Tesla Model Y range estimate reduced by 6%, becoming more realistic
electrek.co
electrek.co
I definitely have to stop more in the winter time on road trips, but that's just the nature of how EVs work. On the upside Tesla puts superchargers in spots that make it easy to take a break for a rest stop anyway.
I do miss how quick gas station stops are with ICE cars when doing a road trip, especially if you're on a constrained schedule, but the benefits of having the EV have outweighed it so far, especially with most of my daily miles being in the city (where the EV really shines).
I hear you about wanting to drive up north for outdoor winter sports. It requires a lot more planning once north of Grand Rapids to make sure you won't end up stranded.
Many times I'll stop at a supercharger early just to take advantage of the battery heating the charging provides. That alone makes the rest of the trip more efficient, and I can get back below 300 wh/mi. The heated seats and steering wheel also make a big difference and allow the heat pump to not have to do so much work.
We know the range estimates used to (?) be gamed[1], I don't see why this part wouldn't be, too.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-ba...
This is accurate to me within about 5% of the battery, even driving at fast highways speeds and in cold weather.
If it was "cheating" I think I'd notice an issue when the car said I had 5% left but the real battery charge was empty.
> Do we know it doesn't cheat?
Then the nav won't be accurate then would it? Also: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregory-pannone-3a414610/
Think of the sat-nav range as closed-loop and the other testing based ranges as open-loop.
In some sense, they do that by moving the losses to before the battery/tank; so this isn't as big of a gain in terms of total energy usage. However, in terms of the effective capacity of the energy storage device, we don't really care about losses in refilling it.
The 57.5 kWh battery in the base Model 3 has the same energy content as just ~1.18 US gallons (4.46 liters) of pure gasoline. Electric motors are a lot more efficient than combustion engines, though.
Once you learn how to take the factors into account, you get a "feel" for what you can and cannot do.
Do we only need to reduce emissions if doing so is not just feasible or workable but perfectly convenient for everyone in all situations?
For reference my road tripping charges on interstate highways tend to look like ~3-3.5 hours of driving on the first leg (starting with 90-100% charge at home) followed by 15 minutes of charging every ~2 hours of driving after that.
It's not perfect or quite as good as ICE, but I usually find that the car is almost ready to go after I use the restroom and get a bottle of water or something and get back to the car.
I make this great sacrifice of horrific inconvenience the two times per year or so that I take trips that actually require multiple charging stops, in exchange for zero gas station visits the rest of the year due to home charging.
Other than those trips, almost all of the charging has been done at home which means in the last four years we've saved about 20 minutes a month in gas station visits.
They were also going to appreciate because Tesla cars would operate as autonomous robot taxis by end of 2020, and it wouldn't make sense to sell a car to a consumer for $35,000 when you could have it earning money 24/7 as a taxi.
The case was basically that for every $35k Model 3 that comes off the lot can be sold for a profit up to $35k, or be added to the robotaxi fleet where it can generate whatever revenue it can produce. For example, if every Model 3 could generate $5/h of profit, then running it 24/7/365 would be $44k.
Also electricity isn't free so that's going to be a substantial code and likely several sets of tires.
Tesla continues to trounce every other car manufacturer because despite the fact that us fanboys (and bitterboys) are regularly disappointed at underdelivering on the hype, they still produce the most compelling EV for the price when compared to everyone else.
"Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars."
Tesla delivers. That’s above par for the current course. The problem is Musk’s antics create opportunity for competitors. If he could have the discipline he does with SpaceX, Tesla’s long-term prospects would be stronger.
This is short sighted. Their threat profile from new entrants (whether de novo or legacy) is massive. Most people I know considering EVs are not prioritising Teslas. They haven’t ruled them out. But it’s an even comparison between the Tesla on the lot and whatever they need to put a deposit down on for delivery in a few months or even years.
Which means they could publicly promise to do better than everyone else and still meet those promises.
So promising things that are unrealistic (ie Level 5 FSD 5 years ago) is an unforced error, an own-goal that could be avoided but they have chosen not to avoid this over and over.
Tesla and Space X have accomplished more than any other company in the last 70 years within their respective industries.
> Tesla and Space X have accomplished more than any other company in the last 70 years within their respective industries.
That's absolutely not in contradiction to my point.
I believe Musk is also tarnishing the Tesla brand by his antics. I noticed that the association to Musk is kinda turning some left-leaning liberals away from Tesla.
