Tesla's 700 Mile Battery Is Coming Sooner Than You Think

[Sirfun]

I would welcome all the range possible. I could drive from Southern Arizona to Southern California and never have to charge during the trip, or better charge in Arizona before entering California and only needing a small amount of charge in California to get back over the border in Arizona to charge. Arizona has much lower electricity rates compared to California. I don't know if this shows when charging at a supercharger though between the two states?

It shows up on abetterrouteplanner, they show the estimated cost at each stop. And it's obvious California prices are significantly higher. From what I've read on the internet, Elon says prices at Superchargers are based on local costs and what Tesla thinks they need to break even. So in addition to higher energy prices, the price could possibly be reflective of higher cost's at a given location also.

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[madquadbiker]

OK,OK, enough with the pissing contest. I'm sure there would be lots of people that would want 700 miles range. I also can see lots of reasons why people would buy a vehicle with significantly less range. Crissa has some valid points. Why pay for all those expensive batteries if you don't need them. Also one thing I'm not seeing in this discussion is WEIGHT. If your BEV has a ton more batteries to achieve the possibility of that kind of range, you are carrying all that weight 100% of the time. With a lot of these ICE vehicles you are talking an extra tank which weighs a little more but it doesn't have to be filled. And as the fuel goes down so does the weight. Less weight is a good thing. Driving off-road in sand with weight is NOT a good thing. I wish for 300 miles range and the ability to recharge in less than 30 minutes. Optimum is relative.

If you could only hire an extra battery pack to slip in the bed for those extra long trips.

 

[Crissa]

If you could only hire an extra battery pack to slip in the bed for those extra long trips.

That would be awesome, since you could trade range for cargo capacity.

An extra ton of bricks would make the trips go faster than being able to make more trips.

-Crissa

 

[MEDICALJMP]

For those who argue that you only need a hundred miles or whatever because YOUR specific commute is 15-20 miles a day, learn about the financial failure of Los Angeles and the poor decision they made not getting Teslas.

The Los Angeles Police Department’s Fleet of BMW i3s Is Up for Sale
Taxpayers paid $10,267,699 for the cute city cars, most of which racked up four digits or less in mileage.
BY STEF SCHRADERSEPTEMBER 1, 2020



An unsuccessful attempt to reduce the fleet emissions of the Los Angeles Police Department could be your ticket into a barely used BMW i3. The LAPD's fleet of i3s is up for sale, reports Bimmer Life.

To help combat Los Angeles' infamously poor air quality, Mayor Eric Garcetti proposed moving all of the city's fleets to electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles in 2014. The Los Angeles Police Department's then-new non-emergency administrative fleet was part of this push, accepting bids in 2015 from BMW, Tesla and other electrified vehicle makers to supply them with cars.


An unlikely contender won out over longer-range fare like the Tesla Model S: the cute carbon-fiber-bodied, all-electric BMW i3. According to Bimmer Life, the department was set to lease 100 BMW i3s per year for three years starting in 2016, but according to The Current Review's Andrew Lambrecht, the least was postponed in 2018 with no explanation. While many of the LAPD's Capparis White i3s stayed relatively nondescript, some cars were dressed up in L.A.'s black and white cop car livery, complete with a light bar on top.
The intentions were good, but the price tag was high. Taxpayers paid $10,267,699 to lease the BMWs and install the charging infrastructure to keep them powered, per Bimmer Life. Worse yet, most of them barely got any use.
While the i3 non-emergency fleet was meant for community outreach initiatives and other business-related duties—not the police chases L.A. is infamous for—they were highly unpopular with the people who were supposed to use them. L.A. is a huge city, and the initial run of LAPD i3s only had the 22-kWh battery pack that produced 81 miles of range, reports Bimmer Life. These weren't the models with the gas-powered range extender, either, and personnel worried about getting stuck somewhere on the road.
The 2017 fleet that replaced that initial 2016 lease run only got a small bump in battery size, allowing 114 miles of travel on one charge. That wasn't enough to alleviate range anxiety within the department.
That's a very real fear, as it certainly wouldn't be the first time an electric police vehicle ran out of juice while on duty. Getting fleet users who are used to parking and leaving internal combustion cars to remember to plug an EV in can be difficult, leading to cars that were left sitting uncharged when others go to use them.



A 2018 CBS Los Angeles investigation found that most of the i8s had three or four figures on the odometer. The cars with more mileage were sometimes used for non-professional purposes. CBS even confronted an LAPD commander at a nail salon when they saw her using one of the cars to get a manicure.

