So there seems to be some truth to the argument that the new Ryzen chips reduce range. The LR with the newest chip in Europe has had its estimated range reduced by around 7 miles or so, according to this article.
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Tesla lowers Model 3 range estimates in Europe due to extra power consumption of AMD Ryzen processor
- Thread starter whiskeylover
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Although it does seem suspicious that a chip would drain 7 miles worth of energy. But I'm not a car expert.
HeatproofGenie
Member
Seems suspicious to me. If the meager bump in power a chip draws were to affect range then we would be seeing more reports of say bumping screen brightness down to 5% causing a range increase of 10 miles.
We do know with EVs that every little bit does add up but the sheer size of the battery designed to move a multi-ton vehicle and the increase in electrons to power a different chip doesn't seem like it would affect range to that amount.
We do know with EVs that every little bit does add up but the sheer size of the battery designed to move a multi-ton vehicle and the increase in electrons to power a different chip doesn't seem like it would affect range to that amount.
diamond.g
Active Member
I’d call shens, if it is using the same Ryzen V180F as the S, then there is only a roughly 4x increase on power consumption over the Intel Atom, it shouldn‘t be enough to lower the range by 7 miles.
Computer review web sites suggest that some models of AMD Ryzen use up to 200W when fully loaded during benchmark testing (but idle power consumption is more like 20-60W). But AMD's web site lists the models intended for embedded use as 54W or less.
Current Tesla software that presumably has to run on the older Intel Atom probably is nowhere close to fully loading the AMD Ryzen in normal use. But even a fully loaded AMD Ryzen (of the model that could use up to 200W) would need 5 hours to consume 1kWh of energy, or about 4 or so miles of EPA range. The embedded models would take 18 hours fully loaded to use up 1kWh.
Perhaps Tesla's earlier range estimate in Europe was a little too aggressive, so the AMD Ryzen increased power consumption may be mostly a cover story for resetting the estimate to a slightly more realistic number.
Current Tesla software that presumably has to run on the older Intel Atom probably is nowhere close to fully loading the AMD Ryzen in normal use. But even a fully loaded AMD Ryzen (of the model that could use up to 200W) would need 5 hours to consume 1kWh of energy, or about 4 or so miles of EPA range. The embedded models would take 18 hours fully loaded to use up 1kWh.
Perhaps Tesla's earlier range estimate in Europe was a little too aggressive, so the AMD Ryzen increased power consumption may be mostly a cover story for resetting the estimate to a slightly more realistic number.
Unless they also lower the range estimates for cars with this chip in the US, this would appear to be more about the European WLTP tests than anything else. We know already that these cars will not get EPA range, and WLTP range is farther than EPA (thus even more unattainable).
Shrug.
Shrug.
Then the car would only work with Apple tires and Apple electrons.
CarlThompson
Member
I suspect in Europe Tesla has decided to take advantage of the new processor by installing bitcoin mining software on all the cars maxing out CPU usage and power consumption and thus reducing range! 
MaskedRacerX
Member
Yeah, the power/TDP to performance ratio of the M1 series is insane.
I was also initially curious why they didn't use a custom ARM cpu instead of staying Intel compatible.
But of course that would mean it would be incompatible with all the other existing cars and require a rebuild/rewrite of their entire stack - minus the drive computer.
So not worth the effort just yet.
Who knows what will happen with CyberTruck though
But of course that would mean it would be incompatible with all the other existing cars and require a rebuild/rewrite of their entire stack - minus the drive computer.
So not worth the effort just yet.
Who knows what will happen with CyberTruck though
It's the old "use stuff out of the parts bin that works instead of spending time and money reinventing it", where the "stuff out of the parts bin" is the existing software.I was also initially curious why they didn't use a custom ARM cpu instead of staying Intel compatible.
But of course that would mean it would be incompatible with all the other existing cars and require a rebuild/rewrite of their entire stack - minus the drive computer.
So not worth the effort just yet.
Tesla is using a custom 45 watt AMD cpu. Here is a tear down video.
Gauss Guzzler
Safety Score = 42
It's true. Try it yourself if you don't believe them.
Just park the car and play the Sonic or Beach Buggy games 24/7 without sleeping (bring snacks and a soda cup). You'll see that within a few weeks the car will have lost about 7 miles of range.
Or just do the math if you're not that into gaming. Assuming the Ryzen uses 5W more than the Atom, that'll increase the car's average power consumption from 15,000W all the way up to 15,005W which rounds to about 0.00% more power (yes, this is the actual calculated value). It's hard to picture just how big an increase 0.00% is, but let's just say if you drove a million miles with the Ryzen chip it would use about 0.00% more power than an Atom.
And 0.00% of 1,000,000 = 7.
Just park the car and play the Sonic or Beach Buggy games 24/7 without sleeping (bring snacks and a soda cup). You'll see that within a few weeks the car will have lost about 7 miles of range.
Or just do the math if you're not that into gaming. Assuming the Ryzen uses 5W more than the Atom, that'll increase the car's average power consumption from 15,000W all the way up to 15,005W which rounds to about 0.00% more power (yes, this is the actual calculated value). It's hard to picture just how big an increase 0.00% is, but let's just say if you drove a million miles with the Ryzen chip it would use about 0.00% more power than an Atom.
And 0.00% of 1,000,000 = 7.
diamond.g
Active Member
We don't know the chosen cTDP of the Ryzen part. We do know the Intel part is 12W and the Ryzen can be up to 45W (I actually think it is up to 54W, not sure where they got 45W from).
Gauss Guzzler
Safety Score = 42
It doesn't matter what the maximum rating is since these chips all throttle down accordingly. So it's likely that the more modern Ryzen actually uses less power on average even if the power bursts are much higher during app launch or gameplay.
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