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The car showed 13 miles of range even when it died and we were 7.6 miles to the Supercharger. Had the car ONCE told us to slow down like it's done so many times in the past we would have known we weren't good to go. Instead... not a peep until... dead!
Needless to say I am as frightened as anyone else about arriving in this situation and so would like to understand better what happened here. What did the energy graph show as you neared the SC? Was the actual SoC vs miles curve tracking close to the SoC curve and then suddenly took a dive 7.6 miles short of the SC? What was that display showing when the shutdown warning popped up?It should also be noted that our P85D has about 230ish miles of range when full and this particular leg between Superchargers is 86.8 miles.
Nope. AP was enabled and we were actually coasting downhill when it died. There was absolutely zero warning before it happened. 7.6 miles to go, 13 miles of range.... dead.I wonder whether you may have pressed the accelerator “hard” for something, such as, for example, a rapid acceleration when the car died.
I was recently in a situation (after my battery was capped) where I had about 25 miles to get to the next supercharger but the car indicated I only had 18 miles of range left. I slowed down to 45 mph and was gentle with the accelerator pedal. About 2-1/2 miles from the charger, the range indicator dropped to 0 miles. I drove those last few miles at 25 mph and was extra gentle to make sure the energy drain on the battery was as little as possible and I made it to the charger. When your battery level is very low, any action (such as pressing the accelerator to pass a car) that results in an “instantaneous” large energy requirement can cause the car to shut down to protect the battery.
wow what a nightmare situation for sure. on trips i am too paranoid to run it down to under 30 miles left. even 20-25 remaing gives me the shakes. So when i charge at sc i always wait till it says i will have at least 30% left after i arrive to the next charger. Cant trust any gauges.I wonder whether you may have pressed the accelerator “hard” for something, such as, for example, a rapid acceleration when the car died.
I was recently in a situation (after my battery was capped) where I had about 25 miles to get to the next supercharger but the car indicated I only had 18 miles of range left. I slowed down to 45 mph and was gentle with the accelerator pedal. About 2-1/2 miles from the charger, the range indicator dropped to 0 miles. I drove those last few miles at 25 mph and was extra gentle to make sure the energy drain on the battery was as little as possible and I made it to the charger. When your battery level is very low, any action (such as pressing the accelerator to pass a car) that results in an “instantaneous” large energy requirement can cause the car to shut down to protect the battery.
Why would you run it to even 13 miles left? No offence but that seems risky with an ev. I hate this fact about ev as you never know what that battery gauge really means.Like on a laptop.Nope. AP was enabled and we were actually coasting downhill when it died. There was absolutely zero warning before it happened. 7.6 miles to go, 13 miles of range.... dead.
Why would you run it to even 13 miles left? No offence but that seems risky with an ev. I hate this fact about ev as you never know what that battery gauge really means.Like on a laptop.
Sigh. Why do you assume there is only one knob to twist to manage this? You're talking about how long you stayed at the Supercharger, but then nothing about how fast you drove for the next couple of hours along your way. A few miles per hour speed difference over the course of a couple of hours makes significant differences in your remaining range. Tweak your speed to continue to leave yourself enough margin.Not really sure how you presume we could have avoided that as if it was operator error. In hindsight it's really easy to say "well, should have just stayed there longer" but is that really the solution is that everyone sit at Superchargers a full hour beyond when it says you're good to go to make it to the next one?
Very prudent.We stayed at the Supercharger we were at until lit said we were good to go to get to the next one. We even stayed an extra 20 min beyond that just to make sure we had more than enough since we weren't in any hurry.
No, the solution is to charge until the energy display shows a comfortable margin and to continue to monitor that display, which will update the arrival SoC estimate continuously, as you go and at the same time show you graphically and at every step whether actual consumption is better or worse than the forecast. I see these posts occasionally and they terrify me. They seem to imply that the actual curve follows the forecast curve until some point close to the destination and then suddenly plummets below it but no one will confirm that this is what actually happens. That's what I'm try to find out. Is that what happened?In hindsight it's really easy to say "well, should have just stayed there longer" but is that really the solution is that everyone sit at Superchargers a full hour beyond when it says you're good to go to make it to the next one?
Thanks. Great tip!stop somewhere and plug in?
but seriously, download Plugshare and use it to see what's around you at any given moment - there are spots to plug in virtually everywhere. not all superchargers or even fast chargers - but plugins that could provide enough power to get you to the next fast charger if needed. personally, I've never been in this position but if you are a new owner I understand the concern.
Sigh. Why do you assume there is only one knob to twist to manage this? You're talking about how long you stayed at the Supercharger, but then nothing about how fast you drove for the next couple of hours along your way. A few miles per hour speed difference over the course of a couple of hours makes significant differences in your remaining range. Tweak your speed to continue to leave yourself enough margin.
