Talk me into or out of Model 3 Purchase (mostly range anxiety)

[nvx1977]

I would recommend LR RWD. Call tesla. they have people who can scour inventory that isn't listed online.

that said, if you were forced to get SR+, I think 125mi is very doable. I'm in your area and have an 80mi round trip. I've gone through 2 winters and know exactly how much the winter affects range for longer commutes. It's between 20-30% loss. Caveat: I don't drive 80mph on the highway. More like 70.

The stories you hear about 40-50% winter loss in range are typically much shorter drives.

 

[ZOMGVTEK]

Worst case, full throttle every light, cold weather, heat hammered, expect around half the range from estimated. Most people will see a bit better than this, but I'd say a good ballpark is cut the range in half and you should always see that or better.

I can be a bit picky, but the M3 is about as good as daily drivers get. A few little issues, but most hopefully will be fixed in software eventually. For me, theres no option but LR even though my daily commute is 20 miles or so. It has "fuhgeddaboudit" range for me. And charge rates are quite good.

 

[ewoodrick]

Just buy it, you know that's what you are going to do. You'll be fine

 

[Saghost]

I keep hearing this too, and I do (probably) agree with this a lot, but I wish there was some real world testing with hard numbers. If you could precondition the car at home on a level 2 charger and still leave with ~100% charge it would be really interesting to see the energy usage while maintaining a cabin temp of 72 or something at 60, 65, 70, 75 mph. Also, how powerful of a charger would you need at home to precondition the car and still be fully charged? Would a ~6kW charger (240v 24amp) be enough to keep the battery full and still run the heat for 20 minutes or something? Does precondition just warm the air in the cabin, or will it also bring the battery up to temp? Having a battery warm is a lot of mass and will take a while to cool down, especially if you're then drawing energy out of the pack while you go. If it's just warming the cabin air space up, then that will help some, but might cool down pretty quick in cold weather (20 to 30 degrees)

Preconditioning is mostly for the cabin. It will warm the pack some if the pack is extremely cold, but generally doesn't.

You can get some battery preheating by charging the pack right before departure. I use scheduled charging in the winter months to reduce the loss of regen on my ten mile each way commute.

(Hopefully one of these days we'll get charging to a departure time like some other EVs have in a firmware update...)

6kW is probably enough to keep up with it. Certainly it'll be enough to replace the initial surge before the twenty minutes are over unless you're in extreme cold.

 

[North75]

From what I've seen if you are driving 80mph in the Boston area you are going well above typical average speeds.
I typically drive 70mph or even slower on roads with 55mph speed limits. Even up on 93 in NH where the speed limit is 70, I notice very few cars going 80. I get passed of course, but generally keep up with the flow of traffic.

I found that I am way more comfortable driving slower on autopilot than I am without it. Keeping the speed set just slightly below the average speed of traffic keeps the need to pass down which makes things more relaxing and enjoyable.

I wouldn't worry about not having the current FSD features at the moment. Navigate on autopilot is still kind of a novelty. While it more or less works, it doesn't add that much and tends to make some questionable lane change decisions. I find I have to cancel quite a few of them. I'm not sure if it's a software or a hardware problem, but it definitely will cut off fast approaching cars.

It would be nice to have the manually initiated automatic lane changes included in basic AP though. It's a bit lame that they don't include that in the basic AP. Probably not worth $6K if that's the only feature you want to add.

 

[Zaxxon]

You will be fine with the SR+. Here is my temperature efficiency data from TeslaFi tracking 17,000+ miles on my 3 LR RWD. I've filtered to only drives over 25 miles (I don't have enough data on 50+ mile trips to make that chart useful to you):

As someone else mentioned, distance is a key metric when talking about how range is impacted negatively--if you are taking a ton of 1-mile trips and blasting the heat to warm the car from a cold soak each time, you'll see more impact. If you're charging at home each night and then making your 60-mile trip, then another 60-mile trip home, you will do fine. You can see above that the absolute worst I've gotten is a 30% hit when ambient temp is < 15F. Bump that up to 25F and the worst is a 20% hit. Above freezing and it's at worst a 10% hit.

If you take the 240-mile SR+ range and knock it to 80% (eg you want to keep it between 10% and 90% normally), that's 192 miles rated. Now knock off that worst-case 30% hit: still 134 miles of range. And recall that this is the worst-case scenario, while keeping you between 10 and 90%, and on 25-mile-plus trips. Since you're going 60, your impact would be a bit less than this. More like 150+ under 95% of conditions. You can also set your car to charge so it's finishing up when you leave, resulting in a warm battery and reducing the range impact in cold weather.

