Tesla Model S – Page 9 – My ActiveE Made Me Accidentally Environmental

Second Year’s tracking of Hybrid Garage use.

So, it’s been two years since I’ve started tracking our garage’s EV vs ICE use. As I previously wrote two years ago on my Minimizing Gas Use article and on my update a year ago, I do drive a hybrid garage. For those that need a refresher, a hybrid garage is one where some of my cars are EVs and the others are internal combustion engine (ICE) cars. As a family that is a part of the rEVolution, why do we still have ICE cars, it’s because we’re not as good as those that have gone to an all electric lifestyle. Hats off to them, but there are just times that I like to use our vehicles that happen to use gasoline.

This past “winter” was better than last year’s “winter”, but we did not brave the mountains with our fourteen year old BMW X5. The X5 lets us go to the mountains around LA when there are restrictions to drive when the snow is fresh. Additionally, when we need to buy large items to move, we’ll use this same workhorse to help us move them. Granted the Model S does have a LOT of space, but I’m not one of those brave souls to carry “cargo” in them.

Last year we also had our BMW 328iC Convertible. But we sold that now that we’re more comfortable removing and re-installing the roof on the Tesla Roadster. So, on those days that we feel like driving around Sunny Southern California with the top down, we just use the Roadster.

That being said, I understand the costs of our addiction to oil and gas and we try to minimize it.

Two years ago, I started tracking the number of miles my household used ICE vs. EV to see what percentage of our private car travels are electric and what part are powered by internal combustion engines. Since we travel a little bit, I’ve decided to count the miles driven in rental cars to this spreadsheet and the miles that we’ve lent our ICE vehicles (and EVs) (ICE is now singular over the course of the second year of this study) to our friends and family when they visit Southern California. This is why I created some tracking spreadsheets and tracked mileage for a year. However, the results from last year to this year are impressive.

In the first year of the study, we drove EV a total of 81.20% of the time and ICE 18.80% of the time.

In the second year of the study, we drove EV a total of 92.64% of the time and ICE 7.36% of the time. ~~94.78% of the time and ICE 5.22% of the time~~. [Correction from 3/10/2016, discovered transposed number in tracking miles a year later.] We sold our second ICE car in Month 4 of the second year (or 16th Month overall). Additionally, we did try to rent EVs on trips as much as possible, unfortunately, even in areas of the country that have EVs available to rent, the vehicles were rented out ahead of the time of our trip there (specifically Honolulu and Orlando). We tried to rent an EV on a trip to Portland, however, at the time, there was no onsite EV rental at PDX International Airport.

As a whole, the household (as defined earlier, my wife and I and when we lend the cars to family and friends) drove about 46,000 total miles (both EV and ICE in the previous period) and we drove a total of approximately 39,300 ~~55,000~~ total miles in the second year. That’s a~~n increase of 9,000~~ decrease of 7,000 ~~more~~ miles of total driving of which ~~52,500~~ 36,422 of those total miles were EV. ~~That’s nearly 6,000 more miles than ALL the driving that we did during the first year of the hybrid garage study.~~

Interestingly, I did a quick 31,310 Tesla Model S update the day before the end of the second year of the study period and I had a lifetime Model S efficiency of 308 wH per mile. At the end of the day of the second year of the study, that average went down to a more efficient 307 wH per mile.

Throughout the past year I’ve been using 308 wH per mile for my calculations. Now going to have to use 307 wH per mile. That achievement is something.

One of the things that I was hoping to announce in this post is, as a family, we’ve reached 100,000 all EV miles across all three EVs that we’ve leased or owned, but sadly at the end of the second year of the period, we’ve been able to get to 99,665 miles on all the EVs that we’ve owned or leased. Now if we were to count our loaners and the few times we’ve been able to rent EVs in this count, I’m sure we’re well over 100,000.

Looking forward to seeing what else we can achieve with our hybrid garage next year.

A fitting mileage post… 31,310 miles for a car in the 310 area code

I was going to write about how the Model S is doing at 30,000 miles…

However, I wrote a post at 29,000 miles, so 30,000 would be tight…

So, I figured how about one at 31,310 miles…

What can I say, the car’s great. It’s still between 227 to 228 rated miles when I charge at 90% on a daily basis and average consumption of 308 wH per mile. What’s great about this mileage is that we’re getting that much closer to 100,000 EV miles for all three EVs. Tomorrow would be the 2nd year of our tracking the EV vs. ICE hybrid garage study. It would’ve been great to have hit 100,000 EV miles by then, however, have to be happy with 99,506 total EV miles by the end of today. After tomorrow, probably closer to 99,600 EV miles vs. approximately 11,000 miles. But that’s the subject of another post.

