Tesla Phantom Battery Losses of 20%

[AmeliaKD]

I just lost 11 miles in 9.5 hrs of being parked??

I just bought a 90D last month (manufactured May 2017). I have a future trip planned where I will be leaving my Tesla Model S 90D parked in an airport parking lot in the sun, in hot humid weather for 11 days. To gauge the amount of battery loss while parked, I've been monitoring it at work during the hot summer days. Yesterday, it got up to 93 degrees outside. I was parked in the sun, on black asphalt, with a window sun reflector (the silver fabric thingy) in the front window, back window and sunroof. While at work for 9.5 hrs during peak daytime, I lost 11 miles of battery. I was in the car around 6:30 pm so it might have lost even more if it was sitting overnight. WOW, that seems like a LOT!! I never opened the app to check on the car during that time. Other days it has been between 6 and 9 miles during work days.

Is it normal to see that much battery loss? If so, I'll lose 120 to 150+ while parked and I am concerned about having enough to drive the 1.5 hrs home.

Is anyone else seeing this much battery loss?

 

[TexasEV]

We heard you the first time you posted this.

 

[ucmndd]

I just lost 11 miles in 9.5 hrs of being parked??

I just bought a 90D last month (manufactured May 2017). I have a future trip planned where I will be leaving my Tesla Model S 90D parked in an airport parking lot in the sun, in hot humid weather for 11 days. To gauge the amount of battery loss while parked, I've been monitoring it at work during the hot summer days. Yesterday, it got up to 93 degrees outside. I was parked in the sun, on black asphalt, with a window sun reflector (the silver fabric thingy) in the front window, back window and sunroof. While at work for 9.5 hrs during peak daytime, I lost 11 miles of battery. I was in the car around 6:30 pm so it might have lost even more if it was sitting overnight. WOW, that seems like a LOT!! I never opened the app to check on the car during that time. Other days it has been between 6 and 9 miles during work days.

Is it normal to see that much battery loss? If so, I'll lose 120 to 150+ while parked and I am concerned about having enough to drive the 1.5 hrs home.

Is anyone else seeing this much battery loss?

I see similar loss over a work day in hot weather from the cabin overheat protection.

Suggest turning that off when you park at the airport. That said, it will only function for the first 10-20 hours after your last drive (can't remember the exact number) so the total loss won't be that great even if you leave it on.

 

[jerry33]

I just lost 11 miles in 9.5 hrs of being parked??

I just bought a 90D last month (manufactured May 2017). I have a future trip planned where I will be leaving my Tesla Model S 90D parked in an airport parking lot in the sun, in hot humid weather for 11 days. To gauge the amount of battery loss while parked, I've been monitoring it at work during the hot summer days. Yesterday, it got up to 93 degrees outside. I was parked in the sun, on black asphalt, with a window sun reflector (the silver fabric thingy) in the front window, back window and sunroof. While at work for 9.5 hrs during peak daytime, I lost 11 miles of battery. I was in the car around 6:30 pm so it might have lost even more if it was sitting overnight. WOW, that seems like a LOT!! I never opened the app to check on the car during that time. Other days it has been between 6 and 9 miles during work days.

Is it normal to see that much battery loss? If so, I'll lose 120 to 150+ while parked and I am concerned about having enough to drive the 1.5 hrs home.

Is anyone else seeing this much battery loss?

On a very hot day that's normal. It also depends on what settings you have. However, when driving generally you get the best range when it's hot.

When you're parked for a long time, be sure all the settings are set to the most economical positions (no auto preconditioning, no always connected, etc.), and don't call the car to check up on it. Turn A/C off before you leave the car. Note that the longer the car is parked, the deeper is sleeps, so the less energy it uses. Of course, it's ideal if you can park where there is some electricity--120V is just fine for parking. The park-and-fly places are sometimes equipped with 110V.

 

[RayW]

My observation has been that unstated battery losses are at about 20%.

For example, your car states you have 200 miles available to drive. But in reality, you can probably get about 160 Miles (give or take).

Thus the true stated mileage of your Tesla vehicle is about 20% less than what's being advertised...

You think you're going to get 235 miles of use, but only get about 190 Miles.

This is from normal driving, street and highway.



** Recent Example:
210 Miles Available.
118.5 Miles driven since last charge
35.4 KWH since last charge
298 WH/Miles since last charge.

