# When near 100% charge - explain volt/amps



## Nom (Oct 30, 2018)

I’m charging my car to 100% and then heading out. 30 minutes to go. Battery is full green. I get that the last bit takes time as the battery system balances (etc). That said, my app says it is charging at 25 mi/hr, at 243V and 28/48 Amps. 

I’m going several minutes with no uptick in miles. None. Staying at 288. 

Are 28 Amps really going into the battery? If so, and no uptick in miles, was my system OVERstating my available miles? (That would suck). And thus it is staying at 288 as the Amps flow in. Just seems weird.

To summarize - If my app is right - a fair bit of power is still flowing into battery even though available miles is no longer increasing and the battery is full green. 

Thoughts?


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## Feathermerchant (Sep 17, 2018)

Read your charging screen in the car. Probably not 28 Amps. The Battery Management System (BMS) has to keep the calls from exceeding 4.2V and so has to slow down the charge by reducing Amps when the charge is near full. It's exponential. That's why it is taking so long. I'd recommend switching tp % instead of miles. Most of us find that more accurate and useful.


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## JWardell (May 9, 2016)

Once you get up the the last few percent, energy only has space to trickle in to the battery. You should certainly see your charging current fall as it gets closer, and your car's screen will show that. I don't know why it doesn't show in the app, maybe it is showing current limit setting instead of real charging current. But it sounds like you are seeing 28 out of 48 amps? If you had the heat running that would account for some of it as well. Can you include a photo of the charging screen in the car?


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## Nom (Oct 30, 2018)

Ok. Next time I’ll see if the screen in car matches the app. Didn’t think to do that - was not in it (heat should not have been on).


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## JasonF (Oct 26, 2018)

This is a really rough comparison, but it works: 

When you're trying to fill a glass with water from a pitcher, you slow down as you get close to the top, right? Because if you don't, the water spills right over and goes everywhere. Well, with a battery, there's nowhere for the spillover, the cells start failing if they're overfilled. So the charging has to slow down to top them up without spilling over.


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## Nom (Oct 30, 2018)

I get that it needs to slow down. I guess my point wasn’t clear. My point is that it didn’t slow down anywhere near enough! Power delivery ( V*I ) was still quite high even though it was pretty damn near full according to metrics available in my app. That surprised me. I expected V to be steady but amperage to be way lower.


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## Garlan Garner (May 24, 2016)

Nom said:


> I get that it needs to slow down. I guess my point wasn't clear. My point is that it didn't slow down anywhere near enough! Power delivery ( V*I ) was still quite high even though it was pretty damn near full according to metrics available in my app. That surprised me. I expected V to be steady but amperage to be way lower.


Was this your first time charging to 100%

Can anyone chime it at the possibility that the calibration might have been off.


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## Feathermerchant (Sep 17, 2018)

Your battery has ~75 kWh capacity. If you charge at 1C that's about 75 kW. The charge from 0% to 100% would take about 1:45 min depending. But you were charging at (28 A X 240 V) 6.7 kW. that's about 0.09C which is really slow to start with. There are 46 battery cells in parallel so that 28A charge current is split between them. 28A ÷ 46 cells = about 0.6 Amps into each cell. At such a slow rate you won't see any reduction in charge current until you are really close to 100%.


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

Nom said:


> I get that it needs to slow down. I guess my point wasn't clear. My point is that it didn't slow down anywhere near enough! Power delivery ( V*I ) was still quite high even though it was pretty damn near full according to metrics available in my app. That surprised me. I expected V to be steady but amperage to be way lower.


My guess (and it is only a guess) is that the car felt that it had to heat the pack up further before it could accept the remaining charge to top it off.


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## Nom (Oct 30, 2018)

Could be Garsh.

@Feathermerchant - above I mentioned that the mileage available was no longer going up, and the battery showed full in the visual. Yet still said it was charging at a rate 25 mph (on my app). That is not slow when it is apparently quite close to 100% (remember, the mileage didn't go up for 10+ minutes). Perhaps a mix of calibration and other stuff.

