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SR Purchasing Doubts

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Metalmanstan

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Apr 28, 2019
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Oneonta
#1
Hey everyone! The lease for my Prius Prime expires at the end of March and im looking to purchase the standard range. But I am d having a little doubts. Everyone says buy the range you can afford and this is right within my price range. I live in Upstate NY (Oneonta, near the baseball hall of fame) and we have crappy winters here and there. After researching the 3 for about a year, reading massive amounts of threads from this group, Facebook, watching YouTube and several other sites, I am having doubts because of the range in the winter. My commute to work is only 10 miles RT. I can plug in at home and we have several local chargers nearby with a new supercharger coming in very soon. I only drive around 100-200 miles a week. Depends if I'm hiking or not. When I do hike, there are slow local chargers near to where I hike(picture shows chargers and the green blob is where I hike), but my friend is willing to "lend" me his car for those days in the winter when I need more range(just my day off when I hike). We take long trips sometimes, but everything I have simulated on A Better Route Planner has us making those places, even in the colder weather. So that's good.

Am I overthinking this or should I go for it? The only thing that scares me is the loss of range in the winter. Right now, it's 28°F and snowing. I've heard the loss of range in the winter could be up to or near 50%. That's a significant amount of miles taken off. We have an ICE car for the longer trips in the winter if that helps.

Thanks for all your help!!

Stash

Screenshot_20200118-142006.png
 
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#4
Metalmanstan said:
Hey everyone! The lease for my Prius Prime expires at the end of March and im looking to purchase the standard range. But I am d having a little doubts. Everyone says buy the range you can afford and this is right within my price range. I live in Upstate NY (Oneonta, near the baseball hall of fame) and we have crappy winters here and there. After researching the 3 for about a year, reading massive amounts of threads from this group, Facebook, watching YouTube and several other sites, I am having doubts because of the range in the winter. My commute to work is only 10 miles RT. I can plug in at home and we have several local chargers nearby with a new supercharger coming in very soon. I only drive around 100-200 miles a week. Depends if I'm hiking or not. When I do hike, there are slow local chargers near to where I hike(picture shows chargers and the green blob is where I hike), but my friend is willing to "lend" me his car for those days in the winter when I need more range(just my day off when I hike). We take long trips sometimes, but everything I have simulated on A Better Route Planner has us making those places, even in the colder weather. So that's good.

Am I overthinking this or should I go for it? The only thing that scares me is the loss of range in the winter. Right now, it's 28°F and snowing. I've heard the loss of range in the winter could be up to or near 50%. That's a significant amount of miles taken off. We have an ICE car for the longer trips in the winter if that helps.

Thanks for all your help!!

Stash

View attachment 501828
Click to expand...

While I don’t own the SR, I own the LR in Minnesota. We’ve now been through subzero temps, and snowstorms, with my vehicle, hopefully I can add some context.

I charge to 70-80% daily, and have more than 40-50% left when I get home, in winter. This includes a 60 mile RT drive, heat running, and 30 min warmup before leaving for home.

Leverage your shore power before leaving in the morning to heat and prepare your battery, don’t check on your car often (opening the app), and use your climate to warm your car and battery before leaving. I’m confident you will have enough range for your driving needs.

The only way I would say this isn’t practical, is if you only plan on using the 110v. If you have a 50-60A, and can use either the HWPC or 14-50 setup, you’ll be just fine.

I say, if you can afford it, you won’t regret it. I haven’t regretted it once, nor have I ever worried about range. You learn to just prep, and approach your longer trips differently. DO IT!

Good luck with your decision, and don’t hesitate to ask if you need more info!

Moderator note: Removed referral link; they are prohibited here.
 
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#11
I agree with the consensus, you're overthinking it.

I have an SR + in Minnesota, and I drive a lot of miles. Just rolled over 16,000 miles in the 9 months I've had it, and our winters are bit colder than you see in upstate New York. The range loss is significant; on cold days like today at 10° I'm consuming nearly 400Wh/mile. That's half the rated efficiency, meaning my 240 mile range is effectively cut in half if I charged to 100%. Which I never do.

Today's run started at 90% battery charge. I drove 88 miles on rural and four-lane highways with an average speed of 55 to 60 mph. I had a lot of stops, so a full 30 minutes of idle cabin preheating throughout the day, and I returned with 6% battery remaining. My efficiency is further degraded with aftermarket wheels and winter tires instead of the factory Aeros with low rolling resistance tires. And I was in a snowstorm much of the day. Pretty much worst-case for up here, and I got home just fine.

The energy management tools are good enough that I would have known midway through the day that I didn't have enough charge, and I would've redirected to a supercharger in the Twin Cities when I passed through. Not a big deal. In nine months I've only been inconvenienced by midday charging stops once. It's a bit of an adjustment coming from a car with a ICE, but not an inconvenience at all once you get used to it.
 
