Range Loss Over Time, What Can Be Expected, Efficiency, How to Maintain Battery Health

[mswlogo]

Your model 3 result is not "the norm" in any way. "The norm" from reports throughout this giant thread and elsewhere, is somewhere around 6-10% degradation on a model 3 the first year. what any S or X had as far as degradation has not proven to be relevant in the slightest as far as model 3s.

My Dec 2018 Model 3 P is 260 at 90%. Remember that tesla revised the rated range on Model 3 Performance vehicles with the stock 20s down to 299. If 100% is 299, and 90% is 251, I believe that means their current 100% should be around 278/279, which is about 8%, well within the normal range of battery degradation.

So, @Henderson18M3P sounds like they have 8-9% battery degradation on a 2018 model 3P which is a quite good result. As far as the "I only got X miles driving Y distance, and part of that was driven at 85MPH, well.... shrug.

My 3 was a 3P stealth. Did they change software on 2018 so a 3P (non stealth) reported 299 on a “new” battery. Originally everything was all dual motors were like 323 miles range.

8% in 3 years is probably in spec but I thought it was supposed to be worst case 2% a year. I wouldn’t call 8% good.

You convinced me his battery isn’t defective.

 

[Big Dog]

The original production cars are coming up on 4 years old. My April-18 delivery is charging to 253 at ~90%.

apologize for the typo, it should have been 263 (as of today), 46 months after delivery. If I recall, the original range of the LR was 310 when 100% charged so, if my math is correct, that's about a 6% decline in four years.

But I seem to remember that we received a SW tweak back then which boosted mileage a bit on the early deliveries, so the starting number should have been more than 310. (Note, I the most I ever got on a full charge before a trip was 308.)

Here's an article that says the boost should have been 15 miles, but I never saw taht kinda boost. I think the most I obtained was about 8.

Tesla increases Model 3 range through software update

As promised during the launch of the base Model 3, Tesla has started pushing a new software update that is...

electrek.co

 

[Apprunner]

Your model 3 result is not "the norm" in any way. "The norm" from reports throughout this giant thread and elsewhere, is somewhere around 6-10% degradation on a model 3 the first year. what any S or X had as far as degradation has not proven to be relevant in the slightest as far as model 3s.

My Dec 2018 Model 3 P is 260 at 90%. Remember that tesla revised the rated range on Model 3 Performance vehicles with the stock 20s down to 299. If 100% is 299, and 90% is 251, I believe that means their current 100% should be around 278/279, which is about 8%, well within the normal range of battery degradation.

So, @Henderson18M3P sounds like they have 8-9% battery degradation on a 2018 model 3P which is a quite good result. As far as the "I only got X miles driving Y distance, and part of that was driven at 85MPH, well.... shrug.

Was the rated range retroactive? I don't think it was meaning my rated range when I bought the car was 310 miles with the 20 inch wheels. When they changed the rated range to 299 miles, my rated range never changed. So the OPs rated range should be 278/310 = 90%.

 

[jjrandorin]

Was the rated range retroactive? I don't think it was meaning my rated range when I bought the car was 310 miles with the 20 inch wheels. When they changed the rated range to 299 miles, my rated range never changed. So the OPs rated range should be 278/310 = 90%.

I dont think they changed the rated range, but I also dont think they changed the battery. They just acknowledged that the range with 20inch wheels was not going to be 310. If you have 20s I believe its 299. I dont care enough to test it myself, but if someone desired to they could test by changing the wheel sizes and seeing what it says.

 

[Apprunner]

I dont think they changed the rated range, but I also dont think they changed the battery. They just acknowledged that the range with 20inch wheels was not going to be 310. If you have 20s I believe its 299. I dont care enough to test it myself, but if someone desired to they could test by changing the wheel sizes and seeing what it says.

Understood but that just means that his car thinks the base range is 310miles. He probably has 10% degradation which is still within "normal." I'm around 289 miles which is about 289/310 = 7% after 2.5 years and 28k miles which isn't that much different. Also, seems like degradation has slowed way down after year 1 so I"m not really worried about it

 

[KenC]

I'm brand new here. Bought 2018 Model 3 Performance six months ago. 42,000 miles, seemed to be in perfect condition.