Battery Left Over indicator Reads: 54 Miles

A phantom loss of 37.50 Miles or 17.85%

Hey, I just got 227 miles out of my 210 mile MS60.

Not sure why people have trouble understanding their range is determined by their Wh/mi, which is determined by individual driving style, use of accessories and HVAC, and background processes. It's no different than MPG and range for an ICE.

 

[SageBrush]

This is from normal driving

Let me fix this for you: This is from your normal driving. Mine is different

 

[int32_t]

Would you mind providing the "official" TMC Definition?

Typically, the "phantom/vampire drain" term has been used to refer to what @AmeliaKD is describing -- a loss of range when not driving. This is much more empirical than "I'm not getting my rated range," since the latter is so dependent on how the accelerator is used.

My understanding is that a majority of the phantom power usage goes toward keeping the 12V system charged and active using the main battery, and a small percentage goes toward keeping the computers alive. Some people have seen really bad vampire drain in cases with a really weak 12V battery -- but who can say whether the weak 12V battery was the cause, or whether something was drawing far too much on the 12V battery, causing it to weaken over time?

 

[CalBlue 85D]

Not sure why people have trouble understanding their range is determined by their Wh/mi, which is determined by individual driving style, use of accessories and HVAC, and background processes.

Because then there woulndn't be something to complain about...... : )

 

[jankratochvil]

Note that the car has a few kWh held back in reserve which throws things off a little but not enough to matter usually.

There is no reserve, zero is zero as one can read in many threads. There is only 10-20km left after zero due to a bad car's guess of the remaining battery capacity. Maybe you rather mean that Tesla company lies about the model capacity as for example 85D has just 77kWh of usable energy: Tesla’s hacked Battery Management System exposes the real usable capacity of its battery packs

 

[AmpedRealtor]

Disagree. I get rated range or better all the time. You're not driving it right! lol

 

[AWDtsla]

EPA test cycle apparently doesn't run the battery down to 0, nor can I find any information if they validate the energy usage/remaining from the pack itself, versus just using trip meter reporting. So, none of the comments about "but the EPA tested the range" have any applicability. The fact remains, even if you do a 100% drive cycle in such a fashion with the trip meter reporting 1:1 rated mile usage, you will still run out of range far short of rated miles indicated. You have to hyper-mile the car to get or exceed the range rating, with your reported consumption being far lower than the value used to report rated miles. If you never do any hard validation of the car, you will be living blissfully in a world where there is no problem.

At some point, have to start calling Tesla on their BS. There's layer on top of layer of hyperbole, and a fan/owner base willing to dismiss them with any justification possible.

How does EPA estimate electric car driving range?

 

[jerry33]

EPA test cycle apparently doesn't run the battery down to 0, nor can I find any information if they validate the energy usage/remaining from the pack itself, versus just using trip meter reporting.
At some point, have to start calling Tesla on their BS. There's layer on top of layer of hyperbole, and a fan/owner base willing to dismiss them with any justification possible.

How does EPA estimate electric car driving range?

There may be BS, but it's not from Tesla. The test methodology is documented publicly.
Electric Vehicle - City Test Procedure Summary - Following SAE J1634 Recommended Practice, the battery is fully charged, the vehicle is parked over night, and then the following day the vehicle driven over successive city cycles until the battery becomes discharged (and the vehicle can no longer follow the city driving cycle). After running the successive city cycles, the battery is recharged from a normal AC source and the energy consumption of the vehicle is determined (in kW-hr/mile or kW-hr/100 miles) by dividing the kilowatt-hours of energy to recharge the battery by the miles traveled by the vehicle. To calculate the energy consumption in units of mpge (miles/gallon equivalent) we use a conversion factor of 33.705 kilowatt-hours of electricity per gallon of gasoline (which is basically a measure of the energy in gasoline (in BTUs) converted to electricity). The city driving range is determined from the number of miles driven over the city cycle until the vehicle can no longer follow the driving cycle.

Electric Vehicle – Highway Test Procedure Summary - The same test SAE J1634 procedure outlined above, is used to determine the highway energy consumption and the highway driving range (except the vehicle is operated over successive highway cycles).

