New M3 standard RWD - expected range? Problems?
Discussion
Collecting new M3 RWD next week and immediately I have a long journey ahead to a work event. This replaces a much loved E-Golf that gave no bother in two years but range just too short for work use. Has anyone got the new LFP 2022 M3 RWD? What sort of real range can I expect and have you had any problems to date?
Cant speak for that particular model but my M3LR was collected in June and its been the most reliable car i've ever bought up to now, only one problem (condensation in a rear light cluster) which was fixed on my drive by a Ranger the same day i reported it... he gave the car a full health check whilst he was there too!
I’d steer clear of evdatabase, there have been 9 different battery and motor variants for the SR+ (or just “model 3” as they call it now), that website doesn’t list them all and doesn’t reflect different countries get different versions at times.
You’re probably familiar with this coming from an e-golf but you also can’t realistically plan to use the full range. You can start with 100% but you’d be sensible to plan on having a 10% reserve on arrival.
The SR +/LFP battery is however pretty efficient and so long as it’s not terrible weather or you have a lead foot you should still be looking at 230 miles with the latest uk cars with the BTF1 battery and hairpin motors (you don’t need to check, cars being delivered in the uk have that spec at the moment, anything from last year probably won’t)
Reliability wise, the latest spec car has a new low voltage battery and that is causing issues for the unwary. Tesla will probably tell you anyway but charge the car to 100% as soon as possible as this will help protect the low voltage battery, and do this every few weeks or more often. Failing to do so and the main battery dropping below 20% which might happen on a long run can result in the low voltage battery going flat in under 20mins and at that point you’re calling for recovery. Don’t get paranoid about it, just charge to 100% and if you can avoid dropping below 20% for too long then you’ll be fine and I assume tesla will be pushing out a software update to fix.
Other issues, if you ignore software bugs and the problem with the battery above, the current crop just have the usual mix of minor cosmetic gremlins on delivery which is down to bad luck or fussiness.
You’re probably familiar with this coming from an e-golf but you also can’t realistically plan to use the full range. You can start with 100% but you’d be sensible to plan on having a 10% reserve on arrival.
The SR +/LFP battery is however pretty efficient and so long as it’s not terrible weather or you have a lead foot you should still be looking at 230 miles with the latest uk cars with the BTF1 battery and hairpin motors (you don’t need to check, cars being delivered in the uk have that spec at the moment, anything from last year probably won’t)
Reliability wise, the latest spec car has a new low voltage battery and that is causing issues for the unwary. Tesla will probably tell you anyway but charge the car to 100% as soon as possible as this will help protect the low voltage battery, and do this every few weeks or more often. Failing to do so and the main battery dropping below 20% which might happen on a long run can result in the low voltage battery going flat in under 20mins and at that point you’re calling for recovery. Don’t get paranoid about it, just charge to 100% and if you can avoid dropping below 20% for too long then you’ll be fine and I assume tesla will be pushing out a software update to fix.
Other issues, if you ignore software bugs and the problem with the battery above, the current crop just have the usual mix of minor cosmetic gremlins on delivery which is down to bad luck or fussiness.
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