Here's a diagram I made for the
Plug In America battery study that shows how standard and range mode work for displaying the SOC. It's explained in detail in the
report.
I agree it would be a nice improvement to simplify how the modes work on the Roadster. It's a bad design that the charge and drive modes are tied together in a way that causes so much confusion, as the discussion on this thread clearly illustrates. It would be nice to have a slider to set the charge level, always show SOC relative to the full range, and then use modes or on/off options to set driving parameters.
For what it's worth, I think driving in Range mode is unsafe and I stopped doing it after a close call. We were driving uphill on a state highway, one lane each direction, straight with great visibility. We came up behind a semi struggling up the hill. There was an oncoming vehicle, but with plenty of room for me to pass. I signaled, moved over, and pushed the pedal. The car barely accelerated. I pushed the pedal to the floor; mild acceleration. Oh, crap! It's in Range mode. No time to switch, that oncoming car is getting closer. Can I make it, or do I need to brake and abort?!? In Standard mode, that would have been no problem, even with the uphill.
It's dangerous to expect a certain level of performance and then not get it when you need it.
While it would be a nice upgrade to the Roadster to make charging and power-limiting modes easier to understand, I'm guessing that's beyond the scope of what they will be doing for Roadster 3.0.