Sub-£20k Model 3 Long Range experience so far

[LowTread]

Hi all.

I've been mulling over buying an EV as a daily driver for years, but finally got one over the weekend.

These seem to be a bit of a bargain now they're sub-£20k. Enough to lure people away from a performance ICE car.

Ideally I wanted a towbar for carrying bikes, but with EVs the choice is limited, especially at the sub-£20k end of the market. Hyundai Kona 2021+ model came close as it can take a towbar, but the rear leg room is terrible. Note that you also can't retro-fit a towbar to a model3.

A 2019 Model 3 LR popped up privately the other week, complete with factory towbar. One owner from new. 66k miles. Under £20k. Deal done.

Bodywork is mostly good. Some stone chips. A nasty looking dent on one rear wheel arch that i failed to spot when viewing it. Everything else seems ok.

Interior looks basically new. They really hold up well to use. The leather has no cracks or scratches at all.

The driver's door cracks a little when opening/closing. Some of the windows squeak a bit. Other than that, you'd think it'd done 20k miles.

Now the big one, battery and range...

On mine i'm seeing 228 miles of "range" after an 80% charge. When new it would have shown 310 miles from 100%. If you scale it up you can then work out the degradation. So 228 * 1.25 shows 285 miles at 100% charge. 25 miles lost, or 8% off the battery's capacity.

They supposedly had 73.5 kWh of usable battery when new, so rough guess is 67.5 kWh usable now.

So at 80%-20% it's showing 170 ish of real world "range" that could be used regularly. Obviously you can charge higher or run it lower on long trips.

However, that depends on driving style and conditions, using the heater, etc.

I did 75 miles yesterday and the car told me i'd burnt though 90 miles of "range". I was hooning around and enjoying the acceleration though. If i'd driven like that from 80%-20% i'd have only covered 142 miles.

I did try being sensible and it showed about 230Wh/mile, which is enough to hit the car's claimed range. It just seems to be very, very sensitive to conditions and driving style in a way that will take some getting used to.

There are also charging losses to consider. Overnight it added 20kWh to get it back up to 80%. But Octopus claim I've used 24kWh. So 4kWh (16%) has gone missing in the AC->DC conversion. Googling suggests this is normal, so that must be the efficiency of the onboard charger.

Either way, my 75 miles of messing about yesterday cost £1.80 on octopus intelligent (24kWh X 7.5p) = 2.4p/mile

I've still not got a charger fitted. I'm using a beefy extension lead from an EV cable supplier. Octopus are giving me 12 hrs of cheap rate every night if i need it to keep the car at 80%.

Hope that helps someone out.

Edited by LowTread on Monday 5th February 10:40

[PistonTim]

Whats all the fannying about 80% for - just charge it and drive it.

[LowTread]

PistonTim said:

Whats all the fannying about 80% for - just charge it and drive it.

For daily driving it's recommended to keep the charge at 80% or below, and not run it down to below 10%-20%. That's my understanding.

You can exceed those limitations if you need to, but doing so regularly isn't good for long term battery health.

I'm happy to be told otherwise though!

This is partly why i went for one from a private seller. Speaking to them to discuss their charging habits and supercharger use was important to me.

[gmaz]

If you plan to drive it the next day, give it a 100% charge. This will allow the battery packs to balance and you may see more range.

You can also do a battery health check in the service mode, and if it is way below the expected, contact Tesla as you will have an 8 year / 120K mile warranty.

[Shabaza]

LowTread said:

For daily driving it's recommended to keep the charge at 80% or below, and not run it down to below 10%-20%. That's my understanding.

You can exceed those limitations if you need to, but doing so regularly isn't good for long term battery health.

I'm happy to be told otherwise though!

This is partly why i went for one from a private seller. Speaking to them to discuss their charging habits and supercharger use was important to me.

I know uber drivers that have similar, typically charge to 90/100%
Have close to 100k mileage with 10% battery degredation. this isnt a one off, 3 cars I know of, 2 LR and SR.

With this information, Id quite happily charge to atleast 90%.

They seldom go below 20%, but not because theyre actively trying to stay above that, just because they plug it in every night and havent used more then 70-80% range for the day most days


Edit to add, My volvo EV gets charged to 100% everyday and in 20k mileage ive seen no loss in range

[Whataguy]

PistonTim said:

Whats all the fannying about 80% for - just charge it and drive it.

Does it still take a long time to go from 80-100% on a Tesla charger?

I'd heard the charge time from 20-80% is quick, but drops off a lot after that.

[Whataguy]

LowTread said:

Hi all.

Hope that helps someone out.

Edited by LowTread on Monday 5th February 10:40

Very interested to hear how things go, a model 3 long range is exactly what I was looking at.

For me, with mostly motorway journeys and no way to charge either at home or at hotels when travelling a Tesla is the only suitable EV at the moment.

The model 3 long range just meets my needs for range and charger locations in the South.

I do 20k miles a year, so running one for 3/4 years and still being within warranty is what I'd be looking to do. I wouldn't want to run an EV outside of warranty due to the battery pack cost if it fails.

Only downside I can see is the cost of Tesla superchargers, as that's the only place I'd be able to charge.

