Explain range

[greencharge]

Somebody please explain
this to me - 3 day old with the car - how does my range go from 240 miles from a full charge to 110 miles after less than 50 miles of driving, please see the attached screenshots, understanding the car and range was good yesterday, does a battery low on charge discharge slowly and a full charge discharge rapidly? Is the battery pack performance standardized?

 

[stopcrazypp]

My guess: you lost charge while it was parked. And I'm going to also guess it was cold (which would make the car lose charge more rapidly, plus it will cost you charge to warm up the battery). Almost 100 miles is a lot though. Are you sure it said 240 when it finished charging?

It's an entirely different matter though if you started the trip with 240 miles and ended with 110 miles after travelling only 44 miles.

 

[stevezzzz]

It's a bit of a mystery. You only used 13.3 kWh to go 43.5 miles (pretty good numbers, BTW: right on the usage needed to achieve full Rated range). Did you happen to notice what the dash showed when you started driving, as opposed to what it showed when you finished charging? It's not inconceivable in cold ambient temperatures to see a range loss of up to about 1 mile per hour due to vampire losses and pack heating: anything more than that and I would suspect you have a service issue.

There's an extensive discussion of vampire losses elsewhere on TMC: for now, just know that Tesla's working on reinstating sleep mode, which was introduced a few software updates ago and had to be disabled because of issues with some cars not re-awakening properly.

Power drain while idle (Vampire Load) - Page 40

 

[scriptacus]

Numbers don't add up at all, even counting losses. Assuming he started at 240, drove 43 and let the car sit around for a full 3 days losing 1 mile/hour he'd still be at 125.

 

[greencharge]

I started with 243 mile rated range in the morning after a standard overnight charge, my driving was local. partly pedal and partly cruise control. few occasions of acceleration to push the car. The temp was 34 to 48 F today and sunny in southern Illinois. The variables don't add up and I hope service and the car logs have something to explain. Thanks guys for replying.

 

[Jason S]

photos don't match description, so I'm going to ignore most of the description...

How do you know that the car was ever fully charged? I'm looking at photos showing 110 miles of range with less than half of the battery charged -- which makes perfect sense.

 

[FlasherZ]

I'd say you have a bit of a mystery. Charge it up to full again, make sure it says 240. Take it for a drive. Use the app (if you can) to see if it's abnormally drawing more power while it's sitting. See if it does it again.

 

[ElSupreme]

Also energy used when the car is 'off' won't show up on your energy usage. If you were 'preheating' the cabin for long periods of time at a high temperature you could suck down some significant power.

But my assumption is that your car didn't fully charge for whatever reason. I always plug in my car when I get home. I immediately stop it (wait for ToU cost to get better). I regularly get weird screens like what you show, because my car wasn't fully charged when I left, but it 'charged' for about 5-10 seconds. Then at 11:05pm my phone alarm goes off, and I start charging with my phone app.

No 4.3 for me yet.

 

[greencharge]

Service suggested we monitor the car today and so far it has standard charged 240 miles as everyday and is holding, it's good as long as it doesn't happen again. Service is very responsive.

 

[greencharge]

240 miles from standard charge minus 85 town and motor way miles equalled 137 miles of projected range and 18 vanished miles. This is acceptable, not worried today.

 

[greencharge]

13 miles vampired on 85 miles driven yesterday and 30 miles vanished on the 65 miles driven today, today was rainy and cloudy with fogging needing defrosting a lot.

 

[yobigd20]

Are you on 4.3 or 4.2? In 4.3, they changed the way the calculations were made because they were not accurate. On 4.2, I believe in the cold the miles reduce even though the battery energy may still be in the batteries so the displays are not correct and when continuing to drive the miles remaining reduce at a "lower rate" than normal (this is how miles are "regained"). On 4.3, I wouldn't expect to see this type of calculation error even if the car was unplugged for 3 days in the cold.

 

[Zythryn]

13 miles vampired on 85 miles driven yesterday and 30 miles vanished on the 65 miles driven today, today was rainy and cloudy with fogging needing defrosting a lot.

It would be helpful if you gave us the Watts/mile average for the trips. If you use the defroster a lot, or in stop and go traffic a lot, the car will lose range more quickly. The 'Range' assumes a specific Watts/mile. If you use more Watts/mile you will get less Han rated range. If you use less Watts/mile you will get greater range (like I did yesterday, yay spring!).
I think you are confusing vampire losses (which occur when the car is off) and not getting full rated range. If not, my apologies.

 

[montgom626]

Drive it for a few weeks, then you will know enough to make a decision.

 

[bluetinc]

Hey Greencharge,

It's confusing to figure out what is going on from you descriptions and without more specific detail. I'm trying to parse what you are saying but I think that some terminology may be getting mixed up. Here are some notes & thoughts:

Vampire load: The use of energy to run the cars electronics (which currently run 24/7) causes a loss of "rated miles" of between 12-20 miles a day.

You don't mention outside temperatures. These have an impact on energy use.

You don't mention if you are looking at "rated range" after the car sat outside in the cold overnight. If so, there is a bug in how "rated range" is displayed when the battery is cold that makes it look like you have lost energy when in actuality you have not. This bug has only recently been corrected in 4.3. You can check which software version you have by touching the T on the touch screen.

When you mention "vanished" and "vampired" I'm confused on the exact situation that you are describing. Did you unplug the car, get in, note that the "rated range" was say 235, then go on a 85 mile drive, and then have the display show your "rated range" at 137 as you got out of the car? Could you give us a lot more detail?

Peter

13 miles vampired on 85 miles driven yesterday and 30 miles vanished on the 65 miles driven today, today was rainy and cloudy with fogging needing defrosting a lot.

 

[greencharge]

My mistake about the terminology, I am referring to the miles lost on the road because of using HVAC, acceleration , uneven roads and probably load in the car - 4 adults and 3 kids. The miles lost in the garage were less than 3 on both the days.

 

[bluetinc]

Ah, good. In that case the most important detail that you left out was speed. Your speed is going to have more of an effect on your energy usage than any other factor. You can play around with predicted ranges here to get a better feel for things and make sure that you are seeing about what you should from the car.

Your Questions Answered | Tesla Motors

Peter

My mistake about the terminology, I am referring to the miles lost on the road because of using HVAC, acceleration , uneven roads and probably load in the car - 4 adults and 3 kids. The miles lost in the garage were less than 3 on both the days.