Many of the ex-LAPD i3s are for sale through the dealership that leased them to the department in the first place: New Century BMW. While there aren't many listed online now (presumably because the low-mile cars were a great deal), Bimmer Life reports that the dealership listed the cars as ex-government vehicles with certified pre-owned status.

The cars sport the Deka World dark cloth interiors and 19-inch alloy wheels. Most are priced well under $20,000, with some even down in the $15,000 range. So, what didn't work for the LAPD's fleet could very well work for you if you're looking for a relative bargain on a BMW EV.

Got a tip? Send us a note: [email protected]

Correction: Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2020, 9:13 am. ET: A previous version of this story misstated that Los Angeles leased 100 i3s per year starting in 2016. However, the lease was postponed in 2018 with no explanation, according to Andrew Lambrecht of The Current Review, who's been following the saga of the BMW i3s and their sale. This has been corrected above.




https://www.thedrive.com/news/36119...oqfDDSAfB5XdqvV-U8UwRQG2mch4LESN_ZcR9O_Mg7k8c

 

[Crissa]

Yeah, their police depart is notorious for having real racist sticks in the mud.

The design language of the BMWs is probably what did them in... Nearly none of these community or plainclothes cars do more than a few miles a day anyhow.

This is why the city needs to be more strict about equipment use by personnel.

-Crissa

 

[CyberMoose]

Should have used Tesla

 

[Crissa]

Should have used Tesla

Probably. But the personnel would have laughed at them and the news would have made fun of them, so they bought the cheaper option at the time. The cars did what they were supposed to do, and no one whined about all the low-mileage patrol cars the city had dumped before.

??‍

-Crissa

 

[CostcoSamples]

For myself, I need to be able to drive at least two to three hours into the middle of nowhere, then drive home, without access to a charger. And I need to be able to do that in the dead of Canadian winter. I routinely make such trips for work. Perhaps I am in the minority, but 500 mile range CT is the only practical Tesla for my situation. 700 miles would be much better.

 

[ajdelange]

I'd think long and hard about using a BEV in this application. For starters the working range of a 500 EPA mile rated truck is about 400 miles under EPA conditions. Traveling at high speeds on open roads or at lower speeds on muddy, snow covered or even wet roads can knock quite a bit off that. Tesla's heat pump approach to battery and cabin heating increases efficiency some but isn't going to show any benefit at -40 and using a heat pump doesn't help with the increased air density at low temperature.

Is there really no charging along the way or at destination? Even a 30A 240 V outlet would put 12 or so miles into the vehicle per hour charging.

 

[blackscraper]

Range is king. here are some of my points:
1. Most ICE can go more than 800KMs on a single tank. i.e. my previous Odyssey can easily achieve 8L/100KM. Let alone the facts there are far more gas stations than charging infrastructures and refilling takes only 5-10minutes whereas I used to stop my Model S at supercharger for more than half and hour. Convenience is a big issue when go on a road trip. Some hybrids like Prius can run more than 1000KMs on a full tank.
2. Harsh winter has a bigger toll on EVs than ICE. Once gas engines reaches operational temperature, the consumption difference between summer and winter becomes trivial. So in winter, Gasoline engines are not that bad, especially when it comes to heating needs. Gasoline engine has much more heat to waste
3. Bigger battery does not necessarily mean slower charging because at a high powered charging station, bigger battery can accept high power charging longer than a smaller one. As to can not replenish the pack over night charging at home, who really runs down the battery pack to 0 before plug in if you do have one at home? At least very few EV owners do that nowadays.

 

[ajdelange]

Range is king.

Mo' range mo' betta. No argument there

1. Most ICE can go more than 800KMs on a single tank. i.e. my previous Odyssey can easily achieve 8L/100KM.

My Lexus has a 20 gal tank and gets 18 EPA miles per gallon. That translates to 360 miles or 576 km. About the same as my Raven X. So I often wonder why I am so obsessed with range in the X when I never gave it a thought in the Lexus. Except that I did when on the freeway and I figured that I could skip this service stop and make it to the next and a headwind came up.

2. Harsh winter has a bigger toll on EVs than ICE. Once gas engines reaches operational temperature, the consumption difference between summer and winter becomes trivial.

Not really. An ICE vehicle is subject to exactly the same physics as a BEV with the obvious exception of cabin and battery heat. That difference has, with the addition of heat pumps been largely ameliorated for many drivers (that is, those who experience relative mild winters - heat pumps aren't worth much at - 35).