Quick update… after firmware patch.

So, the first 90% charge after the firmware of the Model S at 29,000 miles was updated from V6.0 (1.67.125) to V6.0 (2.0.81) and I was able to remotely verify that it was still holding at 226 miles for that charge. This is only a few days after the 29,000 Mile post (also, mileage is now 29,460).

29,000 Miles in the Tesla Model S

We’re getting to the point where we’re close to “doubling up” on the miles on the Model S than our Roadster. It’s got a lot more to do with the utility of a Model S vs. a Roadster as well as the number of miles that I drive for work.

The Model S is a 2013 that we picked up in November 2013 and the Roadster is a CPO that we picked up in September 2013. The Model S had around 20 miles when we picked it up and the Roadster had around 2200 miles when we picked that up.

They’re both great cars in their own rights and we’ve put in close to 15,000 miles on the Roadster at this point.

Ideal Miles – 291

Rated Miles – 251

The battery degradation on the car has shown its effect in the last few hundred miles. My 90% daily charge has gone down to around 226 Rated miles/261 Ideal Miles. Range charges in my most recent charge is 251 Rated miles/291 Ideal Miles. Most parts of the world, winter has a very noticeable effect on range. This is not normally the case in Southern California. With 291 Ideal miles or 9 lost miles. Doesn’t look bad vs 300 miles. But I live in a rated miles world and my 265 is now down to 252, so that sorta hurts, after all 13/265 is almost 5% of usable range gone vs. the Ideal loss around 3% (291/300) though this is also 4.6% (291/306).

I often charge the car to 90% on most days. The Roadster has a feature called “Top Off” that I mimic on the Model S. What that means is before I roll off, I extend the charge and run the pre-conditioning to cool the car and battery down. I wonder if that contributed to the degradation. Either way, there it is. Still waiting on Tesla to step it up and provide some sort of warranty and guidelines on what to expect.

If battery loss is linear, then should I expect 20% loss by 116,000 miles? Or is loss on a curve and 20% is closer to 150,000 or even 200,000 miles? Or is it accelerated and 5% loss is actually good for 29,000 miles. Not to mention the fact that I am measuring this based on Rated miles, which is what really works, but should I continue to normalize and look at Ideal miles, which may be ideal, but unrealistic. Because, as I’ve written, that’s currently closer to a 3-4.5% loss of Ideal miles.

Do I need to change my charging behavior? Because 9,000 miles ago, I was still range charged to 260 Rated miles. So, if we plot my two data points. I lost 5 miles in the first 20,000 miles and 8 more miles in the next 9,000 miles (Rated miles again). One thing to note is the car has been constantly updating with new firmware. So, one needs to wonder if these losses were already in the car and that changes in the rated mils is because of firmware changes and “fine-tuning of the algorithm. If it’s based on our driving, I’ve been rather conservative over the past 29,000 miles. My average since we picked up the car has been 308 Wh/mile (see the Trip A meter on any of the three pictures.)

Perhaps I should charge the car less and let it dip below 100 miles more often. Some guidelines from Tesla really would help here. In the meantime, we’re saving for replacement battery packs for the Roadster and Model S. Even without some sort of guidelines on what that will cost, the recent 400 mile Roadster upgrade announcement makes me hopeful that the same, or at least a replacement pack price will be announced for the Model S when our pack drops down to a level where either something kicks in to replace it or it gets unbearable and we decide to replace it ourselves. Tesla Gigafactory anyone?

As I’ve mentioned before, c’mon Tesla be AWESOME again! Publish a Battery Degradation Warranty that we can count on or at least start to provide pricing on replacement Model S packs for folks to start saving up for.

[UPDATE 2015-01-17]
I’ve been asked several times on social media as to the firmware at the time of the publication of this post.

It is V6.0 (1.67.125). The car is actually going in for a patch to fix an unrelated bug with regard to the clock switching from 12h AM/PM to 24h seemingly randombly.)

Now updated to v6.0 (2.0.81) at the Service Center.

