Official Tesla Model S thread

[pjoseph]

Still on the fence about reserving one. The P85 wait times have come down to under two months. Lots of P60s out of the door lately. A few new questions.

1) Differences between the performance and non performance models.

2) Phantom power draw (battery TMS) overnight (some remnants of the NYT review)

3) Regen on a full charge in cold weather.

The Leaf is looking better for (2) and (3), based on my limited information.

 

[Zythryn]

And now for something completely different, Road & Track's review of the Tesla S. It is, to put this with British understatement, positive. Article here, enjoy:

http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-reviews/road-tests/road-test-2013-tesla-model-s" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

From the article: "The Model S's power seats don't have a memory setting." My driver's seat does. Have one setting for me, one for my wife, and one for easier entry/exit.

Nice review, but I wish someone would do the non-performance model, and perhaps a 60 kWh or 40 kWh car.

The Model S does have memory settings for the seats, mirrors, etc. Up to 10 of them, we have settings for my wife, myself and a generic 'guest' for test drivers. Not sure if that is part of the Tech package or not.

 

[Zythryn]

Still on the fence about reserving one. The P85 wait times have come down to under two months. Lots of P60s out of the door lately. A few new questions.

1) Differences between the performance and non performance models.

2) Phantom power draw (battery TMS) overnight (some remnants of the NYT review)

3) Regen on a full charge in cold weather.

The Leaf is looking better for (2) and (3), based on my limited information.

1) It is the difference between ludicrously fast and ridiculously fast.

2) Phantom draw is about 8 miles a day right now, or about 3%. Tesla is wording on cutting this down to about 1%. Hasn't been an issue for us, YMMV.

3). Regen is limited when the batteries are cold, or full enough such that pumping the full regen power into the batteries would damage their long term health. I trust the Tesla engineers to figure out the best balance. Battery degradation in the Roadster has been minimal (about 1%/10,000 miles). This is their second model and I suspect they have made improvements in their battery.

 

[TonyWilliams]

Still on the fence about reserving one. The P85 wait times have come down to under two months. Lots of P60s out of the door lately. A few new questions.

My neighbor got his non-P85 in 6 weeks (blue/grey) on Sunday. The red ones will start getting built soon.

 

[Randy]

Yes, Red is the color....Soon, I hope....

 

[TonyWilliams]

Yes, Red is the color....Soon, I hope....

Yes, I definitely want to see this color up close. I do like that blue, though.

 

[Stoaty]

2) Phantom draw is about 8 miles a day right now, or about 3%. Tesla is wording on cutting this down to about 1%. Hasn't been an issue for us, YMMV.

Is the phantom draw dependent on the ambient temperature, or is it pretty constant at 3%?

 

[ebill3]

2) Phantom draw is about 8 miles a day right now, or about 3%. Tesla is wording on cutting this down to about 1%. Hasn't been an issue for us, YMMV.

Is the phantom draw dependent on the ambient temperature, or is it pretty constant at 3%?

I understand it is somewhat dependent on temperature. I have lost nine miles in the last 15 hours, temperature here is in the high 40's F.

Also not a problem yet, but I can see it becomming one on a road trip, so I will endeavor to plug in at night - 120 volts will take care of it.

 

[GeekEV]

The Model S does have memory settings for the seats, mirrors, etc. Up to 10 of them, we have settings for my wife, myself and a generic 'guest' for test drivers. Not sure if that is part of the Tech package or not.

The driver memory profiles are/were tied to the Napa Leather package. But I didn't they say that all new cars would get the same power seats as the napa package (but in fabric) sometime this year? In which case, I bet they'd get the memory profiles too. *speculation*

 

[GeekEV]

Yes, Red is the color....Soon, I hope....

Yes, I definitely want to see this color up close. I do like that blue, though.

I haven't seen the new red up close either, but in all the pictures it is WAY brighter red than the signature red. The signature red I'd want, but not the new red... I love my gray, it's a very elegant color. I saw a brown the other day, it's quite nice too. Dark though, bordering on black.

 

[ebill3]

I love my gray, it's a very elegant color. I saw a brown the other day, it's quite nice too. Dark though, bordering on black.

I got green, and it is very dark - like the blue and brown. In bright sunshine, great, but here in the Pacific NW? Maybe come July, August. When I picked mine up and saw some actual grays, I had a tinge of remorse.

