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

[HaulingAss]

The numbers that I use is the you drop about 10% range for every 5 mph increase over 60 mph.

This can be easily seen on the Energy graphs, drive one speed for about 10 minutes and then another speed.

BUT, when you are NOT in an area where range is a problem 70-75 is the speed at which you go the furthest, the fastest, including Supercharger stops. But ALWAYS make sure that you roll into a Supercharger near empty. If you charge from 20$ to 80% it will take about 15 minutes longer than 5% to 65%.

In my Model 3 Performance, I get there a lot sooner, including Supercharger stops, if I go 120 mph. Bjiorn had the same findings on the Autobahn in Germany. The faster you go, the sooner you will arrive. The reason for this is that charge speeds are in the hundreds of miles per hour, often exceeding 1000 miles per hour initially.

Of course, that assumes I don't get delayed by those guys with those colorful lightbars on top.

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[AlDente]

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.

In your specific use case it appears the CT isn't for you. Hopefully you are young and In another decade or 2 there will be a 500 mile EV truck.

 

[rsheywood]

Seems on par to me... Driving at a constant high speed with little to no regen and in cold temps.. maybe 20% "loss" of range over the 320 total range.

Someone not familar with EVs i suppose might see this and be a bit confused. If someone did this type of test in an ICE pickup truck, the results would be similar as far as range loss goes. Of course, no one actually tests ICE vehicles like this.

I am sorry, but I have to respond... Many of us who own ICE vehicles perform range tests all the time. Every cross country drive is a range test, and my 2022 Ford F-150 with 5L V-8 consistantly gets 22-23 MPG at 70 MPH (EPA rating 17/25/20)... My last "range test" was a trip from Chicago to Louisville in mid November with 5 passengers and related baggage, temps in the 50's. I hate burning gas, so I am laser focused on gas milage. We have the 36 gallon tank, so we could of done the round trip on one tank. Comparing our milage to the EPA rating, we are down about 10%. It might be possible to get the 25mpg, but the slow down to 55 mph is challenging in freeways. I know this because we bought this truck as a bridge to the Cybertruck, and tow a 9000 lb. tow-behind RV. In our towing mode, we drive 58 mph, and consistantly get 10 mpg. To be sure, everyone passes us, some of whom seemingly enraged at our "being there".

The Cybertruck looks to be a marvel of engineering, but these (254/320=.794) 80% range numbers are discouraging. For us, that equates to maybe 100 miles in towing mode. Fortunately for us, we are about 1,100,000 in line. If 25% of you buy a Cybertruck, it will be 2-3 years before we get our chance to buy one, so range improvements will undoubtedly be made, as well as much better pricing.

 

[HaulingAss]

70% SOC is less than 180 miles under the same conditions.

How much better do you think the CT would do in warmer temps.
As speeds increase it only gets worse for the CT compared to the Rivian

Better tires for the road and a lower air density due to warmer temps and/or more altitude can make quite a difference. On a Rivian you can buy a "Max Pack" for 10K but it barely adds 20 real-world highway miles.

 

[AlDente]

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.

That's basically how EV Dave does his road tripping. He has several Teslas, a Rivian R1T and a Lightning and has road tripped them all cross country. It's a folksy oldters channel but the data he supplies, and advice he dispenses are pure GOLD.

 

[HaulingAss]

I am sorry, but I have to respond... Many of us who own ICE vehicles perform range tests all the time. Every cross country drive is a range test, and my 2022 Ford F-150 with 5L V-8 consistantly gets 22-23 MPG at 70 MPH (EPA rating 17/25/20)... My last "range test" was a trip from Chicago to Louisville in mid November with 5 passengers and related baggage, temps in the 50's. I hate burning gas, so I am laser focused on gas milage. We have the 36 gallon tank, so we could of done the round trip on one tank. Comparing our milage to the EPA rating, we are down about 10%. It might be possible to get the 25mpg, but the slow down to 55 mph is challenging in freeways. I know this because we bought this truck as a bridge to the Cybertruck, and tow a 9000 lb. tow-behind RV. In our towing mode, we drive 58 mph, and consistantly get 10 mpg. To be sure, everyone passes us, some of whom seemingly enraged at our "being there".

The Cybertruck looks to be a marvel of engineering, but these (254/320=.794) 80% range numbers are discouraging. For us, that equates to maybe 100 miles in towing mode. Fortunately for us, we are about 1,100,000 in line. If 25% of you buy a Cybertruck, it will be 2-3 years before we get our chance to buy one, so range improvements will undoubtedly be made, as well as much better pricing.

Your Ford truck is lying to you, I know mine does. It says I'm going faster than I am by 3 mph, it says I cover more distance than I have by 2% and I always have to put more fuel in than the trip computer says I burned. The result is pure fantasy mpg numbers that make you feel good about your truck but don't correspond to the real world. That's with tires that are the same diameter as stock.

Our Model 3's, on the other hand, are almost exacty spot on.

