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Tesla Model Y and Model 3 With LFP Battery After 43,000 Miles

Do Tesla batteries degrade at different rates for a Model Y as opposed to a Model 3 RWD with LFP batteries? One owner shares his experience.

Tesla Model Y and Model 3 With LFP Battery After 43,000 Miles

We have a comparison video of a 2021 Model 3 with LFP batteries being compared to the battery of the Tesla Model Y long range. There will be a comparison of battery degradation. Let's see which battery degrades more.

After 17,728 miles, the standard range Model 3 with LFP batteries was at 96.9% of its original capacity, which is a 3.1% degradation. This dip generally goes to about 10% and then levels off. This leaves a little less kWh the car can use and gives it a range of 245 miles.

The Model Y, Model S, and Model X do not have LFP batteries. The RWD Model 3, which I own, has LFP batteries. The 2022 version has 272 miles with the tires I have. I've already charged it a few times to 100%.

The 2020 Model Y has 43,400 miles on it and the battery health is 86.2%, losing 13.8% of the battery for the car. The original capacity of the battery was 77.3 kWh and it is now 66.7 kWh. This is a below average battery degradation for the Tesla fleet.

Which Battery Degrades More

It looks like the Model Y is on pace to degrade more than the 2021 Model 3 RWD with LFP batteries. The biggest thing to note is that the LFP battery can be charged to 100%. This gives it an effective range comparable to a longe range Model 3 at 80% charge.

There were other uses of Tesla vehicles who shared their experience in the comment. One was a 2021 Model Y long range with 49,000 miles and the battery degraded only 9.3%. This person mostly charged at super chargers.

Tesla has a warranty on the batteries of its cars, a four-year, 50,000 mile warranty and an eight years, 100,000 mile warranty. If the battery degrades more than 30% after 8 years, you can get it replaced for free, I believe.

I look at it this way. If I drive my Model 3 for 10 years, by that time, new batteries will be so much better and hopefully cheaper, that I can just go get a new battery pack that has a lot more range.

What do you think of this battery performance test? Will batteries be a lot cheaper and better in 5 years? What about 10 years?

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Jeremy Johnson is a Tesla investor and supporter. He first invested in Tesla in 2017 after years of following Elon Musk and admiring his work ethic and intelligence. Since then, he's become a Tesla bull, covering anything about Tesla he can find, while also dabbling in other electric vehicle companies. Jeremy covers Tesla developments at Torque News. You can follow him on Twitter or LinkedIn to stay in touch and follow his Tesla news coverage on Torque News.

Image Credit, Gjeebs, Screenshot

Comments

Shane (not verified)    August 26, 2022 - 8:47PM

The batteries will be better, but I doubt they will be able to swap in the new batteries to your model easily. Problem is the new battery packs are built as structural packs and yours likely isn't plug and play with those packs. Could be wrong, but increasing range for cheap seems unlikely.

Ted Hu (not verified)    September 23, 2022 - 2:58AM

They degrade and usually hover around 80% for NMC and higher for LFP. Battery warranty for 3 & Y is until 8yr/120,000 mi, longest of any car cos.

Richard Brunt (not verified)    October 2, 2022 - 10:53AM

It is tricky to measure battery degradation. How did you do it? Because if you’re just looking at a little battery symbol on your screen and dividing the number of miles by the battery percent, you are way way off. Tesla will confirm this. This is a very very crude estimation tool. To be accurate the battery calibration would have to be perfect. And the battery calibration is nowhere near perfect. You will see in Youtube range tests by Bjorn Nyland and iothers - the accurate way is to drive your car from 100% to close to zero, and determine the number of kilowatt hours used by the battery pack. This is accurate. In these videos, the degradation determined is far different from what the screen shows. Basically that little battery symbol on your screen is useless. A good way to estimate degradation without driving the car all day from 100% down to zero is to get the Teslafi app, and look at kilowatt hours used for a long journey. The longer the better. Divide this number by the battery percentage used. That is your full remaining battery capacity in kwh. Compare that to the capacity when new(after deducting the buffer of about 3kwh) and that is your degradation. It’s OK to stop a few times during this journey, Teslafi will break it down. Then you just have to add the numbers up. My car for example, a 2020 SR plus, shows almost 10% degradation on the screen using the crude method, and about 3% degradation if I actually determine how many kilowatt hours are remaining in the battery using the aforementioned methods. It would be very interesting to see your comparison of the two cars after you ran the test this way. I suspect the degradation on your model Y is far less than you think.

Flock (not verified)    October 19, 2022 - 8:28PM

Hi I picked up my Model 3 rear drive lfp May 11 2022 . It now has close to 18000km.
(11000)mi. range has gone from 438 to 432km. (272 to 268)mi. The drop came in the first 11000km(6800)mi and has remained at 432 ever since.It will be interesting to see how fast the next drop in range will come.

DH (not verified)    February 6, 2023 - 1:01PM

If you got the performance tires that slight initial dip is the recalibration that occurs due to the slight decrease in efficiency with those tires

DH (not verified)    February 6, 2023 - 1:01PM

If you got the performance tires that slight initial dip is the recalibration that occurs due to the slight decrease in efficiency with those tires