Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

1961Nick

Grumpy_chap said:

Coastalwatch said:

for the first time we had no need to add any charge enroute. Total over the weekend 463 miles 

Thanks for sharing.

I have been wondering whether I'd need to charge when we take our long weekend to Great Yarmouth at the end of the month.  We will be looking at 342 miles for the round trip plus whatever we might do locally, which should be minimal as I like just walking and not using the car once away.  On top of that we will have whatever losses occur over the 4 days.  Based on your experience, we'll be able to do the whole weekend with bags to spare.

I have to admit that I am finding it exciting to consider this trip either way - it is either an opportunity to prove available range or I get to us the super-chargers for the first time which will also be a novel experience.  I have not yet had to charge away from home and starting to wonder whether the opportunity will ever present itself for me to use those 6k SC miles that were included as incentive when buying the car.

As a side note, your 463 miles is more range than we can get from my wife's Fiesta on a tank of petrol. 
In fact, my Focus, which I regularly ran from full to fumes, achieved a maximum range of 554 miles as the outlier over more than 140k miles.  There is a more common cluster "range" topping out at 474 miles.
Going back over previous cars, my Mondeo achieved 549 miles max range between fuel stops over 120k miles, again running full to fumes.
My Auris Hybrid has a cluster just below 600 miles range - the outlier is 621 miles.
IIRC, my Xsara diesel was quite a fair bit longer on range, but I cannot locate the spreadsheet for that right now.
We certainly do seem to be reaching the point where EV range can be demonstrated to be more than a match for petrol.

I've had my M3 for over 2 years & 30K miles & still haven't needed to public charge. In your situation, I'd take any opportunity to use up those 6K free supercharger miles.

JKenH

Grumpy_chap said:

Martyn1981 said:

Grumpy_chap said:

Coastalwatch said:

for the first time we had no need to add any charge enroute. Total over the weekend 463 miles 

Thanks for sharing.

I have been wondering whether I'd need to charge when we take our long weekend to Great Yarmouth at the end of the month.  We will be looking at 342 miles for the round trip plus whatever we might do locally, which should be minimal as I like just walking and not using the car once away.  On top of that we will have whatever losses occur over the 4 days.  Based on your experience, we'll be able to do the whole weekend with bags to spare.

I have to admit that I am finding it exciting to consider this trip either way - it is either an opportunity to prove available range or I get to us the super-chargers for the first time which will also be a novel experience.  I have not yet had to charge away from home and starting to wonder whether the opportunity will ever present itself for me to use those 6k SC miles that were included as incentive when buying the car.

As a side note, your 463 miles is more range than we can get from my wife's Fiesta on a tank of petrol. 
In fact, my Focus, which I regularly ran from full to fumes, achieved a maximum range of 554 miles as the outlier over more than 140k miles.  There is a more common cluster "range" topping out at 474 miles.
Going back over previous cars, my Mondeo achieved 549 miles max range between fuel stops over 120k miles, again running full to fumes.
My Auris Hybrid has a cluster just below 600 miles range - the outlier is 621 miles.
IIRC, my Xsara diesel was quite a fair bit longer on range, but I cannot locate the spreadsheet for that right now.
We certainly do seem to be reaching the point where EV range can be demonstrated to be more than a match for petrol.

Hiya GC. If you have free SC miles, and there are SC's on your route, then wouldn't it be better to charge on route than 'buy' the miles on your home leccy bill?

Coastalwatch said:

for the first time we had no need to add any charge enroute. Total over the weekend 463 miles 

Thanks for sharing.

I have been wondering whether I'd need to charge when we take our long weekend to Great Yarmouth at the end of the month.  We will be looking at 342 miles for the round trip plus whatever we might do locally, which should be minimal as I like just walking and not using the car once away.  On top of that we will have whatever losses occur over the 4 days.  Based on your experience, we'll be able to do the whole weekend with bags to spare.

I have to admit that I am finding it exciting to consider this trip either way - it is either an opportunity to prove available range or I get to us the super-chargers for the first time which will also be a novel experience.  I have not yet had to charge away from home and starting to wonder whether the opportunity will ever present itself for me to use those 6k SC miles that were included as incentive when buying the car.

As a side note, your 463 miles is more range than we can get from my wife's Fiesta on a tank of petrol. 

