Sudden Rated Range Drop

[Keelo Watts]

I've had my 2018 M3 Midrange for 6 months now and have about 4700 miles on the odometer. Up until about 3 weeks ago, a 90% charge always resulted in a starting range of 236-237 miles and the less than 5 times I'd charged to 100% always yielded a starting range of 263-264 miles. Suddenly, from one charge to the next, the displayed starting range after a charge to 90% or 100% is consistently 10-12 miles less.

I saw on another thread that there was recently a rated range change to the Model S & X to better protect the battery, but I didn't think that affected the Model 3. I tried driving the car down to less than 10% and recharging to 100% and then subsequently charging to 90% consistently, but the rated range hasn't budged.

Does the displayed range beginning at a particular state of charge dynamically adjust over time? I would think the rated range is the rated range and will always be the same starting out and then the battery will deplete based upon driving efficiency from that point. It seems odd the car would be so precise and consistent for 5.5 months and 4500 miles and then suddenly shift to a new number and hold that constant. My driving mix (70% city/30% hwy) and habits haven't changed since I got the car.

Has anyone else experienced this behavior? What is the actual reason for the sudden drop/adjustment? If it's just normal battery degradation that happens during the first year and levels out, is it normal for it to occur at the 6 month/5000 mile point and happen all of a sudden versus gradually? Do I need to account for a 10-12 mile or 5% loss of range pad when planning longer trips now? Thanks.

 

[F14Scott]

Same happened to me. 80% showed 251 miles for the first 3000 miles. One of the updates happened, and 80% now means 242 miles.

 

[gatorbob]

I’ve seen the same range drop on my MR the past few months. 80% used to be ~ 210 and is now about 196.

 

[Keelo Watts]

Same happened to me. 80% showed 251 miles for the first 3000 miles. One of the updates happened, and 80% now means 242 miles.

Interesting. Mine appeared to have happened on the same software version in between individual charges.

I’ve seen the same range drop on my MR the past few months. 80% used to be ~ 210 and is now about 196.

If Tesla changed something it would be nice to know. For me, the owner's manual description of what's displayed is lacking...

8. Total estimated driving distance (or energy) available. Instead of driving distance, you can display the percentage of battery energy remaining. To do so, touch Controls > Display > Energy Display > Energy (see Controls on page 95).
Note: When anticipating when you need to charge, use range estimates as a general guideline only.
Note: In cold weather, some of the stored energy in the Battery may not be available until the Battery warms up. When this happens, a portion of the Battery meter is blue and the driving distance value has asnowflake image next to it. If Model 3 is plugged in, you can heat your Battery using wall power by turning on climate control using the mobile app. When the Battery warms up, the blue portion on the meter and the snowflake image are no longer displayed.

It would be nice if there was an additional tab available to display energy as total available KWh. Since I regularly use 230-240 Wh/mi, that would be much more useful information to evaluate battery health at various levels of charge. At this point, I don't really know if 100% on the display means that 100% of rated capacity is available or simply the pack was charged up as much as possible. Over time, as degradation occurs, will this be detectable by seeing the car charge to perhaps 87% when 90% is selected or will the car still indicate a charge to 90% when only 87% of rated KWh capacity is available in the background? The nerd in me wants to know just how accurate the fuel gauge is in terms of energy available. Range calculations I'll happily handle on my own.

 

[AdamMacDon]

I've had quite a big range drop and massive increase in vampire drain overnight since update 2019.24. Not sure if it's correlated or not, but I went from losing about 0.5% per 24 hours to 3% per night, only a 10 hour period. Even at work I'm noticing a vampire drain of a percent or two. My cars range is also about 300kms now. Admittedly I have a heavy foot and drive in a hilly city, but it's still markedly worse than it used to be last week (I got about 350km rated range).

 

[TiggerTime]

I have a Jan 2019 MR and haven't noticed a reduction in SOC/Range and have about 14k miles everything seems stable for me.

 

[andrewxc]

I got mine at the beginning of May, and received the following email on 7 June:

Your Model 3 will soon receive new software that matches the Model 3 Standard Range configuration you ordered. As we communicated in April, this includes a limited range of 220 miles, and the removal of several software features. To continue experiencing the extended range, faster acceleration and Autopilot features of Model 3 Standard Range Plus, schedule a service appointment through your Tesla app. Your car will be software-limited in the next 10 days to match your original configuration.

My "daily" charge maxes out at 219, which is the same as it was before the email, and the 100% charge should max out around 238, though I haven't tried.