The CAN JR and The CAN SR… Must have accessories for the Tesla Roadster

Elon Musk and Tesla Motors tweets regarding the upcoming demonstration of upgrading the Tesla Roadster to a 400 Mile Range has increased the interest in Roadster ownership. To continue further the previous post upon receipt of the CAN SR a few days back. Each version of the CAN is sold for $695 each and is well worth it.

What makes the CAN from Henry Sharp a valuable accesory is that it allows Roadster owners a nicer/smaller adapter to standard J1772. The Tesla produced product is rather bulky and a car like the Roadster space truly is a premium.

Here is a photo from Tesla (from their shop) of the Tesla produced adapter.

Tesla Roadster to J1772 adapter from Tesla

Whereas the CAN from Henry Sharp is rather compact.

This first picture is the J1772 side that the Roadster driver uses to plug the J1772 into.

This second picture is the Roadster side that the Roadster driver uses to connect to the Car.

You can see that the CAN is not much larger than a Blackberry Curve Telephone.

And here is the CAN attached and charging a Roadster. To ensure that the CAN does NOT walk away at public stations, there are slots in place to place a small padlock into it.

It works great with the JESLA from Tony Williams of QuickChargePower.

Henry’s been making the CAN JR for a while and have just released the CAN SR. The naming convention of JR and SR means that he’s converting J1772 to Roadster (for the JR) and SR is converting Tesla Model S to Roadster. Henry reluctantly released the SR because the testing showed a 95% success factor for Roadster 2.x and 99% success with Roadster 1.5 between Model S Chargers and Roadsters. (you can read the SR thread on teslamotorsclub.com)

Before purchasing the CAN SR, I would highly recommend that Roadster owners get the latest Firmware upgrade. There is a known bug between unpatched Roadsters and EVSEs that charge greater than 70 Amps. A fully configured Tesla Model S HPC is configured to run at 80 Amps and the Roadster, if unpatched, would be confused by that issue. The patch for this error has the Roadster understand an 80 Amp signal and drop the rate to 70 Amps, which is the maximum speed that a Roadster can handle.

This next picture is the Model S side that the Roadster driver uses to plug the Model S nozzle into.

This once again is the side that plugs into the Roadster.

Henry sends each CAN with a neoprene bag to protect and store the adapters into as pictured.

Here is the CAN SR plugged in and getting ready to charge in our garage.

IMG_20150107_224844

Lastly you can see the detail of the construction of the CAN SR. It’s a great accesory.

So, how do I use these adapters.

For the CAN JR

1) Attach the CAN JR to the Roadster
2) Plug the J1772 into the CAN.

IF in a public charging spot

3) I insert the padlock into the slot for the CAN to lock it in place.

4) If I need to interrupt charging to leave, I press the stop charging button on the VDI of the Roadster OR stop on the charger, otherwise, if it IS stopped, then proceed to the next steps.

IF in a public charging spot

5) I take the padlock off.

6) Unplug the J1772
7) Unplug the CAN, put can in the bag, and put the bag in the Roadster.

For the CAN SR

1) Attach the CAN SR to the Roadster
2) Plug the Model S nozzle into the CAN.

IF in a public charging spot

3) I insert the padlock into the slot for the CAN to lock it in place.

4) If I need to interrupt charging to leave, I press the stop charging button on the VDI of the Roadster OR stop on the charger, otherwise, if it IS stopped, then proceed to the next steps. I have not yet tried this, but according to Henry, I can pull the ring around the Model S nozzle to stop charging as well.

IF in a public charging spot

5) I take the padlock off.

6) Unplug the Model S adapter.
7) Unplug the CAN, put can in the bag, and put the bag in the Roadster.

There are very few “must haves” for the Roadster, and the CAN JR and SR are two of the things Roadster owners should consider owning.

Just got “The CAN SR”… A must-have “accessory” for the Tesla Roadster

A more in-depth review will follow, but thought to just share some pictures with you…

The CAN SR is Henry Sharp’s latest iteration of the CAN... (now renamed the CAN JR). The SR designates that the adapter will change a Tesla Model S plug to work with a Tesla Roadster. Whereas the original CAN adapted J1772 to Tesla Roadster.

Just got this at the office and thought to post some pictures of it.

Here is the end that the Model S connector goes into.

Here is the end that connects to the Roadster

And here is the whole thing in the protective bag that both the original CAN (JR) and now the CAN SR is sold with.

