I see the benefits of battery percentage!

[Msjulie]

I was using miles but now percent and agree having both seems a pretty normal request. My car's battery range doesn't match with the energy app very well so I use percentage with a really brain dead conversion - 3 miles for every percent in the battery. It mostly is accurate, more so than what the battery miles suggests though I can't imagine why that should be true it just seems to be...

I'm in the camp that wishes more of this info would just always be available vs covering my map with the energy app, cool as it is - the screen is high enough resolution that more stuff could be displayed if a user wanted.. and I want it all sometimes!

 

[JulienW]

Yes - at least every car (ICE or not) I've owned in the last 20 years has a "Miles to Empty" indicator on the dash, which by the way is almost always more accurate than the analog gauge. The gauge itself is so vague it's basically worthless... Distance to Empty is always much more useful.

That is not absolute/EPA rated range but instead estimated range based on driving. Tesla shows absolute/EPA rated range and if you want to see the estimated range (like in your ICE cars) you must use the Energy Graph. I think Tesla should scrap the absolute/EPA rated range and display a more realistic estimated range instead. The absolute/EPA range causes nothing but confusion and problems plus accounts for a 100 threads a week of the "Why am I not getting xxx miles when I change to xxx%?".

 

[Rocky_H]

The % is just sticking your head in the sand so you don't worry about it. People were talking about it as the fuel gauges on their gas cars. Well, is this the car with the 10 gallon tank? The 15 gallon tank? The 20 gallon tank? Is this the Tesla with the 60 battery or the 100 battery? Am I driving the wife's car today? What does that 50% mean? It's all over the map with all of those differences. And people don't think in terms of places being % away from each other.

Rated miles is based on a pretty known unit, but yes, it's ballpark high and is usually a little optimistic. But that's enough that you can eye it and say, "OK, I have 81 miles to do, and the car shows 130--yeah, that'll work."

 

[dmurphy]

The % is just sticking your head in the sand so you don't worry about it. People were talking about it as the fuel gauges on their gas cars. Well, is this the car with the 10 gallon tank? The 15 gallon tank? The 20 gallon tank? Is this the Tesla with the 60 battery or the 100 battery? Am I driving the wife's car today? What does that 50% mean? It's all over the map with all of those differences. And people don't think in terms of places being % away from each other.

Rated miles is based on a pretty known unit, but yes, it's ballpark high and is usually a little optimistic. But that's enough that you can eye it and say, "OK, I have 81 miles to do, and the car shows 130--yeah, that'll work."

Thank you! You said very succinctly what I’ve spent a half dozen posts trying to say (and failing at!)

 

[diamond.g]

The % is just sticking your head in the sand so you don't worry about it. People were talking about it as the fuel gauges on their gas cars. Well, is this the car with the 10 gallon tank? The 15 gallon tank? The 20 gallon tank? Is this the Tesla with the 60 battery or the 100 battery? Am I driving the wife's car today? What does that 50% mean? It's all over the map with all of those differences. And people don't think in terms of places being % away from each other.

Rated miles is based on a pretty known unit, but yes, it's ballpark high and is usually a little optimistic. But that's enough that you can eye it and say, "OK, I have 81 miles to do, and the car shows 130--yeah, that'll work."

I understand your point but with the winter here and folks using nearly double the Wh/mi that 130 rated is dangerously wrong.

We wouldn’t have any of these post about degradation if they just showed GOM (and maaaybe percentage)

 

[ucmndd]

For me 98% of my driving is the same route, every day. It’s more interesting and obvious for me to observe “hmm, I used 45% of my battery today for my usual trip vs. the normal 40%, I wonder what changed” than some ever-changing calculation based on however many (constantly declining) rated miles my 90% happens to be that day.

On road trips, the nav makes the distinction between the two useless. “Nav says I’ll make it there with 18% left” is more than good enough for me based on 100k miles of driving and is immediately useful information to calibrate my internal range anxiety meter. The nav estimate is almost always right. The distance in “EPA miles” is frankly irrelevant and I find myself doing the reverse calculation that many of you report (i.e. “how many percent is 36 stupid EPA miles anyway?”)

Been interesting to see how others approach things though. Keep up the good discussion.

 

[Dr. J]

Well, is this the car with the 10 gallon tank? The 15 gallon tank? The 20 gallon tank? Is this the Tesla with the 60 battery or the 100 battery? Am I driving the wife's car today?

Yeah, we're making the assumption you know which car you're driving.

 

[tccartier]

For me 98% of my driving is the same route, every day. It’s more interesting and obvious for me to observe “hmm, I used 45% of my battery today for my usual trip vs. the normal 40%, I wonder what changed” than some ever-changing calculation based on however many (constantly declining) rated miles my 90% happens to be that day.

On road trips, the nav makes the distinction between the two useless. “Nav says I’ll make it there with 18% left” is more than good enough for me based on 100k miles of driving and is immediately useful information to calibrate my internal range anxiety meter. The nav estimate is almost always right. The distance in “EPA miles” is frankly irrelevant and I find myself doing the reverse calculation that many of you report (i.e. “how many percent is 36 stupid EPA miles anyway?”)

Been interesting to see how others approach things though. Keep up the good discussion.

Not sure I see the difference it just looks to me is to be more of a preference as to how you wish to view the information example I used 20% today when I usually use 15, or I used 30 miles today when I usually used 25 wonder what happened?

