I leave the battery meter set to percentage, the “miles” option is really just percentage dumbly mapped to miles.
The golden number in a Tesla Is absolutely the navigation route estimate. While navigating you can open the Energy app as well to see more detail, how you are doing compared to the estimate, and specific factors affecting consumption.
I also use percentage. It's not something that I usually think about. I just know that my "real range" is 180 miles at highway speeds. That's not something they tell you when you buy a Tesla.
I also just don't use navigation if I've been somewhere more than once. Just navigate with my head..
Tesla advertises EPA range which is a mix of city and highway driving with an average speed way below normal interstate highway speeds.
I use the navigation all the time,
even when I know the way, because it knows about traffic jams and so I can get a good range estimate for longer trips. It even gives you a round-trip estimate back to your starting point.
Percentage seems to be the general consensus amongst Tesla owners. The real numbers are in the navigation. We've been looking at percentage based range on gas cars forever. I would argue that gas cars with "mile" range estimates are not that accurate either. At least, that's my experience.
The golden number in a Tesla Is absolutely the navigation route estimate. While navigating you can open the Energy app as well to see more detail, how you are doing compared to the estimate, and specific factors affecting consumption.