Most of what I'm reading in this forum is about estimated range getting lower under whatever circumstances. My issue is different I think. Yesterday I supercharged my M3P to 90% as usual. The estimated range at 90% was 251 miles. BUT! I drove it 150 miles and remaining capacity was 10% and estimated remaining mileage was 25 miles. This doesn't seem like an estimated range issue -- it seems like a "will only give you about 60% of estimated range" issue. I may have had this gap since I bought the car although I was so new to Tesla I maybe didn't recognize it.

I've never set up Summon. I don't use Sentry Mode. I have the appropriate settings on "Sport" rather than Chill. I have regenerative braking set to the more aggressive setting (I can't get to the car at the moment to get all the setting names right).

Is this merely a calibration issue? If so I'm certainly willing to take appropriate action. Could this be a battery defect issue? If so, how should I proceed?

What does your car say the "efficiency" was for that 150 mile trip? Go to "Trips". Second, check what the car thinks your battery size is, go to the Consumption screen, and choose 30 mile and Average. Multiply the "avg" efficiency by the Projected Range; then divide by the Percentage SOC left. That will give you the size of the battery the car thinks you have.

For example, my car showed 281Wh/mile x 136 miles / 50% = 76.4kWh

 

[KenC]

Something that may only interest me, but today, I asked the Stats developer if the newest feature in his app, one that compares your car's estimated range against others, of similar mileage. Since my 3 shows zero estimated deg, with 310 miles of range after 40 months, presumably very rare, the developer's app shows that 5% of 3's have similar zero deg.

Seemed odd to me that so many 3's would have zero estimated deg after over 3yrs, so I asked the developer why he includes 2019s and 2020s and 2021s in comparing to my 2018. His answer was he doesn't. It's the same model year! So, according to the Stats developer. 5% show no range degradation. That my 3 is not a unicorn after all!

Maybe he just didn't understand my question. The bell curve seems to indicate that there are 3's with 325 miles of range. I wonder if he's comparing my dual-motor to single-motor models?

 

[KenC]

Does anyone know how reliable the battery percentage display is? I have the M3 Long Range model and I have driven nearly 20K miles (2 years old). I usually try to keep the car 90% charged. I'm trying to get a rough sense whether or not my car battery is experiencing an abnormal level of degradation. I recently began to track the battery usage percentage in relations to the amount of KWH used. I noticed that for every 20% battery usage, I burn about 12 KWH (i got this number from the console where it said "usage since last charge"). This implies my battery maximum capacity is now at 60KWH (12/0.20) compared to advertised LR model of 75KWH. Did the battery really degrade that much in 2 years?

The display SOC is very accurate at displaying what the BMS thinks. Of course, the BMS could be wrong, sometimes requiring recalibration.

The usage amount you're quoting sounds like the driving usage. It's not counting any usage while sitting. So, in theory, you may have used 12kWh "usage since last charge", but the car sat and used 3kWh, so actually you used 15kWh, divided by 20%, gives you 75kWh.

Just go to the SOC display, and toggle from SOC to miles. Then take the miles, divide by SOC, and you'll get your estimated range. As you can see below, 50% is 156 miles, so 312 miles at 100% SOC. Of course, there's some rounding error, but you get the idea.

 

[Henderson18M3P]

What does your car say the "efficiency" was for that 150 mile trip? Go to "Trips". Second, check what the car thinks your battery size is, go to the Consumption screen, and choose 30 mile and Average. Multiply the "avg" efficiency by the Projected Range; then divide by the Percentage SOC left. That will give you the size of the battery the car thinks you have.

For example, my car showed 281Wh/mile x 136 miles / 50% = 76.4kWh
View attachment 768728

I will check each of the measures you suggest. Thank you. Some of what puzzles me about the situation I described is something I think you touched on. Why does my car think my range is 251 (@90%) if the range I ACTUALLY GET is 150? I'm not lamenting reduced range due to diminished battery capacity over time. If my car at 90% charge was maybe 300 (for instance) miles brand new, I'm not questioning why it's gone down to 251 after four years. That may be an issue but that's not MY issue. My issue is, if my car thinks the range I will have after filling to 90% for the trip was 251, and if the actual range I got on that trip was only 150 miles, what is causing this discrepancy? Does my car really have no idea what my range will actually be?

