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Roadtrip - Which car would you take?
- Thread starter NV Ray
- Start date
airborne spoon
Active Member
I gotta disagree on your opinion here. My 85 pack before I upgraded to the 100 was in perfect condition, and according to recurrent was in better health than others at 172k miles and 70% supercharged 30% AC charged.
So again my opinion of wear and tear of Tesla is the less you use it the more it wears out/degrades the more you drive the better it lasts.
I lived in the desert for like 5 years all of which I drove my Tesla daily and supercharged it all the damn time even in the middle of summer at 115f and it still was in great health so no the heat doesn't degrade crap that's what the water cooling of the battery is for to keep it chill and long lasting.
Yes, within 1 month build of each other and about the same miles. Model S LR and Model S Plaid. That is giving one car the benefit of the doubt. Depending on what tool app I use to measure it, it might be much worse like 6 times. So for my 2022 S LR I saw 1% or less degradation for 8k miles and 14 months of use. That was pretty much the same regardless of how it was measured. My 2022 S Plaid, similar miles, 1 month newer, is showing 4-6% degradation depending on what tool measured it. There is one that showed even more degradation for the Plaid. It might just be an outlier and want to check it over a few months. YMMV of course.
By comparison, our 3 LR w/boost, with most miles 10k and equivalent age (14 months) is still showing 100% capacity by every tool I've used to check it. It has never seen a supercharger, is kept at an average state of charge at 50%, and is only charged above that if needed and is charged up to the necessary charge level just before we leave. I'd encourage following posts by AAKEE if you really want to go down the rabbit hole of battery preservation. I changed my habits after reading carefully what he posted and applied it to my Y and vastly saw a decrease in degradation across my cars. The subsequent owner of the car has adopted what I started and has only seen about 5 % degradation in 2 years, in a very hot Texas climate, a fair amount of SC use, and about 70k miles. I would say that is pretty good preservation of range. I was responsible for about 3% of that in the first few months until I really wrapped my head around what I could do to reduce degradation. Once I adopted a lot of things I learned, my rate of degradation slowed dramatically.
I put my preference upstream for the Prius in general. I'll still take less unnecessary wear and tear on the battery if I can help it. Just bringing other things to consider that are often overlooked here. Glad you are having such good luck with your car and degradation. I have a situation where many months out of the year I have high temps to contend with. Per battery university "A battery dwelling above 30°C (86°F) is considered elevated temperature" by that standard I'd say I have to deal with that for about 6 months out of the year. Not quite Phoenix bad here, but pretty bad.Do you really think a few hours driving and supercharging in a hot climate on a road trip is going to have ANY measurable or material effect on the long term health of the battery?
OP is talking about driving through the eastern Sierras to San Diego. He’ll be driving through the desert for maybe 4 hours of the trip. San Diego is pretty famously one of the most temperate places on earth.
These cars are not Fabergé eggs. Questioning whether or not you should take it on a road trip in the “hot” is not something any of us should even be talking about if we actually want people to adopt EVs.
At 175,000 miles and 6.5 years in a hot climate (it was 110 when I was out running errands today) my car has ~15% degradation. It’s stayed almost perfectly flat for the past 2 years. IMO, that’s fantastic. There’s nothing to worry about.
Preference is one thing, but being scared to drive in the hot is not a valid reason to not take the Tesla.
When your car is running, it is being actively cooled. What are the temps when your car is at rest? In my garage it is often over 100F. The car is not cooling the battery pack then. I hear nothing running even when plugged in. My other car is often outside. I don't know what the battery temps are for it but the interior temps have often hit 140-150F. The ambient temps were in the low 100's. I imagine the pack would be hotter than that. IF the battery is cooled when the car is off, or unplugged, then that is less likely to be an issue.
As for EV adoption, there are a lot of dirty little secrets that people don't find about them until after you buy one. A lot of Tesla's advice regarding charging isn't optimal. Anyone with a lithium-ion battery would be well served to read through battery university.
If nobody takes care of their batteries, there will be a lot more of them that are wasted sooner than necessary. A great page for people to read about the batteries that are in the long-range or performance Teslas is one I am listing below. It shows the relationship nicely between things like SoC of charge, depth of discharge impact on battery life, temperature, etc. An informed consumer is a better one. So while one trip might not make a huge difference, hot temps do have an impact. The higher the temps, and the higher SoC, the more impact it has.
I agree it won't make a huge difference but I like to be informed and factor in things that matter to me. I realize these things may be esoteric for some, but I've seen firsthand what a difference I can make with my own cars.
Regardless of any battery impact, I'd still take the Prius for convenience and flexibility.
Great, you had a unicorn. I am happy for you. What did you charge to, 100% every day as well?
What did recurrent say your level of degradation was?
I've done some additional research on the cooling topic. It looks like the HVAC systems should cool the pack to keep it from getting too hot. I never hear it kick on in my car (Plaid) when in the garage and my office is right by it.
It seems like there is sort of an OK and Better range for the battery temps. So it seems that it will at least shoot for the OK range, whatever that actually is I don't know, when unplugged. If plugged in, it will try and keep it in the Better range, whatever that happens to be. If anyone knows what those temps equate to, or have more info, I'd definitely be interested.
I hear fans running in my 3 frequently on a hot day but not in my S and they are often parked next to each other. So maybe an issue with the car. I'll might have to plug in Scan my Tesla when I have time and check out the battery temps.
It seems like there is sort of an OK and Better range for the battery temps. So it seems that it will at least shoot for the OK range, whatever that actually is I don't know, when unplugged. If plugged in, it will try and keep it in the Better range, whatever that happens to be. If anyone knows what those temps equate to, or have more info, I'd definitely be interested.
I hear fans running in my 3 frequently on a hot day but not in my S and they are often parked next to each other. So maybe an issue with the car. I'll might have to plug in Scan my Tesla when I have time and check out the battery temps.
airborne spoon
Active Member
I would charge to 100% about once a month.
The degradation was around 9% full charge was 232 miles.
I agree. Drive the damn thing - don’t baby it, and it’ll respond great. The battery loves to work.
Just did 1500 miles in the MSP, it was a breeze. Just the month before I had done the same drive in my Denali and felt like I had been kicked by a mule.
Update: Ended up taking the Prius Prime. Round trip Reno to San Diego stats - 1230 miles, 20.54 gallons, 59.9 average mpg (only one 25 mile EV charge), $96.40 for gas. 2 people, luggage, spare tire. Michelin Defender tires, 35 PSI.
I
Can’t beat that; hooked to your phone playlist, cool A/C, refreshing drink and snacks 
absolutely no worries 
Can’t beat that; hooked to your phone playlist, cool A/C, refreshing drink and snacks absolutely no worries 
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