Elon Musk just took away your biggest reason for hating electric vehicles.
Today, Tesla Motors announced it can, with a simple over-the-air software update to every Model S on the road, make it impossible to run out of juice while on the road, essentially eliminating range anxiety as an excuse for not going electric.
The company's latest software update has two key features, Musk says. The car's estimate of how far it can go before being plugged in will be more accurate, accounting for things like heavy winds and terrain. A new "Trip Planner" proactively warns drivers before they head out of range. By communicating with charging stations in real time, it will provide the best options for powering up and reaching your destination as quickly as possible.
The goal, Musk says, is to provide peace of mind by eliminating the perception that your car will run out of power.
The Model S already has by far the best range of any battery electric car. The base version, with a 60 kWh battery, has an EPA-rated range of 208 miles, the 85D can cover 270 miles. Most competitors offer 80 to 100 miles.
Worrying about range isn't much of an issue for people who already own a Tesla, Musk says, because most of them are confident in the car's capabilities. But there are many potential customers to convince, especially those with no experience with electrics, and every bit helps. "It is an important thing to address really emphatically," Musk says.
Over the past few years, Tesla has done that in different ways. It's started a small pilot program to test battery swapping, in which a car with a depleted pack pulls into a station and is given a fully charged one.
More significantly, it has built an international network of 403 "Supercharger" stations (enough to serve 2,219 cars simultaneously), where Tesla customers (and only Tesla customers, as the technology is proprietary) can charge a depleted battery to 80 percent in 40 minutes, for free. The idea is that drivers who charge up at home each night should always have enough juice for daily driving, and the Superchargers are there for the occasional road trip.
That road trip is where the anxiety kicks in. Last summer, I drove a Model S P85 from San Francisco to LA and back. Even with a string of Superchargers along my route, I felt the creep of range anxiety (mostly expressed as sweatiness), because the projected range suggested by the car didn't always hold up. If I started out with enough mileage to get to the next station and then got stuck in traffic (accelerating and stopping repeatedly can sap power) or wanted to cruise I5 at a totally reasonable 80 mph, the buffer zone—the difference between how far the car can go and how far I needed to go—would shrink significantly.
Predicting things like elevation change (a range killer with serious ninja skills) and headwinds will make that number more accurate, which should mean less worrying, and less mental math. "All the complexity is taken out automatically," Musk says.
Driving conditions (like traffic) and energy use (like climate control) are added to range calculation in real time, but won't be predicted. That's partly because they're minor factors, Musk says: Air conditioning uses at most 10 percent of the car's energy, and since the electric car doesn't idle, sitting still in traffic doesn't burn much juice. "It's quite a small effect," though a six-hour stretch of bumper to bumper conditions could cause problems.
With the new updates, Musk says, "It's basically impossible to run out."
The biggest point here is that Tesla's ability to issue over-the-air software updates is a huge advantage. Improved range predictions and trip planning won't just benefit people ordering the Model S now, it will benefit every current Model S owner. If you buy a Tesla now, it can actually get smarter as it ages.
We've already seen this. Past software updates have improved the 0 to 60 mph time of the top-of-the-line P85D by about one-tenth of a second, altered every model's suspension settings to increase clearance at high speeds, and fixed a charger plug issue.
Beyond the range predictor and trip planner, the latest software update (version 6.2) adds active safety features like automatic emergency braking, blind spot warning, and side collision warning (these will only work on cars delivered since October 2014, since they require built-in hardware). Rewritten code will improve radio reception and the car's sound system, and a new valet mode limits speed, torque, and access to confidential information when someone else is behind the wheel.
Model S owners can expect similar upgrades every three to four months, and the next one will include a doozy: Automatic steering. The company's engineers have been testing highway piloted mode between San Francisco and Seattle, Musk says, and the product is nearly ready for market, though it's unclear how, exactly, regulators will respond.