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stranded car en route to the bay with zero range. But charged +110 miles in surplus for destination!?

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So was convinced this would not happen. But my parents borrowed my car for a quick trip to the Bay (from LA).

2021 Model Y. 10 months old. 10K miles, no accidents or issues ever. always practiced best practices with charging, etc.

For the trip.
Left home with full charge.
stopped 1/2 way at the Kettleman City Supercharger (they loved that lounge btw) to charge up.
Destination was fremont - 180 miles from supercharger. he charged the car to 295 miles, thinking the extra 110 miles would be enough surplus to cover any loss from AC/speed etc. (he's driven my car and other teslas many times and never has had an issue or low range).

anyways he was about 40 miles from his destination (mile marker ~140) when the car battery started to show 60 miles left. he was in gridlock traffic and past the cluster of TC chargers and was 20 miles from the next one, but in that time leading up, the range drained to zero and he had to pull over.

he ending up having the car towed to a supercharger (took 90 minutes for tesla to send over their tow truck. our triple A gave us a headache so went with tesla app service).

my question is - isn't losing over 110 miles of range abnormal? No tow hitch or excessive baggage. just two folks + 1 small bag. he drove the I-5 North route and yes its some uphill and windy roads but even then, I wouldnt expect to lose 110 miles of additional range. he chatted with another driver at the charger station and they suggested we have the battery looked at as they said that was excessive. is it possible the battery calibration is off? it's never been this off. and I've done plenty of drives from LA -> SD, LA -> OC , etc without any issues of range estimates.

thoughts?

also sidenote, still frustrating that you can only use text chat service to connect with roadside and not a physical number. not as much of an issue for me but for an older adult like my dad, it definitely didnt help his experience.
 
Max range at 100% state of charge in good conditions at highway speeds on level ground is around 250 miles. I don't know the geography where you live, but a headwind will reduce that, and going up hill will reduce that. The navigation system is pretty good, just put your destination into the system and let it tell you when to stop, how much to charge, and if you need to make more than one charging stop. The "range" at the top of the screen is useless, switch it over to percentage.

Keith
 
hmm, I drive from The OC to the BA several times per year in my model 3, and a charge/coffee break (to ~270, never 300+) at Kettleman always gets me to the Peninsula with 100+ miles of range left. (Yeah, I get that a 3 might be a little more aerodynamic.)

Stop-and-go traffic is not particularly hard on EV's.

Make an appt with teh Mobile service tech so s/he can check it out.
 
Man, this has been discussed a million times. You can't trust the range readout in miles. Use percent and monitor the arrival SOC either on the navigation panel or the Energy Panel, Trip tab (if you are using navigation). It's much more accurate. I know Tesla has said they are trying to make the miles readout more accurate with environmental factors, but I haven't seen evidence of that yet.
 
Were they using navigation? The navigation shouldn’t steer you wrong in terms of charge level needed at the supercharger and realistic expected range.

If they were just relying on the range estimate at the top of the screen and didn’t have the route entered then that’s when you can run into problems. Long trips should always be entered into navigation even if you know where you’re going.

I’m guessing they didn’t enter the route in and didn’t think to factor in elevation changes etc. Pacheco pass is a pretty big grade to climb and would definitely eat up a lot of range.

Also if they were going 80-90mph as is typical for I-5 through central CA then range is also going to tank.
 
60 miles on the guage (20%) should have been enough for 20 miles to the next supercharger. Moderate traffic actually increases your efficiency as your speed is slower. Stop and go traffic lowers your efficiency somewhat, but far less than any ICE car. The weather has been just about perfect for EVs in the Bay Area. Unless they were stuck in traffic for literally hours and hours, I don't see how they wouldn't make it. Do you have any information on things like efficiency in the last leg of their trip?

Were your parents unfamiliar with 1 pedal driving and hammering on the brakes a lot? I've found that driving style can have a big impact on efficiency. Autopilot works quite well in traffic jams too.
 
Always navigate to the destination. The navigation will give you an estimated battery % upon arrival at each charging stop and at the destination. Never assume that rated miles will reflect reality, since that metric doesn't take into account wind, weather elevation changes, traffic, travel speed, etc. One should primarily rely on the route planner since it accounts for most of those externalities.

Your story tells me that they didn't navigate to their destination. Had they, the system would have given them warnings about not being able to reach their destination.
 
Something seems very wrong. 60mi of range should have got him 20mi to the next charging station.
60 miles on the guage (20%) should have been enough for 20 miles to the next supercharger.
Why are you both thinking this was 20 miles? Did the original post get edited after the fact and says something different now from when you saw it? Here's what I see right now:

anyways he was about 40 miles from his destination (mile marker ~140) when the car battery started to show 60 miles left.
It says 40 miles left to go, not 20 miles.

But anyway, this is kind of the fundamental problem with how the driver did this drive. The very first time he looked at it was when the drive was almost over with only a very slim 6% projection of energy at arrival. As @Big Earl was saying, always put this into Navigation, and then keep half an eye on it as you drive. When you're inside the car, you may not be aware of feeling if there happens to be a really strong headwind that day outside of the car. But the car will know. And that extra energy consumption will be figured in, and that estimate constantly adjusted, and you will definitely see if your arrival estimate is rapidly dropping from 20% to 15% to 10% to 6%. You need to do something about it earlier instead of suddenly looking at it near the end of your drive when it's too late to do anything about it.

