Model s range at autobahn speeds

[OldGermanHeaps]

How badly does it affect range on older model s when doing long distances cruising at 90-100?

[P675]

Can't really put a number on it but enthusiastic driving in my 3 rinses the battery. Big difference in range going lorry speeds compared to 70-80-90. Sustained 100 is going to make a hit.

[OPUT]

OldGermanHeaps said:

How badly does it affect range on older model s when doing long distances cruising at 90-100?

Wind drag makes up nearly all the energy loss and that increases with the square of speed, so 100 is pretty much double 70mph.

There was an excellent thread on here which explained just how trivial rolling resistance is.

[kambites]

If you assume half the range at 100 that you get at 70 you'll probably end up slightly pessimistic, but you're not going to be miles off.

[TheDeuce]

Same efficiency drop applies for ICE of course - which raises a moral question about driving at high speed, even when safe and legal to do so.

If a person who completes a journey at 100mph uses double the fuel and causes double the emissions of a person that does it at 70, is that ideal? I personally have no issues with it but I doubt the future of car design and technology is going to stretch to make inefficient driving easy/appealing. I think high speed driving might have had it's day.

On the flip side, relatively low speed but sporty b-road driving has a far lesser efficiency impact on EV than ICE, so fill your boots with that. More fun than setting your cruise control at 100mph too.

[gangzoom]

At 90-100mph you're be looking at 100 miles range at best even from the larger 100kWh pack cars. However, if the car has 'Free' for life supercharging, than at least you don't have to worry about fuel costs.

[OldGermanHeaps]

Its not about fun, its about can it go from glasgow to manchester at 2am without stopping to charge, and not driving at fairy speed?

[P675]

OldGermanHeaps said:

Its not about fun, its about can it go from glasgow to manchester at 2am without stopping to charge, and not driving at fairy speed?

214 miles at 56mph the whole way: 3 hours 50 mins
At 100mph the whole way: 2 hours 8 mins

With a 1 hour charging stop that might actually be quicker but you'll have to stop at least once, and not get caught.

[andrewpandrew]

OldGermanHeaps said:

Its not about fun, its about can it go from glasgow to manchester at 2am without stopping to charge, and not driving at fairy speed?

No chance.

[OldGermanHeaps]

Shame. Hopefully the future brings improvements.
Doing the equivalent trip in germany with cruise set at 60 compared to doing the trip with cruise set to 95 yields about a 9mpg difference bit a substintially shorter journey time. Can do there and back comfortably on less than a tank of diesel.

[RSTurboPaul]

TheDeuce said:

Same efficiency drop applies for ICE of course - which raises a moral question about driving at high speed, even when safe and legal to do so.

If a person who completes a journey at 100mph uses double the fuel and causes double the emissions of a person that does it at 70, is that ideal? I personally have no issues with it but I doubt the future of car design and technology is going to stretch to make inefficient driving easy/appealing. I think high speed driving might have had it's day.

On the flip side, relatively low speed but sporty b-road driving has a far lesser efficiency impact on EV than ICE, so fill your boots with that. More fun than setting your cruise control at 100mph too.

If we go down that route, we would seem to need to start looking at the 'moral question' about having children and keeping pets.

Still, at least our impending mandatory 'carbon allowance' linked to our effectively-mandatory Digital ID and our CBDCs (with spending restrictions laid out by our glorious leaders) will come in useful for controlling us ensuring approved choices and behaviours.

[kambites]

OldGermanHeaps said:

Shame. Hopefully the future brings improvements.
Doing the equivalent trip in germany with cruise set at 60 compared to doing the trip with cruise set to 95 yields about a 9mpg difference bit a substintially shorter journey time. Can do there and back comfortably on less than a tank of diesel.

Yup, ICE vehicles are more efficient at higher loads than at lower ones. EVs efficiency is consistent across the load range.

So while a smallish diesel engine might be, say, 15% efficient at 50mph and 25% efficient at 100mph, an EV will be roughly 90% efficient at both speeds, hence the EV's hence range will drop off far more than the diesel's as speed rises. The only way to change that would be to intentionally hobble the efficiency of EVs at lower speeds, which would obviously be stupid!

To comfortably do Glasgow to Manchester at that speed in the winter, I think you'd need a car with a WLTP range of something like 500 miles, which is starting to become a possibility now, but but isn't cheap.

