Tesla Service Response to Battery Range Issue...

[SSedan]

I would like to see some of those with apparent serious degradation scan the car and see what max cell voltage is.

On the older S many folks have had max cell voltage lowered and supercharging rate slashed from 120kw to 70, 40 if it is cold out.
"Updates" robbed my car of 10-15miles of range, a little power and in slashing the supercharging rate made family road trips a lot less likely. When I brought it up to service I was actually told I was lucky as many others lost more range than I did.

I have concerns the batterygate/chargegate concerns on the older S are covering for Tesla allowing too aggressive parameters on the battery for marketing/sales purposes. Parameters that were fine until 2019 suddenly got changed. Wonder if some of the early 3 degradation complaints are "updates".

 

[lanbo]

I would like to see some of those with apparent serious degradation scan the car and see what max cell voltage is.

On the older S many folks have had max cell voltage lowered and supercharging rate slashed from 120kw to 70, 40 if it is cold out.
"Updates" robbed my car of 10-15miles of range, a little power and in slashing the supercharging rate made family road trips a lot less likely. When I brought it up to service I was actually told I was lucky as many others lost more range than I did.

I have concerns the batterygate/chargegate concerns on the older S are covering for Tesla allowing too aggressive parameters on the battery for marketing/sales purposes. Parameters that were fine until 2019 suddenly got changed. Wonder if some of the early 3 degradation complaints are "updates".

Mine is at 71.4 kWh. It's 11 year old an 15000 kms.

Cell volt max (3.73/4.03): 3.828 Vcc
Is that what you are looking for? When should it be checked? At 100% charge or it does not matter?
Degradation has come in batches in my case.

 

[SSedan]

Mine is at 71.4 kWh. It's 11 year old an 15000 kms.

Cell volt max (3.73/4.03): 3.828 Vcc
Is that what you are looking for? When should it be checked? At 100% charge or it does not matter?
Degradation has come in batches in my case.

11months?
I believe 4.03 reflects voltage capping.

 

[Led Jetson]

I would easily get the 300 miles if not more because I don't drive crazy. I've taken trips of 100 miles with a wh/m about 225. My Mazda is rated for about 29 combined. I still only get about 27. I get you have concerns but realize you can do something about it. Change your driving habits for one. I have never bought a car thinking 13 gallan tank 30 combined mileage so I should get 390 miles per tank. In reality I'm not going to get that if I were to drive from full to empty.

Great advice but it doesn’t address my problem or the original posters or Tesla’s battery issues.

I drove in chill mode for six months straight like Driving Miss Daisy when I first noticed the loss range, it didn’t make a difference, in fact my Wh/mi averages went up using Chill Mode not down. Right now I am driving with a 267 Wh/Mi the way I like to drive on this charge back on Performance, But it’s still not helping my range any whatsoever after going back for another few months. 257 Watt a mile is nothing crazy for a performance version.

Trust me I have Tesla stock, I find no joy in sharing my experience with the original poster in a public forum with these range issues. It just needs to be addressed by Tesla or these cars are going to be near worthless in 4-5 years when we try to sell them and the average electric car is advertising 600 mile range even cheaper and ours can barely hit 100-150 by then at this rate.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

I would like to see some of those with apparent serious degradation scan the car and see what max cell voltage is.

On the older S many folks have had max cell voltage lowered and supercharging rate slashed from 120kw to 70, 40 if it is cold out.
"Updates" robbed my car of 10-15miles of range, a little power and in slashing the supercharging rate made family road trips a lot less likely. When I brought it up to service I was actually told I was lucky as many others lost more range than I did.

I have concerns the batterygate/chargegate concerns on the older S are covering for Tesla allowing too aggressive parameters on the battery for marketing/sales purposes. Parameters that were fine until 2019 suddenly got changed. Wonder if some of the early 3 degradation complaints are "updates".

Here's a August 2018 AWD with 15% loss of capacity, which shows ~4.1V at ~88% SoC. So no evidence of any voltage capping there.

SMT: Nominal Full Pack tracking

Cell volt max (3.73/4.03): 3.828 Vcc
Is that what you are looking for? When should it be checked? At 100% charge or it does not matter?

I don't know what all these numbers you provide are referencing.... Anyway: You need to at least quote the SoC for the provided brick voltages. May as well quote it at around 90% SoC. Should be around 4.1V per brick at 90% from what I can tell. I think around 4.2V is the max.

 

[lanbo]

11months?
I believe 4.03 reflects voltage capping.

Sorry, yes 11 months!

Umm.... I will charge to 90% or more to see if that 4.03 is capping or just something related to the current SoC.

 

[lanbo]

Here's a August 2018 AWD with 15% loss of capacity, which shows ~4.1V at ~88% SoC. So no evidence of any voltage capping there.