Unless Tesla have brought out an extra LR version of the TM3 with a 100kWh battery I don’t think you’ll be seeing 463 miles without a stop to top up the battery.

It would make sense to use your free supercharger miles but it may impact on your overall efficiency as the battery will precondition if navigating to a supercharger. This will use some energy (but speed up the charging). If the weather is cold it may also help with efficiency in driving (more mpk with a warmer battery) and perhaps free up more regen but I would expect overall it will have a negative effect on efficiency (measured as energy input to the car/miles driven). Still, it will be an interesting exercise and if, like me, you like numbers (as you obviously do) well worth the exercise. I used to try things in my Leaf which weren’t always in the best interest of economy or indeed the car. (For instance, I was curious to see how low the battery SoC was before Turtle Mode engaged so one day after finishing a journey with just 2% battery left - per LeafSpy- sat in the car in the garage with the heating on until the Turtle symbol appeared. I then fully charged the car to measure just what was the practical useable capacity of the battery.)

Grumpy_chap

JKenH said:

Unless Tesla have brought out an extra LR version of the TM3 with a 100kWh battery I don’t think you’ll be seeing 463 miles without a stop to top up the battery.

That is what I thought - in fact I expected that the 342 miles would be touch-and-go.  The 463 miles appears to be what was written but perhaps I have read that incorrectly.  @Coastalwatch - can you clarify please?

Coastalwatch said:

for the first time we had no need to add any charge enroute. Total over the weekend 463 miles 

Martyn1981 said:

Hiya GC. If you have free SC miles, and there are SC's on your route, then wouldn't it be better to charge on route than 'buy' the miles on your home leccy bill?

1961Nick said:

I've had my M3 for over 2 years & 30K miles & still haven't needed to public charge. In your situation, I'd take any opportunity to use up those 6K free supercharger miles.

Yes, you are both (obviously) correct.
Initially I thought I'd use the free miles when desperately needed, but range has proven more than adequate to mean the SC miles are not required.
I have stopped at the services a couple of times for a coffee and it only occurred to me when getting back in the car those would have been perfect opportunities to have taken some of the free SC miles...

JKenH said:

the battery will precondition if navigating to a supercharger. 

I have the car sat nav set to do the route planning and tell me when I need to use an SC.
I have never seen a message telling me that I will need to stop or recommending where to stop to be optimum.  I understand that the system has a function to recommend and plan "best" stops.
I think the car will only do the pre-conditioning if it thinks you need to use an SC.  I am not sure.

Martyn1981

Hi GC, Coastalwatch said no charging enroute, so I assume some destination charging.

The TM3 RWD should have a range of around 260 miles of motorway driving at the high efficiency levels CW drives (exluding any additional miles after zero, as Tesla hides a small amount, perhaps 10+ in the RWD, and 20+ in the LR (not that I'd recommend testing it)).

I think there was some talk/speculation that the battery would be enlarged as part of the Highland upgrade - but so far, the news seems to be that the increases in range are down to efficiency and aerodynamic improvements.

Coastalwatch

That is what I thought - in fact I expected that the 342 miles would be touch-and-go.  The 463 miles appears to be what was written but perhaps I have read that incorrectly.  @Coastalwatch - can you clarify please?

Hi GC, Coastalwatch said no charging enroute, so I assume some destination charging.

Thankfully Mart spotted the clue, although apologies if anybody was mislead, it certainly wasn't my intention. For further clarification the trip there was 223 miles with a further 39 as still being available.

For the last five years the owner of our guest house has been allowing us to charge upon arrival via the granny cable each time. While it had been a tenner per session for the near 40 kWh's previously I said to him that he really ought to review his leccy costs in view recent price hikes. He asked what we would otherwise pay at a public charger, I replied 70p/kWh at motorway services or 35p at a local Pod Point. Requiring approx 50 kWh's of charge he quickly came up with a figure of £17.50 based upon the 35p rate, before I could say thank you, he then said how about £15. True to his word that is what he applied to our final bill.

Given the range of the TM3 and cost of fast charging in Service areas then it seems we are unlikely to be clogging up their charging points any time soon.

Grumpy_chap

Coastalwatch said:

That is what I thought - in fact I expected that the 342 miles would be touch-and-go.  The 463 miles appears to be what was written but perhaps I have read that incorrectly.  @Coastalwatch - can you clarify please?

Hi GC, Coastalwatch said no charging enroute, so I assume some destination charging.

