New record for Tesla! A Model S covers more than 900 km without recharging

The feat was achieved in Belgium by two owners of a Tesla Model S P100D who were trying to cover the greatest distance possible with their car.

Hypermiling is a practice used by some drivers (especially in the USA) based on efficient driving with the aim of covering the greatest distance possible with a given car. The Tesla Model S is one of the vehicles most used by hypermilers to carry out this experiment, and the latest attempt to reach our ears has ended with an incredible new record: a driver covered up to 901.2 km with his Tesla Model S.

The Tesla Model S covered 901.2 km in 23 hours and 45 minutes

Steeve Peeters and Joeri Cools were in charge of beating this new record, and they did it with their Tesla Model S P100D, the most powerful version of the range. The protagonists of this curious story took a whopping 23 hours and 45 minutes to cover 901.2 kilometres. The average speed at which they travelled was 40 km/h.

The key to the record: an urban stretch they repeated over and over

To achieve this mark, they drove the car along a closed road section located in Belgium. This is the explanation Peeters gave on his blog after achieving the feat:

“Our starting point was a charging station, which would also be the point where we would finish; we had to make sure we could recharge the car once we finished the challenge. From there, we headed to a short stretch of road that leads to our main “track”, a 26 km closed circuit. Although, in terms of consumption, it might have been more beneficial to drive in a straight line with a tailwind, our approach had the advantage that we could learn from every lap we completed on our particular circuit. When we finished the attempt, we knew exactly how to take each roundabout so that the driving was ideal for reducing consumption to the maximum. We achieved an average efficiency of more than 50 km below 100 Wh/km, and we even had sections of more than 10 km where consumption dropped to 88 Wh/km! We never thought it would be possible to obtain those values in a car that weighs 2.3 tonnes.”

Here you can see a map of the route taken by Peeters and Cools.

Elon Musk believes the Tesla Model S 100D should reach 1,000 km of range

The CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk, quickly heard the news and did not wait long to give his view on this feat.

Over 1000 km should be possible in a 100D with the right tires https://t.co/8czN3dVZE4

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) 21 June 2017

Logically, hypermiling is not a particularly efficient technique for determining the range offered by an electric car, but it is an interesting way to discover how driving style affects its consumption.