I can't stand waiting for the S85D to become CPO!!!

[No2DinosaurFuel]

You're using the word inefficient in conjunction with an electric car? Seriously?

According to Tesla the difference between an S85 RWD and an S85D is 5 miles EPA, which will translate to about 1 mile in real life. Personally I would jump on a CPO S85 with autopilot if I was the OP.

Check out the EPA range in CITY and HWY between the 85D and S85. Major difference. You can go much further on the same battery. You are looking at an average of 30-35 miles if you just do HWY calculation. In real world, it might be closer to 20 miles. But still 20 miles can mean the difference between getting there and getting stranded on road trips.
Gas Mileage of 2015 Tesla Model S

 

[SabrToothSqrl]

I don't know why anyone cares so much. My boat gets 3 MPG on a good day... the jet skis... peak around 4 MPG and are two stroke.
The Tahoe manages to barely hit 9.9 towing said boat. Single weekend I can easily turn 100+ gallons of gasoline into adrenaline.

I bought my Tesla because it's hella fast, hella fun, and hi-tech. Cleaner air is just the icing on the cake 89 MPGe, 99 MPGe... it's all good...

 

[Max*]

Check out the EPA range in CITY and HWY between the 85D and S85. Major difference. You can go much further on the same battery. You are looking at an average of 30-35 miles if you just do HWY calculation. In real world, it might be closer to 20 miles. But still 20 miles can mean the difference between getting there and getting stranded on road trips.
Gas Mileage of 2015 Tesla Model S

If your site is correct in quoting the EPA averages, then all the EPA averages on TeslaMotors are wrong.

 

[kuttakamina]

Model S70D - much less HWY range than the 85D. I predict closer to 50 miles loss compared to the S85D in same condition. But more efficient in the CITY which I don't care about. Pass...
.

Ok I am not sure where you pulled that 50 mile figure from. EPA ratings on highway driving quote a difference of 30. And that is under the best possible conditions. In the real world, it'll be more like 20.

And yes 20 miles is a long distance to walk (just in case), but even at 110v, it's 5 hours on the plug. And visit plugshare, blink, chargepoint, or rvparking, and realistically speaking we are talking an hour to charge - in the very rare circumstance of
a) you miscalculating distance
b) you were taking a long trip not covered by super chargers

Range is NOT a ding against 70D, unless long distance driving is all you do.
Now if you argued the 0.8 second faster acceleration - sure! Still you're not gonna floor it all the time.

 

[Tamar]

You know, by the time the 85D CPOs become available, there will be some other "must have" feature that is only in the latest cars....it's the nature of the beast.

 

[Max*]

Ok I am not sure where you pulled that 50 mile figure from. EPA ratings on highway driving quote a difference of 30. And that is under the best possible conditions. In the real world, it'll be more like 20.

And yes 20 miles is a long distance to walk (just in case), but even at 110v, it's 5 hours on the plug. And visit plugshare, blink, chargepoint, or rvparking, and realistically speaking we are talking an hour to charge - in the very rare circumstance of
a) you miscalculating distance
b) you were taking a long trip not covered by super chargers

Range is NOT a ding against 70D, unless long distance driving is all you do.
Now if you argued the 0.8 second faster acceleration - sure! Still you're not gonna floor it all the time.

If you look at the EPA highway numbers in kwh/100miles, and use the full battery capacity kwh, he's right, it's about 50 mile difference.

So either Tesla did some funny math while quoting the EPA, or there is a typo on that page.

 

[kuttakamina]

If you look at the EPA highway numbers in kwh/100miles, and use the full battery capacity kwh, he's right, it's about 50 mile difference.
So either Tesla did some funny math while quoting the EPA, or there is a typo on that page.

Okay thats interesting. Just making sure I am following your math here,
Assuming 100% charge (which you are not going to do mostly) ..
Assuming perfect conditions (which again won't be the case mostly) ..

70D city - range - (100/33)*75 = 228miles
70D highway range - (100/33)*75 = 228miles
85D city - range - (100/35)*85 = 242miles
85D highway range - (100/32)*85 = 265miles

Tesla's numbers,
70D = 240miles
85D = 270miles

So even under the BEST circumstances, the MOST difference is still only 37 miles.