3. Bigger battery does not necessarily mean slower charging because at a high powered charging station, bigger battery can accept high power charging longer than a smaller one. As to can not replenish the pack over night charging at home, who really runs down the battery pack to 0 before plug in if you do have one at home? At least very few EV owners do that nowadays.

I try to get people to appreciate that the charge replenishment issue is not one of battery size at all. It depends on how much needs to be replenished which is the product of how far you drove in a given day and how many Wh/mi you used in driving it. If you drive 100 mi (160 km) in a day and use, as we think the CT probably will, 450 Wh/mi then you must replenish 45 kWh that night. With the CT's charger capacity at 11.5 kW it's going to take a bit over 4 hrs to do that (assuming, of course, that your EVSE supports the maximum rate).

 

[Crissa]

Range is king. here are some of my points:
1. Most ICE can go more than 800KMs on a single tank.

This isn't true. Some can. Not most.

2. Harsh winter has a bigger toll on EVs than ICE. Once gas engines reaches operational temperature, the consumption difference between summer and winter becomes trivial.

This is also not true. While Teslas still have to create heat that ICE engines have as waste - they manage their battery pack temperature so do not get the otherwise drop in performance in the cold.

3. Bigger battery does not necessarily mean slower charging because at a high powered charging station, bigger battery can accept high power charging longer than a smaller one. As to can not replenish the pack over night charging at home, who really runs down the battery pack to 0 before plug in if you do have one at home? At least very few EV owners do that nowadays.

This is true. The bigger the battery pack, the higher the base charging rate it can absorb. Also the larger sweet spot for daily operation. And also the more thermal mass to resist degrading temperature changes.

Also, most people do not drive more than 32 miles a day. That's about eight hours of Level 1 charging. But you can have Level 2 charging at home easily by plugging into a dryer outlet and fully charge a Model 3. https://evcharging.enelx.com/news/blog/577-how-long-does-it-take-to-charge-a-tesla

A Cybertruck will have a battery size 2.5x the size of the Model 3 and consume probably 2x the energy to move. So we'll definitely want at least level 2 charging. That level 1 charging will maintain the cabin and battery, of course. (Which is why solar is a good idea for a sits-outside truck! Even a trickle helps.)

-Crissa

 

[ajdelange]

Just to emphasize that battery size doesn't matter and that Wh/mi do I'll add for comparison that if I drive 100 mi in my X which uses an EPA rated 282 Wh/mi I'll need to replace 28.2 kWh which can be done in a little over 2.5 hr with a maximum rate EVSE. Thus the CT takes 60% longer - not because of battery size but because of the higher per mile consumption.

 

[blackscraper]

@Crissa
Try modern ICEs on the road. Sedan, SUV, trucks, managing 500 miles straight on hwy nonstop is becoming non issue nowadays. Let alone there are millions of gas stations on the road, drivers don't have to drive the car according to car's schedule but to drivers' own schedule (i.e. bio-breaks etc). Longer range on EV does mean more convenience nowadays, also I do agree as range becomes longer, the marginal convenience it bring on by gaining more range diminishes or even becomes negligible . However, we are far from that point.

Heat does take a bigger toll for EV. As ICE can simply tap on the heat generated which is, otherwise, wasted, EVs have to draw from the battery to heat cabin. Such draw can be translate into significant range gain when temperature are milder. I understand heat pump can alleviate to some extent. However, you can't defy law of physics, and I really doubt there is much energy wasted by EVs. That being said, I also notice some drop in the efficiency in winter even after the battery reaches optimum running temperature, say 10% is not an exaggeration. Maybe the battery is not warm enough though.

 

[ajdelange]

As ICE can simply tap on the heat generated which is, otherwise, wasted, EVs have to draw from the battery to heat cabin.

An EV can also draw on wasted heat and the new Octovalve system in the Y does exactly that. Now the difference between a BEV and an ICE car is that in the ICE car the wasted heat is 500% of the traction load whereas in a BEV it may be 5 - 10%. Going down the highway at 70 mpH an X may be pulling 13 kW meaning 0.65 to 1.3 kW is being wasted. That is plenty to heat the cabin and warm the battery until it starts to get more than a little cold. When it gets more than a little cold the heat pump in the Y and presumably the CT will cut in returning 300 W of heat for each 100 W of battery invested.

I'm not saying that there aren't circumstances where the cold is going to be an appreciable factor but especially with the new Y "plumbing" this situation is going to improve in that regard. As it is the fleet sees an average of 10% efficiency loss in winter.