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

[Swampgator]

I think it's likely you have a calibration issue. I'd try running it down to 15% or less and then charge it up 100%, and see what impact that has. Maybe try it a couple of times.

I did that twice. No change. I really do not believe it's actual range loss though. But I'm glass half full, and Ninja is glass half empty. When enough of us make our voices heard, Tesla will respond.

p.s. Actually my cars name is Ninja. It's dressed in black and very quiet

 

[Swampgator]

I have 2018 model, early 22xxx VIN, LR-RWD. Rated miles when new: 325.

Daily charged to 70%. Daily commute is only about 20 miles.
Never had to re-calibrate the battery or do other black magic.
After 1.5 years of ownership and 15K miles on it the car still charges to 227 miles at 70%, which is 324 prorated miles at 100%. That is less than 0.3% degradation.

I have heard that batteries on AWD and especially on P models degrade more due to higher discharge rate from more powerful motors.
From that perspective LR-RWD is the best car to own.

Sadly, I had an accident on the car just recently, and repair costs are prohibitively expansive, so I am planning to trade it if for 2019 AWD model as financially it makes more sense to do so vs trying to repair. We will see how that one would hold up.

The reason I do not believe it is real range loss is the stair step range loss pattern. Real range loss due to dendrites would be gradual, not step wise. Step wise indicates an algorithm issue. At least to my uneducated brain. Also, notice that I have had large jumps in range as well. If the battery was actually degrading, why would the software indicate an improvement in range at some times?

 

[KenC]

I charge my LR AWD to between 70-90% at my work, where I can charge for free every day, but the car might go 3-4 days without being plugged in.... due to my schedule or how occupied the charging stalls are.

The reason for the inconsistent charging is that the charging stalls are free for use for four hours and the charging is only @ 30 amps.

I charged up to 90% the other day and, since the car is almost exactly 1 year old (has only 8,100 miles) I decided to check the range in miles.

I was rather surprised to see that the range is down to 254 miles.

Actually rather surprised is an understatement, I was somewhat shocked by this much range reduction after only one year and 8,100 miles of ownership.

This would work out to a range @ a 100% full charge of only 279 miles for a range loss of 31 miles which is exactly 10% of the range of the car when new.

It has been suggested in other threads that the range might not be gone but might simply be hidden due to the cells being imbalanced due to my imperfect charging habits.

I've seen conflicting information on how to get this shown range back. Would charging nightly to 90% for a few weeks suffice or would I need to first discharge the battery and do a 100% charge?

If I can't get a portion of this range to display I will probably contact Tesla to see what they have to say since this seems like a lot of range loss in one year of ownership.

The problem for us owners is that our experience is limited to the cars we own. My LR-AWD shows no deg after 9 months, and my range estimate improved when I switched my charging approach. In Winter, I charged to 90% and my car's estimate was all over the place, and as low as 290 miles. That was when it was new, as I got it in December. In Spring, I switched to 80% charging and the range estimate stabilized between 306 and 314 miles. Today my range estimate was 308 miles, according to Stats.

I've never tried to recalibrate. I've only charged to 100% once, by accident. I've had it below 10% a couple times.

I would just add that your 254, should be divided by 90%, giving you a range estimate of 282 miles. I assume you just multiplied by 110% and came up with 279 miles. It's close but will give you the wrong result.

If you want to consider a hard reboot, the methodology is over at the mountainpass blog.

 

[tracksyde]

I saved a post from the Tesla subreddit:

Battery Degradation "fix"? : teslamotors

tl;dr Tesla has an internal note/article referencing a CAC reset (calculated amperage capacity) that appears to work. There are risks associated with this reset, mainly not letting the battery capacity drop below 20% for 2 weeks, which is what prevents the SC from offering this as a solution for everyone

I havent been to a SC in a while, but plan to bring this up the next time I visit.

My calculated 100% range was down to about high 290s, for a while. But I've since started charging more often, just less during each charge. I'm now back up to about 308 miles. But of course, my car should be showing 325 miles on a (new) 100% charge.

