Winter Range Anxiety - P85D , can I keep this car?

[Electric700]

I'm the OP on this thread. I've had the car for about 4-5 months now so my perspective is better.

It's summer now, so all these problems have miraculously gone away but I still feel that this still a big issue for cold climates if we're to consider the car to be an all out replacement for an ICE. Elon talks about 200 mile range, but the current model doesn't have it in the winter.

The reality is that the P85D has a -25C, comfy and warm, normal highway speed winter range of around 170-180 km. You can extend by cutting heat and being the slowest car on the road, but that makes it a pretty miserable car to drive. Is this an issue for normal driving around town on a day-to-day basis? Heck no. In fact, it's a really great winter car for daily use.

But, come January & February next year, I'm not even going to attempt to use the Tesla on long trips. I'll use one of our other vehicles.

For it to be a practical tripping vehicle in really cold weather, where you can be comfortable and travel normal speeds, you need at least 120kwh. And 150 would be better.

What about preheating the car for 25 minutes in the winter while connected to the charger before your trip? That will help with range since the battery will already be heated to the correct temperature before you start out, and you can do that from the app. For destination charging on longer trips, check out Find Us | Tesla Motors.

Another resource is plugshare.com.

 

[blackscraper]

What about preheating the car for 25 minutes in the winter while connected to the charger before your trip? That will help with range since the battery will already be heated to the correct temperature before you start out, and you can do that from the app. For destination charging on longer trips, check out Find Us | Tesla Motors.

Another resource is plugshare.com.

even with supercharger on the road, adding another half an hour to a 2.5 hour trip is not what I want. still, during deep winter, preheating will help a bit, but not much, as my observation told me. in the past Feb and Jan, model S in southern Ontario generally yield 50 to 60 of the rated range, making it a pain for inter city trip

 

[dsm363]

I thought preheating was a big help. You might need to do it twice over an hour with the app I thought someone reported before.

 

[sandpiper]

What about preheating the car for 25 minutes in the winter while connected to the charger before your trip? That will help with range since the battery will already be heated to the correct temperature before you start out, and you can do that from the app. For destination charging on longer trips, check out Find Us | Tesla Motors.

Another resource is plugshare.com.

I already do that. It helps, but in my case it doesn't make enough difference to let me make it to a SC in the depths of winter, even at a ridiculously low speed, no heat, etc..... And I agree with a prior poster. Additions SCs would help, but I don't want to stop every hour and a half for a charge. Great car, but up north it simply needs a bigger tank.

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even with supercharger on the road, adding another half an hour to a 2.5 hour trip is not what I want. still, during deep winter, preheating will help a bit, but not much, as my observation told me. in the past Feb and Jan, model S in southern Ontario generally yield 50 to 60 of the rated range, making it a pain for inter city trip

yep, and in northern Ontario it's even worse. This past jan and February were just brutal!

 

[blackscraper]

+1 on superchargers every 150mi instead of a larger battery.

More battery means I'm paying a weight penalty every time I drive, regardless of the distance. The only time larger battery helps is if I can make a trip without stopping with a larger battery, but would need to stop with a smaller one.

adding some weight won't damper highway range too much. You can prove that by chauffeuring some passengers on the highway. The dominant drag on highway is air drag. Adding some weight won't change Model S exterior profile and thus no more air resistance. What some others and I want is a longer highway range not a in-city stop-and-go range. I agree with JB, few people want to drive 10 hours straight at 25mph, but he lost a significant part (or maybe he does not want to mention), I would want a 4 hour non-stop road trip on highway at 75mph. the current Model S is around 30% short of that goal. You will have to drive about 2-3 hours and stop for 30-40 minutes. thus, the driver is accommodating the schedule of the car instead of the car accommodating my schedule.

 

[Cottonwood]

+1 on superchargers every 150mi instead of a larger battery.

More battery means I'm paying a weight penalty every time I drive, regardless of the distance. The only time larger battery helps is if I can make a trip without stopping with a larger battery, but would need to stop with a smaller one.

In recent installs, Tesla has been putting Superchargers every 100-135 miles (160-215 km) on most routes for just this reason.

 

[ThosEM]

Two things:
Fix the heat pump to reverse and heat.
Add another source of energy for when it is really cold, namely a propane or biogas tank and heater, like a parking heater for an ICE car.

 

[luvnMyTS]

+1 on superchargers every 150mi instead of a larger battery.

More battery means I'm paying a weight penalty every time I drive, regardless of the distance. The only time larger battery helps is if I can make a trip without stopping with a larger battery, but would need to stop with a smaller one.