SMT: Nominal Full Pack tracking



I don't know what all these numbers you provide are referencing.... Anyway: You need to at least quote the SoC for the provided brick voltages. May as well quote it at around 90% SoC. Should be around 4.1V per brick at 90% from what I can tell. I think around 4.2V is the max.

Understood.
Will charge to 90% and report again. I'm not sure what was the SoC when I checked.

 

[Jason_G]

I have a 2018 Model 3 Performance model. About 23,000 miles on it. Only supercharged 6-7 times total in life of battery, only ever been to 100% SOC 4 or 5 times ever in life of battery.

today my 100% SOC reads a range of 276 miles. My daily SOC 90% is 248.

I'm taking my M3 in for service in two weeks for battery breather replacements (bad clunks when going up my local mountains) and rear trunk seal problem (rear trunk fills up when driving in hard rain).

I added that I was not happy about my battery capacity and this was the text response I got from Tesla service:

"XXX this is Tesla service. We have run several remote tests on the high voltage battery and the battery management system. The management system performs calculations to determine the expected range of the battery. All Tesla batteries will have some loss over time and will level out. While reviewing the data we noticed that the average watt hour per mile is 340 which is almost 100 over the rated 245whpm this is in conjunction with outside temperature, charging habits and the use of the vehicles accessories would explain the management systems range calculation. After reviewing all the data it was determined that the battery and management systems are working as designed and a service visit for the range concern will not be needed. We will see you XXX to address your other concerns"

I know there are like over 53 pages of discussion on range and batteries in this forum, is this response consistent with the consensus understanding and expectations for these high voltage batteries?

Every ICE vehicle I ever owned never got the EPA rated highway MPG- so look, I get it, I'm a little bit of a lead foot.

I think, overall, speaking for myself and probably a lot of others that Tesla just didn't and doesn't do a very good job of helping people understand how EV range works. I think they play a marketing and PR game with this mileage and 310 should definitely, definitely have an asterisks next to it.

310 mile rating is not actual miles and for those who don't know or understand will be setup for disappointment.

The true fact of these Model 3's is that 310 really means 279 miles of range after the first year of 9-10% degradation then, you can figure you'll only ever charge to 90% SOC, so 250 miles, and will only ever be 70-80% efficient when driving. So, doing that math, people need to understand that real world, actual, factual range of these vehicles is about 188 miles. No ifs, ands or buts.

Don't get me wrong, that's almost 3 hours of driving non stop and I think 188 miles is great, I think it's fantastic and superchargers are amazing as long as you understand you should only use them when at 10%-80% SOC (or risk sitting for a long ass time charging).

But I really, really wish my expectations had been appropriately set before all of this set in. I don't feel like I was duped exactly, I just feel like, despite all the time I've wasted in forums watching people fight over battery tech, numbers, calculations, etc has been wasted and if someone had simply just explained real world what I was buying I'd stop worrying so much about the numbers and just enjoy the ride more.

I haven't read through this entire thread yet, but wanted to chime in that we have nearly identical cars. As of today, I am seeing an EPA rated range of 254 miles @ 90% & 282 miles @100%. My car has just under 24,000 miles, and is a 9/2018 build Performance model.

The service center has told me twice now that everything is nominal, and the EPA rated range is calibrated based on use.

If you look at the 30mi avg energy display, you can take (Wh/mi)*(Miles)/(SOC % reading) to determine what I assume to be the "effective pack size". Mine comes in around 68.5kWh. You can try this calculation at different SOC % readings and different avg. Wh/mi, and it will hover around approx. the same value. Based on this, my car has ~10-12% loss in effective pack capacity.

 

[SSedan]

You just need to drink more koolaid, that will fix it.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Mine comes in around 68.5kWh.

282 miles @100%

You can also just multiply 282 miles by 245Wh/rmi to get 69.1kWh. The other method works and will converge as you get close to 100% charge.

Just keep in mind that this value doesn't mean you'll see that 69.1kWh on your trip meter for a 100% to 0% discharge. There, you will see a value scaled down by the following:

0.955 (for the buffer 4.5% which is removed from the 69.1kWh)
~0.98 (an approximate value which seems to represent the scaling from the BMS values to the trip meter)

So you can draw a max of 64.7kWh on the trip meter, assuming you stop driving when you get to 0%.

So if you were to want to travel 282 miles on that full charge without going below 0%, you'd need to see:

64.7kWh/282mi = 229.5Wh/mi on the trip meter.

(And of course you'd have to do it in one continuous trip without stopping.)

 

[Jason_G]

You can also just multiply 282 miles by 245Wh/rmi to get 69.1kWh. The other method works and will converge as you get close to 100% charge.

