Tesla Model 3 - Finally.

[Bob Noel]

the (retire) engineer in me is curious. When the Telsa battery ages down to 84% capacity (or whatever term you want to use), will it do the normal charge to 80% of the original capacity or 80% of that now 84%?

 

[FastEddieB]

the (retire) engineer in me is curious. When the Telsa battery ages down to 84% capacity (or whatever term you want to use), will it do the normal charge to 80% of the original capacity or 80% of that now 84%?

You still set the maximum charge level in percentage. I use the recommended 80% for my battery type, only charging to 100% right before a road trip. So, the car will show 100% of your current capacity, not the new, degraded capacity. If that makes sense.

 

[FastEddieB]

I haven't yet, because I don't think I've ever had a time where I know I'm not going to drive it for 14 hours!


You must still have miles displayed... I switched from miles to percent before I left the lot at Tesla Highland Park the day I picked it up. Despite Tesla doing it better than most others, the guess-o-meter is meaningless, while a percentage tells me something useful.

We were headed out for a camping trip with our Tundra and travel trailer, so that gave us an opportunity to run the test.

We were surprised that at the completion of the test the battery was left at 100%, in spite of it being set to 80%. Since we were away and didn’t want it to sit at 100% for several days, we turned on Climate remotely and ran it down to about 90%.

As far as percentage vs miles…different strokes. I tried percentage and found myself doing more mental math to get to a similar result. For example, “I’m at 50% remaining, and my total range is about 300 miles, so that should give me about 150 miles left.” I find it easier to just use the miles remaining, albeit with a HUGE grain of salt.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

We were headed out for a camping trip with our Tundra and travel trailer, so that gave us an opportunity to run the test.

Hmmm... I'm headed out for a trip with the Lexus this weekend, I'll have to do the same.

I *really* wanted to take the Tesla, but this is a bicycling trip (once we get there) and our bike rack is hitch mount. I talked to a place that does trailer hitches on the Model 3, but it's nearly $1000, and that's *without* any wiring. (It did include enabling Tow Mode in the software, though, so that the car doesn't freak out that someone is driving a few inches behind your bumper. )

We were surprised that at the completion of the test the battery was left at 100%, in spite of it being set to 80%.

The battery test is a pretty new feature, and it needs to start the test by charging all the way to 100% and balancing the cells so that it knows what your true capacity is. I'm guessing that a developer put some code in to disregard the max charge setting to accomplish that, and forgot to re-enable it when it charges again at the end of the test.

Since we were away and didn’t want it to sit at 100% for several days, we turned on Climate remotely and ran it down to about 90%.

Smart.