Tesla readies revamped Model 3

[dfwatt]

Was gonna mention that, lol! Seems to be a lot of info presented unclearly/out of correct context in the video MrBadger linked. 300 miles range from 5 kg hydrogen is a figure taken from their Mirai fuel cell car. That's equivalent to something like 70-odd UKMPG. No hydrogen burning IC engine is doing 70 MPG. Not even that little Yaris engine they are running on hydrogen comes close, and that V8 nowhere near - at 19 MPG for the regular petrol version you'll get less than 100 miles from 5 kg hydrogen in a comparable car.

Sad, cos I'm all for ICE's enduring, especially V8's, at least till I'm dead!

Classic case of missing the forest for the trees.

 

[CWT3LR]

I also agree that Wales is an away from civilisation adventure

Hey! We have electricity and everything! Just not where it is needed yet...

 

[FastLaneJB]

Hey! We have electricity and everything! Just not where it is needed yet...

Yeah. It'll come but a good example where more range could be useful. Scottish Highlands even more so. Plenty of remote locations there.

 

[FEERSUMENDJIN]

I think such a car would target an awfully small niche. It'd cost double, be freakishly heavy, have lower efficiency around town, and would take as much as 2 hours to fast-charge. I really cannot imagine -wanting- to drive for 8 hours nonstop without at least a 15 minute bathroom break which is exactly what you do for long distance travel in the existing car - drive 3 hours, pause for 20 min then drive another 3 hours. Peeing into a cup to save that short pause is... kinda extreme

Bigger the battery the quicker to charge

 

[FEERSUMENDJIN]

Yeah. It'll come but a good example where more range could be useful. Scottish Highlands even more so. Plenty of remote locations there.

Scottish highlands are served pretty well with Inverness and Fort William. Add in all the 50kw chargepoint scotland chargers and it is fairly comfy with the current M3 range.

 

[Jason71]

Scottish highlands are served pretty well with Inverness and Fort William. Add in all the 50kw chargepoint scotland chargers and it is fairly comfy with the current M3 range.

and with CPS legendary reliability in such a rural setting what could possibly go wrong.....
/s

 

[FEERSUMENDJIN]

and with CPS legendary reliability in such a rural setting what could possibly go wrong.....
/s

They are definitely better after SWARCO have settled in. I have had pretty good experience in the highlands generally. I have actually had more problems with them being occupied than broken this year. But they are everywhere now and destination charging tends to be useful. Plan B and Plan C dont tend to be too bad. I have not had to make an emergency run to Inverness or Fort William yet.

 

[init6]

Yup definitely improved since SWARCO take-over. Also I suspect charging for charging has helped fund more maintenance.

 

[ZenRockGarden]

Bigger the battery the quicker to charge

The bigger the battery, the longer it takes to charge at any given charging power level.

The Electric Hummer has an absurd 300 KWh battery which could theoretically be charged at a very high rate but in reality there are no charggers nor conditions when that actually happens, thus people take hours to fill the thing even at a good fast charger, let alone at home

 

[Jason71]

The bigger the battery, the longer it takes to charge at any given charging power level.

The Electric Hummer has an absurd 300 KWh battery which could theoretically be charged at a very high rate but in reality there are no charggers nor conditions when that actually happens, thus people take hours to fill the thing even at a good fast charger, let alone at home

The hummer is very inefficient so needs the big battery charged for a long time to get anywhere so it is not a good example.
The point being made is that often a limiter on the charge rate is the current that can be pushed to each cell so a bigger battery = more cells = faster charge rate. Over all the the bigger battery will take longer to charge from X% to Y% but to add say 150miles of range in theory takes less time on a bigger battery than it does on a smaller one. This is why the LR M3 charged faster than the original SR+ even though they used the same battery tech.

 

[FastLaneJB]

The hummer is very inefficient so needs the big battery charged for a long time to get anywhere so it is not a good example.
The point being made is that often a limiter on the charge rate is the current that can be pushed to each cell so a bigger battery = more cells = faster charge rate. Over all the the bigger battery will take longer to charge from X% to Y% but to add say 150miles of range in theory takes less time on a bigger battery than it does on a smaller one. This is why the LR M3 charged faster than the original SR+ even though they used the same battery tech.

Good to see someone else gets this concept.

Also need to consider on v3 Superchargers say how much of your charging time is maxing out the speed of that charger before it slows down. Not all that long and with a larger battery you'll be charging at the higher speeds more of the time. So even with current chargers, you'll be able to get more miles per hour if we take that as a charging speed vs percentage of battery you've filled.

You can see this already as a 100kWh new Model S can fill it's battery in the same time on a v3 Supercharger as a Model 3 LR or Performance can.

