Tips on how I averaged~190 wh/mi for 17,000 miles (so far...)

[darth_vad3r]

@navguy12 & @AlanSubie4Life I went ahead and ran my own test above and made a new thread to post the results... a whopping 1500 Wh/km which is about 10x my average lifetime

Conclusion is that energy is counted in the trip meter while in Drive, even while stopped (but you don't see it update til you drive more and tick up the distance). If you are in Park the energy used doesn't get shown in the trip meter.

Trip meter counts energy used while stopped (in Drive, but not in Park) - with test results

 

[ppower]

@AlanSubie4Life did you mean to point this out to me? I finally have somebody 2 hours away willing to see if their OEM 18's will fit over the rears with my spacers. Still, AVERAGING 190Wh/mi even averaging 60mph is highly impressive. It's way under the graphs shown on abetterrouteplanner.

 

[wcorey]

I did day dream about having two TM3s driving a 10 km route, side by side or one behind the other......both HVAC settings would be exactly the same and the cars would drive in a manner that they would seem tethered........but one of the cars would always select "park" at every single stop while the other car stays in "drive".

The father/son team of Jesse and ? (YouTube "Now You Know") group did something very close to that.

 

[evM3Sekar]

After 3 months ... 3800 mi, 200 Wh/mi, efficiency is 125% (I guess actual range/rated range) with an MPGe of 160-200, and the indicated rated range is 325 mi. I have found the following to help:

• Maintain constant speed as long as possible, highway or not.
• Yes I realize that energy consumed is proportional to square of the speed. But I still do 65-68 mph, and I do floor it on on-ramp, or to pass.
  
• Drive on local roads if I leave 10 minutes earlier than usual, say, 50% of the time.
• When outside temp is 80+, keep A/C with the fan speed at 2 or 3.
• I don't draft semis, or do other hypermiling.

Basically I am driving it like I used to drive my Fit (except I never took the local roads to work with my Fit). In spite of the 1400-1500 lb more curb weight, my M3 gives easily gives 5x mileage. That is EV efficiency!

Of course a one-year report at the end of March 2020 would be more appropriate.

 

[aronth5]

After 3 months ... 3800 mi, 200 Wh/mi, efficiency is 125% (I guess actual range/rated range) with an MPGe of 160-200, and the indicated rated range is 325 mi. I have found the following to help:

• Maintain constant speed as long as possible, highway or not.
• Yes I realize that energy consumed is proportional to square of the speed. But I still do 65-68 mph, and I do floor it on on-ramp, or to pass.
  
• Drive on local roads if I leave 10 minutes earlier than usual, say, 50% of the time.
• When outside temp is 80+, keep A/C with the fan speed at 2 or 3.
• I don't draft semis, or do other hypermiling.

Basically I am driving it like I used to drive my Fit (except I never took the local roads to work with my Fit). In spite of the 1400-1500 lb more curb weight, my M3 gives easily gives 5x mileage. That is EV efficiency!

Of course a one-year report at the end of March 2020 would be more appropriate.

Enjoy this now but be prepared for the impact of cold weather. Your 200 Wh/mi will increase significantly.

 

[wcorey]

Enjoy this now but be prepared for the impact of cold weather. Your 200 Wh/mi will increase significantly.

Yep, people talk, with disdain, about the abysmal efficiency of an internal combustion engine. That would be right up until they realize all that warmth in winter is a byproduct of abysmal efficiency and it takes a lot of amperage to create it directly.

 

[navguy12]

You don't need to wait til fall, you only need 200 metres of space, and a couple minutes to verify. You don't need to max heat to notice, roll the windows down, turn the heat up a bit. If you don't want to have the heat on, use max AC for 5 minutes - it should still be noticeable.

1. Drive 100m.
   a. HVAC should be off. From a stop, reset the 'since' trip.
   b. Drive slowly 100m until trip meter ticks up from 0.0km to 0.1km.
   c. Stop the car.
   d. Leave it in Drive (for test variants A and B. For variant C put it into Park instead).
   