Were I in your shoes, I'd absolutely get the SR+. If the weather is particularly terrible, I'd just charge to 95% or 100% that day, or drive a little more slowly., or hit an L2 charger at lunch, or... Lots of options to mitigate. I'd hate to miss out on the best car I've ever driven, 100% of the time, because I was worried about an issue that may surface 5% of the time.

That said, I love my LR RWD--I don't need the extra range 99% of the time, but it's nice to just not ever have to worry about it. If the timing, cost, and availability work out for you to get the LR RWD, it's also a great option.

 

[mreynolds767]

Thank you everyone for the many excellent replies. I definitely feel more comfortable I could get by with the SR+.
I am looking into the LR RWD availability but if that comes up empty I think I will pursue the SR+ instead of waiting to save and stretch myself financially for the LR AWD model.

I was fearing a 40% or more drop in bad weather, plus the factor of the charge going between 10-90% on the battery itself, add to that the battery degrading 10% in a couple of years which got me thinking I was not covered. It is very good to hear on 50 mile type stretches with a pre-warmed battery at least when starting out I should get worst case closer to 30 than 40% loss.

To clarify I guess I do typically drive faster when there is little traffic than the normal flow of cars. I like to follow faster cars than myself as a general rule which often means traveling 80 in the fast lane. I can deal with reducing my normal travel speed a bit though in an a electric car without fear and on a really cold day reduce it even further to maximize my range on those questionable days. Most very bad weather of days traffic slows everything down to lower speeds and has more stop and go (regen) so might not be so bad range on those type.

 

[NYCR160]

I agree with Zaxxon. SR+ would be fine for a 125 mile round trip vehicle. My LR RWD now has 21,000 miles of New England driving including driving in every snow storm last winter. I also agree with the AAA report of 40% additional loss in "some" winter weather. The cold weather does reduce range by 10 to 20%. When driving in the cold with snow covered roads you will get down to the 40% range. I personally use 50% for unfamiliar routes during with months. Charging at home every evening should be all you will need. With the speed of supercharging you will be able to use the SR+ on longer trips including cross country. I would not recommend relaying on level 2 charging for you daily commute unless it is available at work; typically you will charge at 22 miles per hour at a L2 (you will need a 3 hour charge to go 66 miles).

 

[Zaxxon]

I am looking into the LR RWD availability but if that comes up empty I think I will pursue the SR+ instead of waiting to save and stretch myself financially for the LR AWD model.

Sounds like a plan to me. Good luck. I forgot to mention in my initial reply above, but the fact that you're planning to put a 240V station in your garage also helps your case, as you can ensure that the battery is warmed up each morning. This actually has a significant impact on your efficiency, since you will avoid the drop in available regen power that you'd see with a cold-soaked battery.

You probably already know this, but just in case since you're new--if/when you order, make sure to use someone's referral code. Gets you (and them) 1,000 supercharging miles.

 

[Wennfred]

I have a SR+ rated at 240 miles, here in California we are pretty much covered with Superchargers all over the place. Having completed my run to Las Vegas and back to San Diego, there’s no range anxiety. Yes it would be nice to go with the LR but it wasn’t in my budget. Coming from a 2011 Nissan Leaf I am very happy with the SR+

Fred

 

[Wennfred]

Here’s a route I mapped with the SR+ no issues getting to Washington state. As you can see, plenty of Superchargers on the way.

 

[5_+JqckQttqck]

Thank you everyone for the many excellent replies. I definitely feel more comfortable I could get by with the SR+.
I am looking into the LR RWD availability but if that comes up empty I think I will pursue the SR+ instead of waiting to save and stretch myself financially for the LR AWD model.

I was fearing a 40% or more drop in bad weather, plus the factor of the charge going between 10-90% on the battery itself, add to that the battery degrading 10% in a couple of years which got me thinking I was not covered. It is very good to hear on 50 mile type stretches with a pre-warmed battery at least when starting out I should get worst case closer to 30 than 40% loss.

To clarify I guess I do typically drive faster when there is little traffic than the normal flow of cars. I like to follow faster cars than myself as a general rule which often means traveling 80 in the fast lane. I can deal with reducing my normal travel speed a bit though in an a electric car without fear and on a really cold day reduce it even further to maximize my range on those questionable days. Most very bad weather of days traffic slows everything down to lower speeds and has more stop and go (regen) so might not be so bad range on those type.

Will charging be available at work? Even a close by SC? This would take all range anxiety away.

 

[jebinc]

Question to Supercharger users: How frequently, when you arrive at a SC station, do you have to wait as no chargers are available? With the large increase in M3 deliveries, I can see where this is (or soon will be) a problem - excessive waiting and lost time. This is another reason I went with the LR model. You can always make more money, but you can't make more time!

