Today I drove from my home in North Bend, WA to the Coeur d'Alene, ID SuperCharger. Joining me in this was another TMC member ThortsMD who drove his Model S 85 with me. We met up at my house a little before 7am. Before we set off we made some effort to try to eliminate as many variables (i.e. differences) as possible.
State of Charge
His car is a fairly early (VIN in the 6XXX range) and has some battery degradation so we couldn't use percentage of charge to compare even though they have the same size battery. We also couldn't directly use rated range to compare since an S85 and 85D have different rated ranges. So we used the combined EPA kWh/100 miles number to estimate charge in the battery. He had 184 rated miles which when multiplied by the 0.38 kWh/mile comes out to 69.92 kWh in his pack. An 85D uses 0.34 kWh/mile which comes out to 205.6 miles so I charged my battery to 206 miles of range. It's hard to say if this is a valid way of calculating the energy in the battery. It's also not really clear if this is important.
Ultimately we gave up on even bothering with this after the first leg. The S85 had a A pack and charged slower and we had breakfast and it was going to be pain to try and manage this so we just didn't worry about it much on all the other legs.
Other Driving Parameters
We agreed to use 70°F as the climate setting. We agreed to drive at 73 mph excepting for areas where the speed limit drops and there's some construction through the pass. Both cars have 19" wheels. Mine has the Michelin Primacy tires, his had Goodyear Eagles. I had my fiancée along, so I had an extra passenger. I have tinted windows, he does not (which might some difference in the warmer part of the afternoon). Both cars have air suspension (but I didn't think to ask what his settings were for lowering the car). Neither car used range mode in any of the driving we did.
For the legs to Coeur d'Alene the S85 was in the lead and the 85D followed with TACC. For the legs back to North Bend we reversed things and the S85 followed the 85D.
Data
We probably didn't do the best job keeping track of data. I did have VisibleTesla running for my car which provides a lot more data but ThortsMD had never used it and given the recent access issues with it we didn't bother to try getting it working for his car. Unfortunately we didn't track exactly the same info however we both kept track of the most important bits which was the kWh used and the Wh/mile. I kept track of the distance of the drives and the rough temperature during the drive.
* This number should be slightly lower since ThortsMD missed resetting the trip and didn't charge at my house before leaving. He realized this roughly a third of a mile into our trip. So to some extent this first leg is suspect. However, since I hadn't driven any since the previous day I think some of the warming up of the car I did by way of running the climate system in my garage before leaving was included in this number. So I think this whole leg is suspect.
• ThortsMD apparently didn't write this information down. I've calculated these by using kWh = (Wh/mile * miles) / 1000. Unfortunately the miles are from the 85D and not the S85 so it's not as accurate as it could be but close enough. The Total values are what ThortsMD provided me but he adjusted them slightly to deal with the trip not being reset till about a third of a mile in. So between that and the missing values it won't add up exactly.
Trip Info for 85D from Visible Tesla
This is links to the HTML exports of the trips between superchargers from VisibleTesla. The first and last trips to/from my home are omitted since this includes detailed mapping information. Yes I'm sure someone can figure out where I live anyway, please don't feel the need to prove this by being creepy. Distance is a little off here because VisibleTesla cut the trips in slightly different places. I don't have the same information for the S85 since it wasn't being monitored by VisibleTesla. There is also some gaps in the data due to the lack of cellular service along some of this route.
Ellensburg to Ritzville
Ritzville to Coeur d'Alene
Coeur d'Alene to Ritzville
Ritzville to Ellensburg
Conclusions
It's hard to make any conclusions. The 85D clearly used more energy but the following things might have contributed to that.
When we were driving this today it seemed like we were a lot further off than sitting here now looking at the data. I suspect that the extra passenger really was the difference.
I can probably publish a lot more data from my 85D, but without the corresponding data from the S85 I'm not sure how interesting it is. I suspect we'll do another drive sometime in the future compare further.
State of Charge
His car is a fairly early (VIN in the 6XXX range) and has some battery degradation so we couldn't use percentage of charge to compare even though they have the same size battery. We also couldn't directly use rated range to compare since an S85 and 85D have different rated ranges. So we used the combined EPA kWh/100 miles number to estimate charge in the battery. He had 184 rated miles which when multiplied by the 0.38 kWh/mile comes out to 69.92 kWh in his pack. An 85D uses 0.34 kWh/mile which comes out to 205.6 miles so I charged my battery to 206 miles of range. It's hard to say if this is a valid way of calculating the energy in the battery. It's also not really clear if this is important.
