MUSIC INTRO
i bought an electric car because i wanted something economical and the reason i went
for tesla is because they by far and away have the best range and efficiency in the business
if you look at the latest version of the tesla model s it has a range of over 400 miles on a
single charge so it might sound a bit crazy when i'm thinking about doing something that's going to
reduce that range but here's the dilemma the aero wheels on the Tesla Model 3 increase the range
underneath these fancy hubcaps are actually a set of black alloys that could increase the appearance
so in this video we'll get to the cold hard facts of what the tesla model 3 looks like without the
aero wheels on plus a highly scientific test to see what impact they actually have on the range
are the wheels going to come off in this video production most definitely
as we make our way to the test track let me tell you something about the aero wheels so tesla's
vice president of engineering has said that the aero wheels will increase the range of the model 3
by about 10 which is an impressive figure because if you take my Tesla Model 3 standard range plus
if i took the aero wheels off that would reduce my range by about 25 miles however
is this the truth and how realistically are we going to achieve that figure on a daily basis
well to answer that we need to think a little bit about aerodynamics and what they actually do
aerodynamics are aiming to make something push through the air easier i.e reduce the force that
it takes less force means less energy which means more battery which means greater range
but air resistance isn't constant the faster we go the greater the air resistance is and this is why
your watt hours per mile rapidly increases when you're cruising on a motorway in your model 3.
more speed equals more wind resistance more energy less range so where am i going with all
this and it's simple if the majority of your time is spent driving around town at low speeds there's
not going to be much air resistance which means your aero wheels aren't really going to be doing
anything because reducing 10% of nothing is still nothing so this 10 figure that's been banded
around by the tesla vp and the reason i've kept my aero wheels on for so long probably hasn't applied
to the majority of the journeys i've actually done but what about at 70 mile an hour and that's
today's test we're going to see what effect it has cruising a constant 70 mile an hour i've found
a lovely stretch of dual carriageway that's long got no roundabouts very little traffic the perfect
situation to do a highly scientific test on where deceleration acceleration elevation are not going
to play any part whatsoever in the results i'm going to drive this stretch of dual carriageway
four times two times with the aero wheels two times without okay time for the gloves and coat to
come on because the air conditions going off and the heated seats and it's three degrees outside
before we reveal what the model 3 looks like without the aero wheels we need to do a run
with them attached to make this as precise as possible the plan is to drive the just over
eight mile stretch of pure dual carriageway there and back four times it's a 16.5 mile loop totaling
65 miles for the entire test 32.5 miles will be with the aero wheels on 32.5 miles without
the reason to do it four times is i'll be alternating each one with having the
aero wheels on for one off for one this should hopefully account for any variable conditions
such as wind rain vehicle conditions as if both the aero and non-aero runs are the same
it proves that actually these variables aren't changing are insignificant to the measurements
by going there and back it will account for any assistance or hindrance the wind direction might
have as at some point even if the wind was against it on the way there it's going to help us on the
way back one element i did consider may affect it is the tyre pressure as the higher the tire
pressure the better the economics however they remained at 41 psi for all four tires
to at the test probably as it already got the heat into the tires and the battery was
filming before we started as i said i had the heating off lights even the windscreen wipers
to eliminate the effect of regen braking and acceleration the measurements were taken between
two points when the model 3 was at 70 mile an hour and due to no traffic we never dropped below that
during the entire test and i didn't even notice any regen braking as we were going down hills
i also made sure i never slipstream any vehicles i measured the air pressure throughout and there
was very little changes and although it did start to spit with rain a little bit
it was about equal on all runs i think i've pretty much covered every variable i can think of to make
sure the only difference between the runs are the aero wheels if you can think of anything
i've missed or a mistake i've made let me know so the first run on the south leg got 304 watt hours
per mile covering 8.4 miles and the north leg covering 8.1 miles got 256 watt hours per mile
the difference is probably down to the elevation changes time for the aero wheels to come off
so here we go the big reveal what does the tesla model 3 look like without the aero wheels on
now they come off relatively simple you just reach behind pull off bits at a time and there we go
simple this is what the model 3 looks like without the aero wheels
MUSIC
so let's see now what effect that has on the range and get back out onto the dual carriageway
so now we're going to repeat the exact same run with the aero wheels off
then i'll put them back on for round three before ending run four with them off again
hopefully as i said this alternating should eliminate some of the uncontrollable variables
okay time for the results and also i'll go into the financials of what it means from
an economics point of view so on run one once you can find north and south the average watt
hours per mile was 280. on run two with the aero wheels off we got an average of 282.5
so very little difference now runs three and four are going to be the things that see whether
external factors are actually influencing these results because if run three and
run one give similar results and run four and run two we can determine that actually
the external factors are not influencing the results at all so on run three we got an average
of 278.5 with the aero wheels on and run for 287 watt hours per mile with the aero wheels
off so overall averages for both runs once you combine the north and south on runs one and three
aero wheels on we got 279.25 watt hours per mile with the aero wheels off we got 284.75
that equates to 120 mpg with the area wheels on and 118 with the aero wheels off so how does that impact
on the 10 range that we were promised well if you were to use 50 kilowatt hours of electricity
without the aero wheels you'd travel 175.5 miles if you put the aero wheels back on on
the efficiencies that we found here you should get 179 miles which is only a 3.5 mile increase
in percentage terms that works out as 1.9% range increase not quite the 10
we were promised vp of tesla but what about the financials because save a penny save a pound
well let's say you took a short trip of 200 miles with the aero wheels on you should use about 55.85
kilowatt hours of electricity if you took the aero wheels off you use 56.95 kilowatt hours of
electricity so you're going to use one kilowatt hour of electricity more on my electricity tariff
that works out as 5p more expensive but what about the year because we travel a lot more miles than
that well if you extrapolated that out over say 10 000 miles you'd save £2.75 so in short if
you want to change up the appearance of your tesla model 3 and you can manage buying one less coffee
a year knock yourself out because it is not going to break the bank i think i'm going to change my
look up and leave them off for a little while don't forget to like share comment and subscribe
if you like anything to do with teslas or electric cars thanks for watching i will see you soon