I will study thoroughly next time and report!


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## Wooloomooloo (Oct 29, 2017)

Nom said:


> I'm charging my car to 100% and then heading out. 30 minutes to go. Battery is full green. I get that the last bit takes time as the battery system balances (etc). That said, my app says it is charging at 25 mi/hr, at 243V and 28/48 Amps.
> 
> I'm going several minutes with no uptick in miles. None. Staying at 288.
> 
> ...


So a few things here. I'm not sure how long it was 'stuck' for, or what your usual charging pattern is or how long it has been since you last charged to 100%, but yes it's very likely your battery was re-calibrating. 240v @ 28 amps is less than 7kW so for a Tesla this is slow (20x slower than a V2 SC at peak rate).

Also you said it estimated 30 mins remaining, well until it's down to the last 5 mins (which usually means 15 mins!) it won't drop down to a true trickle charge (1 - 3 kw).

How much range did it show when complete? How does this compare to new? Also yes, switch to % - rated range is pretty meaningless.


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## NR4P (Jul 14, 2018)

I have seen the same behavior and it is very warm here.
To go from 100% or at 100% to show COMPLETE can take 30 mins.

The car will show 25A charge rate for at least 20 mins. Then drop to 3-5KW for last 5-10 mins.

@Nom asked a good question.

Think about it this way...
If you vehicle has a 50% SOC, and the car is charging at 25A, in 20-30 mins, the SOC will rise about 2-4 points. 
But if the car is at 99%, is it really consuming 25A for almost 30 mins?
Can cell balancing need that must juice?

I wondered the same thing.

And its definitely not temperature where I live.


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## Wooloomooloo (Oct 29, 2017)

NR4P said:


> Think about it this way...
> If you vehicle has a 50% SOC, and the car is charging at 25A, in 20-30 mins, the SOC will rise about 2-4 points.
> But if the car is at 99%, is it really consuming 25A for almost 30 mins?
> Can cell balancing need that must juice?
> ...


It won't maintain 25A for the full 30 mins, it will drop over time.

Again, the OP simply said it stayed at 288 rated miles for "several minutes" while charging at 25mi/hr which is a little under half a mile per minute. A recalibration of a few miles out of the 315+ is a minor adjustment. If they'd said it did that for 30 mins continuously, then it'd be more of a mystery but this seems like perfectly normal behavior to me.


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## NR4P (Jul 14, 2018)

Wooloomooloo said:


> It won't maintain 25A for the full 30 mins, it will drop over time.
> 
> Again, the OP simply said it stayed at 288 rated miles for "several minutes" while charging at 25mi/hr which is a little under 2 miles every minute. A recalibration of a few miles out of the 315+ is a minor adjustment. If they'd said it did that for 30 mins continuously, then it'd be more of a mystery but this seems like perfectly normal behavior to me.


I have seen it stay at 99% or even 100% with 25A for 20 mins before completing, while showing 25A.

The OP and I have seen similar behavior, he's in miles and I am in %


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## Garlan Garner (May 24, 2016)

NR4P said:


> I have seen the same behavior and it is very warm here.
> To go from 100% or at 100% to show COMPLETE can take 30 mins.
> 
> The car will show 25A charge rate for at least 20 mins. Then drop to 3-5KW for last 5-10 mins.
> ...


Do you think the 100% to Complete 30 minutes could be the extra Tesla gives you when you go beyond 0%.

I utilized 32 miles after my car hit 0% once. I don't know how far I could have gone, but I definitely got 32 miles.

It was an emergency and I had to just trust there was more.


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## NR4P (Jul 14, 2018)

Garlan Garner said:


> Do you think the 100% to Complete 30 minutes could be the extra Tesla gives you when you go beyond 0%.
> 
> I utilized 32 miles after my car hit 0% once. I don't know how far I could have gone, but I definitely got 32 miles.
> 
> It was an emergency and I had to just trust there was more.


