Model S road trip energy usage

One Gear · May 2, 2015

I've done the Canberra to Sydney trip a few times now. Here's a short video showing my experience with energy usage for a round trip in good weather. Might be of interest. It would be good to share experiences as we all get a handle on the capabilities of the car. My experience so far is that it does the Canberra to Sydney run with no worries.

Canberra to Sydney good weather road trip energy usage | Tesla Model S | Australia - YouTube

TesAus · May 2, 2015

One Gear said:
I've done the Canberra to Sydney trip a few times now. Here's a short video showing my experience with energy usage for a round trip in good weather. Might be of interest. It would be good to share experiences as we all get a handle on the capabilities of the car. My experience so far is that it does the Canberra to Sydney run with no worries.

Canberra to Sydney good weather road trip energy usage | Tesla Model S | Australia - YouTube

Another interesting and well put together video. Good to see that the trip can be comfortably made at posted speeds. Also encouraging to see that the trip planner was reasonably accurate.

danielp · May 3, 2015

Nice write up. I've done the trip many times and those numbers are very similar. I also did the trip during the last big storm - that consumed another 12%.

I am very curious to see how usage on this run as the weather gets cooler. The Goulburn SC may be useful then.

One Gear · May 4, 2015

danielp said:
Nice write up. I've done the trip many times and those numbers are very similar. I also did the trip during the last big storm - that consumed another 12%.

I am very curious to see how usage on this run as the weather gets cooler. The Goulburn SC may be useful then.

I too did a Canberra to Sydney run in the terrible weather - I'm hoping to have a video on that soon.

moemoke · May 6, 2015

I'm curious to know what you guys do with the regenerative braking settin when on a highway cruise, do you switch it off
so you can lift of the accelerater and coast down the longer hills. Or is it better for range to leave the regen on a higher setting
and not coast so much so that you can put some power back into the battery.
It might be interesting to compare the two methods.

TesAus · May 6, 2015

moemoke said:
I'm curious to know what you guys do with the regenerative braking settin when on a highway cruise, do you switch it off
so you can lift of the accelerater and coast down the longer hills. Or is it better for range to leave the regen on a higher setting
and not coast so much so that you can put some power back into the battery.
It might be interesting to compare the two methods.

I use cruise control and then the car uses regen as needed to slow the car to the set speed.

Dborn · May 6, 2015

The car reports energy usage lowest when on cruise control. I have not been able to match it while I am in control.

One Gear · May 6, 2015

moemoke said:
I'm curious to know what you guys do with the regenerative braking settin when on a highway cruise, do you switch it off
so you can lift of the accelerater and coast down the longer hills. Or is it better for range to leave the regen on a higher setting
and not coast so much so that you can put some power back into the battery.
It might be interesting to compare the two methods.

I always have regen set to standard. It's hard to imagine driving without it now. As TesAus says, on road trips, cruise control takes care of it all for the most efficient energy use.

moemoke · May 7, 2015

In my ICE car it feels like the cruise control would use more fuel as it accelerates up hills and holds the set speed down hills
where as with it off I can slow down a bit going up hills and creep over the limit going down hill and use that free speed for the next
up hill or long straight. Maybe the Tesla cruise is a bit smarter than mine!

MDK · May 7, 2015

The Tesla will also use more energy when you go uphill, but you get around 80% of it back when going down the other side.

It means you can let the cruise control do its thing and not have to worry about energy use.
Combined with the "traffic aware cruise control" you barely have to pay any attention to the speed at all, just focus on steering.
Until the autopilot lane-keeping update comes through, then you don't even have to worry about that.. just observe and monitor :biggrin:

One Gear · May 9, 2015

Here's another short video showing my experience with energy usage for a round trip between Canberra and Sydney in bad weather. Might be of interest. The Model S85 comfortably did the trip on a single charge for each leg even in bad weather (very bad on the trip back).

Canberra to Sydney bad weather road trip energy usage | Tesla Model S | Australia - YouTube

ZTrekus · May 9, 2015

One Gear said:
Here's another short video showing my experience with energy usage for a round trip between Canberra and Sydney in bad weather. Might be of interest. The Model S85 comfortably did the trip on a single charge for each leg even in bad weather (very bad on the trip back).