 

[tccartier]

Making a “single, binary decision” based on the number of miles the EPA says the car should go under some never-to-be-reproduced in the real world lab condition is equally useless as doing so based on the percentage remaining. After spending any amount of time driving a car and understanding its consumption habits, a “quarter tank” is just as valuable to me, if not more so, than an artificial range estimate that is basically never accurate.

But don't you see, everything else remains a constant so it doesn't matter. The percentage is no better an estimate of how far you can go than miles because all the other factors still apply in the real world such as temperature altitude how fast you go how slow you go etc.

At the end of the day if I charge my car to 90% it's going to travel roughly the same distance no matter how I look at it. My car will say 225 miles at 90%. It's still probably going to go plus or minus 225 miles it's not like viewing it in a percentage makes it suddenly more accurate than the EPA estimation of 225 miles.

And as was said elsewhere in this thread I'm driving down the road and I see a sign that says next town 40 miles I look down at my range display and it says 70 okay I'm good. But if I look down at my range display and it said 15% what does that mean? Yes I know you can do it but why should I because like I've said before the car already has.

 

[Gizmo35]

I started off using the miles display when I first got my car and then about 2 months later, realized it was useless for me as it was tricking me into a false belief. I was not comfortable with driving 20 miles and seeing 50 miles disappear from the estimate. Now if I want to know how far I can go, I religiously use the energy graph as it is spot on in my experience. The percentage display doesnt trick me, it just tells me the SOC of the car which I am not relying on for any data other than knowing how much juice is in the battery.

It is all just a preference thing. Now if the change the miles with the one that the energy graph shows, then I would be all for that.

 

[Rocky_H]

I understand your point but with the winter here and folks using nearly double the Wh/mi that 130 rated is dangerously wrong.

On a 4 mile trip yes. On an 80 mile trip, no. 130 rated miles is plenty for that, because the energy use settles down and reduces once the car is warmed up, so it is nowhere near double for winter driving on a drive that is 80 miles long.

 

[Chris3g]

Personally I wish there was a 3rd option to see neither the % or the range estimate on the main display and just show the graphical battery which provides a general idea of how much charge is remaining. For me having the number there causes unnecessary fixation when for 99% of my usage there is zero reason to care about it.

 

[CCIE]

The best thing would be if Tesla showed a real-world range-until-empty value next to the battery. But, that value can't be realistically calculated until you've been driving for ~20 miles and the car has reached a steady-state, especially in cold weather. So, they show the unrealistic EPA ideal range. Since that number is useless to me, I leave my display on percentage.

 

[Tres_Azul]

+1 on wanting a real world kWh/mi-based 'miles remaining' displayed right next to the SOC %.

I'd be fine if they just ditched the display of the EPA range figure altogether, or started there and adjusted per usage. Mostly this is due to 100% SOC equaling roughly 150-190 miles of real world 'road trip' range for how & where I happen to <highway> drive my SR+. In my usage, that 240 mile range is pure fantasy that I will likely never see. This vehicle is further off of the EPA highway range figure than any other vehicle I've ever owned / driven / managed.
(Family business ran fleet of 30+ sedans, modified minivans, full size vans, etc. for wheelchair & stretcher transport, so not new to highway range calculations...)

Secondarily, I don't like having to look at/use the touch screen and glance even further from the road to get basic info every other car I've had gave me in or near my line of sight.

 

[diamond.g]

+1 on wanting a real world kWh/mi-based 'miles remaining' displayed right next to the SOC %.

I'd be fine if they just ditched the display of the EPA range figure altogether, or started there and adjusted per usage. Mostly this is due to 100% SOC equaling roughly 150-190 miles of real world 'road trip' range for how & where I happen to <highway> drive my SR+. In my usage, that 240 mile range is pure fantasy that I will likely never see. This vehicle is further off of the EPA highway range figure than any other vehicle I've ever owned / driven / managed.
(Family business ran fleet of 30+ sedans, modified minivans, full size vans, etc. for wheelchair & stretcher transport, so not new to highway range calculations...)

Secondarily, I don't like having to look at/use the touch screen and glance even further from the road to get basic info every other car I've had gave me in or near my line of sight.

From what I have gathered the range Tesla/EPA says the car can get isn’t actually the highway rating, that number is lower.

 

[timk225]

If you use miles, then you know the miles remaining, always. But the % of a SR battery is not the same as the % of a LR battery.

So if you drive a LR 3 on percentage, then hop into an SR and have it on percentage, it'll appear to drop faster, which it kind of is.

 

[Rottenapplr]

Just got my model 3 two days ago. Spent the first day showing miles to empty where the battery icon is. I understand that this is the rated miles left at any given point. Which makes sense why so many people get confused.

anyways, I switched to percentage and learned that if I really need to see my miles left, I should tap Energy and choose my last 30 miles and it gives the projected range left.

this is of course much realistic depending on the situation. If I drove smooth for 5 miles, or 30, I can get a realistic calculation. But most of the time I just care about percentage of charge!


Am I doing this right? Haha

I like percentshes because I don’t have to bother with obsessive thoughts such as “60% charge used to give me 1xx miles and now it’s xx less”. Miles of range will vary so I don’t want to deal with it. I know 60% gets me to work and back and 90% are for road trips.