Yes, and? If that was their claim, there'd be nothing to talk about.
Instead, we have all kinds of wild claims, from rocket cars to full-self-driving to amphibious trucks to battery swaps. None of which exist.
That's not even close to reality and not intellectually honest. It's a fact that anything with "Tesla" on the headline gets clicks. A Tesla gets t-boned by another vehicle and the next day will get headlines like:
"Telsa involved in a serious accident" While make/model of other accidents is never mentioned in other accidents even when there's a fatality.
You're just making things up.
We are talking about very specific claims in this thread.
>A Tesla gets t-boned by another vehicle and the next day will get headlines like: "Telsa involved in a serious accident" While make/model of other accidents is never mentioned in other accidents even when there's a fatality.
Show me this article.
Here's one on our very own Hacker News https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38806707
Also incidents blaming autopilot get hundreds of upvotes and comments blaming Tesla, and when it turns out months after police investigation of that incident that Autopilot wasn't involved, that article never gets upvotes.
When it's bad news about a different car brand, we just get a headline like this talking about an "electric vehicle". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38741228
Same with recalls, Tesla's software update recalls are given disproportionate attention, and don't mention it's a software recall in the headline.
It doesn't "blame" anything on the Tesla; instead, it seems to be praising it for lack of damage and injury to the passengers.
Is this interesting news? Not to me. But I suppose it's relevant being as how the Cybertruck is the most hyped vehicle of all-time, and there are only a handful on the road.
I made all of these headlines up?
https://news.google.com/search?q=Tesla%20accident
Find me the same amount of headlines where another make/model of the vehicle involved in a serious accident is mentioned on the headline itself.
Not only will they appreciate in value, Teslas will earn you money while you sleep. [1]
[1] https://futurism.com/the-byte/ride-hailing-tesla-elon-musk
Isn't it illegal to overstate official EPA results? Maybe I'm missing something here.
Moreover, this affects ALL 2024 model year battery electric vehicles. There is a 6-page document here that explains it:
https://dis.epa.gov/otaqpub/display_file.jsp?docid=55592&fla...
This was enacted in 2022 but goes into effect this year:
This new policy is applicable to new testing for 2024 model year and later vehicles. It may be applied to new testing for 2023 model year vehicles. *Vehicles utilizing carry-over data may continue to use data generated under previous policy* for as long as the tests are valid (i.e., no changes to the vehicle requiring new MPGe/range testing are required). *Manufacturers who add a new configuration to a test group for 2024 and later must present new test results using this policy*, but existing data can still be used if it is representative".
Meanwhile, Teslas are some of the fastest depreciating cars on the market. And Trevor Milton is going to jail for four years.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/18/nikola-founder-trevor-milton...
Comparing Trevor Milton to Elon Musk is also wild. I still vividly remember the Tesla short seller crowd praising Milton as a genius while declaring Elon as a charlatan.
> "The entire infotainment system is a HTML 5 super computer," Milton said. "That's the standard language for computer programmers around the world, so using it let's us build our own chips. And HTML 5 is very secure. Every component is linked on the data network, all speaking the same language. It's not a bunch of separate systems that somehow still manage to communicate."
- Trevor Milton
Source: https://www.truckinginfo.com/330475/whats-behind-the-grille-...
Why is it "wild"?
Milton is going to prison for, basically, lying about the functionality of their truck. It didn't work like he claimed it did, when he claimed it did. But it's not like they don't have a real truck or a real business; they are testing vehicles right now. Nikola still exists. They have trucks on the road.
So why is that such a stretch to compare things he claimed to things Tesla has claimed? You can perhaps argue about the scale or severity of the different claims, but I'd say exaggerated range claims and full-self-driving are also pretty bad:
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-ba...
Also, from your linked article:
"One of the experts, [Gregory Pannone], co-authored a study of 21 different brands of electric vehicles, published in April by SAE International, an engineering organization. The research found that, on average, the cars fell short of their advertised ranges by 12.5% in highway driving. The study did not name the brands tested.."
> The study did not name the brands tested..
I was curious why that is. So I did some digging and found this very reassuring info. I'm sure there's no bias right?
