What planet are you living on? City driving is more efficient under normal conditions. Just look at the EPA guidances for all Model 3 variants.
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Range Loss Over Time, What Can Be Expected, Efficiency, How to Maintain Battery Health
- Thread starter KK_RedM3
- Start date
What planet are you living on? City driving is more efficient under normal conditions. Just look at the EPA guidances for all Model 3 variants.
short trips are less efficient than longer trips. full stop, inarguable. this chart is misleading.
AlanSubie4Life
Efficiency Obsessed Member
I think the actual answer is "which type of trip is more efficient depends on many quite predictable factors."
Short trips requiring the battery to warm up and then stopping shortly after will have poor efficiency.
Driving longer will give you enough time to “distribute” this warming up penalty, so the average efficiency will improve. This phenomenon is irrespective of city vs highway.
City driving is typically less efficient (ICE) because kinetic energy is lost as heat by the friction brakes every time you stop.
In EV, this loss is minimized by regen braking.
Highway driving loses efficiency due to exponentially more air resistance with the higher velocity that goes along with highway driving.
In ICE braking/acceleration losses overcome wind resistance losses making steady highway driving optimal.
In EV, thanks to regen, braking losses are not overcome wind losses. Making city driving possibly more efficient.
This is how I think about the issue. Simplified by ignoring other smaller factors like transmissions, weight, etc.
Driving longer will give you enough time to “distribute” this warming up penalty, so the average efficiency will improve. This phenomenon is irrespective of city vs highway.
City driving is typically less efficient (ICE) because kinetic energy is lost as heat by the friction brakes every time you stop.
In EV, this loss is minimized by regen braking.
Highway driving loses efficiency due to exponentially more air resistance with the higher velocity that goes along with highway driving.
In ICE braking/acceleration losses overcome wind resistance losses making steady highway driving optimal.
In EV, thanks to regen, braking losses are not overcome wind losses. Making city driving possibly more efficient.
This is how I think about the issue. Simplified by ignoring other smaller factors like transmissions, weight, etc.
Hi
I'm new to this forum but have just taken delivery of my model 3, I have only had it a few days but have noticed that it seems to lose 5 or 6 miles of range just sitting in my works car park. As a new owner I would like any feedback as to if this is normal and should i expect this to get worse during colder weather
I'm new to this forum but have just taken delivery of my model 3, I have only had it a few days but have noticed that it seems to lose 5 or 6 miles of range just sitting in my works car park. As a new owner I would like any feedback as to if this is normal and should i expect this to get worse during colder weather
is your sentry mode on? If it is, it does lose some % loss over a period. For example, I lose anywhere form 2-3% battery (not sure what that converts to in miles or km) while i'm at work with sentry mode activated.
Allistah
Member
I always hear people talking about and only looking at the battery. I’m one of them, and on Teslafi I noticed that it shows our 4 went down from 310 to about 290 since July which is about 6.4%.
Then it hit me.. how many of these people are paying attention to the pressure in their tires? Ours are supposed to be at 42 lbs psi. I haven’t put air in the tires since we got it and they’re now at ~37 psi. I’m going to air them up and see if I start seeing a positive change in the battery chart on Teslafi. Low tire pressure has to have an impact on these numbers, max ranges, etc. I’ll report back when I get some data.
Then it hit me.. how many of these people are paying attention to the pressure in their tires? Ours are supposed to be at 42 lbs psi. I haven’t put air in the tires since we got it and they’re now at ~37 psi. I’m going to air them up and see if I start seeing a positive change in the battery chart on Teslafi. Low tire pressure has to have an impact on these numbers, max ranges, etc. I’ll report back when I get some data.
MarcG
Active Member
Driving habits and historical efficiency don’t have an impact on the rated miles shown on the screen. That’s why it’s called “rated”, not “estimated” or something to that effect. Rated is per the EPA cycle.
If your rated range drops, it’s most likely due to battery degradation. Rated range displayed is calculated by remaining battery capacity (as estimated by the BMS) divided by a Wh/mi constant. E.g. 70kWh / 0.240kWh/mi = 292 miles.
Other factors include changes to Tesla’s constant (that 240Wh/mi in my example above) in various firmware updates, inaccurate estimation of battery capacity remaining (due to lack of calibration over time), etc.
You can do lots more reading about this if you search around, especially on TMC. Lots of good info out there.
Here's my graph from Stats. I was in the top 1% of Stats users before the winter made its way here last month.
Recently I parked my car at a garage and went on a week long vacation. Next day when I checked I noticed a drain of 20 miles in range . Teslafi reported that initially the car GAINED 6 miles and then lost 26 miles range. From 142 to 148 to 128. Next day too it lost quite a bit to 100. It continued for the next couple of days. It became 80 then 60. I was worried that the battery would die by the time I returned from my vacation two days later. But it seems to stabilize after that and next two days it lost only 1 mile in range. So first five days it lost about 90 miles and then lost only ONE mile next two days. Sentry mode is NOT on. Teslafi was accessing but the car was sleeping most of the time. As my home is some 45 miles I had to go to a supercharger and pay the USURIOUS rate of 26 cents a KWH (Musk, are you listening?) as against 12 cents/KWH for my home charging. Has such a thing happened to any of you? Could the culprit be Teslafi? Now I am home and everything seem to be normal as I see a loss of only 1,2 miles a day.
I have Stats as well, but I can't find that excellent graph that you posted. How do I get to it and see that in Stats?
I lose about 25-30% from 70 to 20 degrees, but I'm pretty liberal with cabin heat, and @KenC doesn't use any heat 
Wick
Member
I have the stats app as well, but I don’t have that graph that you show. My battery health is on the map against the odometer reading.
Wick
Member
OK sorry. I see that question has been asked and answered. Thanks for pointing this out to me, as it is a graph that I really wanted to see.
Stats has really hidden this one.
Stats has really hidden this one.
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