 

[BluestarE3]

I've had my 2018 M3 Midrange for 6 months now and have about 4700 miles on the odometer. Up until about 3 weeks ago, a 90% charge always resulted in a starting range of 236-237 miles and the less than 5 times I'd charged to 100% always yielded a starting range of 263-264 miles. Suddenly, from one charge to the next, the displayed starting range after a charge to 90% or 100% is consistently 10-12 miles less.

I saw on another thread that there was recently a rated range change to the Model S & X to better protect the battery, but I didn't think that affected the Model 3. I tried driving the car down to less than 10% and recharging to 100% and then subsequently charging to 90% consistently, but the rated range hasn't budged.

Does the displayed range beginning at a particular state of charge dynamically adjust over time? I would think the rated range is the rated range and will always be the same starting out and then the battery will deplete based upon driving efficiency from that point. It seems odd the car would be so precise and consistent for 5.5 months and 4500 miles and then suddenly shift to a new number and hold that constant. My driving mix (70% city/30% hwy) and habits haven't changed since I got the car.

Has anyone else experienced this behavior? What is the actual reason for the sudden drop/adjustment? If it's just normal battery degradation that happens during the first year and levels out, is it normal for it to occur at the 6 month/5000 mile point and happen all of a sudden versus gradually? Do I need to account for a 10-12 mile or 5% loss of range pad when planning longer trips now? Thanks.

Yep, same here. My MR's rated range dropped by 11-12 miles after one of the recent firmware updates. I used to consistently get 211 miles rated range on an 80% charge.

 

[bwilson4web]

I got mine at the beginning of May, . . .

Did you order a mid-range, standard range plus, or standard range?

If you ordered a standard range, there appears to be a 'grace' period where you get standard range plus performance until Tesla limits the car. Tesla did a similar trick in Canada.

To get a Canadian rebate, the car had to be cheaper than some given value. So Tesla dropped the price and software limited the performance. After buying the car and getting the rebate, the owner could buy an after-sale enhancement and get Standard Range Plus performance.

Bob Wilson

 

[Keelo Watts]

A little housekeeping and updated info...

So, after further digging and analysis, I'm pretty confident I have no degradation at 4,800 miles and still have the full battery capacity available. I came across this video recently in which the poster claims is not his conjecture but info direct from a Tesla employee who worked on engineering the battery. I replied to another post with the link here...

#2

I think what happened in my case was my lifetime average Wh/mi was 246 at roughly 4,500 miles on the odometer when I drove down below 10% for the first time and recharged to 100% triggering a "calibration" of the range. For the first couple thousand miles I was pretty aggressive with the car and having fun. Since then, I've been driving like a "normal?" person. Haha. Nevertheless, in the miles since, it had only reduced my Wh/mi to 246. Given that the MR battery supposedly has 62 kWh available, (62,000 / 246 = 252) it seems more than coincidence that my range display at 100% changed to 252 upon the first charge after dropping below 10%.

However, as I mentioned in the other post linked above, I'm able to get way more than the original rated range of the vehicle in city driving, and I'm besting the car's estimates of energy usage during city trips. I've also found the energy usage for longer trips to be spot on with A Better Route Planner's info with accurate percentages consumed.

So, leaving the display in battery percentage instead of range and using the energy graph 15 mile average consumption and projected range is working well for me and I don't have any concerns about shifting rated range calculations nor do I have any desire to do recalibrations of the range or other (now seemingly pointless) exercises. Hope this info is helpful to others who may have anxiety about the info that's displayed and what's really going on.

 

[Carol525]

I have a 3 month old LR RWD Model 3. For a 90% charge, I always went to 293. This week I lost 7 miles in range ending at 286. I just filled to 100%, which was always 325. Now it's 318, the same 7 mile decrease. I know - 1st world problem! There's another thread saying it's from the recent software updates, lessening the range to protect the battery. Check here: M3 Range Loss Date and Mileage Trend

 

[KenC]

A little housekeeping and updated info...

So, after further digging and analysis, I'm pretty confident I have no degradation at 4,800 miles and still have the full battery capacity available. I came across this video recently in which the poster claims is not his conjecture but info direct from a Tesla employee who worked on engineering the battery. I replied to another post with the link here...

#2

I think what happened in my case was my lifetime average Wh/mi was 246 at roughly 4,500 miles on the odometer when I drove down below 10% for the first time and recharged to 100% triggering a "calibration" of the range. For the first couple thousand miles I was pretty aggressive with the car and having fun. Since then, I've been driving like a "normal?" person. Haha. Nevertheless, in the miles since, it had only reduced my Wh/mi to 246. Given that the MR battery supposedly has 62 kWh available, (62,000 / 246 = 252) it seems more than coincidence that my range display at 100% changed to 252 upon the first charge after dropping below 10%.