 

[clostridium]

There is no reserve, zero is zero as one can read in many threads. There is only 10-20km left after zero due to a bad car's guess of the remaining battery capacity. Maybe you rather mean that Tesla company lies about the model capacity as for example 85D has just 77kWh of usable energy: Tesla’s hacked Battery Management System exposes the real usable capacity of its battery packs

Uhhh, please tell me what's the difference between a reserve and having 10-20km of range left when it reads zero. Sounds like the same thing. Whether it's by design or as you say due to the car mis-estimating the actual range is irrelevant.

 

[Lasttoy]

I lost 10 miles a day. I called Fremont, she said I was in Phoenix, 120, lucky it wasn't eating more.
She said never leave car in airport for week.
She also said a few miles a day with temp 70 to 80 was normal. Above or below eats juice.

 

[HX_Guy]

Count me as one that never gets the rated range either - Ive always figured it was "normal" as I never got the rates MPG from any of my old cars either.

Here are several recent "longer" drives - you guys are saying this is not normal?

 

[jerry33]

Uhhh, please tell me what's the difference between a reserve and having 10-20km of range left when it reads zero. Sounds like the same thing. Whether it's by design or as you say due to the car mis-estimating the actual range is irrelevant.

The difference is that you can't count on it. It can happen, but it can just as easily happen the other way (although i imagine that Tesla is conservative, so it's more likely to go past zero). There are reports of stopping before it reaches zero, right at zero, and after zero. Here's the thing: No algorithm, given the current hardware and software, can anticipate an uphill/downhill section, weather related increased rolling resistance, or a section of very bad traffic right when rated kilometers left are very low. Energy use in any given kilometer has a chance to be a below or above average kilometer, so just because the average of the last 200 km was X, there's no guarantee that the next ten kilometers will be.

 

[clostridium]

The difference is that you can't count on it. It can happen, but it can just as easily happen the other way (although i imagine that Tesla is conservative, so it's more likely to go past zero). There are reports of stopping before it reaches zero, right at zero, and after zero. Here's the thing: No algorithm, given the current hardware and software, can anticipate an uphill/downhill section, weather related increased rolling resistance, or a section of very bad traffic right when rated kilometers left are very low. Energy use in any given kilometer has a chance to be a below or above average kilometer, so just because the average of the last 200 km was X, there's no guarantee that the next ten kilometers will be.

Semantics. This all stemmed from a simple statement about making calculations and one of the reasons that they don't work out exactly is that 0% doesn't necessarily mean 0 range. It wasn't meant as an endorsement of running things down that low and I never said this was a consistent range or advertised feature. It seems that the person who responded to me originally just wanted to re-rant about their anger that the battery pack isn't actually the number of kWh that the model number leads you to think it is.

 

[supratachophobia]

My observation has been that unstated battery losses are at about 20%.

For example, your car states you have 200 miles available to drive. But in reality, you can probably get about 160 Miles (give or take).

Thus the true stated mileage of your Tesla vehicle is about 20% less than what's being advertised...

You think you're going to get 235 miles of use, but only get about 190 Miles.

This is from normal driving, street and highway.



** Recent Example:
210 Miles Available.
118.5 Miles driven since last charge
35.4 KWH since last charge
298 WH/Miles since last charge.

Battery Left Over indicator Reads: 54 Miles

A phantom loss of 37.50 Miles or 17.85%

While I dont disagree with your observations, I somewhat disagree with your conclusions. Any car, be it ICE or EV, is going to get -20% in the real world. It's how we drive. While the EPA estimate tries to give a bechmark platform to compare all vehicles to each other, it rarely reflects how we actually use our cars.

 

[David_Cary]

If you can't get EPA, you might consider how you are driving. Obviously in winter, very few cars get EPA. But otherwise, getting EPA is easy in almost any vehicle.

So don't use "we" to include me or anyone else who knows how to drive efficiently.

 

[croman]

@HX_Guy -- Your HVAC use is high due to ambient temp being high and low cabin temp. That will eat a lot of power (30wh/mi at highway, more during local driving especially with stoplights or signs).

The max 93mph probably didn't help the efficiency but I've noticed my car isn't all that inefficient at that speed. My LEAF would give up the ghost around there (software limit) but it was also incredibly inefficient (relatively bad drag coefficient). I think its most the HVAC and high ambient temp (battery pack was sucking on your AC too).

Even in Chicago I get almost rated in the winter most days. On days <10F, I find I get 350wh/mi no matter what I do because I think the pack is near frozen. I have a garage but when its that cold, no where is warm. My lifetime avg is 280s and I have a fairly leaded foot.