Standard mode: Ideal range?

[Palpatine]

What is the ideal range on the VDS after you finish a full recharge in standard mode? Mine is all over the place. It was normally between 189 to 193.

But today it is 186 and 187. The weather just got much colder and wet with the rain. Maybe that has something to do with it.

Does anyone else get this kind of variation in the ideal range shown immediately after recharging?

 

[BBHighway]

Tesla said something about the range indication emmediately after charging being not very accurate. You need to wait some time for the charge to 'settle".

I'm not sure how long, but I think it's something like a half hour, and then you have a more accurate reading. I do notice that it usually drops a few miles shortly after charging.

 

[Tdave]

Yes, mine is all over the place too, in a 15 mile range from 183 to 198.

 

[tomsax]

Ours is pretty consistently in the 193-196 range. There's wide variation in when I record the charge state, sometimes right after the charge is done, more more frequently the next day.

When we were charging at 211V/40A behind Key Bank on Friday Harbor last weekend, Cathy and I happened to get back to the car and watched it complete at 199 ideal, the highest value I'd seen. We did a bit of driving (and two demo rides) that night, discharging down to 173 ideal. We set it to charge overnight at 120V/12A outside in cool weather. In the morning, it said "charging complete," 203 ideal miles and was drawing 2A! It was still reading over 200 after we had stuffed the trunk to the gills (which must have taken at least 20 minutes) and headed to the ferry.

In the week since we returned from the island, it's been charging up to 197 pretty consistently.

 

[ra-san]

It is pretty much always 194 - 200, after settling for 10 minutes or so. Someone at Tesla did suggest it takes 10 minutes or so for the chemistry to settle down post charging and arrive at a "good" number.

I have seen infrequent but large outliers, usually on the full side - for example, I saw a 215 or something like that IR indicated once, but it settled back down to 200ish soon after. Since it is 120V charging, I lose quite a few IR range miles while sitting, so if I don't check till midday after charging it's often in the 180's.

 

[vfx]

It is pretty much always 194 - 200, after settling for 10 minutes or so. Someone at Tesla did suggest it takes 10 minutes or so for the chemistry to settle down post charging and arrive at a "good" number.

I have seen infrequent but large outliers, usually on the full side - for example, I saw a 215 or something like that IR indicated once, but it settled back down to 200ish soon after. Since it is 120V charging, I lose quite a few IR range miles while sitting, so if I don't check till midday after charging it's often in the 180's.

This echos my experience.

 

[Ted at Tesla]

The range calculation is not very accurate immediately after charging. It takes approximately 10 minutes for the systems to adjust the range to the battery SOC. If possible, let the Roadster sit for 10 minutes after disconnecting the charge connector to get the most accurate range estimate.

 

[mpt]

I'm in the 185 range but I'm not using the car properly at the mo. Only short journeys.

 

[Bradleybang]

190 mostly for me.

 

[Palpatine]

I have a new theory and my drive today appears to confirm it.

Lately I have been showing between 186 to 189 after a full standard charge. I live at the top of a hill, so my final drive is fairly intense before arriving home and recharging. Especially because I like to floor it going up this hill for about a 1/2 mile in distance with a steep grade.

Today I drove my Roadster to our warehouse about 60 miles from home. My Roadster has been recharging here and just finished with 193 miles for a standard full charge. The difference is that I was driving very efficiently the entire 60 miles on cruise control. About 256 wh per mile for over an hour.

So this leads me to believe that the "ideal" range number is impacted somewhat by the recent history of driving in the car.

You would think that the Ideal range would be fixed based on voltage and only the Estimated range would change a lot based on recent driving history.

But it appears to me that max Ideal range also varies, based on recent driving history, for the "full" standard charge . I have not seen 193 in a long time while at home at the top of that hill.

 

[Tdave]

I'd look for another explanation. I doubt Ideal Range is a calculation that takes into account recent driving. Perhaps the explanation is that the state of the battery chemistry is affected by recent aggressive driving and therefore the charging is affected by that. I'm only speculating, and have no idea. That's just the type of reason I'd look for as a hypothesis.

 

[ChargeIt!]

We must first assume that James's #s are taken after a 10minute+ rest period after completion of charging to remove the reported inaccuracies in the process ... if so, then

There's another theory I'd like to propose.

I have heard that on older (possibly much older) firmware the IR would actually increase during long downhill (regen) stretches, but this seems to no longer be the case (at least according to some reports). (The estimated range does, of course, drastically increase on those same downhills.) In other words, the IR gets "stuck" at its last value, then does not decrease for a long time (as you continue moving), but also does not increase when you expect it should.