Factors that will reduce the above difference,
a) Weather
b) Battery life
c) You won't charge at 100% usuallly
d) Battery conversion efficiency



Also, this is a better page to compare ranges.
Compare Side-by-Side

So it's not Tesla saying that the range difference is 30 miles, its EPA saying this.
And their range calculation is extremely scientific and quite accurate considering real world situations.
Here is an interesting article on how EPA calculates range,
The Truth About EPA City / Highway MPG Estimates - Feature - Car and Driver

I'm still not seeing 50 miles, more like 25. What am I missing here?

 

[Max*]

Okay thats interesting. Just making sure I am following your math here,
Assuming 100% charge (which you are not going to do mostly) ..
Assuming perfect conditions (which again won't be the case mostly) ..

70D city - range - (100/33)*75 = 228miles
70D highway range - (100/33)*75 = 228miles
85D city - range - (100/35)*85 = 242miles
85D highway range - (100/32)*85 = 265miles

Tesla's numbers,
70D = 240miles
85D = 270miles

So even under the BEST circumstances, the MOST difference is still only 37 miles.

Factors that will reduce the above difference,
a) Weather
b) Battery life
c) You won't charge at 100% usuallly
d) Battery conversion efficiency

I'm still not seeing 50 miles, more like 25. What am I missing here?

You're right, I screwed up. Not 50 miles, but also not Teslas rating.

 

[chriSharek]

Still you're not gonna floor it all the time.

I will! Even when a Deputy Sheriff is next to me!

- - - Updated - - -

You know, by the time the 85D CPOs become available, there will be some other "must have" feature that is only in the latest cars....it's the nature of the beast.

+1!

(first time I've used this +1 thing!)

 

[kuttakamina]

I will! Even when a Deputy Sheriff is next to me!

Don't forget to post your selfies here as you are getting arrested, so we can all pontificate.
And yes +1 on what Tamar said.

 

[mwulff]

Check out the EPA range in CITY and HWY between the 85D and S85. Major difference. You can go much further on the same battery. You are looking at an average of 30-35 miles if you just do HWY calculation. In real world, it might be closer to 20 miles. But still 20 miles can mean the difference between getting there and getting stranded on road trips.
Gas Mileage of 2015 Tesla Model S

Funny thing is though that when tested with NEDC (New European driving cycle) both wind up at around 502 km's of range. Now this test is not really a real world test but it does show that the efficiency gains by going AWD are miniscule.

Personally 10-20 miles more of range (at best) doesn't really matter to me, I will have passed by a supercharger long before that.

So unless the OP needs 10 more miles of range every singe day, I see no loss in going with a CPO S85 RWD.

 

[No2DinosaurFuel]

What people fail to take in account is a few things:

1) EPA range is CITY and HWY combined. So if you are using it only on the HWY, it will be different, presumably better.

2) The EPA MGPE is actually determined at the charger so you have to take into account. Therefore, it maybe look like you put more in than you really got because of charging inefficiencies. So the EPA 32KWh for the S85D is actually less when you are driving it. This is why most people can get 290-320Wh/mi instead of the 340-260Wh/mi on the EPA website for the S85. The tesla measures what goes out of the battery. EPA measures what goes into charger. These are 2 different numbers. Ultimately I think what goes in is more what people care about because that determines the cost of the "fuel" for the car.

3) HWY range is what people should really care about at this point for EV. Especially for a Tesla. If you are in the city, you will always be close enough to a charger to not care if your car can go 80 miles per charge or 300 miles per charge. You can just stop and charge. However in between cities, you will be stranded if you cannot make it to the next city. Therefore, this is why I think the EPA should separate the CITY and HWY range per charge and let people use each numbers to determine their needs.

I have done this calculation many times before but I will do it again for only HWY because this is when you care if you get 240 or 270 miles.

From this website:
Gas Mileage of 2015 Tesla Model S

Assuming 92% efficiency in charging. Most AC to DC converters are operating in this range. Note there are other factors involved like cooling/heating and such which can use more energy and make charging less efficient. I think 92% is a good average.