 

[Swampgator]

I saved a post from the Tesla subreddit:

Battery Degradation "fix"? : teslamotors

tl;dr Tesla has an internal note/article referencing a CAC reset (calculated amperage capacity) that appears to work. There are risks associated with this reset, mainly not letting the battery capacity drop below 20% for 2 weeks, which is what prevents the SC from offering this as a solution for everyone

I havent been to a SC in a while, but plan to bring this up the next time I visit.

My calculated 100% range was down to about high 290s, for a while. But I've since started charging more often, just less during each charge. I'm now back up to about 308 miles. But of course, my car should be showing 325 miles on a (new) 100% charge.

Again, this indicates an algorithm issue. Not a real degradation issue. I'm sure Tesla will work this out.....eventually

 

[qdeathstar]

What I don’t understand is why do you care what the screen says so long as the car has enough to get you where you need to go?

 

[Austindude]

I have a decently popular video on this topic right now:

The TL;DW is that calibration did nothing for me (7% to 100% at home, and then 9% to 100% at the supercharger). I am convinced the recent mileage drop people are seeing lately is due to the 2019.28/32 software update, and it will be fixed soon...I hope.

Here is my TeslaFi data (attached)

A big drop all the sudden, and many people are seeing the same...i don't think it's coincidence.

Also, balancing is different than calibration, and should happen any time the battery is finished charging and still plugged in (probably above a certain percent like 80, but I don't know the cut off exactly)

I think your video just proved it is simply a software battery monitor calibration issue (and not battery issue) since at least a few kWh's before the car thought it was fully charged it displayed 300 miles of range and yet after adding a few additional kWh's it still showed 300 miles. Unless you somehow used up that same additional amount of energy in vampire drain (which should correspond to at least 10's of miles of range)? This implies to me the software cannot accurately predict the full mileage of the car when fully charged and may be more accurate at the bottom end of the range. I guess this means you have a choice, believe the bottom end number which would imply you still have 310 to 320 miles of range when full or use the top end full estimate which implies some battery degradation. I'll bet this even changes with the firmware version. By the way, when I did the recalibrating the battery monitor test it did improve my full charge state mileage, but this is not a very accurate and controlled test and might not be repeatable.

 

[voip-ninja]

Just curious... do you know what your lifetime Wh/mi figure is? Right now mine is 228 with 15,400 miles on the odometer. My car indicates 215 miles at 69% SoC (312 miles @ 100%). My charge history in the last year has been similar to yours; free L2 charging at work and plugging in every three days or so. I typically didn't let the car go below 150 miles (i.e., 50%) nor charge above 280-290 miles (90%), although there have been at least 15 times I ran up to 100% due to expected long trips.

I know that people have said that the algorithm used to calculate the 100% range is based on some fixed factor, but is there any real proof as to what Tesla really uses?

Lifetime Wh/mi figure is 286 for my car. I average around 230 or so in the warmer months and 300-330 when it's cooler.

 

[SD_Engnr]

What I don’t understand is why do you care what the screen says so long as the car has enough to get you where you need to go?

He already stated why - resale value. Follow a few for sale posts on this forum, and you'll see that it's a relevant point.

@voip-ninja I'm not convinced that the strategy to charge to 90% nightly would work to bring it back up to where it should be. I tried that on the advice of Tesla, and I saw zero improvement after 6+ months. I'm at 262-265 miles at 90%, and have been since last December. I log the perceived issue with Tesla every few months, and they consistently tell me that "everything is fine". I will continue to log this so that it's in the system, "just in case".

You should give them a call, or schedule an appointment and indicate that you would like your battery tested for early degradation. With your permissions (or without) they will scan the logs, and do some other remote diagnostics and then let you know what they find out.

 

[brianman]

TMC PSA:
The weather is starting to turn colder again. Reports of "Less range displayed in the UI" and associated "my apparent degradation" worry threads will be increasing. Expect this forum trend to continue until roughly March.

 

[qdeathstar]

Why not worry about it when you sell your car then, since there is zero you can do about it anyway? Just seems like something to worry about for no reason.

 

[gaswalla]

This may be related to the 'battery-gate' issue affecting many S owners. Is there a way to use TeslaSpy or similar on the 3? We need to see if the voltage is 4.2 volts or decreased by Tesla as done on the S... In these cases, it's actually not degradation but batteries being capped for unclear reasons (battery longevity vs fire risks)
In OPs case, if be interested if the battery warranty for 70 percent range is based on 325 miles...in which case, you're almost there

 

[BobAbooey]

is the range posted on the screen an estimated miles like from ur the last few miles of ur driving habits? or that rage is like the best milage you can get if you drive conservatively?