[Gregory Pannone]
-Sr. Engineer General Motors
- Engineer/Intern Engineer/Intern BP p.l.c. British multinational oil and gas
- FCA Fiat Chrysler Automobiles logo Head of Fuel Economy, Performance, and P/T Synthesis Chrysler LLC
Yes, those were the crimes he was convicted of. What's your point?
It's because he lied about the operability of the truck and it cost investors money.
>I'm sure there's no bias right?
Yes, it's all a big conspiracy. Tesla zealots are so thick.
What a very nice and compelling ad hominem argument. It's clear that you're very uninformed.
> Yes, it's all a big conspiracy
Questioning about a possible bias is conspiracy talk now? What ever happened to healthy discourse? It seems the level of your knowledge does not go beyond the news headlines.
Buddy, you started this thread calling me "intellectually dishonest", so don't start crying about "healthy discourse" now.
But sure, lay it out for us: you think that the author of the study is biased. So, what does that mean? Did he fabricate the data? What exactly are you implying?
Because you were and it must have struck a nerve. :)
> So don't start crying about "healthy discourse" now.
But I thought "itsoktocry" is that not true anymore?
Because they dropped the prices of new cars by a lot after supply chain issues resolved, price of lithium and other supplies went down. Why is that a bad thing?
Meanwhile Mercedes-Benz CEO said that residual value is more important to them.
Musk: "So I just can't emphasize again how important cost is," Musk said. "It's not an optional thing for most people. It is a necessary thing. We have to make our cars more affordable so that people can buy them."
Why is cheaper EVs a bad thing? Isn't this the exact thing that's making housing super expensive, that rich homeowners are restricting supply so their home(s) keeps appreciating, leading to folks getting squeezed with home costs and rents going up exponentially.
If you were told by the CEO of the company that your car would appreciate, and instead it depreciated at a rate beyond normal, you don't see an issue with that?
One of a few reasons i won't be buying an EV anytime soon.
Don't have a tesla myself, (kia e-niro), but weather will have an enormous impact on range, did a ~400km loop last week, 200km up north, used only 14.7kwh/100km, and the 200km back used more than 21.7kwh/100km. (Tailwind vs headwind)
This may turn out to be true. Tesla Electric customers report making as much as $150 a day[1], this is with Powerwalls, 13.5KWH capacity. Teslas have 80KWH+ capacity, equivalent of 6 powerwalls. Tesla's have a potential to make a decent amount of money from participating in VPP (Virtual Power Plants).
Coupled with the $25/month plan[2], VPP participation will take advantage of cheap power when its available, supply power back to the grid when its extremely profitable.
Will this work for everyone, no, it won't. Some people are fanatic about using fossil fuels. Will it work for a fraction of the people who might be interested in getting paid. It just might.
[1] Tesla Electric customers report making as much as $150 a day: https://electrek.co/2023/07/05/tesla-electric-customers-repo...
[2] With the Tesla Electric Home Charging Plan, you will: Pay a fixed fee of $25/month for vehicle charging sessions between 10 PM and 6 AM: https://www.tesla.com/support/tesla-electric/vehicle
But, like all batteries they degrade fastest at the beginning. Not sure how typical your situation is. How many miles?
Pretty sure this is the nature of current lithium battery tech, according to many Tesla owner reports. From what I have gathered, the loss rate will slow and gradually level out above 70% for much of the ten year battery warranty, as long as you follow Tesla’s guidance on battery health.
> The new system is applicable to vehicles testing for the 2024 model year and later.
https://www.autoevolution.com/news/tesla-my2024-updates-less...
This is a slight improvement but still EPA testing is both a poor match to actual road tripping (where people often care about EV range) and can be very inconsistent between vehicles due to the number of options automakers have in choosing which cycles they will test with and how they use those results. The EPA's standard "highway" driving cycle averages 48 mph.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/01/heres-how-the-epa-calcu...
We can't win. If you ask the average person on the street the right way to measure "EV range", they'd give you an answer (e.g. "drive like you do in the real world") that looks very much like what the EPA tests. If you ask that same person if their car goes as far as it claims, they'll say "no", because they're thinking about highway range at 75mph.
ICE cars are rated in City MPG and Highway MPG, and both are displayed on the window sticker. The EPA does test and compute City and Highway efficiency for EVs but then distills this into one combined range number for the sticker.
My suggestion would be to display separate City and Highway range figures for all EVs, adjust the Highway cycle to reflect 70mph highway driving, and combine all of the current options into a single set of test cycles that all manufacturers must use.