 

[Avendit]

We've gotten a little bit of improvement in range from lowering the cars and from a front splitter. Experimenting with some aero Wheels in a 20-inch size but so far not looking like they have a big benefit maybe at most 15 watt hours per mile.

do you have any figures for how much difference the splitter made? Also, what aero 20"'ers did you find! I was considering some EV01+'s in 19, didn't think you could get bigger than that tho!

As someone said, we almost always start with 80% and will be charging around 20% as you want some buffer incase stuck. So most of the time 40% of the battery we aren't using and that's on top of the car also reserving some capacity as well. I'd like to see future batteries resolve this so we can also get them to 100% without damaging them, kind of like the SR+ can do these days.

I think you are over constraining yourself. Outside of -10 deg C edge cases, roadworks save you battery so shouldn't be a concern. Day to day, yes stay between 15 and 85% (or whatever you are willing to put up with), but an occasional top up to 100% doesn't instantly kill your battery. Equally, on a clear run, in good weather I don't shy away from a SC arrival at 5%. Thats still another 10-15 miles to 0% + any reserve. Not appropriate for every trip, but fine for lots.

I'm not saying they'll up the battery in the Model 3 for Highland update, they'll increase range by increasing aero and maybe lowering weight a little bit. Basically efficiency improvements. I still think once cost drops enough and battery chemistry improves range will get better. The only reason people like Elon says that no one wants more than 300 miles range is because it would be expensive. If it was say £1 - 2k more to add enough extra capacity to get another 200 miles I think some would pay for it. Same reason some will pay a good few thousand more for a Performance model.

I do wonder if the model 3 class of car has been pegged to 300 real miles now. Its what my last ICE could do without a refuel (which was only marginally quicker in all honesty). Any improvements will be used to very marginally, for marketing purposes, to increase the range, but mostly taken in lighter/cheaper/profit. Model S will be the long ranger with 400, following the same pattern except where performance for a Plaid or equiv is possible and all bets are off.

I'd point out a new SR is nearly at a range parity with my old P- 305 miles vs my 310! The improvements have been slowly creeping out, a new LR is quoted at 374 miles! Thats not a long shout from that 400

There is also the issue of occasional large gathering venues - take the upcoming Henley regatta as example: Imagine if all cars were electric...there'll be some 5/6/7000+ cars descending on the place - mostly parking in temporary meadows and local hotels all booked solid. OK so half+ will commute locally daily for the event but there'll be a huge number coming in from distances too great to do the return trip on a tankful. The queues at any supercharger within 50 miles will be huge, local hotels even if willing won't have enough destination charger power for all their residents and there's no way that the venue organisers could ever provide chargers in the meadows. I'll be taking my wife's ICE this year because I'm over 200 miles away and then driving in daily from a hotel 15 miles away. The grief I’d get from her if we had to queue for an hour or two for a charger and then charge for 45 mins to totally refill....

I think you are being overly critical here. If you are driving from more than 200 miles away then you need 1 full charge if public transporting it that 15 miles, possibly 2 charges if you are driving that each day. Get a hotel with destination charging and you are sorted. If you can't do that, charge on the way in at the edge of where you think you will run into problems, bump it all the way to 100%, (instantly using it, so that's fine if rude at the SC) then charge on the way home as needed.

Hotel I was at a couple of weeks ago had a full 1/4 of its spaces covered with podpoints (about 90 of them!), possibly not typical, but its coming. Venues will catch up as places like the hydro in Glasgow will have to accept that if they want to operate a 100 mile catchment area for big gigs, then for those with the poor wee mini-e's or honda's may need a topup through the concert to get home. I guess its makes for more arguments for effective public transport options too.

 

[The_Cable_Guy]

374 from a LR, i cant even get near 300, hoping i can in the summer.

 

[Jason71]

374 from a LR, i cant even get near 300, hoping i can in the summer.

374 from an LR. Impressive. You must be having fun. I had a pre-heat pump LR and I was at about 280 average. Probably 320 in the winter and 250 in the summer. But it depends what you do. if all your journey are short and the car cools down in between then the winter efficiency is awful as it would be for an ICE in those conditions. Either that or you are cruising the motorway network at 90.

 

[Avendit]

374 from a LR, i cant even get near 300, hoping i can in the summer.

374 from an LR. Impressive. You must be having fun. I had a pre-heat pump LR and I was at about 280 average. Probably 320 in the winter and 250 in the summer. But it depends what you do. if all your journey are short and the car cools down in between then the winter efficiency is awful as it would be for an ICE in those conditions. Either that or you are cruising the motorway network at 90.

That's rated numbers, not real world. Point is, SR is now 5 miles off the original LR rated range, and brining the real world into it, the SR probably beats the older LR's now in winter.

The improvements are there, gently arriving a little at a time over the years.

