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UK MIC Model 3 Long Range LG Battery and Charging Speeds

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Just got scanmytesla up and running on one of our MIC model 3's. As suspected it has the LG battery people abroad were complaining about earlier this year. See screenshot from scanmytesla showing the capacity of 74.5 kWh and a copy of a summary image from a French Tesla group where they claim the charging speed is 50% longer. There was some talk earlier in the year that Tesla were testing the packs before rolling out an OTA update but I haven't read anything concrete. Haven't tested supercharging yet but just wondered if anybody who has one has done much high speed charging yet and whether the speeds are still substantially slower as people in Germany and France have mentioned? It seems loads of people were rejecting cars but not like we have much choice in the UK. Have to say I'm rather impressed so far with the efficiency compared to the 2020 M3 performance but maybe there is an issue?

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This might sound a bit flippant but I do wonder whether, like degradation, the problem is more “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” (no offence) or perhaps more accurately - “ignorance is bliss”.

I don’t think anyone who gets a MIC LR will be disappointed, and there will be thousands of customers who don’t know or care about TeslaMate, TeslaFi et al, and don’t pour over the stats and what they might mean, and just get on with driving the cars, charging them when they need to, for however long it takes to do so.

I think there is a real danger in obsessing over this sort of thing to the point where it runs a real risk of discolouring the whole ownership experience. I despair of seeing people posting “battery degradation” graphs from TeslaFi and fretting over what it means, what they might have done wrong, etc. All of this on cars that in some cases aren’t even a year old.

Maybe there is something in the different battery types, but I don’t think it is anything that anyone should lose any sleep over, not least of which because they have no recourse anyway short of not buying the car at all.

Now, a difference in plastics quality and random black patches on white seats - that’s valid concerns imo.
 
This might sound a bit flippant but I do wonder whether, like degradation, the problem is more “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” (no offence) or perhaps more accurately - “ignorance is bliss”.

I don’t think anyone who gets a MIC LR will be disappointed, and there will be thousands of customers who don’t know or care about TeslaMate, TeslaFi et al, and don’t pour over the stats and what they might mean, and just get on with driving the cars, charging them when they need to, for however long it takes to do so.

I think there is a real danger in obsessing over this sort of thing to the point where it runs a real risk of discolouring the whole ownership experience. I despair of seeing people posting “battery degradation” graphs from TeslaFi and fretting over what it means, what they might have done wrong, etc. All of this on cars that in some cases aren’t even a year old.

Maybe there is something in the different battery types, but I don’t think it is anything that anyone should lose any sleep over, not least of which because they have no recourse anyway short of not buying the car at all.

Now, a difference in plastics quality and random black patches on white seats - that’s valid concerns imo.
I agree, all this info is perhaps a little much and ignorance is indeed bliss. However, we were still wondering if these reports of slow charging are indeed true as that would be a tangible difference and seems to have created a lot of moaning in France and Germany where they have had these cars for longer. Hard to say at this stage as this car hasn't been on a proper trip yet. I suspect not many UK cars have either! So far it's WAY more efficient than the 2020 cars we have but I suspect a lot of that is down to the heat pump.

The plastics and black patches on the seats - was going to post an update on these. Checked with Tesla service and they have confirmed earlier today the black patches on the inside edge of the white seats are a change for the china made cars so they're all like that. USA made cars still get the different seats with the white fabric on the inner edge and what appears to be slightly different padding with a different part number. The seats are a bit "panda" as somebody put it but one could argue are an improvement as at least the fabric won't get dirty long term. Overall, I think it's a small price to pay to avoid the lottery of paintwork and fit/finish issues so many reported over the years on Fremont made cars IMO.
 
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I have a MIC LR and am very satisfied with the range.

I have a regular 190 mile journey and was struggling to decide between the SR+ and long range. I’m able to return with about 37% charge remaining. So zero range anxiety.

Im interested to test the Supercharging speed but, my longest journeys are about 270 miles with a 15 minute charge on route according to ABRP. Unless this somehow takes a whole hour I won’t be worrying too much.

Frankly, the size of the island we live on limits the need for more than the 325 mile range my MIC M3 LR appears to have on 100% charge. That’s good enough for me.
 
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Yeah, I'm not worried at all about this battery. The fairly extensive tests that Bjorn ran showed that you're currently trading off slightly improved efficiency against slightly slower charging speeds. The net time difference between the two batteries on a long journey is hardly worth thinking about. That's before any future BMS tweaking by Tesla. Even if they don't touch it, it won't concern me at all.
 
Great! That is indeed more than acceptable. It looks perhaps a bit slower than the older Model 3's but the main thing is the curve as I found they slowed very quickly. As this is a newer battery one would hope there's a far higher chance of Tesla improving it as time goes on. Funnily that's exactly the same as my old Model S got at a similar % last winter and I got on fine with that so with the greatly improved efficiency looks like journeys should be quicker.

