Tesla Model 3 SUB-ZERO Range Test: We All Know That EV Range Is Bad In The Cold…But THIS Bad!

Tesla Model 3 SUB-ZERO Range Test: We All Know That EV Range Is Bad In The Cold…But THIS Bad!

In this video we’re going to find out something that a lot of you have been asking us about just how much does cold weather affect an electric car out there it’s about 0° in here it’s very warm and we have just charged up our Tesla Model

3 Performance to about 100% So the plan is very straightforward that’s not the plan come on come on out that’s the adapter the plan is very straightforward we are going to let the model three cold soak overnight at negative Dee temperatures because here in Denver it’s supposed to

Get to minus 10 maybe evenus 15 tonight so we’re going to let the car sit outside all night and then tomorrow morning when we get back to the office we’re going to run our Denver 100 MPG Loop but in this case it’s really more of a how far can a electric car go

When it’s been sitting out all night in frigid weather so right now the car says as you can see it’s a 99% battery uh and let me switch this to miles so 289 miles uh for this model 3 Performance but how far will it really go will it actually make 289 miles well

You know the answer to that of course it won’t but the question I’m really curious about is will it actually make 200 mil even in such frigid temperatures cuz tomorrow it’s supposed to be once again oh you can hear that snow crunching it tells you it’s very

Cold it’s supposed to be in the negative numbers it’s going to sit out here for at least 12 hours it is it is chilly out here and just let it get cold let the cold soak into the battery let it soak into the car and then tomorrow we’re

Going to go as far as we possibly can on this full battery to see just how much range you lose when you uh drive a car an electric car and fridge it there I say well the news would say dangerously cold conditions oh yes I almost forgot

We love to be transparent here at tfl so just so you can see how cold it is I drove our test Defender to go pull out the Tesla so let’s see what the defender says in terms of its temperature star her up oh that was off

1° and I know for all you people in Alaska that’s probably balmy but here for Colorado that’s pretty darn cold all right Tommy what’s the temperature out there well the uh the forecast is saying -3° fahit right now which is that in Celsius 9° celsi so it’s rather

Frosty all right so um last night I brought the car outside let it uh deep freeze overnight and I think this time you’re going to do the video cuz I was here last night freezing my you know what off oh man so now I get to go drive

It till it dies yeah but let me I’ll help you clean it off okay thanks and I’ll be curious to see how many miles of range we lost with it sitting out there in the fridge of cold all night now we haven’t preconditioned anything there’s

Been no heat going on but let’s see what the uh the mileage number saying you want to start scraping it off Dad yeah I mean you can tell it’s been you know sitting here for like 15 hours now Tommy nice nice oh we got some fresh snow look at

That you know what I ceramic coated this and this just slides right off um and by the way guys um we’ve had this car for a year now and if if you’re interested we’re going to be selling it cuz hopefully we got a cyber truck coming we’re asking 44,000 for it and if

You want it uh shoot us an email at uh what info at tfl car Tommy you got it so Dad yeah it’s sitting at 96% state of charge so it lost 3% yep and 279 M of range is what it’s indicating that’s not bad yeah it’s not bad for sitting you

Know overnight in subzero temperatures I wonder I wonder what rate it will charge at after you do your uh and you know what I was thinking about this last night I said we’re going to drive it till it’s empty yeah at minus 3 it’s a little dangerous well we’ll go as close

To empty as we safely can don’t don’t don’t get stranded out there yep we’ll do D so for this test there is one modification to this car we’re rolling on a set of Michelin crossclimate 2 this is an all- weather Tire a Snow rated Tire because we really need a snow Rated Tire in this condition right especially when it’s this cold and snowy and we

Also have a set of these um Tesla style wheels or 19 inches instead of the factory wheels which were just a little too big for uh for these conditions especially with that really thin sidewall it’s nice to have a little bit of a thicker sidewall well they were summer tired from performance tires

Tommy you wouldn’t get out you wouldn’t get past like the driveway here no I know that’s that’s true yeah but I’m saying the reason we went from like what was it a 21 down to a 19 yeah to fit those tires on get a little bit more

Sidewall in the winter but the arrow profile with the wheel design should be pretty similar to how it was from the factory and those cross climates are all weather so um you know this is what they’re meant For all right so we’re resetting the trip here so we know how much energy we use and you can see 96% set of charge we got the little snowflake because the battery is very cold um 279 Mi of range remaining according to the car 278 now

In terms of climate we’re going to run at 70° F automatic with both the heated seats on and heated steering wheel on as you would drive in these conditions realistically and sure enough the outside temperature is reading -3° F so it is a rather cold day

Today so look for this test we’re going to do the Denver 100 Loop which has become kind of our standard MPG test where we jump on the highway we’re going to cruise at 70 we might not be able to hold 70 because of the conditions out

Here today we’re going to be safe and of course not drive faster than is safe to do so uh and then of course with these all- weather tires right this is not the same kind of range numbers that we could expect out of the summer Tires but this

Is a realworld extreme test with a cold soaked battery in some of the worst case conditions but conditions that folks in Minnesota Colorado Alaska experience fairly often so I’m really excited to see what happens so this really is like an EV kind of torture test because this is like the

Worst possible conditions we’re driving over slow snow and slush it is brutally cold outside the car is still saying negative 3° f it’s not warming up at all look we’re not driving aggressively we’re also not hypermiling we got the Heat going too right because we got to

Stay warm in here so all factors in mind I think we’re probably going to get 50 Mi out of this car which is pretty minimal considering this vehicle’s rated at you know close to 300 so um yeah that’s my prediction let’s see if I’m

Right so I see this a lot in Colorado um get some snow and I hate to profile but a lot of the time it is out of Staters as is this case this person is in the fast lane now traffic’s moving about 55 and they are doing 35 mes hour in the