The current situation where different manufacturers use different test cycles and adjustment factors doesn't seem good for consumers at all.
The big issue that I have with range in my Model 3 is tires: I thought the tire shop was putting on the same tires that the car came with, but they didn't. My 2nd set of tires really killed the range. (I should have argued with the tire shop when I picked up the car, but I didn't.)
The big wheel package available on my hybrid kills the MPG, and I am happier with the 16" wheels. But Tesla doesn't offer anything under 18" as I recall.
One thing that would be kind of cool would be a slide-in Jump battery - a small battery cell that can be physically swapped between two teslas to give them N-miles range - so if your tesla dies, another tesla can swap this battery with you. (the charging priority is to the swappable suitcase battery)
((What if your nav would alert you while driving you EV that another car needs your power and is in vicinity/on-route-you-are-driving... if you jump them you get credits for whatever such credits can be used for - and another EV driver can "venmo" you credits for the jump -- or create an "uber" market for driving around credits - make a mobile charging semi. Like the aircraft refueling fleet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tanker_aircraft ))
These can be carried by AAA tows and swapped to get you going.
It should be the floor of the FRUNK and lif out like a suitcase.
If you mean using one Tesla to charge another when its main battery is empty, currently only the Cybertruck supports such power output.
https://www.tesla.com/powershare
Some services like AAA do provide roadside charging via generator or battery pack onboard their service vehicles.
Personally I haven't run out of charge in 4.5 years of driving an EV in all sorts of places. I never ran out of gas either.
> Personally I haven't run out of charge in 4.5 years of driving an EV in all sorts of places. I never ran out of gas either.
I think that's true of a lot of drivers but I bet if EV makers threw in 5 years of AAA recharging for free it would alleviate a lot of range anxiety for first time EV buyers. It wouldn't even be that expensive for the EV makers since the actual incidences are probably pretty low.
Neither have i, but if the cybertruck is any dystopian-minded-MadMax types' "bug out vehicle" -- this is going to suck.
The cybertruck should come with a built in generator that can consume gas to charge your thing?
One can take a cybertruck-type vehicle out into the woods of Alaska, and carry a bunch of extra fuel, but you can't bring an additional 5,000 LBS of batteries...
I' dont have the energy (pun intended) to do it, but it would seem that one could make a simple spreadsheet to compare miles per gallon to miles per battery weight, such that you know that if you get 20 miles per gallon and a gallon weighs 8 pounds, vs you get how much distance out of the EV per weight?
A pack of solar panels you can set out in your bug-out camping zone seems more feasible to me. No dependency on ongoing supply chains. Just look at how quickly gas shortages start when a hurricane is aimed at Florida.
And Tesla does sell a bolt-in range extending battery pack for their truck for $16,000 https://insideevs.com/news/699262/tesla-cybertruck-range-ext...
You get vehicles that can burn expired gasoline (or more likely, diesel and diesel-like derivates in a multi-fuel engine).
For true apocalypse you want to go back to steam engines, those can run on water and wood.
I wonder how big those would have to be to be practical.
10kW seems like a capacity that could be carried in the truck bed and then set up on flat ground while camping out.
A realistic daily average output would be 30-40kWh in a day, or about 1/4 of the truck's battery capacity. Sunny days in summer would do better, cloudy winter days would do worse.
Recharging fully in 5-7 days seems reasonable. Assuming you actually had drained the battery to near empty and were needing to charge it back to full.
By some comparisons that seems slow. But it might be faster than waiting for a gas truck that never comes.
This is called a "plug-in hybrid". [Depending; some, like the Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid, have a dual drive train so the engine is an engine; others, like the Chevy Volt, have an all-electric drive train and the engine is just a generator.]
In you're post-apocalyptic setting, you're looking for a solar panel array you can tow behind your electric vehicle to charge it periodically; you wouldn't be able to haul a large enough array to charge at the rate you deplete your batteries, on the go, and depending on the size of your panels and your battery and the weather it make take several days or a week to reach a full charge, but where are you going in a hurry at the end of the world?
Power plant idea:
- Dig a giant Pit Mine
- Put a bunch of mechanically driven generators in the bottom.
- Build a F-TON of gearings to accept rotational inputs from Solar Paowered-ly Charged motors into a network of gears to drive the huge alternators... this will require Area-51 sizes of desert - Hey, Africa has a huge free space for this.
