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Rated vs Ideal vs Projected and how to use them

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Ideal - how far the car will go if driven at a steady 55 mph on level ground at moderate temperatures.

Rated - how far the EPA says the car will go given their tests. Equals 88% of Ideal. Just a slightly more conservative version of Ideal.

Projected - how far the car calculates you will go if you keep consuming power at the rate you are currently. The distance it is calculated over can be adjusted by changing the graph settings. This is useful on long trips when you are driving in a consistent fashion (e.g. highway). If Projected is greater than the distance remaining on the GPS, then you are going to make it to your destination. If not, either slow down or stop and charge!

Both Ideal and Rated give an indication of how much power remains in your battery. Projected depends on how you've been driving, weather, heater use, etc.
 
Wow, so Projected was removed in 4.0? I thought it was the ideal that was removed. That's a huge bummer.

The other issue I've seen is that for projected there are two settings average and instantaneous. Instantaneous is basically worthless but average will give you the projected range over the past 5/15/30 miles depending on what setting your energy graph is set for. The problem is that whenever you select average, this setting is not remembered and every time the car turns off, you have to re-select average. Hopefully this will be fixed by a future update.
 
Wow, so Projected was removed in 4.0? I thought it was the ideal that was removed. That's a huge bummer.

What gave you that impression? I'm on 4.0 and I can switch the primary display between rated and ideal, but the energy display continues to show projected. This can be shown either on the full touchscreen or as either of the side displays on the instrument panel.
 
It was just removed from the one display to make way for rated. I suspect that some later version will allow switching between all three systems but that for 4.x they had to get the rated to show up somewhere and that was the easiest and most fool proof way to do it.
 
Yes projected has been removed from the instrument cluster. If they added it back to the version of the energy app in instrument cluster, I would no longer miss it because then I could get both rated and projected on the IC like I used to. I've suggested to Tesla that they put the projected # on the IC version like they do on the touchscreen version.
I was first upset with this change (which also removes the rated/projected range app on the IC) but gave myself time to adapt to it, and have come to like it; if they put the projected number in the IC app, it will actually save screen real-estate since I could then get those two numbers and the energy app all on the IC (using just one of the two customizable spots).
 
Thanks Doug. So, where do we view projected now?

As others have said, the Energy app. It appears on a floating widget on the right side of the graph.

I've sent in a request to Tesla to include it on the version of the energy graph that is on the console screen. That way I can keep the rear view camera and the GPS on the touchscreen while driving. Otherwise I have to drop the rear view camera (so I can easily keep track of Projected versus distance-to-go), and I rather like having it when driving in traffic.
 
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I also miss seeing rated but sometimes it could give me a false sense of security. I thought you all might get a kick out of this.
 

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Well, it all depends on the conditions. I almost never use Projected, because it has no idea how I'm going to be driving. It's just the Rated miles number complicated by dividing it by some factor based on how I have been driving. The only time I ever use Projected is when I've been driving at least several miles on the highway and expect to continue driving a very long time at the same speed on the same highway (without changing elevation, winds, etc). And when it's a road I'm not familiar with, because otherwise I'd already know the numbers. I rarely find all of those conditions lining up.

While I agree Ideal and Rated aren't always good mileage estimates, I don't use them that way. I use them as a measure of how much energy is in the batteries, just like the gas gauge on an ICE. I'd rather see a percentage of energy left, but you get used to the "miles" number fairly quickly.

But frankly, all of this number watching is really only important on short-range EVs. With long-range EVs like our Teslas, I very rarely watch the battery gauges at all. Driving around town, there's no way I'll hit the limit before I'm home for the day. And on a road trip, well, same thing really - I know where the next charger is, and I didn't plan for it to be anywhere near the end of my range. The only exception is that occasional trip away from the charging network where you'd like to take the EV, but it happens to be near the car's range. Of course all of this requires that you be familiar and comfortable with your EV's capabilities; that takes a while. I sure watched the gauges the first few months I had the Roadster!
 
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Yes, this really annoying. Ideal is so useless. Even "rated" is quite not that useful in cold climate. I need to drive with the big "Projected" number.

Agree, I think Tesla should really think through the dash display. I'd like it tied into the Nav system and display Miles Remaining and then show the Projected, Rated and Ideal. When Nav is being used, display range with some sort of color coding scheme for each mileage range shown. (e.g. Red: you won't make it home - find a charger; Yellow: Will make it with <10% battery to spare; Green - Should not be a problem.) It could even get smarter and suggest a strategy for making it home(e.g. slow down to XX mph) or show charging stations available on map (my current ICE does this when Low Fuel indicator comes on). Longer term, it could even calculate the Projected miles based on the route and elevation gain/loss, and even consider temperature. An ideal candidate for improvements over time...
 
The problem with "projected" is what to use as the basis for estimation. The energy displays make it obvious what the estimate is based on (prior momentary, 5, 15, or 30 miles.) With the extremely limited display space under your speed there's not enough room to explain the provenance of the number.

I do think there's value in bringing a projection back if they can fine-tune the algorithm to require less interpretation. Here's my suggestion:

a) Use only the driving history for the current driver profile in projecting range. If the current profile doesn't have that much history, assume the rated range for the missing miles.

b) Use an average of the prior N miles, where N starts as the rated range for the remaining charge. Iterate using the result for N until the results converge. This will tell you, in essence: you can go N miles further presuming you drive the same way you over the last N miles.

This approach will avoid the sudden changes in projected that are common with too small a historical window – except when you're extremely low on charge as changes in driving habits and conditions really do have significant impact at this point.
 
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