Wow 32 miles, cool.

I have no idea. But a good possibility.


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## Garlan Garner (May 24, 2016)

It makes me wonder....how much of the 72KW pack are we using at 100%?

Is 62kw 100% and 72kw Complete?


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## Wooloomooloo (Oct 29, 2017)

NR4P said:


> I have seen it stay at 99% or even 100% with 25A for 20 mins before completing, while showing 25A.
> 
> The OP and I have seen similar behavior, he's in miles and I am in %


I haven't seen it that high at 100%, it's usually below 5kW by then, for me at least. My battery is two and a half years old though with 30k miles, so that may be a factor. 288 rated miles isn't 99% though, it's somewhere between 90 - 95%.

Regardless, for a pack that can output over 200kW @ 400v, 25A @ 240v is relatively small.


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## Long Ranger (Jun 1, 2018)

Garlan Garner said:


> Do you think the 100% to Complete 30 minutes could be the extra Tesla gives you when you go beyond 0%.
> 
> I utilized 32 miles after my car hit 0% once. I don't know how far I could have gone, but I definitely got 32 miles.
> 
> It was an emergency and I had to just trust there was more.


Wow, 32 miles is really impressive. Hadn't heard of anyone going that far.
You're right that there's a buffer, but it's hidden at the bottom of pack, not the top. Folks have confirmed this with CAN data. When the car shows 0%, there's actually still 4.5% of the nominal full pack capacity remaining. But when the car shows 100%, you're at the nominal full pack capacity and a cell voltage of 4.2V (ignoring models with top-end locked battery capacity like the SR and some 2021 models in Europe).



Wooloomooloo said:


> 288 rated miles isn't 99% though, it's somewhere between 90 - 95%


288 is 100% for @Nom. That's normal. Rated miles at 100% depends upon the car's estimated nominal full pack capacity. For a 2018 P/AWD, if your nominal full pack is 76kWh or above then 100% = 310 miles, but when the estimated pack capacity drops, the rated miles at 100% drops with it. 288 rated miles at 100% just means that the car's estimated pack capacity is 70.6 kWh (288/310 * 76kWh, these numbers vary by model and year).


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## Wooloomooloo (Oct 29, 2017)

Long Ranger said:


> *288 is 100%* for @Nom. That's normal. Rated miles at 100% depends upon the car's estimated nominal full pack capacity. For a 2018 P/AWD, if your nominal full pack is 76kWh or above then 100% = 310 miles, but when the estimated pack capacity drops, the rated miles at 100% drops with it. 288 rated miles at 100% just means that the car's estimated pack capacity is 70.6 kWh (288/310 * 76kWh, these numbers vary by model and year).


OK that wasn't clear to me - is their post, they say "I'm charging to 100%" (not I've charged to 100%). I guess this means they hit 100% / 288mi and it was still charging, in which case you can ignore everything I said.

Other than that, yes I know the math, but for the record my rated range at 100% is 299.16 miles, although is varies between 298 and about 305.


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## Nom (Oct 30, 2018)

Hi - I wish my range was still 317. But it has dropped. Part of me charging to 100% was curiosity of what it would get to. It was at 288 and holding for 10 minutes about (even though it was charging at 20+ miles per hour - which would suggest adding about 3 miles of range). The battery visual was full green. I would bet that if I had checked the percentage it would have said 100% but I didn’t check so I could be wrong.


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## MnLakeBum (Mar 17, 2021)

NR4P said:


> Wow 32 miles, cool.
> 
> I have no idea. But a good possibility.


The opposite for me with my 2015 85D. I was stranded and needed a tow truck twice last May, with 32 and 28 miles remaining on the battery meter, lol. Luckily after another incident last week, Tesla has finally agreed that there is a problem with it and I'm getting a new HV battery pack under warranty when it arrives next week.