However, as I mentioned in the other post linked above, I'm able to get way more than the original rated range of the vehicle in city driving, and I'm besting the car's estimates of energy usage during city trips. I've also found the energy usage for longer trips to be spot on with A Better Route Planner's info with accurate percentages consumed.

So, leaving the display in battery percentage instead of range and using the energy graph 15 mile average consumption and projected range is working well for me and I don't have any concerns about shifting rated range calculations nor do I have any desire to do recalibrations of the range or other (now seemingly pointless) exercises. Hope this info is helpful to others who may have anxiety about the info that's displayed and what's really going on.

Agreed, use the SOC %age instead of miles, and you'll never worry about whether the BMS is calculating your range properly since it's pretty meaningless, considering it's not factoring in your driving style at all. The trip calculator uses SOC %age as well, so that's consistent. I'm not really sure why Tesla chose to default to miles when it's only going to cause unnecessary confusion and concern.

 

[darth_vad3r]

Agreed, use the SOC %age instead of miles, and you'll never worry about whether the BMS is calculating your range properly since it's pretty meaningless, considering it's not factoring in your driving style at all. The trip calculator uses SOC %age as well, so that's consistent. I'm not really sure why Tesla chose to default to miles when it's only going to cause unnecessary confusion and concern.

But if you don’t look at miles you won’t know when to have necessary concern. Like if your car loses 15 miles a week, you would catch on to the pattern after a few weeks instead of happily charging to “X%” and not noticing

 

[KenC]

But if you don’t look at miles you won’t know when to have necessary concern. Like if your car loses 15 miles a week, you would catch on to the pattern after a few weeks instead of happily charging to “X%” and not noticing

How much time has been wasted on unnecessary concern? Where are the threads of people complaining about missing battery degradation because they were using %age SOC instead of miles?

 

[darth_vad3r]

How much time has been wasted on unnecessary concern? Where are the threads of people complaining about missing battery degradation because they were using %age SOC instead of miles?

Maybe there just needs to be a sub-forum for battery degradation, with a pinned message at the top explaining things that you must read before positing... and then you can ignore that forum.

 

[HostileHarry]

My LR is now showing a 100% of 292 miles or 6.23% loss of range.

Model 3 battery degradation has surpassed my 2016 90D Model X, which is widely considered to be the worse battery size for degradation.

 

[darth_vad3r]

My LR is now showing a 100% of 292 miles or 6.23% loss of range.

Model 3 battery degradation has surpassed my 2016 90D Model X, which is widely considered to be the worse battery size for degradation.


View attachment 447077

What's your typical use window? Like 90% down to 50%, then back up? Or 80 to 70, to 80, ... etc.

 

[andrewxc]

I got mine at the beginning of May, and received the following email on 7 June:
Your Model 3 will soon receive new software that matches the Model 3 Standard Range configuration you ordered. As we communicated in April, this includes a limited range of 220 miles, and the removal of several software features. To continue experiencing the extended range, faster acceleration and Autopilot features of Model 3 Standard Range Plus, schedule a service appointment through your Tesla app. Your car will be software-limited in the next 10 days to match your original configuration.
My "daily" charge maxes out at 219, which is the same as it was before the email, and the 100% charge should max out around 238, though I haven't tried.

Still shows ~218 when charged completely (Daily), and will max out higher, but I don't let it get above the 90%, or whatever it is.
This week, I went ~140 miles, when the battery estimate showed I should have gone ~170. We had a small bit of A/C weather this week, so that's probably where the drain was.

 

[Uncle Paul]

I believe typically the batteries experience the largest degradation early on, then tend to stabilize for a long time.

 

[darth_vad3r]

Still shows ~218 when charged completely (Daily), and will max out higher, but I don't let it get above the 90%, or whatever it is.
This week, I went ~140 miles, when the battery estimate showed I should have gone ~170. We had a small bit of A/C weather this week, so that's probably where the drain was.

Which “battery estimate” are you referring to? The trip consumption chart that’s based on your previous X miles? That’s not an accurate prediction unless you drive the same way for the next Y miles as well

If you are talking about the one next to the battery icon, that is a measure of energy remaining in your battery, displayed as “rated miles” if you choose distance in miles — not an estimate of how far you can drive, unless you drive exactly like the EPA test cycle

Most people drive faster/less efficiently than that, so you’d usually expect to see more dashboard miles tick off per road mile even with zero A/C or heat.