Perhaps Tesla maintains ownership of it so that you never have to worry about whether someone you're swapping with is unloading a bad battery on you. At a certain degradation, they just give you a new one.
It's not even dead weight! Just extra battery capacity that's removable.
Standardize the form factor and turn it into a uniform standard that every manufacturer can adopt.
I don't see this scaling out well especially with trying to get multiple manufacturers onboard with standard packs.
Every EV can accept 120V or 240V power, and that can be obtained in a lot of ways including generators, portable battery packs, or inverters on ICE or EV vehicles.
A 240V output from one vehicle and a standard charging cord seems like a more universal solution to me than moving 100lb battery packs around.
https://ir.lucidmotors.com/news-releases/news-release-detail...
a) It seems unlikely that you can standardize the battery form factor between different models. You'll still have a handful of different standards between small, full size, and truck/suvs, and semi truck forms. It's been hard enough getting manufacturers to standardize on a single charging port. Battery form standardization would be another order of magnitude hard.
b) Even if you somehow manage to do it, you're forever stuck on that form. Limits the experimentation and flexibility you have to develop for new use cases. Upgrading battery tech, like Tesla's switch to the bigger and more efficient 4680 in the cybertruck, would also get added friction since it wouldn't be compatible with older standards.
c) Tesla at least is starting to turn the battery pack into a structural element to reduce mass. Unlikely you can do this and be swappable at the same time.
I really do not want some other yahoo's battery after I take care of mine meticulously.
If you are a diplomat in Iran, dont buy these cars.
Someone Call Google and give them all the details! (reference required)
--
>Standardize the form factor and turn it into a uniform standard that every manufacturer can adopt
ANYtHING that requires power from the utility grid should have a standard plug.
Imaging buying a washing machine or refridgerator and having to update the wiring in your home because you want an LG washer and a GE fridge?
Oh wait, thats how cell phones seem to work and basically you cannot be a modern human without this tether.
EVs are either SAE J1772 or SAE J3400 which are adapter-compatible.
ASIDE - WHY IS ther no KEYboard Key THAT sill shift BTWN caps and SMALL CAPS for a highlighted line??
Anyway, the only way your battery would run out is if you willfully ignore all the helpful warnings and guidance to the nearest charger. Mostly people are smarter than that. There actually are a lot more cars getting stuck without petrol/diesel than EVs with dead batteries because EVs tend to give you more feedback on energy levels and usage. With a petrol car if you drive uphill or downhill, the indicated fuel levels actually change to be even less accurate than they normally are. When the needle hits zero, you might have 10 miles left or 20. Or just half a mile. Impossible to tell. That's how a lot of drivers get into trouble. The normal way to mitigate with both EVs and ICE cars is to just don't use the full range of the car and top up long before you get close to hitting zero.
But if it does happen, then yes the solution is usually somebody with a portable battery driving up to you and giving you a few kwh; or just towing you to the nearest charger or power outlet. If that happens to you, you should feel a bit stupid and embarrassed for letting that happen. Absolutely no need for mitigating that. It's a problem you shouldn't have and the fix if you do is low cost and easy.
Now you listen hear - I am SO smart that I have designed these devices to do the thinking for me.
A MX FUEL™ REDLITHIUM™ FORGE™ HD12.0 is a bit below a KwH, and is 10x5x7 and weighs 13 pounds.
I consistently get 380 miles+ on my Model Y long range.
Also, where I live I have to drive 15 minutes each way to do the 5 minute fill up. I am saving 35 minutes every week by not having to go somewhere to fill my gas.
You don’t really do that with EVs either. The navigation system takes all of that into account, including live metrics such as temperature, wind, weather, and elevation. It takes the guesswork out of non-trivial tasks.
The only valid issue is the poorly maintained Electrify America chargers for non-Tesla EVs.
But that’s about to change in the U.S., since pretty much everyone is adopting the NACS/SAE J340 Standard. This will make them compatible with Tesla Superchargers.
Apps like ABRP also exist, which are even compatible with level 2 charging:
How many years before you pay off the premium that you paid when you purchased the electric vehicle? Will the battery still be in good shape by then?
There’s lots of FUD about battery life, but there are already 10 year old Teslas out there. There are Teslas with 250k miles on the clock with 15% degradation. The car would have to degrade 50% for it to affect my usage pattern.