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## JasonF (Oct 26, 2018)

Nom said:


> Hi - I wish my range was still 317. But it has dropped. Part of me charging to 100% was curiosity of what it would get to. It was at 288 and holding for 10 minutes about (even though it was charging at 20+ miles per hour - which would suggest adding about 3 miles of range). The battery visual was full green. I would bet that if I had checked the percentage it would have said 100% but I didn't check so I could be wrong.


It sounds like it was 91%-95% - I was told that's when the battery starts rapidly rebalancing. That might be why there was charge going into the battery but the progress seemed to stop.

How does that make sense? Let's say you have a fire hose to fill a bunch of buckets. At first you just blast water over them all to catch as many of them as you possibly can, so you don't have to stand there and meticulously fill each bucket to the top. When they're all almost full, you might look them over and estimate their fullness as close to 95%, because they all look like they're pretty full. But then you slow down the water pressure, and try and top off each and every bucket. Does they mean they're getting more full than 95%? Not necessarily, because you probably overestimated the original 95%, and now you're turning it into a more accurate estimate.

That's kind of a rough approximation of what rebalancing does, but it works.


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## Wooloomooloo (Oct 29, 2017)

Nom said:


> Hi - I wish my range was still 317. But it has dropped. Part of me charging to 100% was curiosity of what it would get to. It was at 288 and holding for 10 minutes about (even though it was charging at 20+ miles per hour - which would suggest adding about 3 miles of range). The battery visual was full green. I would bet that if I had checked the percentage it would have said 100% but I didn't check so I could be wrong.


Do you have anything like TeslaFi to show you your battery health and degradation.

288 seems OK but it's about a 10% drop.


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## Madmolecule (Oct 8, 2018)

A couple notes on the charging screen. They are wasting a lot of space showing a big green battery on the screen. Make it provide a lot more information, not only on charging ranges, recommended charging times and levels. You should be able to enter your estimated travel miles over the next few days. And it should be able to come up with a optimize charging plan. It should also calculate the cost to charge to on the screen when you’re at home. You could easily enter your kilowatts per hour rate. It would be nice to see how much it cost to charge when you come out in the morning. I think that would be a big selling feature for Tesla. I am on a time and day rate, so it is extremely cheap to charge at home. $/mile would be a very handy display also.

it also makes sense to have a variable charge rate similar to the Tesla superchargers stations. Would it make more sense to charge for eight hours at 16 amps as opposed to four hours at 32 for example. Or half-and-half.

Actually the reason I wanted to post what is that why in the world do they have the start charging button all the way on the right corner of the screen. Unless the passenger is usually the one that initiates charging it makes no sense to me. Why wouldn’t you just tap the big battery in the middle of the screen.


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## Wooloomooloo (Oct 29, 2017)

Madmolecule said:


> A couple notes on the charging screen. They are wasting a lot of space showing a big green battery on the screen. Make it provide a lot more information, not only on charging ranges, recommended charging times and levels. You should be able to enter your estimated travel miles over the next few days. And it should be able to come up with a optimize charging plan. It should also calculate the cost to charge to on the screen when you're at home. You could easily enter your kilowatts per hour rate. It would be nice to see how much it cost to charge when you come out in the morning. I think that would be a big selling feature for Tesla. I am on a time and day rate, so it is extremely cheap to charge at home. $/mile would be a very handy display also.
> 
> it also makes sense to have a variable charge rate similar to the Tesla superchargers stations. Would it make more sense to charge for eight hours at 16 amps as opposed to four hours at 32 for example. Or half-and-half.
> 
> Actually the reason I wanted to post what is that why in the world do they have the start charging button all the way on the right corner of the screen. Unless the passenger is usually the one that initiates charging it makes no sense to me. Why wouldn't you just tap the big battery in the middle of the screen.


