Wh/km (or mi) / range grossly mis-advertised, if not fraudulent... srsly.

[gtg465x]

Took an 810 mile trip, my longest yet, in my 2023 Model 3 RWD this weekend, and I don't feel the range is misadvertised.

I averaged 230 Wh/mi at 70 mph with 4 passengers, aero covers removed, and A/C on. Even not including the 4.5% buffer, that works out to 250 miles of range at 70 mph, and the car is only rated for 272 miles city / highway combined. And at 65 mph, I averaged 210 Wh/mi, which works out to 274 miles not including the buffer. Matching EPA range at 65 mph with 4 passengers and A/C on seems pretty good, no?

I understand that if you only take very short trips, or it's very cold outside, or you go 75+ mph, or you use Sentry mode a lot, your range will be much lower than the EPA rating, but I knew those things going in. For people who didn't know those things would affect range going in, maybe the EPA should have a separate winter range at 32 F, and a high speed range at 75 mph, but I suspect people would still complain that winter is 0 F where they live and they drive 80 mph.

 

[Olle]

After two years of ownership with my M3LR.... I have got exactly the EPA rating (if not fractionally better)...so I guess I’ll be a witness for the defense if you decide to sue

Sue them for getting fractionally over EPA since maybe you could have done with a standard range. For the difference of LR-SR plus $1 million for lost work hours reading these threads and mental suffering

 

[brainhouston]

Rated range is not quite battery health. It's mostly a measure of quantity of energy left in the battery. It could (should?) be indicated in kWh but is instead converted to miles using the EPA constant.

It's not health. It's state of charge

Battery health is something different.

Sure, maybe not the best choice of words or technically correct but u get the idea.
Rated is still only useful to compare battery health or capacity to when it was new.

Average driver (esp new to EV) only care about 2 things:
1. How much fuel is in the tank = battery %
2. How far can i go = Projected range (Tesla's equivalent of "miles to empty")

All im saying, those 2 should be on the IC and one is not...

 

[GtiMart]

How far can I go doesn't necessarily depend on past driving. I might have been driving for a week in the city and suddenly I'm going on a road trip.

Both percentage and miles represent how much fuel is in the tank (on a Tesla). If you want a projection, you go in the projection window.

 

[yogi799]

This thread has grown a lot. Nice to see a huge variety of opinions. I just wanted to say that when Summer-like weather started, I did notice increased range. Finally...

Still, the consumption display is total BS and as someone correctly stated 2 months ago, your trip consumption shown in the trip card needs to be multiplied by 1.25 to be accurate. Big difference. 25%... Nvm. I got used to it and spring/summer has finally allowed me to see the range in 350-400 km range (compared to 200-220 km range in winter!). So there is hope on the horizon! I have the standard LFP battery, RWD.

I have also understood part of my issue is the types of roads i drive on. They are 80-120 kmh flow (50-75mph) and that uses a lot more energy than driving in the city at 50-60 kmh (30-40 mph). I suppose if I drove non stop at 50mph i would see higher range but that is pure torture when you have a stunning wide open road in front of you. I choose 75mph any day and that is not changing ever. So that is why i got used to my shitty range and was happy summer gets me into the 300kmh+ range (30% better than winter as many people stated). I am starting a new thread about... Shitty summer range (in extreme temps!!)

 

[Tessaract]

(I haven't read almost all of this thread.)

Agree with most of your comments however, test details tab of Detailed Test Information mentions lab temp of 68 to 86 F for 3 of the test cycles, not specifically 75 F.

I've included a bunch of pointers to more info about EPA tests at Car battery: 340 miles. I drove 280. Came home with 5 miles left?.

The Secret Adjustment Factor Tesla Uses to Get Its Big EPA Range Numbers was likely covered in the earlier video someone pointed to.

Of course it's impossible to conduct a whole vehicle test at a precise single temperature in the real world. But perhaps you've noticed that the average of 68 and 86 is 77, so the NOMINAL temperature of the EPA "75˚tests" (EPA's own label) is near the midpoint of the range. One could argue that the temp range range is overly broad, but it's certainly NOT near 20˚F, which is what the poster I replied to was moaning about.

Certainly the thread "Car battery: 340 miles. I drove 280. Came home with 5 miles left?" itself reveals another commonly misunderstood aspect of range testing. Most amateur range (and professionally incompetent hitpieces) testers drive until the EV's energy meter says 5%, 1% (or 0% if they're really brave). But this is NOT how the EPA tests EVs. The EPA prescribes that the EV be driven "until the vehicle cannot sustain the required test speed". In other words, until the car shuts itself off. NOT until he range meter says 1%, or any other number, even including 0%. All EVs include a "buffer" between 0% battery and when the car actually stops due to low battery charge. Some manufacturers buffers are larger than others. Tesla is known to have a relatively large buffer. This is actually a service to the driver, helping prevent the very annoying "car dead at the side of road" scenario. But the amateur range testers don't include this buffer in their range calculation, and then erroneously decry the manufacturer for being optimistic wrt range.

Secondly, the title "Secret Adjustment Factor Tesla Uses..." is itself deliberately misleading, like many "journalistic" hitpieces. There are no "secret" adjustment factors. All factors are enshrined in law, and applicable to all manufacturers. Also, the five cycle EPA test has been mandatory since 2011, except for the manufacturers too lazy to perform all 5 cycles. It's reprehensible of wannabe authoritative automotive magazines or video authors to imply that Tesla is somehow gaming the system by following EPA intent and being more thorough than others. Car and Dinosaur magazine itself admits in the body of it's misleadingly-entitled article that "This is all within the regulatory rules."

 

[kenstl]

I get the points in the above post but thought I would my experience.