Think I read that green and brown are the least selected colors.

 

[Zythryn]

2) Phantom draw is about 8 miles a day right now, or about 3%. Tesla is wording on cutting this down to about 1%. Hasn't been an issue for us, YMMV.

Is the phantom draw dependent on the ambient temperature, or is it pretty constant at 3%?

The phantom draw is from two things.
1) Equipment on the Model S that never really shuts down completely (some level of communications, batter management monitoring etc).
2) Battery management actively warming or cooling the batteries if they get outside a certain range.

1 is consistent and not dependent on ambient temperature. 2 is completely dependent upon ambient temperatures.

In addition, there is loss due to cold batteries not being able to deliver as much energy. This factor is why the range tends to not be lost or even gained some as you drive and warm up the batteries.

As an example, I was parked on the street in 0 degree weather for about 6 hours and 'lost' about 40 miles. I drove 30 miles home, and when I got there I had gained 5 miles even though I had just driven 30.

 

[DaveEV]

3). Regen is limited when the batteries are cold, or full enough such that pumping the full regen power into the batteries would damage their long term health.

It appears that is only an issue when the battery cold soaks. If you have the car finish charging right before you leave, the battery should be nice and warm. Of course at work, that may be an issue.

2) Phantom draw is about 8 miles a day right now, or about 3%. Tesla is wording on cutting this down to about 1%. Hasn't been an issue for us, YMMV.

Is the phantom draw dependent on the ambient temperature, or is it pretty constant at 3%?

Cold weather seems to make it worse - numbers I saw on TMC forum are 3-5 kWh from the wall per day. The upper end was with the car around freezing.

That's killer right there - for my typical 24 miles of driving / day I usually use about 6 kWh or just under 4 mi/kWh from the wall. Even if I could drive a Model S at the same efficiency as the LEAF (not likely), it would drop my mi/kWh from just under 4 to a bit over 2.5 mi/kWh.

Even if they cut that down by 2/3rds, that's still an extra kWh / day or about 10% of my monthly EV usage... 1 kWh/day is a bit over 40W constant - WTF are they doing?

 

[Stoaty]

That's killer right there - for my typical 24 miles of driving / day I usually use about 6 kWh or just under 4 mi/kWh from the wall. Even if I could drive a Model S at the same efficiency as the LEAF (not likely), it would drop my mi/kWh from just under 4 to a bit over 2.5 mi/kWh.

Even if they cut that down by 2/3rds, that's still an extra kWh / day or about 10% of my monthly EV usage... 1 kWh/day is a bit over 40W constant - WTF are they doing?

Yes, for my use not having a TMS ends up saving a lot of energy without any signficant downside. I don't like to see kwh go down the drain for nothing!

 

[WetEV]

Yes, for my use not having a TMS ends up saving a lot of energy without any signficant downside.

Me too, but probaby not for someone in Phoenix, AZ.

 

[Zythryn]

Immediate gain over long term gain is a big question with EVs.
Battery degradation with the Tesla system has averaged a bit under 1%/10,000 miles with the Roadster. I personally came very close to that average over 27,000 miles with our Roadster.

That being said, it is also something that Tesla is working on and I am expecting they will improve it.
If I drove 24 miles a day, we would be driving a LEAF right now. Unfortunately we have a couple days a week where we drive over 100 miles and average about 55 miles a day. So a Leaf just doesn't work for us unfortunately.

 

[pchilds]

I have set up my EVSE to charge at 280 volts. Works fine with the RAV4, would like to try a dual charger model S. I am in Temecula.

 

[GeekEV]

I have set up my EVSE to charge at 280 volts. ...

I think you meant 208v (or maybe 240v)... But, that aside, I get the feeling you had a question but I can't for the life of me figure out what it is.

 

[TonyWilliams]

I have set up my EVSE to charge at 280 volts. ...

I think you meant 208v (or maybe 240v)... But, that aside, I get the feeling you had a question but I can't for the life of me figure out what it is.

No, he meant 280v, so at 40amps with a single charger, it will charge at 11kW from the wall.

The specification is up to 277v on the charger, so he set up a transformer to test it. Now, he'd like to try it on a twin charger car to see if it will pull the higher amps that it is supposed to (I can't see why not).

 

[GeekEV]

I see. Was that in this thread? I missed the context for that...