Per the Teslamotorsclub.com forum posts on the subject, it looks like it should work with about 99% of Model S Chargers out there for 1.5 Roadsters and about 95% for 2.x Roadsters.

Inconsistent Tesla Service at Tesla Service Centers… (make that Coffee service)

…You’ve been click baited! 😉

I’ve had service on our cars done at pretty much all the Los Angeles and Orange County service centers open by the end of 2014.

And I’ve found that the coffee service at all the centers have been inconsistent.

So, what are the levels of coffee service at the centers? I have it in three levels.

The first level can be found at the (old, pre-late 2014) Costa Mesa, Torrance, and Van Nuys location. And we’ll call this level the Good level of coffee service. I enjoy K-Cups and these centers all used a well stocked, well maintained K-cup machines.

Here are pictures from Van Nuys and Torrance:

Torrance:

Van Nuys:

The previous Costa Mesa Service Center had similar machines as well.

The second level first debuted in the Los Angeles and Orange County service center areas at the large West Los Angeles Service Center on Centinela. I would call this the Better level of coffee service. These are similar to the automated espresso/coffee machines found at some airport lounges.

The same machine that debuted in Centinela is pictured here from the “new” Costa Mesa Service Center.

In fact, if you don’t like coffee… These machines can also do Hot Chocolate

Or perhaps you DO like different kinds of coffee and coffee drinks

or just coffee

each of these options can be “boosted”

However, what I’ve found is that the First one in the area continues to be the best one.

The original Service Center in West Los Angeles provide customers with the locations’ own Starbucks Gift Card to use to go and purchase Starbucks coffee from next door.

Now, this center continues to be rumored to be closing soon and be re-converted back into a showroom. So, until then, if you like Starbucks coffee and rate that as I do… Then, perhaps you would consider having your Tesla serviced at the West Los Angeles (Santa Monica Blvd.) location.

25,000 Mile Model S Service, and a replacement drivetrain

It’s been nine days since we celebrated our Model S First Year Anniversary.

With the Active E, we would’ve been in for five service calls at this point, the Model S has a more generous 12,500 or annually service plan.

I try to time these appointments to be “on the dot”. This was a lot easier with the Active E, however, with the Model S, Tesla comes out to the office to pick up my car for the service, so I get it close and let the valet drive the car to the Service Center.

What is involved with the 25,000 mile (or two year service). Apparently more than the 12,500 mile/one year service. Tesla picked up the car earlier today. When I scheduled the appointment, I was advised that more things are done on the 25,000 mile than the 12,500 mile service, so I was prepared for the possibility that our car would spend the night at the Service Center. Aside from this normal service, I had a weird sound happen with the car about four to six weeks ago that I felt I can wait for the 25,000 mile service to have it taken care of.

Apparently, it’s a good thing that the car has an “unlimited” mile warranty on the drive train. Apparently the noise that I noticed in the car was a drive train error that requires Tesla to swap out the drive train and was given a late tomorrow estimate. I have an early dinner scheduled that may push the delivery of our Model S back another day, but it’s interesting to hear that Tesla chose to replace the drive train.

I hope to get more information when our Model S is returned to us.

It’s impressive to have Tesla make such a major component repair be approximately 24 hours for the work. I remember when similar challenges were occurring with the Active E community that many Electronauts had to wait a week or longer.

This repair just makes me think of things that Tesla doesn’t cover… Like a battery degradation warranty? Let’s get that going Tesla!

On another note… How do you get across the country without charging?

Need to go downhill all the way… 999 Mile estimate? It’s kind of a cool graphic.

One Year Model S Anniversary

A year and about thirty minutes ago we picked up our Model S.

In that time, we’ve amassed 24,264 miles on the Model S. Less than we did with the Active E, but considering we’ve had our Roadster for about 14.25 months, we also got about 11,379 miles on the Roadster, that’s really a greater total of EV miles than we did after our first Active E year.

[One thing I noticed after updating with a picture of the mileage is my actual driven miles (Trip A is 24,242… Funny)]

I’ll sit and think about it later. But for now!

Cheers!

(If you’re interested in reliving our Model S weekend… It starts here. Or when we actually picked up the Model S.)

I like my number patterns for my “significant miles”… 23,456

Need I say more? I like number patterns for my EV miles. 23,456 Miles.

Woot!