part of ownership so far is the disbelief of defensiveness in this thread.

Sadly, it seems that you want to apply completely unreasonable acceptance criteria on a parameter that you (and the car) are unable to accurately measure. The equivalent for a conventional car would be a new owner complaining that the mpg they get (or range on a full tank if you prefer) isn't as specified in the test data (and I think we all understand that "official" mpg is nothing much like real world mpg).

There's probably an error band of may be +/-5% on the car's SoC calculation, maybe be a bit more, due to a number of factors relating to charging efficiency and cell terminal voltage variations with temperature. It seems to be set to err on the side of caution, too, by under-reporting SoC, probably for the same reason that conventional car fuel gauges often read zero before the tank is empty.

Also,Tesla use the EPA data for the mythical maximum range estimate, and cars sold here in the UK have to be advertised using the WLTP data, and there's another potential error of around 10%. For the Model 3 Performance, 2021, the WLTP mythical range is 352 miles, but the UK spec car still uses the EPA mythical range in the app and display in the car, which is 315 miles (they didn't change the software code for the UK market).

 

[Medved_77]

Is nobody else curious about this then? Tesla webchat said it is wrong, but I assumed they were wrong.

It could be that the Battery Management System is reporting the maximum range given the current health of the battery.

Although new to you, since leaving the production line the car has been idle for most of its life which could impact the BMS' ability to report the maximum theoretical range.

There's a thread here which describes a process you can go through to recalibrate the BMS:

How I Recovered Half of my Battery's Lost Capacity

I'm not saying as a new owner you should be expected to do this, but it might provide an explanation for your current observations.

 

[MrBadger]

Thanks, but I don’t think I can phrase my question in any more ways to make it any clearer that what I’m asking is not answered in the above.

Should the app display the rated range or the estimated range based on driving habits, weather etc.

It will show the rated range as per the manual, until the battery starts getting recalibrated/degrading in which case, it will display a figure based upon what the car thinks the range is determined from the EPA factor and estimated battery capacity. So if the usable battery was deemed to be 75kWh when new, but the car now thinks its max usable capacity is 65kWh, then the max range shows, assuming a 310mile range at 75kWh, will be 268miles. This reduced usable battery is down to a number of factors, including battery health, calibration drift, battery temperature and is a topic in its own right. Other versions/models of the car will use different figures to the 310 miles and 75kWh battery, these were just examples.

So nothing to do with driving habits.

Temperature may have a small transient effect on the number, but only because the usable battery capacity may change slightly with temperature. But its probably 1%-5%, with 1% or 2% being the most common. That commonly equates to 3-7 mile range, maybe a bit more at temperature extremes (its whatever the temperature of the large thermal mass that is the battery that counts rather than a fluctuating ambient), but normally returns when you start driving and battery warms up. East to spot if that is in effect in something like TeslaFi (it gives a dual % reading in that case) or temporarily trying to set charge limit to 100% and seeing if it maxes out at 100% or 99% etc.

 

[Morriscoombes]

It is absolutely not this or unreasonable belief in rated range versus real range. I am fully aware of the difference.

You buy a car which has a rated 0-60 of 5 seconds.
You are fully aware that achieving 5 seconds depends on your ability and it might be a lot slower.
When the car arrives, it has a statement on the car computer stating rated 0-60 in 6 seconds.

or

You buy a car which has a rated 50 MPG.
You are fully aware that achieving 50 MPG depends on various conditions.
When the car arrives, it comes with paperwork saying that the rated MPG is 40 MPG.

This is nothing to do with EV range anxiety, it's simply whether the app is supposed to report rated range or not and if so, why mine is 50 miles lower than the rated range, and is this an issue.

People seem intent in changing the question or answering a different question.

My point wasn’t addressing yours.

 

[Irata]

Base upon comments. Most believe the manual is clearly very badly worded.

Tesla probably should correct their own manual anyway. It's crystal clear that the manual states full charge should only ever show EPA range.

Maybe the OP's question to support will help Tesla correct this wording.