Ultimately we gave up on even bothering with this after the first leg. The S85 had a A pack and charged slower and we had breakfast and it was going to be pain to try and manage this so we just didn't worry about it much on all the other legs.
Other Driving Parameters
We agreed to use 70°F as the climate setting. We agreed to drive at 73 mph excepting for areas where the speed limit drops and there's some construction through the pass. Both cars have 19" wheels. Mine has the Michelin Primacy tires, his had Goodyear Eagles. I had my fiancée along, so I had an extra passenger. I have tinted windows, he does not (which might some difference in the warmer part of the afternoon). Both cars have air suspension (but I didn't think to ask what his settings were for lowering the car). Neither car used range mode in any of the driving we did.
For the legs to Coeur d'Alene the S85 was in the lead and the 85D followed with TACC. For the legs back to North Bend we reversed things and the S85 followed the 85D.
Data
We probably didn't do the best job keeping track of data. I did have VisibleTesla running for my car which provides a lot more data but ThortsMD had never used it and given the recent access issues with it we didn't bother to try getting it working for his car. Unfortunately we didn't track exactly the same info however we both kept track of the most important bits which was the kWh used and the Wh/mile. I kept track of the distance of the drives and the rough temperature during the drive.
Leg | Distance in miles | Temperature | S85 kWh Used | S85 Wh/mile | 85D kWh Used | 85D Wh/mile |
North Bend to Ellensburg | 77.5 | 50°F leaving North Bend (not entirely sure this is accurate but it's what the car said), 34°F at summit, 37°F at Ellensburg | 28.7* | 380* | 30.8 | 397 |
Ellensburg to Ritzville | 114.0 | 46°F leaving Ellensburg, 54°F arriving Ritzville | 40.3 | 353 | 41.6 | 365 |
Ritzville to Coeur d'Alene | 92.2 | 59°F leaving Ritzville, 59°F arriving Coeur d'Alene | 29.8 | 323 | 31.1 | 337 |
Coeur d'Alene to Ritzville | 91.9 | 61°F leaving Coeur d'Alene, 63°F Arriving Ritzville | 27.8• | 303 | 30.7 | 334 |
Ritzville to Ellensburg | 113.9 | 67°F leaving Ritzville, 62°F arriving Ellensburg | 35.2• | 309 | 38.4 | 338 |
Ellensburg to North Bend | 77.3 | 59°F leaving Ellensburg, 48°F arriving North Bend | 23.9 | 310 | 25.9 | 336 |
Total | 566.8 | 185.9• | 329 | 198.5 | 350 |
• ThortsMD apparently didn't write this information down. I've calculated these by using kWh = (Wh/mile * miles) / 1000. Unfortunately the miles are from the 85D and not the S85 so it's not as accurate as it could be but close enough. The Total values are what ThortsMD provided me but he adjusted them slightly to deal with the trip not being reset till about a third of a mile in. So between that and the missing values it won't add up exactly.
Trip Info for 85D from Visible Tesla
This is links to the HTML exports of the trips between superchargers from VisibleTesla. The first and last trips to/from my home are omitted since this includes detailed mapping information. Yes I'm sure someone can figure out where I live anyway, please don't feel the need to prove this by being creepy. Distance is a little off here because VisibleTesla cut the trips in slightly different places. I don't have the same information for the S85 since it wasn't being monitored by VisibleTesla. There is also some gaps in the data due to the lack of cellular service along some of this route.
Ellensburg to Ritzville
Ritzville to Coeur d'Alene
Coeur d'Alene to Ritzville
Ritzville to Ellensburg
Conclusions
It's hard to make any conclusions. The 85D clearly used more energy but the following things might have contributed to that.
- The 85D started the trip with 1,556 miles on the odometer. It's possible that various parts haven't had enough mileage to settle in. I believe the EPA tests were done with vehicles had 3,000 miles on the odometer.
- Difference in the tires. Different brands of tires on top of the 85D tires being relatively new and the S85 tires nearing time to replace them.
- The extra passenger in the 85D.
- TACC being less efficient than straight up cruise/human driving. There are times when it does things less efficiently. However, the trip from Ritzville to Ellensburg with the 85D in the lead there were only two occasions where TACC slowed below the set 73 mph due to traffic. Looking at the data now however, I'll notice that the 85D was closer when it was following on TACC cruise.
- The 85D itself could just be a tad less efficient when not used in range mode. We didn't do any range mode testing this time.
When we were driving this today it seemed like we were a lot further off than sitting here now looking at the data. I suspect that the extra passenger really was the difference.
I can probably publish a lot more data from my 85D, but without the corresponding data from the S85 I'm not sure how interesting it is. I suspect we'll do another drive sometime in the future compare further.
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