Wiki says 1 gallon gasoline has 33.7KWh of energy
Miles per gallon gasoline equivalent - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

From the EPA website,

S85 on HWY gets 90 miles for every 33.7KWh you put into your car
S85D on HWY gets you 106 miles for every 33.7KWh you put into your car
S70D on HWY gets you 102 miles for every 33.7KWh you put into your car

factor in the charging inefficiencies, you are looking at:
S85 on HWY gets 90 miles for every 31KWh you use during your drive. (33.7KWh*0.92 = 31.004KWh)
S85D on HWY you get 106 miles ...
S70D on HWY you get 102 miles ...

The 85KWh battery has about 75KWh of usable capacity. The rest is reserved. Using this number, you can use 88.2% of the battery for driving.
This means 70KWh battery has about 61.76KWh of usable capacity.

This means:
S85 can go a total of: (75KWh/31KWh)*90 miles = 217.74 miles before needing to recharge.
S85D can go a total of: (75KWh/31KWh)*106 miles = 256.45 miles before needing to recharge.
S70D can go a total of: (61.76/31KWh)*102 miles = 203.21 miles before needing to recharge.

Now this is using the EPA numbers. Other members might claim they get more range than this. And I agree, but keep in mind, this is EPA standards meaning they are going pretty fast during the drive and using the climate control settings and this is an average in some non-ideal conditions. So these numbers are probably be in the lower range of what you will typically get. You can most likely do better than these numbers if you have tail wind, 70F temperature, flat road with little to no stops, etc. to maximize your range.

Looking at these numbers, you can see the S85D has about 38.71 miles over the S85 and the S85 has a measly 14.53 miles over the S70D. Hence my point of why the S85 is inefficient compared to the AWD version of Teslas.

From a S85D reference, the 38.71 miles is worth the $5K over a new S85.
And the 53.24 miles is definitely worth the $10K over a new 70D.

With a used CPO S85 being much cheaper, then it might be worth a 2nd look, but keep in mind the CPO do NOT qualify for federal tax credit and/or state so the savings might be a lot less.

All in all, after determining the right range and such, I opted to hold out for either a CPO or new S85D just to get the max range out of the Model S.

- - - Updated - - -

Funny thing is though that when tested with NEDC (New European driving cycle) both wind up at around 502 km's of range. Now this test is not really a real world test but it does show that the efficiency gains by going AWD are miniscule.

Personally 10-20 miles more of range (at best) doesn't really matter to me, I will have passed by a supercharger long before that.

So unless the OP needs 10 more miles of range every singe day, I see no loss in going with a CPO S85 RWD.

Unless you are driving the car in Europe, it's pointless IMO to use the NEDC numbers. Remember in America with vast space and open HWY, we really care about the HWY. There might be HWY over in the Europe, but they are drastically different than here in the US. I suspect the NEDC numbers are highly biased towards CITY driving which is not really a concern for us Yankees. : )

 

[kuttakamina]

@No2DinosaurFuel,

I follow your logic above, but EPA numbers are calculated a bit like this --

Charge the car to 100%, and use a very standard rela world method to calcuate range.
It can't get any truer than that.
Your calculation logic above, is like bouncing electrons to guess the shape of a molecule, when EPA numbers are like showing you a 1080p picture of the molecule.

Doesn't matter what the battery efficiency is, calculation etc. is, they have done standardized real world tests, and they have no reason to lie.
Our politicians may be fullashit, but govt. agencies, most of them , don;t like to do one company any favors over another, certainly not one model over another from the same company.

Also, lets examine some real world experience from existing S85 users.
We don't have a lot of data for the D's, but lets see the S's.

Look at this thread - Model S: Battery Charging

BTW, at the end of this thread, you will find some real world 85D expeeriences as well,
Real World Comparison of a S85 to an 85D Efficiency - Page 8

Most people are averaging around 300-350wh/mi.
On a 80% charge that is still 214 mile range to 250 mile range.
Either way, it is far higher than your calculated 217.74 miles.

Certainly some really aggressive drivers, or people who live in hills etc. are getting much worse numbers too!

