Trying To Understand Range And Efficiency

[sandals99]

Hello all, I have a question regarding range and efficiency. I have an SR+ that we picked up about 3 weeks and it was my first time charging to 100% last night and got an estimated 383km of range. I set out to whistler this morning from Burnaby and arrived with 202km of range and had drove 150km. If I started with 383km, drove 150km, and have 202lm left, that leaves me with 31km ‘lost’. Just trying to understand this as it was mostly all highway driving with very little regeneration from braking, followed the speed limit and nothing ‘on’ in terms of heat/ac, other than music and navigation. I think I averaged 157 watts/km.


Just wondering if this is normal and I should be expecting this on future trips?


Thanks for any thoughts/comments.

 

[rypalmer]

It takes a lot more energy to go uphill, due to the potential energy gained. Whistler is 600m higher than Burnaby. You will get these kms back on the way down.

 

[EnterpriseT]

Where are you looking at range? If you are using the battery symbol, it doesn't know you were planning to go up the 99 which takes extra energy. Add to that any above normal AC or electronics usage and the range may be less than you thought. You will however get a good amount of the "uphill range" back when you come back down.

 

[David29]

I assume you are using the little battery gauge set to "Distance" to indicate your range. It is better to use the Energy application, which gives you estimated range based upon your recent driving, and you can choose one of three distances to calculate the average. Better yet is to use the navigation app, because then it combines the knowledge of your route with the data from the Energy app to give you a more realistic (but still imperfect) estimate of range to your destination.
In short, do not rely on the battery indicator -- set it to percentage, and use the Energy and navigation tools to determine your range.
(There are other threads on this topic.)

 

[5_+JqckQttqck]

Hello all, I have a question regarding range and efficiency. I have an SR+ that we picked up about 3 weeks and it was my first time charging to 100% last night and got an estimated 383km of range. I set out to whistler this morning from Burnaby and arrived with 202km of range and had drove 150km. If I started with 383km, drove 150km, and have 202lm left, that leaves me with 31km ‘lost’. Just trying to understand this as it was mostly all highway driving with very little regeneration from braking, followed the speed limit and nothing ‘on’ in terms of heat/ac, other than music and navigation. I think I averaged 157 watts/km.


Just wondering if this is normal and I should be expecting this on future trips?


Thanks for any thoughts/comments.

You can calculate your range in your head or use the "Average Range" or "Instant Range" screen for fancy graphs and usage curves.

The car is rated for 150Wh/km (~85% efficiency).

In optimal conditions (temperature, maximizing regen, flat route - it's easy to get above 100% efficiency (~130ish WH/km).

Cold months, be ready to be at ~50% to 60% efficiency (meaning driving 1km while using 1.6km of rated 150Wh/km battery = ~225+Wh/km)

If you want to get a feel for understanding the numbers try TeslaFi > TeslaFi.com Tesla Model S X 3 Data Logger
It's free for a month, then 50$ USD for the year (use my ref.code JqckQttqck)​

 

[sandals99]

Thank you all, this is very helpful!

 

[ewoodrick]

You only get rated range around 110 km/hr. The energy graphs is the best to see your current utilization

 

[sandals99]

Another question i have is that i've had the car for just under a month and for the first 2-3 weeks i was charging to 80% and in mornings i would see that i had 324km of range. In the last week, still charging to 80%, i see that it starts of with 312km of range. So the question isn't related to what happens when i drive during the day and efficiency, but rather why has my starting point of range changed if i am still charging to the same 80% level? just trying to learn, and thanks for all the help!

 

[rypalmer]

Rated range is just an estimate based on the state of charge and estimated capacity of your pack. It's not a perfect science, but Tesla does push updates occasionally that might have that figure vary somewhat. Some variability you'll see is just noise. Also - the onboard electronics are always on, consuming energy. Your car will not constantly draw power from the wall connector to top this off, it will charge to the desired level, then wait to cycle itself back on once it drops below a certain threshold (a percentage or two below the set point, depending on the car). Either way - a percentage or two won't make or break most trips. As long as you have charged at all, you should be good to go. Enjoy the ride!

 

[EnterpriseT]

Rated range is just an estimate based on the state of charge and estimated capacity of your pack. It's not a perfect science, but Tesla does push updates occasionally that might have that figure vary somewhat. Some variability you'll see is just noise. Also - the onboard electronics are always on, consuming energy. Your car will not constantly draw power from the wall connector to top this off, it will charge to the desired level, then wait to cycle itself back on once it drops below a certain threshold (a percentage or two below the set point, depending on the car). Either way - a percentage or two won't make or break most trips. As long as you have charged at all, you should be good to go. Enjoy the ride!

I was thinking about this. Its too bad the connector can't do shore-power type running when plugged in. Also, I wonder if we will ever see a data connection for updates through the cable. Plugging an ethernet cable into the wall charger to get updates over LAN would be awesome.

Maybe one day..

 

[rypalmer]

I was thinking about this. Its too bad the connector can't do shore-power type running when plugged in. Also, I wonder if we will ever see a data connection for updates through the cable. Plugging an ethernet cable into the wall charger to get updates over LAN would be awesome.

Agreed. Best thing to do in the mean time is just jack up the charge limit and put on the HVAC 30 mins to an hour before you leave. That way you're warmed up or cooled down via shore power too.

 

[sandals99]

Rated range is just an estimate based on the state of charge and estimated capacity of your pack. It's not a perfect science, but Tesla does push updates occasionally that might have that figure vary somewhat. Some variability you'll see is just noise. Also - the onboard electronics are always on, consuming energy. Your car will not constantly draw power from the wall connector to top this off, it will charge to the desired level, then wait to cycle itself back on once it drops below a certain threshold (a percentage or two below the set point, depending on the car). Either way - a percentage or two won't make or break most trips. As long as you have charged at all, you should be good to go. Enjoy the ride!

Thank you!

 

[VistaM3B]

Hello all, I have a question regarding range and efficiency. I have an SR+ that we picked up about 3 weeks and it was my first time charging to 100% last night and got an estimated 383km of range. I set out to whistler this morning from Burnaby and arrived with 202km of range and had drove 150km. If I started with 383km, drove 150km, and have 202lm left, that leaves me with 31km ‘lost’. Just trying to understand this as it was mostly all highway driving with very little regeneration from braking, followed the speed limit and nothing ‘on’ in terms of heat/ac, other than music and navigation. I think I averaged 157 watts/km.


Just wondering if this is normal and I should be expecting this on future trips?


Thanks for any thoughts/comments.

Hi sandals99,

The only time you get 383 km of range is when you drive like a 90+ year old man/women. Means no sudden acceleration, never pass 90KM speed in HWY, plus no usage of any sort of heat/cold no uphill/downhill, no rough road driving & etc...
383 or 523 km Tesla advertised range are no different that ICE stickers that says X liter city and Y liter highway. We all know that is the perfect world and practically never happens.
or Price tags with * some condition applies, then all the surprises are printed in a tiny font. These are all marketing strategies that big companies spend millions to get us on the hook. It should not be new to you. Anyhow, welcome to Tesla Family. in a positive note, you will enjoy any minute driving this car. You take care and enjoy.

 

[bijan]

here's my efficiency for comparison

View attachment 421610

 

[Sorabh]

View attachment 424523 here's my efficiency for comparison

This is great data. How did you compile it?

 

[bijan]

This is great data. How did you compile it?

www.teslafi.com . Once you sign up it tracks all your drives and compiles stats. They have a free trial. It works well. You just need to enable the sleep setting or else you get too much vampire drain.