So ... James's experience could fit that theory. Near the end of the efficient trip the IR should go up, but does not, but at least the battery has a little extra charge as compared to the estimated IR reported. Then when the charging and re-calculation takes place, it ends up a little higher due to the more efficient (but badly IR represented) final trip segment (the real IR is higher than shown at the start of charging and the extra charge adds a fixed amount of IR). On the uphill stretch either a] opposite happens; or b] charging ends with a more realistic IR that is more representative of the state-of-charge.

 

[Palpatine]

This is easy enough to test.

Step 1
Reset your trip computer after a standard charge to full.
Go drive around for 30 minutes very effciently around 250 Wh/mi.
Then recharge in standard mode. Note the number of Ideal miles when it finishes and also an hour after it settles.

In my car this peaked at 193 miles at work on Thursday. I drove a bit at lunch and recharged again while at work and it peaked at 197 ideal miles. The average Wh/mi was around 256 for the previous 70 miles of my driving that day.

Step 2
Reset your trip computer after a standard charge to full.
Go drive around for 30 minutes very enthusiastically around 325 to 350 Wh/mi.
Then recharge in standard mode. Note the number of Ideal miles when it finishes and also an hour after it settles.

In my car this is between 186 to 190 miles.
This is how I am most of the time because I like to have fun driving my car. I am rarely getting 250 Wh/mi.

 

[Palpatine]

Here is another data point. I just drove 42 miles this morning and arrived back home. Wh/mi = 300 exactly.

Recharged for 2 hours and the top ideal range upon completion was 190 miles.

Here are my results when recharging in standard mode and with the previous Wh/mi noted.

Wh/mi = 260 resulted in 193-197 miles Ideal
Wh/mi = 300 resulted in 189-190 miles Ideal
Wh/mi = 325 resulted in 186-187 miles Ideal

That is my rough estimate at this point. If anyone else can post their observations on this trend to either help support it or blow holes in it, please do so.

I think about 30-40 miles of driving to establish your Wh/mi should be the minimum standard to determine if this is a valid observation of what the VDS is displaying after a charge cycle.

 

[NigelM]

I usually charge with a UMC at 240v, 50 amp and have consistently had 189-194 after charging. Now my UMC went on the blink (4 red ones to be exact) so I charged using the yellow standard cable for the first time ever at 120v, 15amp and got an ideal miles after charge of 196...the highest I ever saw! Is there any known technical reason why that would happen?

BTW, Tesla service hit it out of the ballpark again. I wrote a mail to Tesla detailing my UMC problem and got a call back less than one hour later telling me that a new UMC was coming overnight to my house. Wow.

 

[tennis_trs]

I usually charge with a UMC at 240v, 50 amp and have consistently had 189-194 after charging. Now my UMC went on the blink (4 red ones to be exact) so I charged using the yellow standard cable for the first time ever at 120v, 15amp and got an ideal miles after charge of 196...the highest I ever saw! Is there any known technical reason why that would happen?

BTW, Tesla service hit it out of the ballpark again. I wrote a mail to Tesla detailing my UMC problem and got a call back less than one hour later telling me that a new UMC was coming overnight to my house. Wow.

Not sure why 120v vs 240v charging matters (or if the numbers really mean anything), but I also had a noticeable change in standard mode full charge.
I had charged using an MC-240 and then a UMC with 208v @ 24A for the first 27 months and was at 171 ideal miles after a full standard mode charge. For the last 2.5 months I've been charging with 120v @ 12A (there was also about 40 days in between where it was being shipped and so didn't charge at all) and it now consistently shows 178-180 ideal miles after a full standard mode charge (this 178-180 miles higher value started within a few days of resuming charging at the new 120v).

Other people have posted, in other threads, differences that they've seen when changing charging setups (especially between 120v and 240v).

 

[slcasner]

I normally change at 240V 32A in Standard mode. When the charge stops, the display shows 176 ideal miles and about 96% on the battery bar. One time recently I needed to charge at a hotel using 120V 12A instead, and I observed that the charge went all the way to 100% and 185 ideal miles. Although I can't say why this happens, one can speculate that when charging at a slower rate the stopping threshold will be reached differently. Maybe the battery heating would be less so the temperature would be lower.

 

[smoothoperator]

I normally change at 240V 32A in Standard mode. When the charge stops, the display shows 176 ideal miles and about 96% on the battery bar. One time recently I needed to charge at a hotel using 120V 12A instead, and I observed that the charge went all the way to 100% and 185 ideal miles. Although I can't say why this happens, one can speculate that when charging at a slower rate the stopping threshold will be reached differently. Maybe the battery heating would be less so the temperature would be lower.

how many miles does your car have?

 

[slcasner]

how many miles does your car have?

19.5K during 3.5 years.

 

[daniel]

I charge my 2.5 non-sport at 240 v. 40 a. and since it starts charging at midnight I never see it immediately. It's consistently 186 miles.