OKAY LETS SAY, you are right and EPA numbers are wrong.
What does it mean in real life.

It means, for the rare occasions where you,
a) Are on a long trip,
b) Are on a long trip not served by super chargers,
c) And with the 10K saved, you cheaped out and didn't get a ICE rental (or really wanted to take the Tesla with you..)

.. you are looking at stopping at J1772 (they are everywhere), for an 2 extra hours to make up for the difference.
And as the charging network improves, this problem will also go away. I have been observing the charging network for the past 4 years very keenly, and it has improved quite a bit.
With more EVs on the road, it'll only get better. (Well but the damn gas prices are edging lower again - still gas is still not cheap!)

I don't see me caught by #a && #b && #c == true .. really that often.
In fact, in the last 10 years, it's happened twice!

But everyone's needs are different, if your primary purpose is to take your Tesla on cross country tours all the time, then by all means 85D is the better choice.

That said, the best judge is real world experience. I'm getting my 70d in another month or so, will let ya know


People are getting EPA quoted ranges in the real world. I don't see why I can't trust EPA on 70D.

One last point, google for "torque sleep" "range mode". That pretty much throws the basic Kwh calculation between S85 and 85D out the window.

 

[chriSharek]

This whole thread makes me feel really good I went for the 85D. 94 days to D day!

 

[No2DinosaurFuel]

@No2DinosaurFuel,

I follow your logic above, but EPA numbers are calculated a bit like this --

Charge the car to 100%, and use a very standard rela world method to calcuate range.
It can't get any truer than that.
Your calculation logic above, is like bouncing electrons to guess the shape of a molecule, when EPA numbers are like showing you a 1080p picture of the molecule.

Doesn't matter what the battery efficiency is, calculation etc. is, they have done standardized real world tests, and they have no reason to lie.
Our politicians may be fullashit, but govt. agencies, most of them , don;t like to do one company any favors over another, certainly not one model over another from the same company.

Also, lets examine some real world experience from existing S85 users.
We don't have a lot of data for the D's, but lets see the S's.

Look at this thread - Model S: Battery Charging

BTW, at the end of this thread, you will find some real world 85D expeeriences as well,
Real World Comparison of a S85 to an 85D Efficiency - Page 8

Most people are averaging around 300-350wh/mi.
On a 80% charge that is still 214 mile range to 250 mile range.
Either way, it is far higher than your calculated 217.74 miles.

Certainly some really aggressive drivers, or people who live in hills etc. are getting much worse numbers too!

OKAY LETS SAY, you are right and EPA numbers are wrong.
What does it mean in real life.

It means, for the rare occasions where you,
a) Are on a long trip,
b) Are on a long trip not served by super chargers,
c) And with the 10K saved, you cheaped out and didn't get a ICE rental (or really wanted to take the Tesla with you..)

.. you are looking at stopping at J1772 (they are everywhere), for an 2 extra hours to make up for the difference.
And as the charging network improves, this problem will also go away. I have been observing the charging network for the past 4 years very keenly, and it has improved quite a bit.
With more EVs on the road, it'll only get better. (Well but the damn gas prices are edging lower again - still gas is still not cheap!)

I don't see me caught by #a && #b && #c == true .. really that often.
In fact, in the last 10 years, it's happened twice!

But everyone's needs are different, if your primary purpose is to take your Tesla on cross country tours all the time, then by all means 85D is the better choice.

That said, the best judge is real world experience. I'm getting my 70d in another month or so, will let ya know


People are getting EPA quoted ranges in the real world. I don't see why I can't trust EPA on 70D.

One last point, google for "torque sleep" "range mode". That pretty much throws the basic Kwh calculation between S85 and 85D out the window.

So ehat you are saying is the epa got those hwy numbers WITHOUT using the range mode and torque sleep mode? If so does this mean the S85D actually a lot more efficient car? All the better news.

I wont argue more chargers are coming up, but having to charge 2 extra hours just to be the same as the s85d everytime is not worth my time on road trip.

