What do the charging ranges mean?

[Steve666]

There are 2 charging ranges. There is what seems to be an idealised range on the main charging screen and there is a realistic number on the energy screen that appears on the charging screen as well. What is the purpose of the idealized range? It is not really useful to me for everyday driving. My actual realistic range is about 70% of the idealised range.

 

[ajdelange]

There is rated range which is the estimated usable charge in the battery divided by the constant rated Wh/mi for the car. Then there is range based on the Wh/mi for the car experienced by it recently. There are three selections on the display which determine what "recently" means. These are "instantaneous", 5 mi , 10 mi and 30 mi (in the imperial units of the USA). Because of the vast amount of confusion this seems to cause people I often advocate just monitoring percent charge and learning, from experience, how many miles per percent to expect dependent on driving conditions, weather etc,

 

[Rocky_H]

There are 2 charging ranges. There is what seems to be an idealised range on the main charging screen and there is a realistic number on the energy screen that appears on the charging screen as well. What is the purpose of the idealized range? It is not really useful to me for everyday driving. My actual realistic range is about 70% of the idealised range.

The EPA in the United States changed their method of efficiency testing several years ago. I think it was about 7-ish years ago. The old method used to be called I think the 3 cycle test, and the newer one is called the 5 cycle test. People had always been a little frustrated at how the older one seemed really optimistic and most people's driving usually fell short of it. The newer 5 cycle test gave miles per gallon figures that were more realistic to people's driving.

And there it is. When Tesla was developing the Model S in about 2010-2012, it was right about in that changeover period, when the new EPA ratings were coming out, and they had already been talking about the rated range of the upcoming Model S. So they just named that measurement under the old system as "Ideal range" and the measurement under the new rating procedure as "Rated range". You do get to toggle that in the settings if you want, but ideal is pretty unrealistic and useless, so most people keep it set for rated if they are going to use that display as distance instead of %. Rated is achievable somewhat if the weather is mild, and you're doing about 60-65 or so mph.

*Note* Europe uses different terms for this for some reason, which makes it really confusing.
The higher one is U.S. "ideal" = Europe "rated"
The lower one is U.S. "rated" = Europe "typical"
I think this is because Europe has the NEDC system for car efficiency rating, which is laughably optimistic and unachievable.

There is rated range which is the estimated usable charge in the battery divided by the constant rated Wh/mi for the car. Then there is range based on the Wh/mi for the car experienced by it recently.

Ah, well that is the "projected range" in the energy app of the car that is using your recent consumption history to make an estimate going forward. That is different than the battery meter setting being referred to above, which is just using a fixed efficiency constant to convert from kWh of energy into a distance-like number. That's supposed to be more like a fuel gauge instead of a range predictor.

 

[gecko10x]

You do get to toggle that in the settings if you want, but ideal is pretty unrealistic and useless, so most people keep it set for rated if they are going to use that display as distance instead of %.

I think this only exists in the S/X; I've never seen it in my 3.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

There are 2 charging ranges. There is what seems to be an idealised range on the main charging screen and there is a realistic number on the energy screen that appears on the charging screen as well. What is the purpose of the idealized range? It is not really useful to me for everyday driving. My actual realistic range is about 70% of the idealised range.

This post may be useful to you. The information is not guaranteed but is my best understanding for Model 3.

Constants and Formulas

 

[Rocky_H]

I think this only exists in the S/X; I've never seen it in my 3.

Oh, I didn't realize they had done away with that setting toggle in the 3. I was answering a wrong question then.