So we can't help much since you don't have any information on what things looked like during the drive. If the energy consumption showed very high the whole way, then maybe this is totally normal, but it's hard to tell.
 
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Why are you both thinking this was 20 miles? Did the original post get edited after the fact and says something different now from when you saw it? Here's what I see right now:
He said he was 20 miles from the next charger:

anyways he was about 40 miles from his destination (mile marker ~140) when the car battery started to show 60 miles left. he was in gridlock traffic and past the cluster of TC chargers and was 20 miles from the next one, but in that time leading up, the range drained to zero and he had to pull over.

Since he had to be towed, I assume he didn't even make it that far.
 
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Driving at 80 mph is the biggest drain on range in this scenario. Speed sucks range like no other. If he'd slowed to 60 he might have had no problem, but I have seen where upping the speed to eighty will double the consumption. I have seen many cases where a Tesla owner will race up the freeway trying to get to the next charger, and run out only a few minutes away, having to call a tow truck because of it. Sure, a headwind might cause some loss, but Tesla's are quite aerodynamic.

If you need more range, SLOW DOWN. If you need to, slow down some more. I managed to make it to a charger by doing 25 on the highway, got pulled over by a local patrol to have him escort me there. But I made it by slowing down: Simple as that. Of course, it helps to have enough range in the battery, but speeding will fix that easily so you won't make it. If you still have too much charge, you might try a few jackrabbit starts and drag races to 80 and back, for variety, just to make sure you don't arrive on time.
 
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Driving at 80 mph is the biggest drain on range in this scenario. Speed sucks range like no other. If he'd slowed to 60 he might have had no problem, but I have seen where upping the speed to eighty will double the consumption.
The OP doesn't state what speed his parents were driving while borrowing his car but this is good advice and most likely what happened. You can watch the battery percentage increase as you reduce your speed on highway roadtrips when you slow down from 80 to 65 MPH. I bring up the Energy app on longer trips to verify that I'll make it to the destination with some buffer left.
 
Agree with others that highway speed has a large effect on consumption and range. The speed limit on much of 5 is 70mph, but much of the traffic is going significantly faster. Going significantly faster than 70mph will result in consumption much higher than the rated consumption (even 70mph will result in consumption higher than rated consumption). In addition, northbound on 5 is more likely to find headwinds -- a 10mph headwind is like adding additional aerodynamic drag equivalent to driving 10mph faster.

For the battery level gauge, would recommend that it be set to percentage (not miles or rated range) if someone borrows the car. The miles or rated range option is best seen as a higher resolution version of it, not as an actual miles left. To get a better estimate based on recent past driving, use the energy screen's projected range. Comparing the projected range to the rated range does give an idea of whether one is driving more or less economically than what the EPA rating is based on.
 
To get a better estimate based on recent past driving, use the energy screen's projected range. Comparing the projected range to the rated range does give an idea of whether one is driving more or less economically than what the EPA rating is based on.
In 3 weeks of driving I've settled in to doing this comparison a lot. It helps one get a feel for what to expect. So far I think I've always been above EPA range.
BTW, is the range at the top of the screen simply the EPA value adjusted for SOC or is it adjusted for other factors?
 
In 3 weeks of driving I've settled in to doing this comparison a lot. It helps one get a feel for what to expect. So far I think I've always been above EPA range.
BTW, is the range at the top of the screen simply the EPA value adjusted for SOC or is it adjusted for other factors?

The range at the top of the screen is simply the EOA value adjusted for SOC. Maximum charge will decrease over time as the battery ages and degrades. It will also display a locked out, blue area, when the battery is cold and not all of the energy is available. Aside from those two things, it doesn’t account for anything else.
 
In 3 weeks of driving I've settled in to doing this comparison a lot. It helps one get a feel for what to expect. So far I think I've always been above EPA range.
BTW, is the range at the top of the screen simply the EPA value adjusted for SOC or is it adjusted for other factors?
Yes, the range shown is the rated range when the battery is at 100%. Note that this can reflect capacity loss, so if the car's rated range is 263 miles new, but the battery has lost 5% of its capacity, it will show 250 miles when the battery is at 100%.

When the battery is at less than 100%, it will show a range proportional to the remaining battery percentage. In the above example, if the battery is at 50%, then it will show 125 miles if it showed 250 miles when the battery was at 100%.

I.e. think of it more like a higher resolution version of the battery percentage indicator that can also indicate if the battery has lost capacity compared to its nominal capacity.
 
The Energy Charts are really good to use if you're trying to stretch your range a bit, especially if you are navigating.
Agree! I used the Trip graph on the energy screen for the first time recently on the 240 mile return leg (+1300 feet) of a trip. It initially wanted to stop at a SC I didn't want to use (one of 3 close together) so I turned that off and it showed arrival with about 5% SOC and said to stay under 60 mph. I decided to try it - not in any hurry. The first portion was 55 mph roads (or less) and as I proceeded the actual graph continued to climb slowly above the predicted line (super nice how that works). It was amazing to see how the predicted line clearly showed crossing a mountain and even one hill of only 300 foot rise. I went to 65 max on 65/70 regions but actual line still stayed above predicted, followed its shape exactly and I arrived home with 10% SOC. Really nice.

Two questions:
  • If it says to stay under 60 mph, is it assuming you also stay at speed limits that are less than 60 or is it assuming you could stay at 60 the whole way?
  • How do I make it stop at the SC I choose? I want to see the whole trip at the beginning, not just the first leg to the SC.