Cybertruck Highway Range Test (Dual-Motor AWD) -- Run Until Battery Empty (by Out Of Spec)

[Coolbreeze704]

my concern is I have a vacation home 242 miles from my home. I sometimes leave early am to come to work and don't want to have to charge on route. I have a charger at both the vacation home and my office. The range extender is an option but financially that puts this purchase with the new pricing into the not sure it works for me category overall. This is 100% why I wanted and booked the reservation as soon as it said 500 miles. I knew 320 was too close for a full highway ride.

You don't stop to take a bathroom break? All you need if 15/20 minutes to add significant miles.

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[Woodrick]

It’s close or better to the range of my Lightning but with a smaller battery and AT tires. Sounds pretty good to me. Still anxiously awaiting to get my VIN. Not deterred in anyway about the “real world” ranges. I’ve never reached EPA ranges in any vehicles I’ve owned and wouldn’t expect to in a CT.

I honestly just want to clarify. Not making any comment.

In your comparison between the Lightning and the Cybertruck, when you say "smaller battery and AT tire" which one are you reffering to?

I think that you are saying that the no battery extender Cybertruck with All-terrain tires "as close or better" than your Lightning with All-weather tires and an extended battery?

I say this because the Ford site lists the range of the Lightning with the range extender as 320 miles.

Please, I don't want to put words in your mouth, just wanting to get the facts straight.

 

[rharl]

You don't stop to take a bathroom break? All you need if 15/20 minutes to add significant miles.

I do sometimes but there are many times like this Tuesday I did not stop once . Plus stopping to use restroom at a rest area takes 5 minutes or less . This would require finding a supercharger and stopping for 30 min plus . The 500 miles really was a main selling point to my needs . My state also does not have a ton of superchargers on route the main one is a 10 minute detour as well.

 

[intimidator]

my concern is I have a vacation home 242 miles from my home. I sometimes leave early am to come to work and don't want to have to charge on route. I have a charger at both the vacation home and my office. The range extender is an option but financially that puts this purchase with the new pricing into the not sure it works for me category overall. This is 100% why I wanted and booked the reservation as soon as it said 500 miles. I knew 320 was too close for a full highway ride.

I own quite a bit of $TSLA and am cheering for Tesla, however, it is disappointing to have reserved a 500 mile variant of the Cybertruck in November 2019, and now 4+ years later we find the best the brand new, super high tech Cybertruck can do is 254 miles from 100% to 0% in terms of range.

It is simply disappointing. I think many assumed Tesla would actually deliver a 500 mile range truck, or, at the very least have improved their range significantly over that 4 year period. I think buyers would have totally accepted a 400 mile $79,000 truck. Or even a 375-380 mile range - if real world was around 330 miles or so.

(Range extender? Considering the extra price, extra weight, and taking up bed space, that doesn't seem like a good solution)

 

[CyberTW]

It does make me glad I am a 2021 reservation holder. Maybe in 2-3 years things will get better (a good range extender, battery efficiency, better charging etc). The weather in this test is Oregon weather from October to May, so what most of my driving would be in. The numbers are what I was expecting. I hope they could bump that up a little with AW tires and improvements in the next two years

 

[CyberJerry]

It’s close or better to the range of my Lightning but with a smaller battery and AT tires. Sounds pretty good to me. Still anxiously awaiting to get my VIN. Not deterred in anyway about the “real world” ranges. I’ve never reached EPA ranges in any vehicles I’ve owned and wouldn’t expect to in a CT.

The range on my 3 performance with custom rims and tires (wider in rear) is terrible, no where near the 300+ reported. I'm used to charging each night, so I'm very excited about the CT and also anxiously await a VIN.

 

[Woodrick]

my concern is I have a vacation home 242 miles from my home. I sometimes leave early am to come to work and don't want to have to charge on route. I have a charger at both the vacation home and my office. The range extender is an option but financially that puts this purchase with the new pricing into the not sure it works for me category overall. This is 100% why I wanted and booked the reservation as soon as it said 500 miles. I knew 320 was too close for a full highway ride.

I'm going to assume Greenville SC and that suggests that your vacation home may be over on the coast, right at the NC/SC line, Maybe Myrtle Beach.

It's a little important, because it tells me the type of roads and areas that you are going by.

If you leave at 100%, and keep the lead off the pedal, it shouldn't be a problem. The truck will actually tell you when you leave. It appears that you've got some slower road and that helps out significantly.

But, what is probably the best bet is that you don't worry about your max speed and you stop in Columbia for 5, maybe 10 minutes. The Harbison Boulevard has a Chick-Fil-A and Starbucks (pick your poison) near the Supercharger and there are 16 250 kW pedestals there.