New owner to Model Y LR for past 6 months, haver put about 12,000 miles on the car. I recently took a trip to Chicago, a 325 mile trip for us. The drive is almost all highway, summer drive doing 80 mph with AC on. It has me stop 2X on the the trip to charge, but I am aware that it is looking at the trip overall and location of charges to accomplish the trip.

I feel the math does not match up with the Wh used on the trip. During the week, I charge to 80%. I drove for work, mix of highway (70%) and local driving. Summer time with AC on. I had 160 miles on the vehicle for that day and I was at 20% left on the battery. That means I used 60% off the batter to go 160 miles. It said I had operated at 255 mi/Wh. Based on the percentages, that means the total amount for a "full charge" would be 266 miles (160 miles / 60%). EPA is 330 miles. If my logic above is correct, notwithstanding the range testing as described above, that means my actual in real world use is 20% less than advertised. But that 160 miles does not match up with the 255 Wh/mi that it showed either.

Based on a 74 kw battery, at the 255 Wh/mi it should be at 290 miles?

On the above Chicage trip driving 80 mph I doubt I could get more than 200 miles out of a full charge. Overall I love the vehicle, but I have to agree the methods used in advertising the range need to improve to become more accurate unless you live in 70 degree weather and drive on flat ground.

 

[Occhis]

I think subconsciously we are trying to compare EVs to ICE vehicles in terms of how each stacks up to it’s respective EPA numbers. We need to keep in mind that ICE vehicles operate in the efficiency range of 25% on average. Whereas EVs operate at 70-75% efficiency over the course of the year, higher in warmer climates. I’ll take a 3X bump in efficiency anytime, even though the comparative numbers look large.

 

[ZenRockGarden]

I think subconsciously we are trying to compare EVs to ICE vehicles in terms of how each stacks up to it’s respective EPA numbers. We need to keep in mind that ICE vehicles operate in the efficiency range of 25% on average. Whereas EVs operate at 70-75% efficiency over the course of the year, higher in warmer climates. I’ll take a 3X bump in efficiency anytime, even though the comparative numbers look large.

The much-higher efficiency of electrics is what causes the drama with their range. They are 3x more impacted by having to "burn" fuel on things like heating, cooling, high speeds, etc

 

[Bouba]

The problem is that the whole world is treating the EPA like it’s highway only and at high speed....despite everyone knowing that it’s not

 

[voldar]

I drove in 2 days 1628.6 Km and payed 104.38 CAD on the chargers. That’s about 0.064 CAD / Km. Beat that with an ICEV.
I will post my all data once the vacation is over, but I can tell you already : I drove faster with my Tesla vs most of the other cars on the road. And the charging sessions I did were all faster than I was ready to drive. And after 1628.6 Km driven in 2 days I am ready to drive 800 Km more if needed starting right now. Who really cares about EPA ? Real world driving experience with a Tesla is a lot more than I would have thought it could be. And **** it rained so much the last two days.

 

[GBMaryland]

Yeah, when gas was nearly $6 a gallon here, and I owned a Model 3, I was commuting 76mi/day round trip… and it was costing me $50 a month to charge the car (~4 years ago). This crushed the comparable gas usage / cost for our other car, a Subaru SUV.

Range is not as straight forward. However, we do tend to get 300mi on the Highway. Specifically, using FSD/Autopilot, and keeping things to 75 mi/hr or under.

The only time things suck are when it’s cold weather out. During the sales cycle Tesla never mentioned that cold would hose you on range, and never mentioned the daily charge limit to prevent battery wear.

 

[sleepydoc]

Just for reference, We just drove up for Grand Forks, ND and back. Posted speed between Fargo and Grand Forks is 75. We drove 75 the first half and dropped it down to 70MPH the second half and saw a 15+ Wh/mi drop in consumption.

People don’t realize how much energy consumption goes up when you get above 50 MPH but wind resistance increases dramatically.

 

[Occhis]

When there are as many charging stations as there are gas stations this will be a total non-issue. You won’t even think about EPA ratings. For now it just requires a tiny bit of planning. After all, even with tens of thousands of gas stations, people still run out of gasoline. Where’s the uproar there? Do they blame EPA ratings that their 25% efficient vehicle doesn’t go far enough? Spoke to an over the road semi driver on Friday, and he gets 5MPG, so he has to haul 100 gallons of fuel to go 400 miles or so before he has to fuel up.

 

[White_Walker]

I'm not sure if this was mentioned but the ratings on fueleconomy.gov say the M3P has an efficiency rating of 30kwh/100 mile. So what would that translate to wh/mile? According to EPA standards?

 

[DuncanM]

I'm not sure if this was mentioned but the ratings on fueleconomy.gov say the M3P has an efficiency rating of 30kwh/100 mile. So what would that translate to wh/mile? According to EPA standards?

It's a fairly simple calculation:

100/30 = 3.33 miles/wh or 30/100 = .3 wh/mile

 

[White_Walker]

So if the M3P has a 82kwh battery and an EPA rated range of 315, then in theory with a perfect scenario we should be seeing 260 wh/mi? Did I math correctly?

 

[DuncanM]

So if the M3P has a 82kwh battery and an EPA rated range of 315, then in theory with a perfect scenario we should be seeing 260 wh/mi? Did I math correctly?

The 30kh/100miles suggests about 270 miles. It's a bit of a puzzle why they don't agree,

 

[SageBrush]

It's a fairly simple calculation:

100/30 = 3.33 miles/wh or 30/100 = .3 wh/mile

30,000 Wh / 100 miles
= 300 Wh/mile

 

[DuncanM]

30,000 Wh / 100 miles
= 300 Wh/mile

Yes, I should have written .3kwh.