Consumer Reports initial test of Model S in winter chills

I don't understand the physical basis of the functional capacity loss of a battery in the cold, but I have lots of personal anecdotal information just from my Prius driving that it is real and quite significant. I routinely drive about 1500 feet down when I leave home, and I see my battery fill up completely by 2/3rds of the distance in the winter, whereas the battery can hold all the potential energy in other seasons.

That said, the capacity returns to normal when the battery is warm. I'm surprised a long charge episode is not enough to warm the battery back up.

 

the "300 miles in optimal conditions" is incorrect.

you ONLY get 300 miles if you choose to drive 55 mph which is how that figure was obtained. should you drive faster, expect less.

either way, some will drive faster and some will drive slower. invariably the ones who drive faster will complain. a case in point;

my old neighbor drives a full sized SUV like an idiot. When I first moved to the house in question, I would be on my way home and be passed by him in order for him to "get a better position at the red light. He would literally fly around me just to slam on his brakes in order to stop for the lineup at the light.

now, i know he was my neighbor because in the following drive, he never got far enough ahead of me to be out of my sight despite his driving. So i would see him turn onto our street (13 houses on a one block cul de sac) and park outside when I pulled in. At first I thought he was just playing around because he knew i was his neighbor although we had not formally introduced ourselves.

this happened a half dozen times which led me to believe this was his normal driving habits.

about 3 months later, I was outside washing the car and he happene to come out and we introduced ourselves and he commented on how pretty the car was and asked when I had gotten it. I advised him i had it several months before moving into the house but since it was charging it was always in the garage.

when he found out my average fuel cost was $30 a month, he started whining about his gas bill which was $150 a week. (he commuted to Federal Way which is about 85 miles RT)

i thought about telling him to change his driving habits but realized it was a waste of time. he made real good money (worked for Boeing) and figured that the money spent was well worth getting home 5 minutes before me...

 

Nice bit of selective editing there. You are getting as misleading as the 'unintended acceleration' hit pieces a couple of years ago.

Here is the full sentence containing the words you quoted:

.

So after driving 80 miles, the EPA rated mileage dropped by 100 miles.
One could conclude from this, if one didn't know this already, that driving in winter takes more energy that driving as the car was driven in the EPA testing.
This is important information for consumers and I am glad CR is doing a good job showing this.

 

or the person simply drove faster than was legal (which is MUCH more likely) or simply the inherent variations the car cannot track like moisture on the roads, traffic, hills, etc...

another thing is that we cannot assume the variation will be 20 miles per 100 miles estimated which would make a 20% variance. it could be 20 miles per tank full which lowers the variance quite a bit.

if you have driven EVs you will know that what happened 5 minutes ago and can be MUCH different from the next 5 minutes

 

Your statement is not quite right either. Tesla ~ says "if you drive 55 mph in otherwise ideal conditions, the car will go 300 miles on a 100% DOD charge."

To wit:
No wind,
Dry, well maintained roads,
No AC use,
Accelerated battery degradation behavior

 

LOL! ok if you drive 55 mph in "optimal driving conditions" you will get 300 miles!

 

So does Musk go beserk on CR now? Since this is exactly the same experience as NYT had...

 

yup the NYT reporter commented on the same thing... loss of range when parked in the cold.

the range dropped by over half from 140 to 65 after only 7 hours!

Overnight is never 7 hours.. more like 12 hours if you stay over someone's house. what's the range going to drop during 12 hours? down to 45 or 35? who knows. and what happens with a 2 year old battery? as this was with a brand new off the lot battery.

 

Absolutely, full agreement with what I have experience myself. Then he goes onto describe how the rated range didn't decrease as fast as he was covering the miles and that he made it to his destination with 0 miles left.
Showing that much of the rated range is recovered as the batteries warm up.

No one is arguing that the rated range takes a large hit when the car is unplugged and left in the cold.

 

That experience isn't what Tesla is taking offense at. And this wasn't the same experience. The CR driver had a standard charge when he left work, the reporter had only a 72% charge.

 

spin, how much worse? will the same apply to the pip?

 

no idea.. and I'm sure TESLA has some idea but since they're so interested in promoting this car as a road trip car doubt we will hear from them on that.

i imagine a PIP will have the same issue to some degree... with the pip you got a prius and you can fill up at a gas station when your range takes a hit.

bottom line don't take a road trip with a Tesla or stay over at someone's house unless you can plugin.

 

Road trips definitely take more planning than in an ICE, especially at this early state of infrastructure.
I have had no difficulty staying over at someone's house, or parking at an airport for a couple of days. However, I wasn't driving 100 miles to do so.
The real bottom line is for people to be aware of the range of the car in the conditions you live , and the distance you need to travel, and act accordingly.

 

gotta say the more I read about the Leaf and Tesla it becomes obvious that consumers need to be better informed about battery life and degradation during the life of the car. Because what you're really buying is the battery and battery management tech. It's not an ICE vehicle so just putting up est MPG on the sticker is inadequate.

1. Range takes a significant hit when not plugged in overnight as brought to light by the NYT reporter. especially in cold weather. (what happens in Canada where 30 degrees is like summer?)
Range loss:
ie.
7 hours 55% at 30 F 30% at 70 F
8 hours 60% at 30 F 35% at 70 F etc... etc..

2. More info on battery life and range degradation over 8 years for example.
Range est by year:
ie year one.
est range 240.
year 2 range 210
year 3 range 190 etc.. etc..

 

Once again, range isn't hit nearly that hard. Estimated range is. Once the car warms up the estimated range recovers nicely.

To your point though, yes education of consumers is very important and for some reason very difficult with some consumers.

 

where is battery life degradation by year, by hour and by temp after unplugging - on the Tesla or Leaf website?

 

not really, he wouldnt be able to reach his destination in 176 miles either, as super chargers are 200 miles apart... so this guy drove it harder than Broder did for NYT or under greater winter... he probably drove with at speed limit with normal A/C, like any other $100k car would have been driven.

Conclusion is the same, problems are the same.

 

first thing you need to do is more realistically evaluate the quality of what you read. your figures are complete BS

2nd thing; there is no documentation on any website that addresses fiction

3rd thing; like any capacity rating or performance rating, YMMV and electric battery performance is no different.

if the writer had taken a Prius (the same one that gets him 500 miles per tankful during the Summer) and ran out of gas at 450 miles during Winter, would you be asking the same questions or would you be saying he should have his head examined?

4th thing; it has been well established that the range took a very small hit during its overnight stay. the only thing that had really changed was the estimate of the range which would have changed again when the driver took and conditions changed (Sun rises, temps rise, etc...)

 

the range estimate has been a huge issue in the pip forum as well. some people just are not able to understand it and separate it in their minds from actual range.