 

[MP3Mike]

Why does my car think my range is 251 (@90%) if the range I ACTUALLY GET is 150? I'm not lamenting reduced range due to diminished battery capacity over time. If my car at 90% charge was maybe 300 (for instance) miles brand new, I'm not questioning why it's gone down to 251 after four years. That may be an issue but that's not MY issue. My issue is, if my car thinks the range I will have after filling to 90% for the trip was 251, and if the actual range I got on that trip was only 150 miles, what is causing this discrepancy? Does my car really have no idea what my range will actually be?

Because Tesla doesn't use a GoM, Guess-o-Meter, that changes with your driving habits for the range remaining that is reported. They report it based on the EPA test cycle. So if you were driving the EPA test cycle it would be fairly accurate.

 

[bro1999]

Just to add my 2 cents: I have a '21 July SR+ with NCA battery (263 official miles).
As of this morning with nearly 16k miles on the odo, Teslafi says a 100% charge gives me 250 miles. Usually charge up to 90% daily, and drain it down to 20-40% every day.

 

[Sophias_dad]

Why does my car think my range is 251 (@90%) if the range I ACTUALLY GET is 150?

Your car doesn't know the conditions you will be driving in.

I have little doubt that if you really wanted to, you could drive that actual range down to exactly ZERO(camp mode with the HVAC on until it shuts off at 20%, then sit in the car watching Netflix for a day), or if you wanted to actually move the car during that, you could get as low as maybe 36 miles(15 minutes at full throttle, going ~145mph... whee!) 400hp is about 298kw, which is gonna drain the 75kwh battery in 15 minutes.

In addition to obvious things like speed and HVAC, wind and elevation are also things that your car won't know about(actually, its pretty neat if the car knows where you are going, it really DOES know elevation changes along the route based on the path it has chosen!)


Perhaps you could ask the same questions of an ICE car, like how long it will sit idling on a tank of gas, and how long it will run at full throttle before the tank is empty, and why you aren't getting the EPA suggested fuel economy while doing those things.

 

[Henderson18M3P]

Your car doesn't know the conditions you will be driving in.

I have little doubt that if you really wanted to, you could drive that actual range down to exactly ZERO(camp mode with the HVAC on until it shuts off at 20%, then sit in the car watching Netflix for a day), or if you wanted to actually move the car during that, you could get as low as maybe 36 miles(15 minutes at full throttle, going ~145mph... whee!) 400hp is about 298kw, which is gonna drain the 75kwh battery in 15 minutes.

In addition to obvious things like speed and HVAC, wind and elevation are also things that your car won't know about(actually, its pretty neat if the car knows where you are going, it really DOES know elevation changes along the route based on the path it has chosen!)


Perhaps you could ask the same questions of an ICE car, like how long it will sit idling on a tank of gas, and how long it will run at full throttle before the tank is empty, and why you aren't getting the EPA suggested fuel economy while doing those things.

Thanks for your reply. Others have cited, as you have, driving style, weather conditions, tire inflation, etc. Is the implication of all this that, if I modified each of these variables, I COULD get near the estimated range of 251? 150 miles is 60% of 251. Were I as diligent as possible does it seem likely that I could boost my range to anything near 251 (@90%) if my real world experience was just 150? Thanks to the feedback I'm getting I'm accumulating a list of the variables I could manipulate to improve my range. I'm trying to determine to what extent this issue is related to hardware, or software, or driver-related causes.

 

[Sophias_dad]

Thanks for your reply. Others have cited, as you have, driving style, weather conditions, tire inflation, etc. Is the implication of all this that, if I modified each of these variables, I COULD get near the estimated range of 251? 150 miles is 60% of 251. Were I as diligent as possible does it seem likely that I could boost my range to anything near 251 (@90%) if my real world experience was just 150? Thanks to the feedback I'm getting I'm accumulating a list of the variables I could manipulate to improve my range. I'm trying to determine to what extent this issue is related to hardware, or software, or driver-related causes.