Just keep in mind that this value doesn't mean you'll see that 69.1kWh on your trip meter for a 100% to 0% discharge. There, you will see a value scaled down by the following:

0.955 (for the buffer 4.5% which is removed from the 69.1kWh)
~0.98 (an approximate value which seems to represent the scaling from the BMS values to the trip meter)

So you can draw a max of 64.7kWh on the trip meter, assuming you stop driving when you get to 0%.

So if you were to want to travel 282 miles on that full charge without going below 0%, you'd need to see:

64.7kWh/282mi = 229.5Wh/mi on the trip meter.

(And of course you'd have to do it in one continuous trip without stopping.)

Yea, I get 300-345 Wh/mi lol. Maybe I should put the aero covers back on.

 

[focher]

I find the best way to have confidence about the condition of the battery in my August 2018 produced Performance is to track the stats over time. I personally use Teslamate that I run on a network attached storage device, but obviously some choose to pay and use TeslaFi.

I'm on 20 inch wheels, so my most recent 6 months for 100% are right in line with Tesla's chart:

Min         Max.       Avg
287.07    301.86    296.60

We have mild weather here so most temperatures hover in the 13C-16C, with a few 22C-24C days here and there during that time period.

 

[Jason_G]

You can also just multiply 282 miles by 245Wh/rmi to get 69.1kWh. The other method works and will converge as you get close to 100% charge.

Just keep in mind that this value doesn't mean you'll see that 69.1kWh on your trip meter for a 100% to 0% discharge. There, you will see a value scaled down by the following:

0.955 (for the buffer 4.5% which is removed from the 69.1kWh)
~0.98 (an approximate value which seems to represent the scaling from the BMS values to the trip meter)

So you can draw a max of 64.7kWh on the trip meter, assuming you stop driving when you get to 0%.

So if you were to want to travel 282 miles on that full charge without going below 0%, you'd need to see:

64.7kWh/282mi = 229.5Wh/mi on the trip meter.

(And of course you'd have to do it in one continuous trip without stopping.)

I guess Tesla will not be obligated to correct anything until I hit 30% degradation, correct?

 

[Zcd1]

I guess Tesla will not be obligated to correct anything until I hit 30% degradation, correct?

Your car doesn’t need any “correction”.

Also, great way to give extra weight to your opinions, admitting upfront that you haven’t read the thread.

 

[Jason_G]

Your car doesn’t need any “correction”.

Also, great way to give extra weight to your opinions, admitting upfront that you haven’t read the thread.

My car only shows an EPA rated range of 282 miles instead of the 310 (or 322 that the website shows now). At what level would you think a repair would be appropriate?

I was going to read the whole thread, but then I got tired .

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

My car only shows an EPA rated range of 282 miles instead of the 310 (or 322 that the website shows now). At what level would you think a repair would be appropriate?

Right around 220 miles, according to the warranty. I know that would kind of suck, but the good news is that likely you'll see much less loss of capacity from here on out. I expect in another couple years you'll still be above 265 rated miles.

It would be pretty annoying to lose 30% of your capacity, for sure, but fortunately the car would maintain nearly full utility for most trips and users (obviously some road trips would become difficult but hopefully there will be more Superchargers & CCS chargers will become usable in a couple years, and it will ease that issue as well).

 

[Jason_G]

You can also just multiply 282 miles by 245Wh/rmi to get 69.1kWh. The other method works and will converge as you get close to 100% charge.

Just keep in mind that this value doesn't mean you'll see that 69.1kWh on your trip meter for a 100% to 0% discharge. There, you will see a value scaled down by the following:

0.955 (for the buffer 4.5% which is removed from the 69.1kWh)
~0.98 (an approximate value which seems to represent the scaling from the BMS values to the trip meter)

So you can draw a max of 64.7kWh on the trip meter, assuming you stop driving when you get to 0%.

So if you were to want to travel 282 miles on that full charge without going below 0%, you'd need to see:

64.7kWh/282mi = 229.5Wh/mi on the trip meter.

(And of course you'd have to do it in one continuous trip without stopping.)

Based on a 310 mi EPA rating, 245 Wh/mi suggests a 75.95kWh pack. Did the avg. EPA Wh/mi change for Tesla to now say the AWD with 18” is 322 miles, or did the pack capacity change?

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Based on a 310 mi EPA rating, 245 Wh/mi suggests a 75.95kWh pack. Did the avg. EPA Wh/mi change for Tesla to now say the AWD with 18” is 322 miles, or did the pack capacity change?

The pack capacity is likely a bit higher than that initially (78-79kWh) based on the EPA data. But degradation starts showing below that 76kWh number.

But in answer to your question about the EPA Wh/mi and the pack capacity, for 2020, the answer appears to be "both:"

77.6kWh is the new number (but probably no change in actual pack capacity, based on the EPA discharge data, just a change in the threshold of where degradation starts showing - you will see loss of capacity at a higher kWh number with 2020 vehicles).

And the constant for 2020 AWD 18" is about 241Wh/rmi. So it all works out.