   [The trip meter will probably read something high like 0.1 km, 200 Wh/km]
   .
2. Stay stopped for a couple minutes.
   a. While stopped, use some extra energy (HVAC suits us nicely). e.g. Turn the heat up a bit, roll the windows down if necessary, wait 1-2 minutes, turn the heat off. If you prefer AC, max AC for 5+ minutes.
   b. Turn HVAC back off after X minutes (1-2 for heat, 5+ for AC).
   
   
3. Drive another 100m.
   a. Drive slowly until the trip meter ticks up from 0.1km to 0.2km.
   
   [The trip meter will register something REALLY high like 0.2 km, 800 Wh/km]

Variations:

A. As described above.
B. Repeat the test sitting for a couple minutes in Drive, but with no HVAC on (skip step 2a).
C. Repeat the test with "1d" put into Park but still using HVAC while stopped.​

(B) and (C) should both show some low number like 2-300 Wh/km while A should show a crazy high number like 7-900 Wh/km.

For context, my lifetime Wh/km is mid 150's. My commute can vary from as low as 120-130 and as high as 160-170 depending on speed and conditions.

Just tried this test and I can confirm that I can repeat your results.

Thanks for proving to me the trip odometers track everything as long as the car is in gear.

My lifetime Wh/km (from the grid to the wheels) is 188 Wh/km.

The trip odometer lifetime Wh/km (car in gear) is 152 Wh/km.

Thanks again, cheers.

 

[evM3Sekar]

Yep, people talk, with disdain, about the abysmal efficiency of an internal combustion engine. That would be right up until they realize all that warmth in winter is a byproduct of abysmal efficiency and it takes a lot of amperage to create it directly.

Yes, that's why my last point to wait for a full year report. I will be happy with 220-240 Wh/mi average, which is still 4x efficient than my Fit.

 

[Aellinsar]

Just downloaded the app when I joined the forum about 10 days ago! Basically, I fall into the 0.2-0.00% percentile for efficiency

Even though this is just the last 10 days, it's nearly 100% representative of the 17,000 miles (sans winter)

View attachment 421256 View attachment 421257

Fascinating. I've never seen <200 Wh/mi for an extended period unless going down hill. The data Here, as posted earlier in this thread, suggests that you need to be 50-55 mph to get below 200, and for your 170 in the summer you would need to be driving ~35mph. But there is scatter int he raw dat - perhaps you just have a magic car!

 

[SigNC]

@navguy12 & @AlanSubie4Life I went ahead and ran my own test above and made a new thread to post the results... a whopping 1500 Wh/km which is about 10x my average lifetime

Conclusion is that energy is counted in the trip meter while in Drive, even while stopped (but you don't see it update til you drive more and tick up the distance). If you are in Park the energy used doesn't get shown in the trip meter.

Trip meter counts energy used while stopped (in Drive, but not in Park) - with test results

This is certainly true. I was stuck stopped on the interstate for 2 hours a few weeks ago and left it in drive in hold (hold apparently has a time limit as well where it eventually shifts into park) and my usage was pegged out at max due to running AC and basically not moving. I'm glad they do it this way as it seems logical to me.

 

[aronth5]

Yes, that's why my last point to wait for a full year report. I will be happy with 220-240 Wh/mi average, which is still 4x efficient than my Fit.

Including a whole certainly helps. My first year Wh/mi was 255. I reset one of the trip meters at the start of June for summertime readings and my current average since then is 215 Wh/mi.

 

[wcorey]

Including a whole certainly helps. My first year Wh/mi was 255. I reset one of the trip meters at the start of June for summertime readings and my current average since then is 215 Wh/mi.

That's really impressive for Boston. RWD? I'd be interested in the avg New England AWD numbers.

 

[aronth5]

That's really impressive for Boston. RWD? I'd be interested in the avg New England AWD numbers.

Yes RWD with 18" aero wheels for the first year. The fact I use chill mode tells you about my driving style. We also had very little snow last winter and it wasn't very cold which helped. Now I am using 18" with turbine wheels and still getting 215-225.

 

[wcorey]

Yes RWD with 18" aero wheels for the first year. The fact I use chill mode tells you about my driving style. We also had very little snow last winter and it wasn't very cold which helped. Now I am using 18" with turbine wheels and still getting 215-225.