Nobody said everyone has to buy the 110kWh battery option if they don't want to. You are correct in that the 60 kWh is more efficient than the 85kWh pack and the same would likely be true when compared to a 110kWh pack. But the bottom line is, the 85kWh battery equipped cars, less efficient or not, can go further than a 60kWh battery equipped car. Thus the 110kWh will travel even further on a single charge. As long as tesla keeps the 70 & 85 options, then people can choose to have a lighter weight car or one capable of travelling over 300 miles on a single charge and 200 in the worst case conditions.

Supercharging is great for long trips (over 500 miles), but quite annoying if you have to stop for a half an hour every single day to make it just a little past the real world range of the car. I think 300 miles is about the long end of what drivers are typically willing to drive without stopping. Roughly 4-5 hours worth of driving. For those that want to stop more often, they're more than welcome to and likely save their battery life as they wouldn't have to charge to 100% every time they use a supercharger. So a 110kWh serves multiple purposes and likely brings anyone on the fence about range anxiety the rest of the way over.

My point is, more can't hurt. If they make it an option, most will choose to have it available, even if they don't need it every single day.

 

[Cebe]

Nobody said everyone has to buy the 110kWh battery option if they don't want to...

My point is, more can't hurt. If they make it an option, most will choose to have it available, even if they don't need it every single day.

Yeah, that's fair. I wonder how much it would cost them to engineer a 110kWh battery (using the existing cells), and how much more cost there would be to the buyer. As they get to the 50k cars a year and beyond, I wonder what percentage would need to opt for the 110kWh pack for $x more, in order for them to keep offering it. They seem to be pretty quick to make decisions based on the demand (cutting 40kWh and 60kWh), but so far they've only cut the smaller sizes. Perhaps the split between 70 & 85 vs. 60 & 85 would help them figure that out, but somehow I doubt there is enough 200 mile one way daily commuters in Canadian winters to sway the numbers...

 

[majorlance]

I don't have much data (other than my recollection) but my energy usage has dramatically improved as the various updates have been released. I have a P85D. It will be interesting to see how the car performs next winter.

We don't have the brutal winters that Canada has, but I took several trips in the low teens in February and my energy usage was much higher than it is today, even in 90 degree weather with the A/C set to 68 on my standard 130 mile trip to the beach. Mostly highway and two lane (50 mph) roads...

 

[sandpiper]

Yeah, that's fair. I wonder how much it would cost them to engineer a 110kWh battery (using the existing cells), and how much more cost there would be to the buyer. As they get to the 50k cars a year and beyond, I wonder what percentage would need to opt for the 110kWh pack for $x more, in order for them to keep offering it. They seem to be pretty quick to make decisions based on the demand (cutting 40kWh and 60kWh), but so far they've only cut the smaller sizes. Perhaps the split between 70 & 85 vs. 60 & 85 would help them figure that out, but somehow I doubt there is enough 200 mile one way daily commuters in Canadian winters to sway the numbers...

If you look on the CPO sites over 90% of the cars are 85s. I don't know how well that correlates to actual sales but in any case the vast majority of cars out there are 85s, with few 60s and almost no 40s. When you see curve like that you know that there would be a lot of demand for a bigger battery. I'd bet real money that at least half of sales would go to a 110/120 if it were available.

 

[blackscraper]

Yeah, that's fair. I wonder how much it would cost them to engineer a 110kWh battery (using the existing cells), and how much more cost there would be to the buyer. As they get to the 50k cars a year and beyond, I wonder what percentage would need to opt for the 110kWh pack for $x more, in order for them to keep offering it. They seem to be pretty quick to make decisions based on the demand (cutting 40kWh and 60kWh), but so far they've only cut the smaller sizes. Perhaps the split between 70 & 85 vs. 60 & 85 would help them figure that out, but somehow I doubt there is enough 200 mile one way daily commuters in Canadian winters to sway the numbers...

well, it does not have to be a daily 200 miles one way commuter. one of the owners took a one day trip from waterloo to Scarborough. one way 120km. but He had to make a detour to Toronto supercharger since the car was estimated to be 50km short on range as he had run some errands around the city and put a little bit less than 300km on the odo that day. that being said, he had been unlucky as DVP had been closed due to ealier crash. he had to stay on dvp for another hour. if he had had a bigger battery… such trips are quite common even in winter though.
model s is supposes to be a main stream car…

 

[3mp_kwh]

If you look on the CPO sites over 90% of the cars are 85s.

This link is now just over a year old, but you just about hit the bulls eye. "93%".

Tesla Model S by the numbers | Tesla Living