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Frankly, the size of the island we live on limits the need for more than the 325 mile range my MIC M3 LR appears to have on 100% charge. That’s good enough for me.
I wish that were true. 325 mile range means 200'ish in winter and hilly terrain = 100 mile radius from base if in a charging desert such as Wales. Again fine if going to a single destination and return then that 100 miles covers most cases but go say 50 miles to the coast, stop then move on to one or two other stops for a look around and that 200 miles starts looking iffy, care re routing, wondering if the 50KW charger will be working/occupied etc.

pgk
 
I wish that were true. 325 mile range means 200'ish in winter and hilly terrain = 100 mile radius from base if in a charging desert such as Wales. Again fine if going to a single destination and return then that 100 miles covers most cases but go say 50 miles to the coast, stop then move on to one or two other stops for a look around and that 200 miles starts looking iffy, care re routing, wondering if the 50KW charger will be working/occupied etc.

pgk

Yep. Easy to read too much into range for a trip, but if its a stay away with no easy charging, things soo start to get compromised very quickly. The "stop and move on"s soon take their toll on things if you can't top up whilst doing so. We spend/spent a lot of time on south coast and I can see that our destinations will now be dominated by places where we can fit in a top up. Some times it will be a case of using a different car park that has charge points, but other times, I can see special stops or even trips made just to top back up. Its exasperated by more use of sentry - a supermarket shop topup is only going to replenish a days use of that.
 
Just got scanmytesla up and running on one of our MIC model 3's. As suspected it has the LG battery people abroad were complaining about earlier this year. See screenshot from scanmytesla showing the capacity of 74.5 kWh and a copy of a summary image from a French Tesla group where they claim the charging speed is 50% longer. There was some talk earlier in the year that Tesla were testing the packs before rolling out an OTA update but I haven't read anything concrete. Haven't tested supercharging yet but just wondered if anybody who has one has done much high speed charging yet and whether the speeds are still substantially slower as people in Germany and France have mentioned? It seems loads of people were rejecting cars but not like we have much choice in the UK. Have to say I'm rather impressed so far with the efficiency compared to the 2020 M3 performance but maybe there is an issue?

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Hi Mike, so I just got a MIC Model 3 LR of the E5D variant... On a full charge, the expected mileage is 327 and not 338 if I convert the 544km above... Would you know why this is by any chance? Also I guess it would not go as high as 353 miles which the Panasonic variant above seems to have
Thanks very much for your help...
 
I have a MIC LR and am very satisfied with the range.

I have a regular 190 mile journey and was struggling to decide between the SR+ and long range. I’m able to return with about 37% charge remaining. So zero range anxiety.

Im interested to test the Supercharging speed but, my longest journeys are about 270 miles with a 15 minute charge on route according to ABRP. Unless this somehow takes a whole hour I won’t be worrying too much.

Frankly, the size of the island we live on limits the need for more than the 325 mile range my MIC M3 LR appears to have on 100% charge. That’s good enough for me.
Out of interest, do you charge the car to 100% for your 190 mile trip? I am still confused with what is recommended for the long range. I know the SR+ MIC 2021 cars are told to charge to 100% each time with no impact on battery life. Not sure what the case is with the LR.
 
Out of interest, do you charge the car to 100% for your 190 mile trip? I am still confused with what is recommended for the long range. I know the SR+ MIC 2021 cars are told to charge to 100% each time with no impact on battery life. Not sure what the case is with the LR.

The advice varies a little for the LR and P cars, but Tesla don’t recommend charging these cars to 100% for daily use like you can for LFP cars.

I’m still new to this, but I’m letting the car charge to 80% for daily use and 100% for road trips including this 190 mile round trip journey that is using 2/3 of my battery.
 
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With the exception of the LFP battery, the principle is the higher you charge it the greater the strain on the battery. Similar at the low end up to a point. There is not hard and fast rule. some say 80%, some say 90%, in practice 80 is better than 90 but only a bit better, and if your journey took you from 80% to 10%$ you might be better going from 90% to 20%. But this is overthinking it really as its all pretty minor on individual instances and its the cumulation of lots of these that over 10k's of miles can add to degradation.

The other principle is leaving it at a high state of charge for a long period is worse than topping it up and then driving.

I read a comparison to an elastic band. There is no "full", just a maximum voltage they apply to the battery which they think is safe, just like stretching an elastic band can ofetn be stretched quite a lot and you can get away with it, but do it too often and it might start to give up. Tesla set the max a little bit higher than other makes seem to do, but then Tesla advise trying not to use it all regularily, but you can get away with using it occasionally. Like an eleastic band you can stretch it a bit more than normal and its less of a problem if you quickly take off that extra stretch. If you hold it over stretched it's not so good.

Other makes of car seem to be more cautious and they're happier with the 100% stretch all the time because they've set 100% lower than Tesla and don't let you over stretch it at all. The best health for the elastic band is to keep it lightly stretched and not curled up in a draw, or over stretched beyond a limit, but exactly where that limit is an engineering call and not a magic number. Hopefully you get the idea,

The analogy breaks down a little with the LFP battery because the chemistry is different but the elastic band thinking is more accurate than a petrol tank because that has a defined volume above which you can't go, the battery could in theory be pushed harder but at the expense of its lifespan.