With the new refresh on model 3s and new ranges. Will older models get a range increase?

[AlanSubie4Life]

Linking here to the 2021 data:

Preliminary EPA Data for Model 3 AWD & Model 3 P 2021 Released

You guys with late (post-June) 2020 AWD Model 3s should go look at your rear motor plate (left hand side rear wheel, go in above and in front of it, above aero shield, take a picture of the motor plate), to see which motor you have, I guess. My guess is it hasn't changed, but who knows.

I don't think you guys in late-year 2020 Model 3 AWDs should see a range increase, though, even if you do have a more efficient motor.

Did anyone try changing their wheel size to 18" or 20" to see whether it changed the range? As I said, I wonder whether in late 2020 vehicles they just got rid of the differences between 18"/19"/20" wheel configurations and all the vehicles now display 322 rated miles regardless of wheel choice.

Just have to fiddle around with those settings and see whether it changes anything.

 

[sublimejackman]

I think you might be right about the wheel size. I got abysmal efficiency during a long highway drive yesterday:

This was taken from Tezlab on the exact same 121mi stretch of highway in NC:
On my 2017 Model S 75D, the rated range was 254mi when new and 236mi during this drive. Average speed of 77mph, 68 degrees F, I ran at 81% efficiency. Average of 375wh/mi (and that's with 8% battery degradation)
On my 2020 Model 3 LR 19". Average speed of 77mph, 72 degrees F, I have a rated range of 318mi. At 77mph, I ran at 72% efficiency. Average of 335wh/mi (with a brand new battery that had less than 1k miles on it!!)

 

[sublimejackman]

Linking here to the 2021 data:

Preliminary EPA Data for Model 3 AWD & Model 3 P 2021 Released

You guys with late (post-June) 2020 AWD Model 3s should go look at your rear motor plate (left hand side rear wheel, go in above and in front of it, above aero shield, take a picture of the motor plate), to see which motor you have, I guess. My guess is it hasn't changed, but who knows.

I don't think you guys in late-year 2020 Model 3 AWDs should see a range increase, though, even if you do have a more efficient motor.

Did anyone try changing their wheel size to 18" or 20" to see whether it changed the range? As I said, I wonder whether in late 2020 vehicles they just got rid of the differences between 18"/19"/20" wheel configurations and all the vehicles now display 322 rated miles regardless of wheel choice.

Just have to fiddle around with those settings and see whether it changes anything.

I don't really want to mess with those settings. We really need to find someone who got a Model 3 LR with aero wheels in September.

Running some numbers, even if the computer no longer takes wheels into account. I still would only be getting about 79% efficiency. Much lower than I got on the exact same road, at the exact same speed on my Model S. Is the Model S more aerodynamic? is the 18650 battery a better design for long drives? Are the new cars tuned to be more efficient at lower speeds than the older ones?

Just VERY shocked at how my efficiency was yesterday. With the Model S it would always be just about spot on when I left a supercharger. Yesterday I had legit range anxiety for the first time in years. The range estimations are garbage now. And I'm guessing a big part of that is the wheels.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

I don't really want to mess with those settings.

Understood. If it makes you feel better, I mess with them frequently since I have multiple wheel sets. Only issue is that it can take a little while to sync the TPMS again, but never had a problem. After a few miles all is well, usually.

even if the computer no longer takes wheels into account. I still would only be getting about 79% efficiency.

If the computer is not taking wheels into account anymore, it would be telling you you have 322 miles of range when a 19" wheel vehicle actually has 304 miles of range when new. That's 6% so it would effect your realized efficiency.

As far as comparison to Model S - the higher the static losses and such, the less impact freeway driving has on the range. I don't know the exact Model S details but it is possible the differential between optimal range and freeway driving has a smaller gap. Comes down to the % of losses that are due to drag at freeway speed for the two vehicles.

As far as the trip estimation, maybe your car has a bug. Maybe it's giving you the 18" wheel projections in the trip planner even though you have 19" selected (what did the Nav say you would arrive at?). You'd have to toggle them to see whether you can fix it, though. I doubt anything will come from it, but you never know. I've found the projections to be fairly accurate if I'm not using cabin heat.