 

[acarney]

So what I've heard right now is that as of May the LR RWD (as an off menu item) was $45,900 and that was WITHOUT autopilot. So it isn't really that good of a value compared to the LR AWD ($4k less but without AP). I wish the midrange was still around since that seems to be a happy medium between the lower range cars and the more (too) expensive long range, but from what I've been told that's officially gone, except for the random inventory cars that might show up (or they might be able to hunt around for). That said, any of the midrange ones would have some miles on them and probably be 2018 or very early 2019 builds. So it really does seem unless the budget can stretch that the SR+ is really the best option.

 

[Wennfred]

Question to Supercharger users: How frequently, when you arrive at a SC station, do you have to wait as no chargers are available?

California probably has the most amount of Teslas on the road, I’ve been lucky to always find a spot or 2 available. Besides the Nav station will show you the amount of chargers available on the Map for each location. You can use that to select a location with less usage. This is why they are going with the V3 so there is less wait time.

Fred

 

[Zaxxon]

Question to Supercharger users: How frequently, when you arrive at a SC station, do you have to wait as no chargers are available? With the large increase in M3 deliveries, I can see where this is (or soon will be) a problem - excessive waiting and lost time. This is another reason I went with the LR model. You can always make more money, but you can't make more time!

In my 6,000 miles of Tesla road tripping, I've had to wait for a SC stall once (the wait was < 10 minutes). That was on the Vegas strip. Tesla's pretty good about expanding locations that routinely get overloaded. That's not to say that this won't become an issue, just that it's not really worth concerning yourself with today.

 

[jebinc]

California probably has the most amount of Teslas on the road, I’ve been lucky to always find a spot or 2 available. Besides the Nav station will show you the amount of chargers available on the Map for each location. You can use that to select a location with less usage. This is why they are going with the V3 so there is less wait time.

Fred

Got it, but I don't think the SC saturation in the Op's location (NH/MA) is as great as SoCal... I'm sure there aren't as many Tesla's there as well... I'm just saying, like roads, it seems like "infrastructure" never keeps pace with "expansion". In the case of my Tesla M3, I'd rather not have to stop as often, have range anxiety, or worst of all, have to waste time waiting for a "line".

EDIT: The poll results strongly suggests waiting for a LR as well... Also, others have reported ordering a LR RWD "off menu" from Telsa, as recently as this week.

 

[acarney]

Got it, but I don't think the SC saturation in the Op's location (NH/MA) is as great as SoCal... I'm sure there aren't as many Tesla's there as well... I'm just saying, like roads, it seems like "infrastructure" never keeps pace with "expansion". In the case of my Tesla M3, I'd rather not have to stop as often, have range anxiety, or worst of all, have to waste time waiting for a "line".

EDIT: The poll results strongly suggests waiting for a LR as well... Also, others have reported ordering a LR RWD "off menu" from Telsa, as recently as this week.

Unless something has changed with the off menu LR RWD, as recent as May they were only $4,000 less then the AWD long range but did NOT include AP. There isn't much value there when you think of missing a complete second motor and the ability of AWD in bad weather and performance. They seem to be about $46k, I was hoping they would be around $44k with the partial premium interior or if it was $46k still include the basic AP and just delete the AWD ability. As it is that would exceed the selling price for the Washington state sales tax credit ($2500) and might exclude the OP from state specific credits depending on their terms...

 

[jebinc]

Unless something has changed with the off menu LR RWD, as recent as May they were only $4,000 less then the AWD long range but did NOT include AP. There isn't much value there when you think of missing a complete second motor and the ability of AWD in bad weather and performance. They seem to be about $46k, I was hoping they would be around $44k with the partial premium interior or if it was $46k still include the basic AP and just delete the AWD ability. As it is that would exceed the selling price for the Washington state sales tax credit ($2500) and might exclude the OP from state specific credits depending on their terms...

WA state sales tax credit? While I live in WA state, the OP lives in the NE. I agree with the value point, which is why I got the LR AWD with FSD and perfume white interior version.

 

[Saghost]

Question to Supercharger users: How frequently, when you arrive at a SC station, do you have to wait as no chargers are available? With the large increase in M3 deliveries, I can see where this is (or soon will be) a problem - excessive waiting and lost time. This is another reason I went with the LR model. You can always make more money, but you can't make more time!

Pretty much only on travel days around holidays and at specific locations that locals like.

I just finished an 8k mile three week road trip, and I never had to wait at all - I think there were only two sessions where I was even sharing a cabinet at any point in the charge.

It was actually still more common to be all alone at a location than to have two or more other cars there this trip.

Maybe that'll change in the future, and maybe not. Tesla is still adding new stations, and the firmware updates have reduced the time needed - v3 will reduce it more.

With coverage almost everywhere in the continental U.S., the newer stations can be focused where the usage is highest instead of needing to add them for area coverage.