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#13
TomB985 said:
I agree with the consensus, your overthinking it.

I have an SR + in Minnesota, and I drive a lot of miles. Just rolled over 16,000 miles in the 9 months I've had it, and our winters are bit colder than you see in upstate New York. The range loss is significant; on cold days like today at 10° I'm consuming nearly 400Wh/mile. That's half the rated efficiency, meaning my 240 mile range is effectively cut in half if I charged to 100%. Which I never do.

Today's run started at 90% battery charge. I drove 88 miles on rural and four-lane highways with an average speed of 55 to 60 mph. I had a lot of stops, so a full 30 minutes of idle cabin preheating throughout the day, and I returned with 6% battery remaining. My efficiency is further degraded with aftermarket wheels and winter tires instead of the factory Aeros with low rolling resistance tires. And I was in a snowstorm much of the day. Pretty much worst-case for up here, and I got home just fine.

The energy management tools are good enough that I would have known midway through the day that I didn't have enough charge, and I would've redirected to a supercharger in the Twin Cities when I passed through. Not a big deal. In nine months I've only been inconvenienced by midday charging stops once. It's a bit of an adjustment coming from a car with a ICE, but not an inconvenience at all once you get used to it.
Click to expand...
I don’t feel so bad about having 17,500 in 9 months, knowing someone else in MN is cruising around all the time in their 3.
 
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#14
No problem OP

Your carriage awaits !

P.s., you can cut down on the winter hit substantially (~ 50% or so) by relying more on seat heating than cabin heating and by pre-heating the car before a long trip. You don't need this for your daily routine but it is good to know and to not waste electricity in general.
 
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#15
I think you'll be fine for the majority of your driving and if you have an ICE car for the few times when you aren't fine, then don't sweat it. I have the SR+ and there are a few times I wish I had gotten the LR because I didn't think about the fact that most of my road trips are in winter weather and a couple of them are giving me range anxiety because, depending on the weather and my driving, I'm easily seeing 50% range reduction. I just had a 120 trip a few days ago in temps that went from 36 to 26 during my drive, and it was windy. I started at 99% and arrived at the charger on the other end at 11% so it was absolutely doable, but still had me biting my nails because I never see my SOC that low because I plug it in every night. Some of getting over range anxiety is taking it out in the bad conditions and letting it get pretty low to see how it performs. I also realized that my range would've been better had I not driven 75 mph most of the way. But the speed limit was 70 so everyone else was driving at least 80. I like to stay with the flow of traffic. My drive home I did stick to the speed limit and I used less energy. I also had 1 less person in the car so that could affect it too. Anyway, I had to go back up today and it was cold and windier (it was really windy!) and raining. I chose to take my husband's car. My gut tells me I'd have been fine, but I didn't want to find out in the weather we were having. So, if you have options for days like that when you just don't want to test your car's limits, then get the car. You'll love it!
 
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#16
Oh, a note on relying on seat heating rather than cabin heating. I do that some, but I find I still get chilly, not cold though. But the bigger problem for me is that the SR+ only has seat heaters in the front and I often have a kid in the back. We carry a blanket in the car for them and pre-heat the cabin before getting in, but that heat disappears on a longer trip and you have to turn the heat back on every now and then for the person in the back. If you have kids or people who will be riding in the back on a regular basis, then you'll need to keep this in mind when thinking you can just turn the heat off to save range.

In my scenario in my above comment, I had the HVAC running at 67 degrees the whole time. I also have winter tires on and not the aero wheels so that affects my range in winter as well.
 
#17
I have the SR in NC. Different weather, but to give you an idea my RT is 12.2 , and those days that we are around 40 I loose 10 to 14% in total. I charged during the nigh with a 110 standard plug and it’s more than enough ( charge roughly 3 miles per hours)

For long trips (600+ miles one way) use the Sienna also because of the space and because I don’t want the Model 3 to become a garbage bin -> 2 kids.

If you want autopilot maybe think about the SR+ even if in my case what you get on top doesn’t justify the price difference
 
#18
Based on how you've described your driving habits, you'd be more than fine with the SR+.

Be careful with the "range is king" and "buy the biggest battery you can afford" mentality. If I subscribed to that thinking I should have gotten a Model S Long Range; I can afford the payments. But what if one can't or doesn't want to pay that much for a car? What if the SR/+ range would suffice for 95% of your driving, and you have an ICE to handle the rest? I would say buy what you can afford and need.
 
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#19
That supercharger was likely expected by the end of 2018, then 2019, then 2020, and next January they will update the website to say by the end of 2021, etc. don’t count on that actually coming soon.

there are a lot of supercharger just like that.
 
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