I toyed with the idea of getting really nice 18" wheels for summer and using the Aero wheels for winter. But four rims would run about $2,000 and the back, even with rear seat down does not lend itself to comfortably holding 4 tires. It would be worse if they all had rims. My local tire store will remount the Winter tires Nikians Hakka 2 (or 3) with the stock Michelin 3 season tires for $106. If we had a local mobile tire service that would come out and swap summer for winter and back I might reconsider even though there are a lot of $106 in $2,000.

 

[Aellinsar]

• When outside temp is 80+, keep A/C with the fan speed at 2 or 3.

What is the importance of the fan speed? It seems on my car, "Auto" usually sets it at 4.

 

[wcorey]

• When outside temp is 80+, keep A/C with the fan speed at 2 or 3.

That may be self defeating. Turning a fan is incredibly cheap. Turning a compressor, far more expensive. I don't know about the software for a Tesla climate system but with our geothermal system, it will often increase compressor speed over fan speed, sometimes fan speed over compressor speed. My take, left the software work it out, use AUTO. Given the degree of automation, while I wouldn't put a lot of money on it, I'd bet Tesla climate control is software controlled.

 

[darth_vad3r]

What is the importance of the fan speed? It seems on my car, "Auto" usually sets it at 4.

If you are trying to break a personal record on consumption you want to waste as little watts as possible on spinning the fan. If you just want easy comfort, auto is fine and probably makes a minuscule difference

 

[evM3Sekar]

That may be self defeating. Turning a fan is incredibly cheap. Turning a compressor, far more expensive. I don't know about the software for a Tesla climate system but with our geothermal system, it will often increase compressor speed over fan speed, sometimes fan speed over compressor speed. My take, left the software work it out, use AUTO. Given the degree of automation, while I wouldn't put a lot of money on it, I'd bet Tesla climate control is software controlled.

Good point (also by @Aellinsar). It is likely that the AUTO option is more efficient - have to try that. It appears that AC consumes about 30 Wh/mi.

 

[darth_vad3r]

Good point (also by @Aellinsar). It is likely that the AUTO option is more efficient - have to try that. It appears that AC consumes about 30 Wh/mi.

Wh/mi measurement for AC is highly dependent on your speed ... if you are standing still it consumes infinite Wh/mi

It’s better to think about AC in kW or W. e.g. if it takes 0.8 - 2 kW tops for AC, maybe average 1 kW? Then that’s 1 kWh energy used in an hour, or 0.5 kWh in a half an hour, regardless of speed or miles traveled.

If your consumption is say 220 Wh/mi without AC, then 0.5 kWh uses another 2.27 miles of range.

For a certain trip you can calculate it as Wh/mi, but not really in general.

Another way to think of it is in mi/hr actually too.

How I estimated energy draw actually was fooling around with HVAC settings while plugged into an L2 charger and watch my “km/hr” charge rate drop off more based on fan only, AC, AC + LO, heat, heat + HI

At 220 Wh/mi, 0.8 - 2.0 kW is like 3.6 - 9 mi/hr

 

[wcorey]

Wh/mi measurement for AC is highly dependent on your speed ... if you are standing still it consumes infinite Wh/mi

It’s better to think about AC in kW or W. e.g. if it takes 0.8 - 2 kW tops for AC, maybe average 1 kW? Then that’s 1 kWh energy used in an hour, or 0.5 kWh in a half an hour, regardless of speed or miles traveled.

If your consumption is say 220 Wh/mi without AC, then 0.5 kWh uses another 2.27 miles of range.

For a certain trip you can calculate it as Wh/mi, but not really in general.

Another way to think of it is in mi/hr actually too.

How I estimated energy draw actually was fooling around with HVAC settings while plugged into an L2 charger and watch my “km/hr” charge rate drop off more based on fan only, AC, AC + LO, heat, heat + HI

At 220 Wh/mi, 0.8 - 2.0 kW is like 3.6 - 9 mi/hr

Ya know... Maybe rather than play, "I know more than the software does", put climate on AUTO and let the software deal with it.