You want to talk I-70 in Colorado? Great. Because last year, I had to deal with quite this difficulty there on I-70 in February at freezing outside temperatures. I was at Grand Junction, and I put in a nav destination farther over in Kansas, and the stupid car trip planner selected that I would go all the way straight through to Silverthorne(!), which is mostly uphill, in freezing temperatures, 209 miles, with my old S85. It was saying I needed to fill up to 100% and arrive with only 7%, which I knew seemed like an unrealistic prediction, given the cold temperature. That is when I learned about its other terrible behavior as I scanned carefully along the route to see if there was a closer Supercharger in the middle. It HIDES the Superchargers it thinks you should skip!!!!! So I didn't know Glenwood Springs was available right there halfway in the middle until days later. So...I made it work. I kept my heat low, and my cruise control at some stupid 10-15 mph below the speed limit, which extended the range enough to make it happen. It sucked a little, but I thought I didn't have another choice, so I did what was necessary. You didn't have it that bad, so probably should have kept more than a 13 mile (about 5%) margin.
Sorry, that this is kind of a rabbit trail that is a little about planning for the future, with not going with 5% margins. I do still agree with you that this should not be normal or expected that the car shuts off with 5% still showing available. When it's down to the last 1 or 2%, though, the risk level is just getting really high for counting on measurement accuracy to be that precise. It's a little unrealistic.
We could debate whether I am normal or not (and I'm sure my wife would be more than happy to contribute her views) but if I saw the ratio of range available to needed range (distance to go) remain constant I would immediately know there was a problem and take action. Lets use the 3x ratio. Starting at 30 miles out we'd see:There is absolutely no way any normal owner would suspect they might run out given those facts. If your range says you have 2-3x times more range than you need in warmer temperatures from the moment you leave the Supercharger and during your entire trip with no downward trend in this ratio there's absolutely no way you would ever suspect you may run out.
I have seen consumptions of as low as 160 and as high as 450 Wh/mi. That's almost a factor of 3. Yes, Very volatile indeed. No different, actually, than an ICE vehicle except that driving condition variability gets masked by the loss of 4/5 of the energy carried to waste heat.I think it's hard for some to realize that this thing is more volatile than they assume...
One might say it is the responsibility of drivers to understand the magnitude of this variability which they should come to do by observing their consumption as they learn to drive it. But my wife, for example, will never get to that point because she has no idea what a Watt is let alone a Watt hour. I do not consider her irresponsible. If it involves numbers, she can't do it. I know she isn't the only one like that. She's more of a poet than a physicist....and only an irresponsible driver could run out.
If your miles to go and miles available stayed in a constant ratio as you have stated you weren't under normal circumstances. Your car was consuming energy at more than its rated consumption. This could have been because of external conditions (e.g. wet road) or it could have been because of a fault in your BMS or some other component. In the former case what you saw is normal. In the latter the vehicle needs service. You were unaware of this probably because you were not looking at the consumption graph i.e. you did not use all the information available to you for whatever reason. I don't think labeling people is really appropriate here but if I had to bin you I'd put you with the poets.It gives them comfort to assign a label because they're not that type of person so it couldn't possibly happen to them. I know because this was my thought... right up until it happened to me under normal circumstances when I was being extra careful.
I've read of other owner's running into similar situations to this. It's unfortunate. Not sure what can be done about it.The temperature was in the 70's (80's in Utah) so we weren't talking about cold temperatures here. I'm aware of how that can negatively impact range estimates. This isn't our first road trip in a Tesla either and it is rather modest compared to the length of the other trips we've taken: 2,500 miles, 4,000 miles, etc. This was a 400 miles trip in perfectly good weather at standard highway speeds. By no means would anyone here sit even longer than I did at Superchargers. In fact, I think most would have stayed for even less time than I did.
What you seem to keep glossing over here is that the car knew where the next stop was and gave me the go ahead to leave for the next destination. I hate to do this but let me use caps so you can clearly understand the facts:
I STAYED AN EXTRA 20 MINUTES ON A SUPERCHARGER BEYOND WHEN THE CAR SAID I WAS SAFE TO PROCEED TO THE NEXT STOP. AT NO POINT DID IT TELL ME TO DECREASE MY SPEED TO REACH MY DESTINATION. NOT ONCE.
As I stated previously, we've been on other road trips where these messages came up and I obeyed them and even tend to go below just to be sure. In most cases I arrived with WAY more juice than it thought I would but I was fine with that because better safe than sorry.
There is absolutely no way any normal owner would suspect they might run out given those facts. If your range says you have 2-3x times more range than you need in warmer temperatures from the moment you leave the Supercharger and during your entire trip with no downward trend in this ratio there's absolutely no way you would ever suspect you may run out.
I think it's hard for some to realize that this thing is more volatile than they assume and only an irresponsible driver could run out. It gives them comfort to assign a label because they're not that type of person so it couldn't possibly happen to them. I know because this was my thought... right up until it happened to me under normal circumstances when I was being extra careful.