One that hasn't been mentioned in a big way is alignment. If its off by even a small amount you'll be pouring electrons into shredding tires. You'd hope it was good from the factory, but given the number of complaints about 'from the factory' state I'm not sure I'd trust it.

 

[KenC]

Thanks for your reply. Others have cited, as you have, driving style, weather conditions, tire inflation, etc. Is the implication of all this that, if I modified each of these variables, I COULD get near the estimated range of 251? 150 miles is 60% of 251. Were I as diligent as possible does it seem likely that I could boost my range to anything near 251 (@90%) if my real world experience was just 150? Thanks to the feedback I'm getting I'm accumulating a list of the variables I could manipulate to improve my range. I'm trying to determine to what extent this issue is related to hardware, or software, or driver-related causes.

Before jumping to solutions, we first need to know what the actual cause is. That's why we need to know the stated efficiency, and how big the car thinks the battery is.

One other thing to check is to use the ABRP app, register, it's free, and it can calibrate your car's efficiency at 65mph, a reference consumption, so you have a point of comparison to know whether your car is particularly unusual.

As you can see below, my calibrated reference consumption is 247Wh/mile, so if I drive at 65mph, I should be able to go 300 miles. Very close to the EPA rating. The other thing it tells you, is another datapoint on what the it thinks your battery degradation is. I believe you have to supercharge for it to pull some data for it to calculate what the car believes your degradation is. As you can see, it thinks mine is -1% deg, which is probably why my car still shows the original 310 miles of range.

 

[Brandonn22]

I haven’t followed this whole thread but I have a 2019 LR with 26k miles. I charge to 90% and get to 250. Sounds like this is normal degradation. 100% gets me to 278.

 

[silversaint]

Hey everyone just got my model 3 long range this week and have noticed a significant difference between miles driven and charge used. I just wanted to get advice from others as if this is expected behavior or if I need to get it in for service. Today I drove 41 miles and my charge dropped from 170 miles to 95 so nearly 2X as expected. It was almost entirely highway driving in 30 degree (Fahrenheit) weather, no heat or ac was on just the screen with music playing. Just wanted to know if this is normal based on the conditions or if it’s of concern.

 

[jjrandorin]

Hey everyone just got my model 3 long range this week and have noticed a significant difference between miles driven and charge used. I just wanted to get advice from others as if this is expected behavior or if I need to get it in for service.

Expected behavior, for a number of reasons.

 

[KenC]

Hey everyone just got my model 3 long range this week and have noticed a significant difference between miles driven and charge used. I just wanted to get advice from others as if this is expected behavior or if I need to get it in for service. Today I drove 41 miles and my charge dropped from 170 miles to 95 so nearly 2X as expected. It was almost entirely highway driving in 30 degree (Fahrenheit) weather, no heat or ac was on just the screen with music playing. Just wanted to know if this is normal based on the conditions or if it’s of concern.

Probably normal, but there's really not enough info, to make more than a guess. What did your car say for efficiency for your 41mile trip? Look under Trips. How fast were you driving? Was it windy? Did the car sit while you were at work? Is Smart Summon and Sentry on?

 

[dballa]

Hey all,

Forgive me if this isn't the appropriate venue, but I believe it is. I recently purchased a used (not from Tesla) 2021 Model 3 LR AWD w/ 14,200 miles and have put 1k miles on since. I also recently set up TeslaFi to track performance and other metrics. One thing that has stuck out to me as very odd is the battery capacity that TeslaFi is generating. Specifically, this:

https://imgur.com/qubYeiT

https://imgur.com/fb5nc21

These seem to point to a near 9% loss in expected battery range (at full) compared to other models (some with significantly more mileage) on TeslaFi.

Does anyone have a possible explanation for such rapid battery degradation on a car that is literally one year old? I am in cold conditions since purchase (regularly between 5-20 F) but I know this shouldn't account for such a drastic estimated capacity. I am actually at a loss here.