We aren't talking about stopping for an hour, just enough to basically get out and stretch.
And your vacation home is elsewhere, there's probably similar solutions.

 

[Crissa]

Tesla uses a legal but extremely optimistic approach to...

Why do we keep hearing this? It's false. Flatly. Tesla uses the most accurate version of the testing.

....its correction factor that boosts its EPA range above what other manufacturers do. As a result, you will see, for example that a Model Y has 330 miles EPA range vs a Mach-E 310 miles. In WLTP testing, however, where both vehicles are tested under the same (optimistic) conditions, Mach-E gets 373 miles and Model Y gets 331 miles. The reason Tesla performs better than Ford on the US test but worse than Ford on the EU test is down to the more optimistic approach to their correction factor.

Good article here: https://www.caranddriver.com/featur...-factor-tesla-uses-for-big-epa-range-numbers/

The EU test is just bad, though, and isn't at all accurate. No one gets the mileage from those tests, whereas you're quite likely to get an EPA result in typical mixed driving.

-Crissa

 

[rharl]

I'm going to assume Greenville SC and that suggests that your vacation home may be over on the coast, right at the NC/SC line, Maybe Myrtle Beach.

It's a little important, because it tells me the type of roads and areas that you are going by.

If you leave at 100%, and keep the lead off the pedal, it shouldn't be a problem. The truck will actually tell you when you leave. It appears that you've got some slower road and that helps out significantly.

But, what is probably the best bet is that you don't worry about your max speed and you stop in Columbia for 5, maybe 10 minutes. The Harbison Boulevard has a Chick-Fil-A and Starbucks (pick your poison) near the Supercharger and there are 16 250 kW pedestals there.

We aren't talking about stopping for an hour, just enough to basically get out and stretch.
And your vacation home is elsewhere, there's probably similar solutions.

lol you are close it is Pawleys island not Myrtle beach . The only supercharge I know of is on 77 in Columbia and I take 26 to Charleston.

 

[Gurule92]

Absolutely horrid

254/318 is ~ 80%. Its really not that bad considering the temps and stuff

my concern is I have a vacation home 242 miles from my home. I sometimes leave early am to come to work and don't want to have to charge on route. I have a charger at both the vacation home and my office. The range extender is an option but financially that puts this purchase with the new pricing into the not sure it works for me category overall. This is 100% why I wanted and booked the reservation as soon as it said 500 miles. I knew 320 was too close for a full highway ride.

Just get the 340 version? and save 20k+

Also, for those with Foundation Series money. If you guys would rather get the 340 mile version, yoou dont have to wait in limbo. Just get the 318 version and swap the wheel package when available. Then you can have some sick all terrains when you want to go crazy. Or I'll buy em from you

 

[Woodrick]

Aaah, long charge times will not be great, but that is more of a nuisance, as opposed to trying to make it across the middle of Pennsylvania going North and South and the Charging stations are 220 miles apart. Sigh.

One thing that you may learn is that charging from 10 to 80% doesn't make the fastest trip.
It was a number of years ago with the Model 3 that some guys did some spreadsheet work. While the most efficient speed is about 35 mph, the most efficient speed was about 75 mph.

They ended up determining that if you stopped are every Supercharger along the route, and charged to just enough to get to the next Supercharger, the trip will be much faster, because the battery charges much faster at lower state of charge (SoC).
Most Superchargers are probably too close these days, but it you choose Superchargers about every 100 miles, it makes a lot of sense.

On a V3 Supercharger that's going to let you take 250 kW (1000+ mph charge rate), it won't do so for long. By about %35, you'll be down to 150 kW (600 mph charge rate).
So if it is 100 miles, you fill it so that the Energy Graph shows you getting in about 5% and then yout head off. That's only about a 10 minute stop.

If you Choose to charge to 80%, that's a 50 minute stop.

Now sure, I'm using Model 3 numbers, but the concept is the same.

Driving to the range of the battery and then charging is the slow way to travel.

I just was charging with a couple a few weeks ago and I heard them say that the car was at 99%. I had to step in. Seems as if they had been charging for well over an hour. There was another charger about 75 miles up the road. It would have been MUCH quicker and they would have arrived with a higher SoC if they'd spent a lot less time at the Supercharger.

 

[HitchHiker71]

What's false about this narrative that you and others are pushing is the assumption that other manufacturers don't try to get the best EPA numbers they can muster under the same rules. The fact is, the 5-cycle test option is available to all manufacturers, but it doesn't always return a better result - it depends upon each vehicle.