This is quite a funny post because you spend the first paragraph saying the big green battery is a waste of real-estate, when you could have n-number of extra info and input parameters. You then conclude with, why have a start charging button when you should be able to push the big green battery. This is why Steve Jobs said, users don't know what they want, and why (good) UX designers never work with users. Sorry to make you the butt of it, but I'm sure you see the funny side.

Tesla could definitely provide more information about power consumption, like almost every other EV does (power train, Vs heat, Vs overhead, Vs impact of weather etc). It could drive better choices by the driver. But I think asking the driver to input power usage, $ per kW/h for home, at different times, just seems too fiddly on the UI and 99% of people won't use it. Perhaps an add-on app, or advanced tab might be OK, but Tesla is taking the Apple-design cue of minimal UI clutter... at least most of the time!


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## Madmolecule (Oct 8, 2018)

Wooloomooloo said:


> This is quite a funny post because you spend the first paragraph saying the big green battery is a waste of real-estate, when you could have n-number of extra info and input parameters. You then conclude with, why have a start charging button when you should be able to push the big green battery. This is why Steve Jobs said, users don't know what they want, and why (good) UX designers never work with users. Sorry to make you the butt of it, but I'm sure you see the funny side.
> 
> Tesla could definitely provide more information about power consumption, like almost every other EV does (power train, Vs heat, Vs overhead, Vs impact of weather etc). It could drive better choices by the driver. But I think asking the driver to input power usage, $ per kW/h for home, at different times, just seems too fiddly on the UI and 99% of people won't use it. Perhaps an add-on app, or advanced tab might be OK, but Tesla is taking the Apple-design queue of minimal UI clutter... at least most of the time!


Yes the battery is to big and provides very little information. But whatever size it is it should also be the button if you want to chaNNE something or interact with something press the thing you want to interact with. It just saves a button. I agree with you that it is not teslas focus, but they are certainly not Apple elegant. Not even close. They are gaining a tremendous amount of AI information. the point I am trying to make as they use it for themselves FSD, liability protection, insurance rates and for their own benefit and I would like to be able to use this AI information to protect my investment and to improve my drive experience. If they would spend more time on that, I think we could really get a lot of benefit out of all the data they've collected. So far it is data and not information. That is not the promise of big data.

I guess I should assume that you're a fan of the current location of the start charging button. I guess it is an example of non-cluttered elegance. Putting it on the same side of the charge port would not make any sense. This way so that when fat guys like myself have to reach in to turn to start it, it's a far away as possible.


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## Feathermerchant (Sep 17, 2018)

I never use the start charging button. But I am on a flat rate of 9¢/kWh. 
Do people look at a gas pump to see how much they have just paid? I don't think so.


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## Madmolecule (Oct 8, 2018)

The home link also covers the start charging button when you open the driver door at home. My car also stopled showing how much it cost to charge at a supercharger. It's still showing a charge from back in September when I have used it multiple times since then.
I also tried clicking on the lightning bolt above the car on the left side of the screen and all it does is bring up the charging screen. It could be a good start charging button.


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## Wooloomooloo (Oct 29, 2017)

Madmolecule said:


> Yes the battery is to big and provides very little information. But whatever size it is it should also be the button if you want to chaNNE something or interact with something press the thing you want to interact with. It just saves a button.


It saves a button, but it adds a click for the user. That's not a better user experience, even if it's a better design experience.

As for your desire to use collected data to make better driving decisions, that's interesting but not the kind of thing you'd really want out in the wild. 'AI' in the broadest sense generally makes decisions based on probabilities (which decision as the highest probability of some favorable outcome). So in your example, your display might say "based on analysis of 100,000 trips with the distance you want to travel, the current weather and terrain, charging to at least 60% will give you a 95% probability of reaching your destination". That might be interesting, but have limited utility. What if I need to get back, what if I stay there longer than anticipated, what if I don't like the 1 in 20 chance I won't make it, maybe I should just charge to 90% and have a 50% redundancy... etc. Most people don't want the burden of those calculations, and in that exaggerated example, making the decision suddenly became harder, not easier. Over charging doesn't "waste" energy, it's there later on.