Canberra to Sydney bad weather road trip energy usage | Tesla Model S | Australia - YouTube

A very good video One Gear. I don't believe the P85D would have made it back to Canberra.

baillies · May 9, 2015

Thanks One Gear, any range anxiety on the way back? 91% is cutting it a bit closer than normal, seems the Goulburn supercharger would be useful in a winter storm, hopefully they will cover it. Seems the range estimate did not factor in weather. I wonder if the weight also has an impact, especially up hill, maybe useful to be able to add weight into the estimator. I guess with air suspension Tesla maybe able to get an estimate of weight through a pressure sensor somehow.

raynewman · May 9, 2015

I am starting to appreciate how much hills (up or down change the numbers). On Thursday, I went Brisbane to Chincilla (300 KM) including going up the Toowoomba range which knocked the numbers down to having 78 KM left on arrival from a full charge.

On the way back on Friday, after coming down the Toowoomba range, my 50KM energy use average dropped well below 100 W/KM.

Going from Brisbane to Toowoomba is an elevation increase of over 2000 feet.

One Gear · May 9, 2015

baillies said:
Thanks One Gear, any range anxiety on the way back? 91% is cutting it a bit closer than normal, seems the Goulburn supercharger would be useful in a winter storm, hopefully they will cover it. Seems the range estimate did not factor in weather. I wonder if the weight also has an impact, especially up hill, maybe useful to be able to add weight into the estimator. I guess with air suspension Tesla maybe able to get an estimate of weight through a pressure sensor somehow.

I had no range anxiety at all. I feel pretty confident that the car can make that leg in one charge in just about anything. The weather was pretty awful for that return journey. Elevation, weight, wind and the very heavy rain, combined with a high speed limit of 110kph, all would have had a significant impact on range (just as they would have for an ICE car).

lonewolf313 · May 9, 2015

raynewman said:
I am starting to appreciate how much hills (up or down change the numbers). On Thursday, I went Brisbane to Chincilla (300 KM) including going up the Toowoomba range which knocked the numbers down to having 78 KM left on arrival from a full charge.

Hi Ray

Not owning a Tesla myself, when you range charged from Brisbane to drive over the Toowoomba Range, what was the car showing as estimated distance with 100% battery at the start of your journey

I've seen YouTube videos of Bjorn Nyland (from Norway) with a P85 and on 100% charge, he only has an estimated range of 400km (on a car which has already travelled more than 100,000 km)

For you to drive 300km and still have 78km left over an elevation of 2000ft is still quite amazing

raynewman · May 9, 2015

lonewolf313 said:
Hi Ray

Not owning a Tesla myself, when you range charged from Brisbane to drive over the Toowoomba Range, what was the car showing as estimated distance with 100% battery at the start of your journey

I've seen YouTube videos of Bjorn Nyland (from Norway) with a P85 and on 100% charge, he only has an estimated range of 400km (on a car which has already travelled more than 100,000 km)

For you to drive 300km and still have 78km left over an elevation of 2000ft is still quite amazing

Range charge on my machine is 502 KM.

lonewolf313 · May 9, 2015

Interesting, your car actually shows 502km when 100% charged. I thought that was a figure created by Tesla (as a factory benchmark) but not really achievable in the real world. Better for them to say the car can reach 502km on 100% rather than 485km

So theoretically, on your return journey (downhill from Toowoomba to Brisbane), you could get around 580km on a full charge to zero km.

Given that you lost approx 120km on your uphill run and reclaiming 80% of that loss on the downhill run back to Brisbane

raynewman · May 9, 2015

lonewolf313 said:
Interesting, your car actually shows 502km when 100% charged. I thought that was a figure created by Tesla (as a factory benchmark) but not really achievable in the real world. Better for them to say the car can reach 502km on 100% rather than 485km

So theoretically, on your return journey (downhill from Toowoomba to Brisbane), you could get around 580km on a full charge to zero km.

Given that you lost approx 120km on your uphill run and reclaiming 80% of that loss on the downhill run back to Brisbane

I have seen it show 504 KM but 502 is more usual. Chincilla itself is at about 1000 feet elevation so the calculation is a little more complex.
Also powering past road trains on the way out probably made a difference

Having said all that, after a previous long and slow downhill run, the expected range after a full charge was over 700KM.

TesAus · May 9, 2015

raynewman said:
Range charge on my machine is 502 KM.

It depends whether you have the range estimate set to typical (based upon your actual historical usage - probably something around 200Wh per km) or the theoretical (based upon 181Wh per km). I use the typical as it is more accurate gauge for typical usage.

Model S road trip energy usage

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