 

[Saygmo]

Kyle Conner (out of spec) just finished doing a podcast collaboration with the Batteries Included Podcast. I have watched enough of Kyle's videos to trust his statements, because he does try to just lay out the facts and present them on as even a playing field as possible. As of that podcast this morning, he had driven the CT over 1000 miles. I am paraphrasing, but his overall impression of the CT is that it is much like his Rivian R1T. Great around town and short towing trips, but it has less range (today) than many of the competitors trucks and won't change the game for him and his medium and long range towing needs. He also was quite disappointed in the charging curves he was getting. I think he said he had charged it 7 times so far. This could potentially all improve, but what he was able to test that is his experience. I will state it again, I want there to be a sweet offroad capable BEV truck that also can be your tow rig, etc. The early indications are that the CT will need some improvement to really be that vehicle. I did see on another youtube channel (Electified) that there is some 4680 chemistry changes being experimented with and considered. Conjecture is that those chemistry changes could increase the power density of cells. I think the numbers thrown around were 10% to 20%. That is all conjecture, but that would put future packs in the 135 to 145kWhr range. That would be a nice boost. If battery chemistry leads to better power density and charging curves, then this whole early disappointment with regards to range and charging could be turned around.

Your post made me consider something I hadn’t before. Perhaps that long range/towing truck is never going to be a good/cheap off-road daily driver truck, with current battery tech. We need to double the capacity per battery weight. But similar to today’s trucks, where you buy a heavy duty 3/4 ton 2500 diesel for long range towing, with a long wheelbase and huge tank, which is horrible off-road. The best available current ev for towing, the hummer ev, weighs 9000lbs to house that 200+kwh pack, half a ton more than full size diesel trucks. Sure, there are likely many places they could have saved weight, so we get the Silverado 1500 instead with the same pack and all of a sudden there is the 500 mile, 200-300 mile towing range truck. If only they were actually shipping them in quantity.

 

[CyberCop]

Well I was on the fence for keeping my order but this confirms that I will cancel and keep with my diesel .
So disappointed in the Tesla CT … nothing like was promised in the original unveiling. I understand there would be changes to the original design but this is so different from what was originally shown that for me it’s not going to work.
Pricing, specifications and what’s actually delivered is so different from what was talked about it’s just almost like bait and switch.

 

[rsheywood]

Your Ford truck is lying to you, I know mine does. It says I'm going faster than I am by 3 mph, it says I cover more distance than I have by 2% and I always have to put more fuel in than the trip computer says I burned. The result is pure fantasy mpg numbers that make you feel good about your truck but don't correspond to the real world. That's with tires that are the same diameter as stock.

Our Model 3's, on the other hand, are almost exacty spot on.

I calculate my milage based on the pump numbers. Every car I have ever had is "optimistic" on speed and distance. Related to this conversation, 2% is chump change.

 

[VDR]

Better tires for the road and a lower air density due to warmer temps and/or more altitude can make quite a difference. On a Rivian you can buy a "Max Pack" for 10K but it barely adds 20 real-world highway miles.

I actually think the CT did ok considering the pack & tire combo. The Rivian is just going to be better under identical conditions (weather/tires) due to larger pack & better Cd.
The CT Range Extender (vs max pack) is much better deal per kwh if it ever gets implemented, it is a poor design though.
They both did a total bait & switch on the larger pack range option.

 

[Saygmo]

Well I was on the fence for keeping my order but this confirms that I will cancel and keep with my diesel .
So disappointed in the Tesla CT … nothing like was promised in the original unveiling. I understand there would be changes to the original design but this is so different from what was originally shown that for me it’s not going to work.
Pricing, specifications and what’s actually delivered is so different from what was talked about it’s just almost like bait and switch.

Yeah agree, when it was announced it was a halo truck for the entire industry. Sure, ground breaking design, stainless, etc. 500 miles through…. That’s what pickup truck drivers want. Especially at the announcement, 500 miles was unheard of, and for parts of the country where chargers are still far between, RANGE and fast charging are needed, and after all that time rivian under delivered (no 180kwh max pack) ford proved that 135kwh packs aren’t really large enough (let alone the sad 95kwh pack which should only be sold in the work truck for local use). An easy range extender that ships with the truck and is well integrated, or even easy to swap at specialty Tesla stations. Instead of swapping the main pack, how about while charging the main pack, the range extender pack gets swapped for a full one.

 

[Fleetwood75]

Sure, but when they take every car or truck and make it bigger and bigger and wonder why sales decrease and then bring in a new model that the original size of the model they just retired.

The F-150 used to be the size of the Maverick, but they made the F-150 bigger and bigger and had to introduce the Ranger and continued to make the Ranger and F-150 bigger and bigger until they just introduced the Maverick, which will probably go through the same thing.

Another great example if the Thunderbird, which started as a small sports car and grew into a land yacht. Which they discontinued because sales were low. But alas, they brought it back as a sports car.

 

[PilotPete]

Not a significant impact from altitude. But that's awesome, because ICE owners can't say that. Fewer of them oxygen molecules to combust!

Depends on the altitude and temp. F1 has fits in Mexico City because of the altitude (7,300 ft) If you’re in Colorado, there is much less drag than Death Valley. You’re losing somewhere between 15 and 20% air density.

 

[CyberTW]

Good marketing. Let’s see them produce them at scale and for a profit or else it will die a slow death financially ..

 

[DumpsterFire]

I LIKE IT!!!

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