When you push these things out, you have to consider how the average person will interact with it and how their behavior might respond. There are still people now who think the "rated range" adapts to your driving habits, because someone said so on Reddit in 2016. It won't go away. Now imagine all of that misinformation about much more complex data that is actually open to interpretation, and probably best left to data scientists.


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## Feathermerchant (Sep 17, 2018)

Mad - Look in your Tesla account history to see if you have actually been charged $ at those Superchargers. When my screen is blank like you described, I see nothing in my account.


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## Madmolecule (Oct 8, 2018)

Feathermerchant said:


> Mad - Look in your Tesla account history to see if you have actually been charged $ at those Superchargers. When my screen is blank like you described, I see nothing in my account.


I have not been charged. If it's free you think they would get credit for it, but I probably will get a bill at some point With a convenience fee


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## Madmolecule (Oct 8, 2018)

Wooloomooloo said:


> It saves a button, but it adds a click for the user. That's not a better user experience, even if it's a better design experience.
> 
> As for your desire to use collected data to make better driving decisions, that's interesting but not the kind of thing you'd really want out in the wild. 'AI' in the broadest sense generally makes decisions based on probabilities (which decision as the highest probability of some favorable outcome). So in your example, your display might say "based on analysis of 100,000 trips with the distance you want to travel, the current weather and terrain, charging to at least 60% will give you a 95% probability of reaching your destination". That might be interesting, but have limited utility. What if I need to get back, what if I stay there longer than anticipated, what if I don't like the 1 in 20 chance I won't make it, maybe I should just charge to 90% and have a 50% redundancy... etc. Most people don't want the burden of those calculations, and in that exaggerated example, making the decision suddenly became harder, not easier. Over charging doesn't "waste" energy, it's there later on.
> 
> When you push these things out, you have to consider how the average person will interact with it and how their behavior might respond. There are still people now who think the "rated range" adapts to your driving habits, because someone said so on Reddit in 2016. It won't go away. Now imagine all of that misinformation about much more complex data that is actually open to interpretation, and probably best left to data scientists.


I couldn't disagree more. The data scientist are the last person other than the computer that we want to develop the user interface. Scientist have not studied perspective, you would not hire a scientist as a chef and they certainly should not be developing the user experience if they are not an avid user And a true artist. I think the reason we have such crappy cupholders is Elon is never driven more than three hours in a Tesla, he's too busy. If engineers and scientists designed everything they would have right angles for easy construction. Nothing in nature has right angles. It can't be all engineers you need some Architects for the gingerbread. I thought Amber at least thought Elon symmetry

Enginnering the Wheel


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## Wooloomooloo (Oct 29, 2017)

Madmolecule said:


> I couldn't disagree more. The data scientist are the last person other than the computer that we want to develop the user interface. Scientist have not studied perspective, you would not hire a scientist as a chef and they certainly should not be developing the user experience if they are not an avid user And a true artist. I think the reason we have such crappy cupholders is Elon is never driven more than three hours in a Tesla, he's too busy. If engineers and scientists designed everything they would have right angles for easy construction. Nothing in nature has right angles. It can't be all engineers you need some Architects for the gingerbread. I thought Amber at least thought Elon symmetry


I didn't say anything about data scientists designing user interfaces, that's a specific skill for individuals suited to it. As an aside, I would not suggest a user designed the interface either - I can tell you from bitter experience it rarely works out well.


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## Madmolecule (Oct 8, 2018)

Wooloomooloo said:


> That's a rather bizarre answer. I didn't say anything about data scientists designing user interfaces, what are you talking about? You didn't address anything I said whatsoever, did you intend to quote someone else?


I try to keep up bizarre, I get very bored with the standard response of everything designed by Tesla is perfect and these people know best and it was chiseled from a friggin rock on the mountain. I am not trying to say anything other than I think they've taken the wrong approach, Adapting tthe "high-performance HMI standard" as their third or fourth generation of interfaces, I would not grade them higher than a C. Data scientist have their functionality and that is to create information from data. Not use their skills to hide what is really going on and make it confusing for the consumer, only to come back FUD.



