World record: 1766miles/2842km in 24h with Model 3 LR on German Autobahn

[PeterSchmitt]

On September 1, the team of Tesla-Car-Rent set a new 24-hour world record for electric cars on German Autobahn.

Electric cars still have the reputation for many pople that they are not suitable for long distances. It was therefore very important that in an environment that everyone experiences on their holiday trip to the south, to prove that you can travel long distances as fast as with a fuel driven car.

The world record vehicle is an unchanged Tesla Model 3 Long Range. The loading park at Rasthof Gotha is one of currently 70 Jonity charging parks in Germany. Ionity is currently operating a new loading park every day, so that it will soon be found every 100km on German Autobahn. 24h trips, such as are made by Porsche with a non-standard Taycan on a closed race track, have no say for the consumer real live experience.

A detailed documentation can be found on this page: 24h world record

The record was started on August 31, 2019 at Rasthof Gotha at 12:00 on Sunday, September 1, 2019, the team has improved the old record by 35miles/57 km with 1766miles/2842 km. The previous record was 1731miles/2785km and was driven by Jan Sehic on 25th August 2019. He had improved the old record of Bjørn Nyland by 2miles/4km.

Charging point was an Ionity charging station where the Model 3 could charge up to 193kW. The track on the A4 was 139.2 km long and was passed through several times.

Turning points were the exits in Bucha and Gotha-Boxberg

The team of Tesla-Car-Rent consisted of

• Andreas Haehnel
• Klaus Fischer
• Andreas Rieger
• Andreas Neumann

with support from Andreas Fischer.

That's what winners look like.

 

[Fossil Fool]

Great work and congrats on the record!

 

[KenC]

It's cool that your average car enthusiasts can take on a project to break a record.

 

[ngogas]

Nice

 

[SDRick]

Looks like overall average speed was about 75 MPH.
Curious to know the average speed while driving or total time charging as well as their overall charging strategy.

 

[KenC]

Looks like overall average speed was about 75 MPH.
Curious to know the average speed while driving or total time charging as well as their overall charging strategy.

Go to their webpage, and watch the video. I think they were averaging 150km/hr while driving. Since they had a regular loop, that pretty much dictated I think 55 mins of driving between charges. They post their spreadsheets in the video, so it's all there. The 2 numbers above are the only things I remember.

 

[XLR82XS]

Schön gemachte Herren!

 

[afadeev]

On September 1, the team of Tesla-Car-Rent set a new 24-hour world record for electric cars on German Autobahn [...] the team has improved the old record by 35miles/57 km with 1766miles/2842 km.

Didn't Porsche Taycan set the 24 hour continuous EV driving record earlier this year, that was significantly longer?

The article below documents Taycan having covered 2,128 miles (3,425 kilometers) in 24 hours:
Porsche Taycan Did 2,128 Miles In 24-Hour Nardo Endurance Run

Nice road trip, either way!

 

[SSedan]

Doing 1700miles on public roads with a real production car is much more impressive than 2100miles with a prototype on a closed course.

 

[bxr140]

Doing 1700miles on public roads with a real production car is much more impressive than 2100miles with a prototype on a closed course.

Why?

The ‘public road’ was chosen specifically for its unlimited speed limits and convenient charger access. Basically the only difference from a closed course is the added danger of other people on the road with you.

Seriously [Tesla] people, it’s ok to acknowledge the significant step function the Taycan has taken in some aspects of the EV world. It’s ok. Really. This is what Elon has wanted from the beginning.

And just to be fair, seriously [Porsche] people, it is possible someone else might be able to hang with decades of Porsche hubris. Porsches aren’t the end all be all of performance vehicles.

 

[e-FTW]

Used to be that driving 80 mph would approach the optimal speed for a fast trip with minimal charging sessions.
Ah, the days of slow-poke 120kw Supercharging and less efficient cars (than the 3)...

 

[SSedan]

Why?

The ‘public road’ was chosen specifically for its unlimited speed limits and convenient charger access. Basically the only difference from a closed course is the added danger of other people on the road with you.

Seriously [Tesla] people, it’s ok to acknowledge the significant step function the Taycan has taken in some aspects of the EV world. It’s ok. Really. This is what Elon has wanted from the beginning.

And just to be fair, seriously [Porsche] people, it is possible someone else might be able to hang with decades of Porsche hubris. Porsches aren’t the end all be all of performance vehicles.