You could have just had a brisk headwind or something, too.

 

[sublimejackman]

Understood. If it makes you feel better, I mess with them frequently since I have multiple wheel sets. Only issue is that it can take a little while to sync the TPMS again, but never had a problem. After a few miles all is well, usually.



If the computer is not taking wheels into account anymore, it would be telling you you have 322 miles of range when a 19" wheel vehicle actually has 304 miles of range when new. That's 6% so it would effect your realized efficiency.

As far as comparison to Model S - the higher the static losses and such, the less impact freeway driving has on the range. I don't know the exact Model S details but it is possible the differential between optimal range and freeway driving has a smaller gap. Comes down to the % of losses that are due to drag at freeway speed for the two vehicles.

As far as the trip estimation, maybe your car has a bug. Maybe it's giving you the 18" wheel projections in the trip planner even though you have 19" selected (what did the Nav say you would arrive at?). You'd have to toggle them to see whether you can fix it, though. I doubt anything will come from it, but you never know. I've found the projections to be fairly accurate if I'm not using cabin heat.

You could have just had a brisk headwind or something, too.

Stopped 3 times for charging. First one estimated (when unplugged) my arrival at 17%, actual arrival 9%. Second estimated 24%, actual 17%. Third estimated 22% actual 16%. The last leg had some wind. Otherwise 70-80F and no real serious wind.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Stopped 3 times for charging. First one estimated (when unplugged) my arrival at 17%, actual arrival 9%. Second estimated 24%, actual 17%. Third estimated 22% actual 16%. The last leg had some wind. Otherwise 70-80F and no real serious wind.

Really hard to say but it does kind of sound like your car is predicting results for 18" wheels. If changing it to 18" and then changing it back to 19" doesn't change your 100% rated miles though, there's not much you can do.

My guess is it could be some sort of bug. Or they may have a latter half 2020 vehicle where they didn't test the 19" wheel type due to lower take rate, so they can only state the 322 rated miles even if you're using 19".

There's two things here though - the wheel selection changes two things: 1) The rated miles at 100% (it doesn't do this for 2019/2018 vehicles though), by changing the constant, and 2) The projections of the trip planner - it has always modified those predictions even in 2019/2018 vehicles. If you select 20" wheels it will be more pessimistic in the baseline estimates for arrival charge.

But, your car shows 19" selected so the projections of the trip planner should be correct. I was just wondering whether it was a "bad state" issue where it shows 19" but for the trip planner it thinks 18" is selected so is very optimistic. And toggling to 18" and then back to 19" could fix that. I very much doubt this of course (I've never heard this reported as a bug).

Even if they got rid of the different rated miles for 20/19/18 for late 2020, you still shouldn't be having a problem with the trip planner projections if you have 19" selected. Of course they could have screwed it up so there are only 18" projections. The only way to know is to change wheel config and see whether projections for arrival charge change for a chosen destination.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

With the Model S it would always be just about spot on when I left a supercharger. Yesterday I had legit range anxiety for the first time in years. The range estimations are garbage now. And I'm guessing a big part of that is the wheels.

I still would only be getting about 79% efficiency. Much lower than I got on the exact same road, at the exact same speed on my Model S.

Should add that the actual "correctness" of the constant does depend on a lot of factors. That's why I have the "Range Optimism" column or whatever on my Constants spreadsheet. It's a measure of the actual efficiency of the vehicle relative to the underlying constant. This relationship is surprisingly variable, mostly due to the use of different scalars (for 2020 it was between 0.7032 and 0.7250 or so). But it also gets thrown off by test vehicles that happen to have "hot" batteries and use a large adjustment factor to bring down the battery capacity to 77.6kWh (unless they voluntarily reduce the range which moves things the other direction).

 

[GtiMart]

There are some factors that affect range that the Tesla trip computer doesn't take into account. For example, wind, road conditions (water on road, or snow), winter vs summer tires. I also think it estimates you will drive around the speed limit and doesn't know if you are carrying hundreds of pounds of extra weight. Tools like ABetterRoutePlanner let you input those values, which in turn give the tool the ability to be more precise.