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Dotted line for limited power available - when do you see it?

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Now I'm almost certainly just paranoid, but I think the power limiting on my car (UK RHD P85, VIN406XX) is coming on too early / too aggressively.
My overall experience of the last 7 weeks since delivery is that on most occasions where I want to accelerate rapidly to overtake, or to join a motorway from a slower road, or to scare the crap out of a passenger (but not when pulling away from stationary) I see a power limiting line appearing. So if I'm doing 40 and I join a motorway and give it some welly then by the time I am at 90 a few seconds later there's already a dotted line visible. As soon as I come off the throttle it goes away again. This is happening in moderate weather (British summer i.e. 20 to 25 degrees ambient) and when the car is well charged but not full (I charge to 80% overnight). I don't have any power saving features like range mode enabled.
Clearly the car is still super-fast, and maybe this is normal, but notably the loaner car I had yesterday (brand new UK RHD P85, VIN453XX) didn't show the dotted line, ever, despite me spending 10 minutes trying to get it to appear, and it definitely felt faster in that 40-80 dash.
Secondly I've just seen the following on returning home this evening:
IMG_1889.JPG

Now I know that power is limited when the battery gets really low, but in this picture I've still got 20% left (UK "typical" range is 245mi); the charge bar isn't even yellow yet, let alone red! I'd just arrived home after a regular 5 mile journey in early evening traffic - nothing fast or hard or hot or anything like that.
So... questions:
1. Do you regularly see the dotted line briefly appearing when you put your foot down on a wide empty road?
2. Do you see the dotted line continuously even when you still have as much as 20% charge remaining?

I've asked Tesla directly but am curious to get a bit more evidence from other owners...

Thanks!

P.S. Many apologies for the music choice in the photo above. The car may be mine but the sound system belongs to the kids...
 
1. No
2. No

My guess is there's something wrong with your car. Hopefully just a temp sensor or something like that, but get it looked at soon since in theory it could also be a problem with cooling for example. Here it would be super useful for us users to be able to see that diagnostic screen with all the temp readouts and stuff.
 
Hi,

I've been down to 40-ish miles left and haven't gotten that limiter. Another thread says it could be heat related if you were aggressively accelerating or also (in my opinion) could be telling "if you're going to drive it hard like that, we're going to limit you a little so you don't run out of battery as fast"... (15C is not that hot (approx. 60F))

Here's a related thread (mostly starts on page 2):

http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/show...limited-at-50-SOC-only-when-flooring-it/page2

-m
 
Thanks all. Agree it seems like the car is just being too cautious - maybe it thinks it's colder than it is, or somehow it's acting like I'm in range mode with limited cooling available for the battery (thinking about it I also find the aircon to be a bit feeble so maybe there's a connection there).

I just went out to the car to double and triple check that range mode is not turned on!

- - - Updated - - -


Excellent reference thanks. Yes, that is exactly the behaviour I see when driving - the dotted line appears, but the solid yellow line goes beyond it (though not all the way to 320). There didn't seem to be a firm conclusion on that thread as to whether it was a) OK and/or b) common.

The loaner car yesterday had been left set to range charge by the SC, so when I went out to test this it was at very high SOC. Maybe I'll range charge mine and see if it makes a difference.
 
I've seen that on my car the last two times I did a full range charge (258 miles). However, the limiting went away within 3-4 miles of driving. Running FW 5.12. Did not notice it on prior FW versions.
 
I've seen that on my car the last two times I did a full range charge (258 miles). However, the limiting went away within 3-4 miles of driving. Running FW 5.12. Did not notice it on prior FW versions.

Is this the bar on the regen side? (Indicating that regen isn't available on a full battery, or are you also seeing the bar on the usage side?)
 
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I was about to reply earlier today that I'd never seen the limiter above ~40 rated unless I was pushing the car hard (accelerator to the floor).

But then tonite I got a new data point without pushing the car at all. In fact it was on cruise control for several miles before this displayed.

CAM00307_Scaled.jpg


58 rated miles
Cruise @ 77mph
64°F
Limiter below 320 kW


(For the record, my passenger took the picture.)
 
#1 - I only get the "persistent" limiter whine in the 20-30 miles remaining range (variability due to temp?).

#2 - When under 40% I can get a "momentary" limiter at the top of the range if I floor it for more than just a bit. You have to be watching for it as it tends to appear within the shaded swept area of the power meter, and it disappears as soon as the needle swings back below the limit.

(I wonder if those who claim never to have seen #2 under those circumstances may have thought you were speaking of a persistent limiter after having floored it once or twice?)
 
I often get the dashed line when I'm down to the 40's, but it's 100f+/38c+ here a lot of the time in the summer, so I'm not really surprised. But in the UK, anything above 25c for 2 days is classified a heatwave, but I doubt the Model S cares. So...

1. Yes, all the time. If I nail it, the dotted line appears almost immediately as I get close to the 320 mark
2. When it's hot, yes.

I'm off to get 'Let it go' out of my head now.
 
I often get the dashed line when I'm down to the 40's, but it's 100f+/38c+ here a lot of the time in the summer, so I'm not really surprised. But in the UK, anything above 25c for 2 days is classified a heatwave, but I doubt the Model S cares. So...

1. Yes, all the time. If I nail it, the dotted line appears almost immediately as I get close to the 320 mark
2. When it's hot, yes.

I'm off to get 'Let it go' out of my head now.

Ha! I had the same thought after reading the first post. :)
 
I was about to reply earlier today that I'd never seen the limiter above ~40 rated unless I was pushing the car hard (accelerator to the floor).

But then tonite I got a new data point without pushing the car at all. In fact it was on cruise control for several miles before this displayed.

View attachment 56576

58 rated miles
Cruise @ 77mph
64°F
Limiter below 320 kW


(For the record, my passenger took the picture.)
I thought you were supposed to pixilate the speed :wink:
 
I range charged overnight and took the car out this morning.

I did just about manage to make the dotted line appear at very high power and high speeds, but it was much rarer. So it does seem to be related to state of charge. I'll let the car come down to 40% or so and then do the same thing again to confirm.

Still, it's fascinating how half the people on the thread seem to say this is everyday behaviour for their car, and the other half say they've never seen it!