One of the Big Island’s latest Tesla Model 3 owners, Bernard Moret, recently took his new car (a long-range, rear-wheel drive sedan) on a 200+ mile mini-adventure and he learned quite a bit about his car’s capabilities. The following is his summary of drive. It’s clear that the existing Model 3 is quite capable and is an ideal electric car for the island. It will be interesting to see what the 200-mile model will do.

“I drove from sea level up the Kohala Ranch road to the Kohala mountain road (3650ft), down to Waimea (2600ft), across north and over the Saddle, (6765ft), down to Hilo, some around Hilo, then up to Volcano National Park (4000ft), and then back down to Hilo, back up the Saddle road and back down to Waimea. In Waimea, I stopped retracing my steps, opting instead to descend to Kawaihae and follow the coast to Kohala Ranch). Then I simply descended to Kawaihae to get to the bottom of Kohala Ranch.

Total climbing done: ~18’500 ft; total trip length: ~234 miles; initial range (full charge): 311 miles; remaining charge back home: 70 miles (!), total energy used 55KWh, efficiency 238Wh/mile.

That’s with AC on for about 3/4 of the trip (only off above 4000ft), lots of climbing, and mostly at high speed (65mph on cruise control on the saddle road, never slowing down below 65 unlike lots of ICE cars that cannot sustain that speed on the steep gradients; 55mph between Waimea and the saddle road and between Hilo and Volcano; and 45mph elsewhere, except in the towns) — and under these circumstances the range is above 300miles.

On mostly level trips, the efficiency should improve at least 10-20%; and without AC (I tried in a few places for 1-2 miles to get numbers), I could see a 33% improvement; so I’d say that, with perfectly normal driving and little AC usage, one should expect well over 350 miles of range from a full charge. Very impressive! (I predict this is going to be the new go-to vehicle for hypermilers, replacing the S100D.)”