And what i like about epa numbers are they are using some standard test. I have a feeling some s85 drivers are driving the car more efficiently by doing all the technique to maximize range. All the meanwhile, the s85d drivers are doing the opposite and claiming they get similar range.

I suspect if all else equal, the s85 will run out of juice and the s85d will continue to go for another 30-50 miles in the same condition on hwy only.

 

[Max*]

What people fail to take in account is a few things:

1) EPA range is CITY and HWY combined. So if you are using it only on the HWY, it will be different, presumably better.

Huh? Did you click your own link? The EPA range is divided among highway and city.

Also this is an EV, not an ICE. Constant speed on the highway would use more charge than constant speed in the city.

I'm not arguing about which car is "better" (85D obviously), or which car can go further (again, 85D obviously). BUT I don't trust your math... I'm not sure all your conversions are accurate, but I can't put my finger on where the error is. Also I'm sure not all your assumptions are accurate (see below).

That being said, your own math between EPA range and kwh/100miles doesn't convert -- you have a large enough discrepancy.

- - - Updated - - -

Personally 10-20 miles more of range (at best) doesn't really matter to me, I will have passed by a supercharger long before that.

I agree (and got a 70D), but playing devils advocate -- it's not just about the 10-20 miles, it's also longer charging times at the supercharger.


So if you're someone who takes roadtrips every week, in an area without a lot of superchargers, the 85D is 100% the way to go. If you're someone like me who takes only the occasional roadtrip, up and down the east coast with an abundance of superchargers, eh... I decided it's not worth it.

- - - Updated - - -

.. you are looking at stopping at J1772 (they are everywhere), for an 2 extra hours to make up for the difference.

That would be a deal breaker for me.

- - - Updated - - -

I have a feeling some s85 drivers are driving the car more efficiently by doing all the technique to maximize range. All the meanwhile, the s85d drivers are doing the opposite and claiming they get similar range.

Seriously? That's a very huge generalization, and might even qualify as a strawman argument...

 

[Max*]

Okay thats interesting. Just making sure I am following your math here,
Assuming 100% charge (which you are not going to do mostly) ..
Assuming perfect conditions (which again won't be the case mostly) ..

70D city - range - (100/33)*75 = 228miles
70D highway range - (100/33)*75 = 228miles
85D city - range - (100/35)*85 = 242miles
85D highway range - (100/32)*85 = 265miles

Tesla's numbers,
70D = 240miles
85D = 270miles

So even under the BEST circumstances, the MOST difference is still only 37 miles.

Factors that will reduce the above difference,
a) Weather
b) Battery life
c) You won't charge at 100% usuallly
d) Battery conversion efficiency



Also, this is a better page to compare ranges.
Compare Side-by-Side

So it's not Tesla saying that the range difference is 30 miles, its EPA saying this.
And their range calculation is extremely scientific and quite accurate considering real world situations.
Here is an interesting article on how EPA calculates range,
The Truth About EPA City / Highway MPG Estimates - Feature - Car and Driver

I'm still not seeing 50 miles, more like 25. What am I missing here?

Aha, I found the error in your math. Now to find the error in the other math...


Now back to my original point, Tesla claims 240miles EPA range. EPA claims 212. That's a HUGE discrepancy.

 

[kuttakamina]

Aha, I found the error in your math. Now to find the error in the other math...


Now back to my original point, Tesla claims 240miles EPA range. EPA claims 212. That's a HUGE discrepancy.

EPA claims 240 for 70D.
Where did you see the 212 figure?

 

[chriSharek]

Aha, I found the error in your math. Now to find the error in the other math...


Now back to my original point, Tesla claims 240miles EPA range. EPA claims 212. That's a HUGE discrepancy.

With the Model 3 down the road in a couple years, and slight battery degradation on the S, if you don't get an 85D now, your 70D may be about the equivalent of a Model 3.

Did I mention that I am glad I went with the 85D?

 

[kuttakamina]

With the Model 3 down the road in a couple years, and slight battery degradation on the S, if you don't get an 85D now, your 70D may be about the equivalent of a Model 3.

Did I mention that I am glad I went with the 85D?

model 3 is five years away.
And range isn't the only difference.
Yes you've mentioned that about 600 times now.