Fast lane with their hazards on on the highway this is not a solution folks like I’m cool going nice and slow but 35 in the fast lane no you got to you got to scoot over what is that Minnesota plates you should be used to snow my friend what’s going On all right 50% state of charge remaining now of of course we started at 96% cuz it lost those three overnight and it um says that we’ve used 45.9% of the battery consumed which is 20.9% more than normal and you can see this graph here the gry line is the

Rated range the orange line is what we’re actually averaging so we are using a lot more than the rated range of this car and some range tips here um increased climate control activity Air drag and the like 15.9% um additional low tire pressure of 0.9 now the tires were set properly but

We’ve lost about 2 PSI from the cold weather um which is you know pretty typical and then going up here cost 7% even though it’s been pretty rolling and this is a loop style test uh look the the cold temperature is really eaten away at the the range today

There’s no doubt additionally with some extra drag from snow on the ground and of course these Snow rated tires and temperature has been super consistent at -3° F throughout the trip and let’s see how far we’ve gone we’ll go to the trip page here go to trips so we’ve gone 74

Mil we’ve used 33 kwatt hours averaging 444 wat hours per mile that is some intense some intense uh efficiency and I don’t mean good intense um yeah look it’s it’s inefficient to drive in the snow and electric vehicles definitely struggle and we’re definitely seeing that today I’m actually kind of worried

We’re not going to make it back to the office the loop is not not that far but you know if we manage 150 like I predicted at the beginning I’m going to be stoked cuz I’m not sure we’re even going to get that Far all right so we’re down to 25% slate of charge 73 M AC the car but I don’t think we’re going to get quite that far now if we look at the trip 12 miles driven 50 Kow hours used averaging 47 48 wat hours per mile so um yeah we’re

Still burning through quite a bit of effic electricity but it got a little bit more efficient as time went on now we did get stuck in a little bit of traffic back there speeds were down to probably 45 50 m hour that’s just because it got really really snowy

Temperatures also warmed up a little bit to negative 1 it’s practically Bal me out there negative 1 fah that is you know I have to say the all-wheel drive performance in this Tesla has been been phenomenal in a gas car you can only make a few inputs every second to change

Throttle position timing that kind of thing um for traction control programming in the Tesla right the computers are so fast now you can really dial in wheel speed with wheel speed position sensors and accelerator and really get it precise to maintain as much traction with the road as possible

Now this is called a Denver 100 because it really is like a 100 mile Ring Ring Road around the city of Denver um we’re not going to get through two of them we’re on our second Loop now but we’re going to have to turn around a little

Bit early to make it into a supercharger we’re going to pull in in the low single digit state of charge so we can get a you know not quite down to zero man Phantom braking on this car is a real problem this camera system especially when the windshield gets dirty they need

To go back to using some kind of radar distance control anyway um we don’t want to go like to zero because if we do hit an accident which we’ve seen plenty of on this trip um we don’t want to get stranded and then end up in a dangerous

Situation but we’re going to bring it bring it nice and low for you Folks all right well our trip is coming to an end um turned around on the highway did another Highway loop back and now we are pulling into the Tesla Supercharger which is also at the Tesla store here in Superior Colorado and we’re pulling in with 2% I would say is Pretty good

Overall all right so we’re going to plug it in now Cole and I behind the camera um have actually Road tripped this car Coast to Coast non-stop as part of our D2D um experiment or challenge I should say U so we’re pretty familiar with how this car road trips and charges

And we also know some tricks about battery preconditioning so about 25 minutes ago we plugged in the supercharger into the navigation so that we uh could be ready to uh supercharge you can see we’re at 2% state of charge so not quite down to zero but pretty darn close especially for folks road

Tripping atg -2 you wouldn’t want to go much below 2% state of charge L let see trips we went 158 mil 418 wat hours per mile and we consumed 39.6 % more than the estimated vehicle consumption wow look at that plus 21.4% on driving Plus 13.1% on climate

Alone and plus 5% on battery conditioning I mean folks that’s a lot of consumption that’s a lot of consumption we use 66 kwatt hours on this trip from 96% down to 2% and it’s still -2 the highest we saw was zero so right around 160 Mi realistic range when

You get the negative temperatures on on the these all- weather tires not too great but to be expected all right look at the back of the car absolutely snow covered um now I do believe this is a 250 KW rated station and let’s see what the quickest speed we get

Is all right so we’re charging up ping 215 218 KW 6% so clearly that battery was nice and toasty 220 now 225 we are really moving 860 870 M gain per hour and we’ve already added 4 Kow hours here just in a couple minutes so charging speeds when you’re preconditioned really really

Impressive um 30 minutes remaining to get to 80% this is a high you supercharger 237 yeah so good good speeds even in it’s extreme cold we’re still at -2° F uh 234 it’s coming down a little bit at 9% 10% state of charge so look folks uh

Here’s here’s what I would say um if you recondition your battery you’re going to be good to go on a cold Winter’s day but range especially with these all- weather tires not not too great and I also have to say um uh you know even on the

Factory equip wheels and tires in the summer we’re not getting anywhere near the 300 Mish EPA rating on this car so um certainly in the winter realistically if you don’t want to get that low in the pack have it when it gets really cold yeah especially change tires folks I’d

Love to know what you think in the comment section below if you want to purchase this very model 3 send us an email we’re sitting at 16,000 Mi total we’re asking I think my dad’s said $44,000 so we’d have lost 10K on this car and certainly we’re not making that

Up on YouTube Revenue you can trust us on that but it was a really great car I love this car I’m really going to miss it we got to move on to the cybertruck so send us an email info TF car.com and um you can own a celebrity celebrity owned model 3 we’ll

See you guys next time

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