April 2023. California. Part 4 of my 5-year review on the Model 3
Our car initially had 310 miles of rated range*, but a software update in 2019 increased the usable portion of the pack giving us 325 miles of range. After 67,000 miles and 5 years years of travels a full charge on our 2018 RWD Model 3 reports 291 miles of rated range.

*Rated range is based on EPA testing and is the estimate of how many miles the average person could drive based on the amount of energy stored in the battery pack.
The rated range of my battery pack dropped pretty quickly to about 300 miles around the end of 2020. I don’t know whether that was actual degradation, or if Tesla changed their method for calculating range, or if they increased the size of the buffer on the packs. Whatever the case, over the last 2 years my range has slowly gone down to 291 miles. Compared to the peak 325 miles of range I’m at 89.5% of capacity, and compared to the initial 310 miles I’m at 93% of initial capacity.
How I charge my car: 90% of my charging has been at home overnight on a 30 amp clothes dryer outlet. I drive 50-60 miles a day and charge for 2 hours before I leave for work in the morning. On a daily basis I’m usually operating between 45 – 70% SOC. I only use Superchargers for out of town trips, and that adds up to 10% of the energy used to charge my car so far. The year 5 full charge was just the 5th time I’ve charged to 100%.
I was hoping for less degradation. I called Tesla, they analyzed my battery pack and said I’m at 0.4% below average for cars similar to mine – within the normal range, just a bit below average. Whatever the case, in the real world 291 miles of range is not an issue for me. We have plenty of range for the most common trip we take: 180-200 mile round trip visits to the Bay Area. Example: A couple weeks ago we visited the California Academy of Sciences. Left home with a 90% charge (260 miles) and after 198 miles of driving got home with 84 miles in the pack.

291 miles of range is also plenty for road tripping where I usually operate between 30-80% SOC. The longest distance I’ve driven between charging sessions is 238 miles; the longest I’ve driven between Superchargers on a road trip was 223 miles; and the longest I’ve driven from a supercharger to a Level 2 destination charger was 177 miles – so 291 miles has been more than enough for me.
Calculating battery pack capacity: A post on Tesla Motor Club details a method that could allow the BMS to recalibrate and provide the best estimate of remaining capacity. According to this post it involves letting the car sit for 3-6 hours with HV contactors open at a variety of charge states. HV contactors are not open when the car is using energy for things like cooling the cabin or sentry mode – things I use while parked at work. My car is completely ‘off’ for a good 8 hours overnight in the garage, but my SOC is usually between 40-70% on a day by day basis. I’ll let my pack get down to a lower SOC, let it sit over night and check if that increases rated range estimates. If there’s a change I’ll update this post.
This is Part 4 of my 5-year review. The review is broken up into short posts on different aspects of owning the Model 3. Additional posts will be linked below as they go live. Topics covered include:
- 1. Day 1
- 2. My opinion on the car
- 3. Quality & Reliability
- 4. Battery Pack Status
- 5. Charging
- 6. Emissions
- 7. FSD