Don't mistake me for a Tesla sycophant, I most definitely am not, I love my P85 but it has not been that great a car.

You also focused on the road. How about the Model 3 being a production car that doesn't potentially have tweaked charging profile or harmfully aggressive charging profile.

Easy public access does not necessarily equal quite as easy as dedicated charger on a closed course. Guessing turning around at an exit also slows things significantly vs. just laps
They stress the heat on the Porsche run and I understand it will tax cooling but was the thinner air an offsetting benefit?

I did think of public roads offering potential for drafting which is the only benefit I can think of.

 

[bxr140]

How about the Model 3 being a production car that doesn't potentially have tweaked charging profile or harmfully aggressive charging profile.

Whataboutisms--especially speculative ones--are a slippery slope. For instance, how about the Model 3 record attempt being performed on someone else's charging network because Tesla's wasn't sufficient?

Instead of trying to find anything that marginalizes accomplishment of the 'away team', I prefer to acknowledge the accomplishment and cheer on the home team to do even better. Porsche did an amazing job, due mostly to their high charging rate. Good for them. Like the parallel conversations about the 'ring, its time for Tesla to up its game.

Guessing turning around at an exit also slows things significantly vs. just laps

"Significantly" is of course a subjective assessment, but if you think about it the sum difference between the controlled/tailored track environment and a DIY autobahn environment isn't going to be what most people would consider 'significant', and certainly not a major part of the ~600km difference between the two 24hr distances.

Just to play this one out, by my math the M3 team did ~20.5 laps on their track, which means they would have done 41 turnarounds and 19-20 charging events. That adds up to ~60 times they had to slow the car down, get off the "track", then get back on and get back up to cruising speed. If we assume each event takes on average 1 minute, which is pretty reasonable given the very fast turnarounds and the team's significant cognizance of time, that's an hour of lost time. If we assume a completely improbable average speed of 0 during that hour, that's ~150km 'lost' to the Porsche (and of course that doesn't account for any average speed loss from the Porsche's charging events).

So I contest that, at most, the closed environment of the Porsche track was good for an additional 150km, and likely quite a bit less.[/QUOTE]

 

[SSedan]

I am not saying the Porsche accomplishment is not an accomplishment, just saying production car on public roads offers more challenges than a controlled environment.

 

[afadeev]

I am not saying the Porsche accomplishment is not an accomplishment, just saying production car on public roads offers more challenges than a controlled environment.

Fair point.

Then again, different roads offer different challenges, and if we go down this thought path and take it to its logical conclusion, we will have "world records" for driving between different exists of different highways, or between this and that charging stations, etc, etc. You've got to normalize things, somehow, to keep things from getting silly.

So any area with DC chargers nearby - Nardo, Laguna Seca, Nurburgring (Tesla has just installed SuperChargers there), autobahn, I-95, TCH - doesn't matter. Just pick some stretch of paved road, drive it, and report what happened.

If someone picked a particularly undesirable stretch of the road, in rush hour, in the midst of a snow storm - that's on them.
If you picked the right time and place, and beat Taycan's record - awesome!

But if you didn't, perhaps, just perhaps, it was not a "world record" (see OP's post).

a

 

[nativewolf]

This sort of record would only impress me if both cars were driving on real roads between two cities. Say from NYC to LA. The fastest time between those cities, that would be cool. An honest to god old cannonball run.

But as the Toycan is a prototype that we can't buy I guess we'll have to wait. When it actually is produced and sold to someone that is willing to race it in a real world long distance road race I'm just sitting back saying how do timed laps on any course make my life better; can't see that it does.

 

[Daniel in SD]

This sort of record would only impress me if both cars were driving on real roads between two cities. Say from NYC to LA. The fastest time between those cities, that would be cool. An honest to god old cannonball run.

But as the Toycan is a prototype that we can't buy I guess we'll have to wait. When it actually is produced and sold to someone that is willing to race it in a real world long distance road race I'm just sitting back saying how do timed laps on any course make my life better; can't see that it does.

Going to have to wait a little bit longer than that for a cannonball run. Assuming the person who does it doesn't want automatic jail time they'll have to wait for the statutes of limitations in all the states they drive through to run out before publicizing it. The Taycan was driving 121mph-134mph while moving. The optimal speed for a Model 3 is already around 100mph using V2 chargers.