 

[White Shadow]

I'm not sure I could deal with knowing there was a faster version of the car I've got, even if it was just a bit faster, that I didn't buy because I thought the one I had would be fast enough. I'm a bit weird like that though.

That is weird.....are you a street racer? Stoplight racer? Why would you care if you had the fastest version of the car you've got? And why would it stop there? There will always be faster cars out there, no matter what you drive. And in the world of ICE, if you want to make your car faster, it's easy to modify it to make more power.

For me, I want a car that has the level of performance that makes me happy. What anyone else has really doesn't matter to me.

 

[WannabeOwner]

Equally, on a clear run, in good weather I don't shy away from a SC arrival at 5%

My approach, using TRIP prediction graph, is (whilst a decent distance from Supercharger) to travel at whatever speed I want so long as TRIP is showing 10% arrival. If it falls below 10% I slow down (or choose a different, nearer, Supercharger).

As I get closer I get more confident ... if I'm 50 miles out and TRIP is showing more than 10% I speed up (well ... within reason!)

And, as you described, I too get more comfortable with < 5% arrival numbers the closer I am

 

[Jason71]

That's rated numbers, not real world. Point is, SR is now 5 miles off the original LR rated range, and brining the real world into it, the SR probably beats the older LR's now in winter.

The improvements are there, gently arriving a little at a time over the years.

I didn't read it properly i thought he was talking about 374 wh/m so my post makes no sense at all

 

[WannabeOwner]

i thought he was talking about 374 wh/m so my post makes no sense at all

Think of the flack you'd get if you'd muddled up kW and kWh

 

[FastLaneJB]

do you have any figures for how much difference the splitter made? Also, what aero 20"'ers did you find! I was considering some EV01+'s in 19, didn't think you could get bigger than that tho!


I think you are over constraining yourself. Outside of -10 deg C edge cases, roadworks save you battery so shouldn't be a concern. Day to day, yes stay between 15 and 85% (or whatever you are willing to put up with), but an occasional top up to 100% doesn't instantly kill your battery. Equally, on a clear run, in good weather I don't shy away from a SC arrival at 5%. Thats still another 10-15 miles to 0% + any reserve. Not appropriate for every trip, but fine for lots.


I do wonder if the model 3 class of car has been pegged to 300 real miles now. Its what my last ICE could do without a refuel (which was only marginally quicker in all honesty). Any improvements will be used to very marginally, for marketing purposes, to increase the range, but mostly taken in lighter/cheaper/profit. Model S will be the long ranger with 400, following the same pattern except where performance for a Plaid or equiv is possible and all bets are off.

I'd point out a new SR is nearly at a range parity with my old P- 305 miles vs my 310! The improvements have been slowly creeping out, a new LR is quoted at 374 miles! Thats not a long shout from that 400



I think you are being overly critical here. If you are driving from more than 200 miles away then you need 1 full charge if public transporting it that 15 miles, possibly 2 charges if you are driving that each day. Get a hotel with destination charging and you are sorted. If you can't do that, charge on the way in at the edge of where you think you will run into problems, bump it all the way to 100%, (instantly using it, so that's fine if rude at the SC) then charge on the way home as needed.

Hotel I was at a couple of weeks ago had a full 1/4 of its spaces covered with podpoints (about 90 of them!), possibly not typical, but its coming. Venues will catch up as places like the hydro in Glasgow will have to accept that if they want to operate a 100 mile catchment area for big gigs, then for those with the poor wee mini-e's or honda's may need a topup through the concert to get home. I guess its makes for more arguments for effective public transport options too.

I’d be more comfortable running lower if I knew 100% I could charge and not queue. Not saying I don’t go to 100% and down below 20% but it’s not often. Also if you have an emergency out of the blue it’ll be on 80% which is what I normally have it set to.

Those ranges you quote and as others have said aren’t realistic. I had a M760Li with a 6.6L Twin Turbo V12 weighing around 2.2 tons. If I drove that carefully like a Tesla it would do 400 on a tank, if I drove it a bit more spirited… a damn lot less than that

Point is the real world range of electric cars is currently lower than almost all ICE cars. If you’re happy with that then that’s fine but I’d like it to be higher and I believe it will get higher. It will be via advances in batteries and without turning the car into a 4 ton monster that others seem to think will happen.

I read the other day one of Tesla’s experts in this field predicts we’d be at 1,000Wh per kg by 2030 with 1,500Wh around the corner. Maybe he’s wrong on those numbers but progress here is inevitable and costs will come down to allow it to go into regular cars. Yes it’ll probably be a mixture of longer range and smaller batteries vs just using all the space a Model 3 has to put in 1,000Wh cells.

This will also allow us to go back to square shaped SUV boxes with high right height and not care because the range will be enough. Apparently the new PHEV Range Rover only gets a little over 1 mile per kWh so god knows what size battery the electric Range Rover is going to need.