 

[voip-ninja]

Why not worry about it when you sell your car then, since there is zero you can do about it anyway? Just seems like something to worry about for no reason.

Loss of resale is just one reason to be concerned about this much range loss so quickly. What about the impact when I do periodically use the car for longer travel? Less range means more frequent stops than if the car was closer to the range it was at when I purchased it. This is even worse in the winter time when temperature can reduce the range of the car another 20-30%!

If I didn't care about the range of the car then I would have waited and purchased one with the smallest battery to meet my commuting needs and wouldn't have purchased one that had more flexibility for those times when the longer range can come in handy.

And yes, if the car suffers a serious hit to its range compared to other cars of the same age and mileage it will absolutely hit me in the pocket book when it's time to sell this car.... something that is not of concern for example when selling a 3-5 year old ICE car.

 

[voip-ninja]

TMC PSA:
The weather is starting to turn colder again. Reports of "Less range displayed in the UI" and associated "my apparent degradation" worry threads will be increasing. Expect this forum trend to continue until roughly March.

I drove my car throughout last winter season and despite the very cold temps the estimated range the car showed was not impacted. It showed at least 300 miles on a full charge all last year and I did on one occasion make near full use of the range when taking a trip to the mountains.

 

[voip-ninja]

He already stated why - resale value. Follow a few for sale posts on this forum, and you'll see that it's a relevant point.

@voip-ninja I'm not convinced that the strategy to charge to 90% nightly would work to bring it back up to where it should be. I tried that on the advice of Tesla, and I saw zero improvement after 6+ months. I'm at 262-265 miles at 90%, and have been since last December. I log the perceived issue with Tesla every few months, and they consistently tell me that "everything is fine". I will continue to log this so that it's in the system, "just in case".

You should give them a call, or schedule an appointment and indicate that you would like your battery tested for early degradation. With your permissions (or without) they will scan the logs, and do some other remote diagnostics and then let you know what they find out.

I would prefer not to have to take it into service but, on the chance the car needs to have the BMS reset then that is probably the only option.

For me, personally, the real question is if the car has truly lost nearly 10% of its battery capacity in one year and 8,000 miles of driving or if the car is mis-calculating the available range.

 

[qdeathstar]

Loss of resale is just one reason to be concerned about this much range loss so quickly. What about the impact when I do periodically use the car for longer travel? Less range means more frequent stops than if the car was closer to the range it was at when I purchased it. This is even worse in the winter time when temperature can reduce the range of the car another 20-30%!

If I didn't care about the range of the car then I would have waited and purchased one with the smallest battery to meet my commuting needs and wouldn't have purchased one that had more flexibility for those times when the longer range can come in handy.

And yes, if the car suffers a serious hit to its range compared to other cars of the same age and mileage it will absolutely hit me in the pocket book when it's time to sell this car.... something that is not of concern for example when selling a 3-5 year old ICE car.

Yes, but you don’t know you’ve lost real range. Maybe Tesla should push an update so it shows you’ve got 600 mile range....

 

[ngogas]

Enjoy the car. If it bothers you that much then call sc.

My 90% get 262 now. Was higher before getting .32.12.

 

[voip-ninja]

Yes, but you don’t know you’ve lost real range. Maybe Tesla should push an update so it shows you’ve got 600 mile range....

or maybe Tesla software could function properly and show something accurate when dealing with something as important as battery range?

too much to ask from Tesla apologists it seems.

 

[yerEVan]

or maybe Tesla software could function properly and show something accurate when dealing with something as important as battery range?

too much to ask from Tesla apologists it seems.

Maybe you have a SR+ and you need a firmware push to get LR. Just like someone who bought a P- but got AWD and they had to push a P-.

I’m not serious. But could you, seriously, just do a service request from the phone where they only do a remote diagnostic? Choose range + charging, and in the description maybe tell them you lost 8% already at low miles, and also mention in the message that you’d like remote diagnostics done instead of bringing it in for service just yet?