Manufacturers who plan to produce in volume will use whatever option gives them the highest numbers. Rivian uses the 5 cycle test option for most of their configurations too. Porsche worked hard to get their Taycan EPA numbers higher, but further testing yeilded worse results. The narritive that Tesla does things in a misleading manner is simply false. It's natural for all manufacturers to put their best foot forward when it comes to EPA numbers unless production volume is so low that it's not worth the extra testing expense to do so.

Yes and no. The simple fact is that Tesla chooses to use higher adjustment factors than any other manufacturer today. Tesla claims to do so because they have better efficiency than any other manufacturer - but the real world ranges don't really prove this out - which is why Tesla takes heat for their range overestimates moreso than others. The default adjustment factor that the EPA recommends is 70% or 0.70. Tesla has used factors as high as 0.89 in times past and, even with the CT, appears to be using 0.77-0.79 - which is higher than Ford, Rivian, GM, etc, which either use the default adjustment factor, or a factor in the 0.72-0.75 range in comparison. This is the primary reason why Tesla tends to take more heat than other EV manufacturers IME. Let's run an actual example specific to the CT and assume a 0.77 adjustment factor, and let's use the current dual motor CT with the optional off-road wheel/tire package since that's all that is available for purchase at this time, which means a 318 mile EPA rating.

318/0.77=413 raw rating - so the raw 5 cycle rating for the dual motor CT with the offroad wheel/tire package is 413 miles. Let's see what the adjusted numbers would be if Tesla used the default factor:

413*0.70=289 miles

I'm oversimplifying a bit here as these calculations are actually algorithmic using the 5 cycle tests, but for the purposes of this example - the underlying point is that the 289 mile range is much closer to real world than 318 miles. Chances are, while it may not be as good from a marketing standpoint advertising less range, if Tesla were to use the default factor, they would not get nearly as much heat from consumers - or from the EPA - which is currently investigating Tesla range claims. Consumers would also have more confidence that the EPA claims are actually achievable under real world driving scenarios - which is not how the majority of consumers, including most Tesla owners, feel and observe at this time. My concern is that this issue actually exacerbates range anxiety particularly for traditional automotive consumers - and works against encouraging EV adoption.

The EPA highway cycle, IIRC, tests between 55-65MPH. I'd bet that if the range test that Kyle just ran was run at a slightly higher temp between 65-70 degrees and only averaged 60mph as opposed to 70mph - it'd come awfully close to that 289 mile default factor EPA rating.

Specific to Tesla - one of the reasons they tend to use a higher adjustment factor is because of the more aggressive regen braking settings that most Tesla vehicles are set to use. This helps them boost up the adjustment factor - but it also results in a higher delta/discrepancy for pure highway range tests like what Kyle did here. Using the default factor instead, would negate a good part of the deltas in question. Yes the advertised range would be lower, but if it's more real world, then at least the traditional consumer would have confidence that what is advertised comes close to reality. I see so many posts from new buyers on various forums and FB groups complaining about the real world range - which is why I think being more conservative and simply using the default factor would be best for Tesla and for every other EV manufacturer out there - unless the EPA changes the 5 cycle algorithmic test process to better account for real world driving circumstances of course.

 

[scottf200]

my concern is I have a vacation home 242 miles from my home. I sometimes leave early am to come to work and don't want to have to charge on route. I have a charger at both the vacation home and my office. The range extender is an option but financially that puts this purchase with the new pricing into the not sure it works for me category overall. This is 100% why I wanted and booked the reservation as soon as it said 500 miles. I knew 320 was too close for a full highway ride.

The reality is that you are a 10-15 minute bathroom/snack break in that trip sure seems like it is trivial and easy. Radius is 240 miles (y, as bird flies) on that light blue circle so you can see the superchargers that fall in that general range.

 

[tenetke]

I honestly just want to clarify. Not making any comment.

In your comparison between the Lightning and the Cybertruck, when you say "smaller battery and AT tire" which one are you reffering to?

I think that you are saying that the no battery extender Cybertruck with All-terrain tires "as close or better" than your Lightning with All-weather tires and an extended battery?

I say this because the Ford site lists the range of the Lightning with the range extender as 320 miles.

Please, I don't want to put words in your mouth, just wanting to get the facts straight.

Meaning the CT has a smaller battery and has been driven with AT tires.

My Lightning has an EPA range of 300 miles. It runs on AS tires and around 131 kw battery. I rarely drive to zero or charge to 100%. Real world I probably range from 230-260 miles.

 

[Coolbreeze704]

lol you are close it is Pawleys island not Myrtle beach . The only supercharge I know of is on 77 in Columbia and I take 26 to Charleston.

https://www.tesla.com/trips#/?v=MY_...etown County [email protected],-79.12143130000001

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