Edited by Whataguy on Monday 5th February 11:48

[LowTread]

I charged at a supercharger on the way home from picking it up at the weekend.

It was 36p/kwh. Took about 15 mins to take it up to 85% from about 45%. Just enough time to walk over to have a pee and walk back.

[TheBinarySheep]

Whataguy said:

Does it still take a long time to go from 80-100% on a Tesla charger?

I'd heard the charge time from 20-80% is quick, but drops off a lot after that.

Yes, getting from 80-100% takes a while.

I saw a video once where Elon explained how it works and why it's slower. It's like going into a car park when it's not busy, you can quickly and easily find a space. But as the car park gets busier, it takes longer to find a space. Replace your car with electrons and you get the picture.

[dxg]

LowTread said:

There are also charging losses to consider. Overnight it added 20kWh to get it back up to 80%. But Octopus claim I've used 24kWh. So 4kWh (16%) has gone missing in the AC->DC conversion. Googling suggests this is normal, so that must be the efficiency of the onboard charger.

I'm glad to see observations such as this starting to enter the discourse. I've seen a few people making such comments of late.

Which is good, as it means that the efficiency of the charging process itself must be factored in. All that heating and cooling of the battery doesn't come for free, and then there's power loss (as heat and a bit of noise) in the charging kit itself...

[AlexIT]

dxg said:

LowTread said:

There are also charging losses to consider. Overnight it added 20kWh to get it back up to 80%. But Octopus claim I've used 24kWh. So 4kWh (16%) has gone missing in the AC->DC conversion. Googling suggests this is normal, so that must be the efficiency of the onboard charger.

I'm glad to see observations such as this starting to enter the discourse. I've seen a few people making such comments of late.

Which is good, as it means that the efficiency of the charging process itself must be factored in. All that heating and cooling of the battery doesn't come for free, and then there's power loss (as heat and a bit of noise) in the charging kit itself...

Especially in AC charging (i.e. home charging) the loss can be quite substantial: it gets more important the lower the charging current is, so you should try to charge at the maximum available current to be more efficient.

[Grapevine226]

I get that people don't always factor in charging losses, but for home charging you're looking at a few extra pence for a full 0-100% charge if you have a dedicated EV tariff, so isn't really going to make any difference financially.

[manracer]

We have a 2019 M3P and that gets about 285 when fully charged, thats with 40k miles done. When new it was 299

Friend has a M3 long range 2019, 35k miles done. 288 when full. when new it was 298.

[LowTread]

manracer said:

We have a 2019 M3P and that gets about 285 when fully charged, thats with 40k miles done. When new it was 299

Friend has a M3 long range 2019, 35k miles done. 288 when full. when new it was 298.

Thanks for that. Maybe my degradation isn't as bad as i thought then! 285/298 would only be 4.4% lost

[LowTread]

dxg said:

LowTread said:

There are also charging losses to consider. Overnight it added 20kWh to get it back up to 80%. But Octopus claim I've used 24kWh. So 4kWh (16%) has gone missing in the AC->DC conversion. Googling suggests this is normal, so that must be the efficiency of the onboard charger.

I'm glad to see observations such as this starting to enter the discourse. I've seen a few people making such comments of late.

Which is good, as it means that the efficiency of the charging process itself must be factored in. All that heating and cooling of the battery doesn't come for free, and then there's power loss (as heat and a bit of noise) in the charging kit itself...

Absolutely. You've got to look at the cost of the energy going in vs distance covered.

The extra 4kWh in losses in my case was at a cost of only 30p. I was using a granny cable. As mentioned, a 7kW charger might result in fewer lost electrons

It would be like measuring the efficiency of an ICE car and choosing to ignore the fuel used to go to/from a fuel station, or ignoring the extra fuel that a diesel uses to raise the exhaust temperature to do a DPF regen, or the extra fuel that a petrol engine uses on choke to warm the engine up quickly when cold.

Edited by LowTread on Monday 5th February 14:02

[AlexIT]

Grapevine226 said:

I get that people don't always factor in charging losses, but for home charging you're looking at a few extra pence for a full 0-100% charge if you have a dedicated EV tariff, so isn't really going to make any difference financially.

Sure, as other said it's nothing more -or probably less- than fuel used for DPF regen.
But this is PH, pedantry matters, isn't it?

[danp]

LowTread said:

Thanks for that. Maybe my degradation isn't as bad as i thought then! 285/298 would only be 4.4% lost

Presumably as with other EVs it’ll also estimate more range once the weather warms up (20 deg or so is ideal) - maybe you’ll even be at 0% lost!

[NDA]

danp said:

LowTread said:

Thanks for that. Maybe my degradation isn't as bad as i thought then! 285/298 would only be 4.4% lost

Presumably as with other EVs it’ll also estimate more range once the weather warms up (20 deg or so is ideal) - maybe you’ll even be at 0% lost!

Good point.

[RayDonovan]

Interesting, thanks for sharing

[Whataguy]

LowTread said:

I charged at a supercharger on the way home from picking it up at the weekend.

It was 36p/kwh. Took about 15 mins to take it up to 85% from about 45%. Just enough time to walk over to have a pee and walk back.

36p/kwh is a great price - I'd thought they were usually 75/80p ?