Wooloomooloo said:


> n you push these things out, you have to consider how the average person will interact with it and how their behavior might respond. There are still people now who think the "rated range" adapts to your driving habits, because someone said so on Reddit in 2016. It


this is just an excuse for them not giving the information. There is a huge thirst for this information where do you care about it or not and companies like teslifi are making good money quenching this thirst. And yes it does suck that we can only get our information from Reddit because Tesla does a terrible job explaining how their system works and how we can best utilize it. None of us know how to properly charger batteries, but I guarantee a test we use that is the reason why it's not covered under warranty is because we did not drive it properly and we did not charge it properly. And Tesla is the only company that pushes this stuff out and forces us to figure out why it's messed up. They are programmers never leave the office. They might wanna drive one of their program sometime.


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## Wooloomooloo (Oct 29, 2017)

Madmolecule said:


> And Tesla is the only company that pushes this stuff out and forces us to figure out why it's messed up. They are programmers never leave the office. They might wanna drive one of their program sometime.


There are some really terrible user interfaces out there, especially in cars, so Tesla are certainly not the only ones guilty of this particular sin.


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## MnLakeBum (Mar 17, 2021)

Wooloomooloo said:


> There are some really terrible user interfaces out there, especially in cars, so Tesla are certainly not the only ones guilty of this particular sin.


I couldn't agree more. Our 2018 Range Rover that my wife drives has the worst interface of any car we've owned. I'm very good with complicated GUI's as I used to sell and program custom home automation lighting/security/audio/home theater systems back in the 1990's when setting up that stuff was far from easy. The engineers at Land Rover clearly have no clue, lol. It's amazing how bad it is and I'm glad I don't have to drive it everyday. The user interface on my Model S is a joy of simplicity and ease of use in comparison.


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## Madmolecule (Oct 8, 2018)

MnLakeBum said:


> I couldn't agree more. Our 2018 Range Rover that my wife drives has the worst interface of any car we've owned. I'm very good with complicated GUI's as I used to sell and program custom home automation lighting/security/audio/home theater systems back in the 1990's when setting up that stuff was far from easy. The engineers at Land Rover clearly have no clue, lol. It's amazing how bad it is and I'm glad I don't have to drive it everyday. The user interface on my Model S is a joy of simplicity and ease of use in comparison.


There are plenty of bad examples of poor operator interfaces. And the engineers historically focused on horsepower and interior volume, and did not put much effort into interface. In fact the only reason manufacturers got concerned of people replacing their stereos was loss of revenue. I believe Tesla is different than a range rover. They have decided to put all their eggs in one basket the display. They're even getting rid of the stalk. If you're going to rely on display, and stupidly a single display,You better put away and continually making it the best. Also when you take control of the browser and infotainment you need to strive to be best in class there also and not just acceptable. You can't replace their amplifier and their speakers are extremely difficult to replace. They are OK speakers and OK amplifiers but certainly not amazing at this price range. Tesla will be adding additional displays to all their models because we need more information. Sadly a lot of the navigation and infotainment information is kept from us due to licensing agreements and tesla wanting to protect their data and not share with anyone.

A range rover is a jeep they've added some bells and whistles, a Tesla is a computerized rocket.

