Car and Driver flawed analysis

not to pick nits, but we might more accurately say it's at LEAST as cheap to plug at home, as opposed to somewhere else (which also may be free)

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These are long term test cars C&D has owned for at least a year, and average fuel economy is the lifetime one at the 20k mile mark. They did not drive the same routes. The point is to see what it is like living with the car, instead of writing articles entirely on testers and media fleet vehicles from the car companies.

I suspect the Model 3's much lower than EPA's MPGe they got is because they really like the car's acceleration, and not because of some anti-EV agenda.

Even with the Tesla returning what properly the worse fuel economy an owner is likely to see, you would have to only use Superchargers to approach the fuel costs they had for the BMW. C&D used Superchargers about a third of the time, some they spent $1200 less on fuel than they did for the BMW over 20k miles.

The main point here is that to save money fueling a BEV, you can't use paid fast chargers all the the time, and charge at home. Which is true whether a leadfoot or hypermiler.

 

C&D noted they charged 1/3 of the time at supercharging stations. I’m not aware of the national average, but we average within the same as others we know with Teslas, 0-10%.

Like most, we charge at home the large majority of the time. As with Bob, if we do charge away from home it is usually free L2 when shopping. For the ~5% of the time we do supercharging, that is only on road trips. Even then we start a road trip with home charging and charge 1+ times during the trip with usually free L2, most often at the destination. If the vehicle will be parked long enough at the destination, sometimes we use free L1.

Agree, C&D efficiency numbers are probably the result of aggressive driving. When we first got our Model 3, I drove it like our previous Plug-in Prius and was able to beat EPA numbers consistently. But it’s hard to resist how effortless it is to drive more sprightly and have never gone back to more disciplined driving.

 

That's the difference I suppose between "real world" and "lab" results......
I gave up my sub to C/D looong ago, and my life situation points well away from EVs so I don't have a pooch in the fight........BUT.....I pretty much used to trust their results when reporting on a long term vehicle.

If they reported a lifetime average of "X" I pretty much take that with the same degree of confidence that I use when comparing EPA numbers, which is to say......YMMV.

The articles I read online suggest that the boys (and they ACT like boys!) at C/D sorta LIKE EV's....for the same reason that any other 'norm' would.
They accelerate briskly, and there's enough 'gee-whizz' tech to keep them happy, and some models even look like something that an adult would drive.

All good stuff.

They're just not in the tank for tankless cars.

 

I went from a Prius v where I beat EPA or matched it to a Rav4 hybrid (not plug in) and the extra HP gets used and I fail to beat EPA. Oh I did for a while when the car was new to me and I still drive it like it had 80 less HP. But soon you find yourself accelerating faster to get into traffic instead of waiting a few cars longer for a bigger slot because you can. Power is addictive ... just ask any politician.

 

......or social media CEO.....

 

Actually, the made an error in their calculations.
When they did this...

While the math works, it isn’t apples to apples.
The EPA is a conversion of energy, not money.
What they should have done is measure how many kWh it takes to go as far as one gallon of gas will take their comparison vehicle (26 miles in this case).

They got 88mpge (after dragging an anchor perhaps?), which is about 420Wh/mile?? So to go 26 miles that would require 10.8kWh.
At 26c/kWh that would cost about $2.82.

Most likely cheaper to charge at home.

 

I don't see any problem with the C&D article. They rightly point out that the supercharger network enables long distance travel at a premium cost that is about the same as driving a gas driven high power sport sedan.

Yes, they convert the energy in a gallon of gas to KWh, but that's commonly done so that you have a shared metric for BEV and ICE platforms. But it's not like the Model 3 is built for efficiency. It's a sport coupe where you brag about 0-60 times that rival supercars for goodness sakes.

Dan

 

The conversion they did for energy is done to compare efficiency.
That conversion doesn’t work when comparing costs.

As for the Model 3, it is one of the most efficient cars available today. It is incorrect to say it isn’t built for efficiency.

 

Isn't 'cost' a form of efficiency?

 

It is, but you need to do the conversion differently a cost comparison is not the same ratio as an energy comparison.

As I showed in my early post, the equivalent cost of driving their test vehicles, is about $2.62/“gallon” rather that the over $8 they came up with.

The end result is still that charging on the road is more expensive than charging at home. Just not by nearly as much.

 

I'm not going to get into a pissing match about it, but my reasoning is that while the model 3 is one of the more efficient BEVs it could be more efficient. It's optimized to be a sports car. This calls for bigger batteries than would otherwise be needed to minimize battery degradation from the power demands. The bigger batteries come with a cost, since more mass needs more energy to change the momentum of that mass. It is my opinion that Tesla does not make a BEV tailored to suburban life. If they did it would have a more limited range and would do better than the 250 Wh per mile that the model 3 consumes.

 

The Model 3 SR+ is the most efficient BEV you can buy in the US. The LR AWD one is less efficient from the weight of the bigger battery, but it still beats the Prius Prime, which does still burn a little gas on the EPA test cycle.

A smaller battery in the Model 3 would improve its efficiency, but people want over 200 miles of range. Tesla builds cars people want to buy. They are high performance, because it is easier to get people to spend more money for that than for efficiency, but Tesla engineered for efficiency too, because people won't pay for performance with short range.

The Tesla drive train is the most efficient available. It bests cars of the same range, and ones with shorter ranges from smaller batteries. Weight savings from anywhere will help, but there probably isn't much efficiency savings with going with a less powerful motor. To get better, you'll likely have to start using multi-speed transmissions.

BEV EPA efficiency
Fuel Economy
PHEV EPA efficiency
Fuel Economy

 

You got me there. The 2020 model 3 SR+ uses 1% less power than a Prius Prime. 25kWh/100mi vs 258 Wh/mi. The Models S, Y and X and 3LR and 3AWD all use more Wh per mile, so they are less efficient.

There are, however, areas of the US where the well to wheel CO2 of the Prius is cleaner than that of the best Tesla. That's due to the source of the electricity, of course.

I always chuckle when "customers demand this feature" is used as an excuse for an expensive design choice (like long range batteries) that the average consumer does not need. For a decade customer's "demanded" pickup trucks too. They are finally fading from the roads in my area, along with the full sized SUVs.

 

They can come to semi-rural NC and the car lots are really truck lots. Most of them are so tricked out there has never been a work load in the bed. Vanity trucks is what I call them. Driven like maniacs.