S75D better than 85D for road trips?

[GreenGoblin23]

Hi all,

Looking to purchase a used Tesla mainly looking at S75D/85D/90D w AP1 as that most fits my budget. Performance-wise I understand all 3 are about the same with range being the only difference. My daily commute is 40 miles each way with charging at work so even in the worst conditions I'm sure any of those 3 would be fine. My question is for longer road trips it seems to me that the 75D is actually better than both the 85D and 90D because it requires less time at superchargers due to being lighter/more efficient despite having a smaller total battery size. Is this true or am I missing something?

I was looking at various trips of 700-1000 miles under different conditions on this website:
EV Trip Planner
To me it looks like 75D>90D>85D as far as time needed to stop at superchargers.
I am also wondering if all 3 of these models with AP1 are the same or does the facelift model have any major changes as far as performance/range/supercharge time. Appreciate any advice!

 

[SSonnentag]

A larger battery more than makes up for any weight-related inefficiencies, especially on road trips. Acceleration is minimal on road trips, so weight is quite insignificant. If you're looking to optimize trip times, get the largest battery you can afford. Larger batteries also charge at higher rates.

 

[GreenGoblin23]

A larger battery more than makes up for any weight-related inefficiencies, especially on road trips. Acceleration is minimal on road trips, so weight is quite insignificant. If you're looking to optimize trip times, get the largest battery you can afford. Larger batteries also charge at higher rates.

Yes, this is generally true. But specifically with the 3 cars I am looking at 75D/85D/90D. All the numbers I run on that website I posted show the 75D requires the least amount of charging time. It goes something like this least to most time needed at superchargers: Model 3 LR, SP100D, 75D, 90D, 85D, 70D, 60D. I am wondering if this is truly the case or if the website is incorrect.

 

[rhumbliner]

As @wk057 points out, the true, usable capacity of the 90D is only 81.8 kWh while the usable capacity for the 75D is 72.6 (https://electrek.co/2016/12/14/tesla-battery-capacity/) so the difference in battery capacity is only 9.2 kWh not 15 kWh. Since we have one of each we generally find there is not much practical difference in range.

 

[No2DinosaurFuel]

If it is a newer 75D, it might be faster and this is partly due to being more efficient and now with the new supercharging recharge curved of the 75D, you will be getting up to 120KW charging, overall decreasing supercharging time.

Before this charging rate was capped at 94KW or so for the 75D.

Overall with the new firmware update the 75D supercharges faster than a 85D which is using old battery tech which ramps down quite fast after the initial 115kw charge rate.

Combine with what you said about car's battery being lighter and newer, the 75D might be faster during road trip compared to a 85D. When comparing to 90D, it depends if you supercharged enough to permanently slow the supercharge rate of the pack, then the 75D might be even better than the 90D.

As for newer or older 75D, I am not sure if the prefacelift 75D will benefit from the faster charging or it might be stuck on the slower rates. Someone would have to confirm.

 

[fabionomaz]

I prefer to use a"betterrouteplanner" for planning trips as I have found it much more accurate for my road trips(they use charging curve data from hundreds of cars of different pack sizes: interesting Tesla charging article they posted).

I got curious so from a road trip I did before leaving at 100% and assuming the same 324Wh/mi for Tampa, FL to Kingston, NY supercharger for the 3 batteries(to only account for charge speed differences)
Pack | Total Time at 324Wh/mi:
90D: 23:57
85D: 24:27
75D: 24:38

What I actually averaged in my trip with a 75D pack was 299Wh/mi(pre-facelift) which when I factored that in it brought the trip estimate to 75D: 24:11 or only a 14 minute difference to the 90D time.

Facelift cars have slightly better efficiency and with the brand new update improving the supercharging curve and increased supercharging rates for the 75 packs it'd probably be about the same with a facelift 75D to a 90D. Quite interesting really.

Also the 90 packs have their "concerns", there's whole posts about this so that may be a thing to think about.

 

[SSonnentag]

Also being curious, I put in my upcoming 1,461-mile trip from Southern Arizona to Northern Idaho.
I don't see any real surprises here, other than I'm really glad I won't be driving the original S 60.
Those numbers for the range updated S LR are impressive too!

Model - Charge Time, Total Trip Time (Wh/mi, Charging Cost)

S 60 - 11:58, 37:22 (401 Wh/mi, $139)
S 75D - 8:54, 32:18 (443 Wh/mi, $152)
S 90D - 7:04, 29:34 (447 Wh/mi, $141)
S 100D - 5:39, 28:18 (431 Wh/mi, $129)
S P100D - 6:20, 28:27 (470 Wh/mi, $142)
S LR Range Update - 5:04, 27:03 (395 Wh/mi, $115)

X 100D - 7:59, 30:16 (539 Wh/mi, $165)
X 100D Range Update - 6:32, 28:38 (475 Wh/mi, $143)

3 LR RWD aero - 5:29, 27:35 (376 Wh/mi, $114)
3 LR Perf - 6:01, 28:31 (402 Wh/mi, $124)
3 LR AWD - 6:44, 29:21 (419 Wh/mi, $130)
3 MR RWD - 7:30, 30:05 (372 Wh/mi, $122)
3 SR RWD - 9:02, 33:13 (336 Wh/mi, $117)