Elon Electrify Cuba


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## MnLakeBum (Mar 17, 2021)

Madmolecule said:


> There are plenty of bad examples of poor operator interfaces. And the engineers historically focused on horsepower and interior volume, and did not put much effort into interface. In fact the only reason manufacturers got concerned of people replacing their stereos was loss of revenue. I believe Tesla is different than a range rover. They have decided to put all their eggs in one basket the display. They're even getting rid of the stalk. If you're going to rely on display, and stupidly a single display,You better put away and continually making it the best. Also when you take control of the browser and infotainment you need to strive to be best in class there also and not just acceptable. You can't replace their amplifier and their speakers are extremely difficult to replace. They are OK speakers and OK amplifiers but certainly not amazing at this price range. Tesla will be adding additional displays to all their models because we need more information. Sadly a lot of the navigation and infotainment information is kept from us due to licensing agreements and tesla wanting to protect their data and not share with anyone.
> 
> A range rover is a jeep they've added some bells and whistles, a Tesla is a computerized rocket.
> 
> Elon Electrify Cuba


Agree on all accounts. The problem with a single display and taking control of the the browser is many of us are comparing the speed, functionality, and ease of use to our iPhones and iPads. The amplifier and speakers are difficult to replace and are very average IMO. I just scheduled an upgrade for the stereo with a 5 channel amp, subwoofer, front speakers, and processor. The installation labor costs are 50% higher because it's a Tesla, in my case $1,700 for the labor.

Their secrecy around the nav and infotainment is super annoying. I've rented cars recently and it's amazing how user friendly CarPlay makes the learning curve and functionality so easy on a unfamiliar, inexpensive car. I don't expect Tesla to add CarPlay in my lifetime, lol.


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## Wooloomooloo (Oct 29, 2017)

MnLakeBum said:


> I couldn't agree more. Our 2018 Range Rover that my wife drives has the worst interface of any car we've owned. I'm very good with complicated GUI's as I used to sell and program custom home automation lighting/security/audio/home theater systems back in the 1990's when setting up that stuff was far from easy. The engineers at Land Rover clearly have no clue, lol. It's amazing how bad it is and I'm glad I don't have to drive it everyday. The user interface on my Model S is a joy of simplicity and ease of use in comparison.


I can relate to that.

Tesla's UI (and this is more pronounced in the Model 3 than S) definitely betrays its "device-centric" roots, rather than a "driver-centric" experience, which is what it should be. Simple things like the manual wiper control, or turning on the fogs, the latter of which effectively requires 3 pretty accurate taps and essentially reading text on the screen to hit the right place. Even the ventilation system can be awkward for specific things, like recycle the air if you go through a smoke plumb or something.

Using one of the buttons on the steering wheel dedicated to bringing up a large icon-based screen with common functions (fogs, wipers, glove box, vents) with large icons you really can't miss, would be an easy implementation. It should be easy to call it up and dismiss it - even an iPad-style swipe from left or bottom to bring this up would be better than the pinpoint jab of the car icon required and then trying to remember which menu the thing you want is in.


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## Feathermerchant (Sep 17, 2018)

How about a button on the steering wheel that allows you to command the car to do something? Oh it already has that.
As far as the wipers go, the button on the left stalk will swipe as many times as you push it. And it you hold it all the way in, it will also wash.
Most of the stuff on the screed like adjusting the mirrors you shouldn't be doing while driving anyway.


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## Wooloomooloo (Oct 29, 2017)

Feathermerchant said:


> How about a button on the steering wheel that allows you to command the car to do something? Oh it already has that.
> As far as the wipers go, the button on the left stalk will swipe as many times as you push it. And it you hold it all the way in, it will also wash.
> Most of the stuff on the screed like adjusting the mirrors you shouldn't be doing while driving anyway.


I use the voice command for navigation, but I must admit I don't think of using it for other things. Adjusting the mirrors isn't something you'd usually do while driving I agree, but if you adjust the seat because your legs or back is getting tired in one position, it would be useful. I don't really know why you'd argue against a more intuitive interface in general unless you're in the "don't criticize Tesla for anything" camp.


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## Feathermerchant (Sep 17, 2018)

I guess I have gotten used to/prefer the simple interior and lack of buttons.
BTW there is a link to a list of voice commands you can add to your phone to help you learn the commands. There is also a list in the owners manual I think.
The voice commands are pretty comprehensive. Just say something logical and see what happens.


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