Edited by kambites on Monday 19th January 12:24

[TheDeuce]

andrewpandrew said:

OldGermanHeaps said:

Its not about fun, its about can it go from glasgow to manchester at 2am without stopping to charge, and not driving at fairy speed?

No chance.

Indeed, you'd need to be bloody lucky to do that these days, especially given the cameras. Best to factor in an extra 6 hours for the arrest to be processed... And an extra week at work to pay off the fine, and a spare day for the court appearance.

Overall, 70-80mph is quicker


Is this really a thread about how long an EV can sustain breaking the law for before it becomes inconvenient to the driver!?

[napistonheads]

OldGermanHeaps said:

Its not about fun, its about can it go from glasgow to manchester at 2am without stopping to charge, and not driving at fairy speed?

FWIW I did this trip in a Model 3 Performance from slightly further north than Glasgow with 4 people and luggage on Boxing Day. 100% 300 mile range became 240 miles at 70mph (there were also some slower speed restrictions due to roadworks) arrived with 5% remaining and used the Tesla chargers at the Trafford centre. Wouldn’t have tried it if I didn’t know there were chargers at my destination tbh but it can do it and other EVs are more efficient/have bigger batteries. Tried the same trip at higher speed, similar temperature and got 190 miles and had to stop at Tebay. As others have stated wind drag/speed rather than weight seems to be the differentiator, there’s a really good link on here somewhere to someone in the USA showing this with an EV vs ICE pickup.

[RobbyJ]

Some interesting data here:

https://cleantechnica.com/2018/07/15/tesla-range-p...

When I had my Model S P90D with a pretty degraded battery (about 66kwh useable) I could go about 170 miles at 70-80 mph.

At 100mph 100-120 miles (guessing from memory), at 120mph+ genuinely on the Autobahn the range expectations for a near full battery were just silly, circa 70 miles territory.

I didn't do too many 2am runs, what I found was on busier Autobahns generally trying to go as fast as possible and was safe, I'd still get around 150miles of range because of speeding up and slowing down and getting stuck at slower speeds.

[otolith]

The loss of range at thoroughly illegal motorway speeds is far less of a problem now than it would have been 25 years ago. You just can't get away with it these days.

[TheDeuce]

otolith said:

The loss of range at thoroughly illegal motorway speeds is far less of a problem now than it would have been 25 years ago. You just can't get away with it these days.

Exactly. If you regularly drive consistently over 80mph for long enough to drain the battery, you'll be wasting more time dealing with fines and plod than you'll save in journey time.

It simply doesn't work, no matter what you drive.


Fair play if you know it's a clear stretch of road and you want a quick blast, live and let live (hopefully), but there's no way high speed driving can be sustained for a long journey these days.

[ZesPak]

I drive an "older" Model S through Germany several times a year. Can't say I've had enough space to test it out for extended periods.
Too much road works and traffic. I do stretch its legs every now and then, hitting 250km/h. Range would be obliterated probably if you could sustain that for more than 5 minutes.

In general, I find it less stressful and more convenient to turn on "autopilot" and set it to 130-140km/h. It probably affects range but not that much that it bothers me, and definitely not enough to make me want to go back to driving a diesel repmobile.

[stef1808]

I remember renting a S few years ago in Cologne and then had about 120km drive to the hotel. Forgot which exact model but it was fast enough. After 30-45 mins of flat out driving when possible on the autobahn I had to crawl back and arrived with 2km range left.

[RSTurboPaul]

TheDeuce said:

otolith said:

The loss of range at thoroughly illegal motorway speeds is far less of a problem now than it would have been 25 years ago. You just can't get away with it these days.

Exactly. If you regularly drive consistently over 80mph for long enough to drain the battery, you'll be wasting more time dealing with fines and plod than you'll save in journey time.

It simply doesn't work, no matter what you drive.


Fair play if you know it's a clear stretch of road and you want a quick blast, live and let live (hopefully), but there's no way high speed driving can be sustained for a long journey these days.

On what basis are these claims being made?

Motorway (fixed) cameras only really exist in so-called 'smart' sections (and even then are reflective and in plain sight), and the chance of passing an unmarked Police vehicle are vanishingly small nowadays, especially gone midnight.

It is perfectly possible to drive using appropriate observation for 2+ hours at 'some speed' - such pessimism and compliance exhibited would seem to be exactly the sort of resigned state of mind 'the powers that be' would be keen to engender.