Thankfully Mart spotted the clue, although apologies if anybody was mislead, it certainly wasn't my intention. For further clarification the trip there was 223 miles with a further 39 as still being available.

Thank you for clarifying.
The 463 miles did seem rather better than I was led to believe possible - there I was getting all excited.

Is your TM3 the SR version?
223 + 39 = 262 miles.
Rather low against my expectation for the LR.  In fact, I am regularly at 200 miles for a one-day round trip (209 is my highest) and not feeling that I am anywhere near low charge.

paul991

Theres a new Gridserve just off the A47 at Norwich always seems to be empty if that helps

Coastalwatch

Grumpy_chap said:

Coastalwatch said:

That is what I thought - in fact I expected that the 342 miles would be touch-and-go.  The 463 miles appears to be what was written but perhaps I have read that incorrectly.  @Coastalwatch - can you clarify please?

Hi GC, Coastalwatch said no charging enroute, so I assume some destination charging.

Thankfully Mart spotted the clue, although apologies if anybody was mislead, it certainly wasn't my intention. For further clarification the trip there was 223 miles with a further 39 as still being available.

Thank you for clarifying.
The 463 miles did seem rather better than I was led to believe possible - there I was getting all excited.

Is your TM3 the SR version?
223 + 39 = 262 miles.
Rather low against my expectation for the LR.  In fact, I am regularly at 200 miles for a one-day round trip (209 is my highest) and not feeling that I am anywhere near low charge.

Yes, it's the basic model suggesting 271 miles when fully charged. Doubt I'll ever achieve it, but what the heck when my bladder will only last about 50% of that!

Martyn1981

Coastalwatch said:

Grumpy_chap said:

Coastalwatch said:

That is what I thought - in fact I expected that the 342 miles would be touch-and-go.  The 463 miles appears to be what was written but perhaps I have read that incorrectly.  @Coastalwatch - can you clarify please?

Hi GC, Coastalwatch said no charging enroute, so I assume some destination charging.

Thankfully Mart spotted the clue, although apologies if anybody was mislead, it certainly wasn't my intention. For further clarification the trip there was 223 miles with a further 39 as still being available.

Thank you for clarifying.
The 463 miles did seem rather better than I was led to believe possible - there I was getting all excited.

Is your TM3 the SR version?
223 + 39 = 262 miles.
Rather low against my expectation for the LR.  In fact, I am regularly at 200 miles for a one-day round trip (209 is my highest) and not feeling that I am anywhere near low charge.

Yes, it's the basic model suggesting 271 miles when fully charged. Doubt I'll ever achieve it, but what the heck when my bladder will only last about 50% of that!

Definitely a good argument to change the European test cycle to better match the US's EPA. That would be big BEV news.

Wow, can't believe, the US is ahead of us,

Michaels tends to us EPA figures (I think) which is a good idea, and that's what I look towards too, for realistic numbers. In your case CW, the WLTP figures on the UK Tesla site, suggest 305 miles, but the EPA figures on the US site are 272, which you seem to have been close to, allowing for some of that 'below zero' extra range. Checked on EV-Database, and they have a 'real range' of 250 miles*. So for (naughty) drivers like me that don't get yours, GC's and Michaels' numbers, that seems reasonable.


*Just for reference, they suggest 180 miles of cold highway range (-10C). And the US EPA figures for GC's LR is 333 miles, 300 real world on EV-Database, and 215 for the very cold weather highway range.

Weirdly, for the TMY LR, the UK site has 331 miles (WLTP), and the US is 330 miles (EPA). That's really weird, I'd have thought 300 miles would be a fair upper target, for good conditions. EV-Database has a real world figure of 270 miles. Our long term average is 258Wh/mile, but will presumably slip a bit now going into its second winter to complete a true two year cycle.

michaels

Tesla are infamous for 'gaming' the EPA numbers - I often wonder if the WLTP is harder to game so whilst on EPA Tesla may considerably exceed their competition on WLTP the relative ranges may be more realistic even if all are overstated....

Flying visit to Devon in our Leaf 40 Friday-Saturday, 450 miles, 4 charging stops and an overnight granny charge, definitely used more per mile than in the summer but rain and headwind on the way there and lower temps (5 degrees) on the way back - car reported 3.9 miles per kwh for the trip vs long term average of 4.3/4.4 miles per kwh (again car reported)