1,100 mi Turo Tesla road trip w/ fam, am I crazy?

[doogie84]

Contemplating renting a Model Y LR via Turo to travel from N. Indiana to southern Florida, in a few weeks. Indianapolis-Louisville-Nashville-Atlanta-Tampa. Fam of 4, we were planning on making an overnight stop both ways regardless. Car would have unlimited miles & free supercharger charging.

Charting a theoretical route w/ A Better Route Planner suggests that the stopping times won't be too onerous, esp. if I can get a hotel w/ a L2. Spouse is concerned about the frequency/duration of stops. I'm wondering if ABRP is optimistic and assume no slow charging times, at-capacity stations, etc. I did make adjustments to settings to account for expected temperature, cargo/passenger weight, speed, etc.

Is ABRP +/- accurate? Or is the Tesla route finder more accurate? Tesla seems to suggest longer stopping times (>30-40 min).

I would like to spend some Christmas money on this as a treat. Been obsessively following Tesla for last 7 years or so. Sick of burning through another 100 gallons of fuel (and $350) for another road trip.

I am very familiar with the use of Plugshare, for finding hotel chargers.

Thanks.

 

[EVRider-FL]

Just one overnight stop in each direction will mean long days, especially with charging stops and traffic. It’s doable, but depending on how long your family can tolerate sitting in the car, you might want to stop twice.

If your Turo host offers the option of getting access to the car via the Tesla app, it’s worth doing. That will give you access to supercharging notifications and let you use your phone as a key.

 

[RTPEV]

I've found ABRP to be quite accurate, at least once it calibrates to your driving style. That will not necessarily be the case for you since you will not have a chance to put any miles on the car before your trip.

FWIW, ABRP is actually pessimistic when it comes to its default predictions in my case. I get better efficiency, resulting in shorter charging stops than ABRP predicts with the default model. I don't hypermile, but I don't drive 20-25 over either. I usually stick to about 5-10 over. But do remember to put in the extra weight of passengers & luggage so ABRP can account for that (which it sounds like you did).

You are correct that the Tesla route planner is very pessimistic. The car's built-in nav is as well (in my experience). You can generally shave off 5-10 minutes from what the car says. Granted, you probably won't do this for the first couple of legs until you get a feel for how you're doing vs. the car's predictions.

Of course ABRP also does not account for slow or full sites, but it does show you upcoming stall utilization which you can use to potentially alter your stops to choose a less crowded stop. But in all of my trips, including a few on holiday weekends, I've only encountered one site that was full, and I was the car that made it full (so no wait). In 10 minutes I was practically the only car there, so it was some weird timing fluke!

If your spouse is worried about the frequency of stops though, well, that could be an issue (assuming you've shown her the plan). If your family are the stereotypical road warriors that never stop and it's annoying when you do, then she's going to be annoyed. I've found, however, that each time you add one more person to the car, you usually add one more stop! I've done an 800 mile trip by myself in 2 stops. When my wife is with me, we make 3 minimum. My son was with us a different time and we made like 5 stops. As for the time at each stop, really by the time we use the bathroom and get some snacks and check our phones, it's usually time to go. When we stop for lunch (at least in pandemic times) we usually eat while charging and end up getting a nice full battery for the next leg which can then be a bit longer. While my Model 3 has more range the the Model Y, I can honestly say that it has not impacted our total travel time in the least.

If you have Google Timeline (or the Apple equivalent if there is such a thing) enabled, perhaps you can actually check your driving style history. I did and found that even while driving in a gas car, we would stop 5-6 times on our 800 mile trip (the 3 stops was during the pandemic when we were trying to avoid stopping). Rest area stops were always 7 minutes; gas station stops 11 minutes and lunch stops 24-30 minutes. If you have that kind of data, you can actually compare to what you can do in the Tesla.

And the best part is that you arrive at your destination and can drive around on electric the whole time. And if you stay at a place you can charge, you start out at 100%. No annoying stop 90 minutes into your return trip because you started out with 1/2 a tank (although if your wife is like mine, she'll want to stop for a coffee anyway, and then you'll sit in a Starbucks drive-thru for 15 minutes, but somehow that stop doesn't count!)

 

[Rocky_H]

renting a Model Y LR [...] Spouse is concerned about the frequency/duration of stops.

With a long range Model Y, that's a good amount of range and good efficiency and very fast charging, so the stops should be really quick, like never more than a half hour at the most I would say. And don't try to fill up to 100%. Charging gets really slow on the high end. Fill to about 60-70% or whatever that looks like it can get you to the next Supercharger and go.

Another tip about long trips, that is a change in habit from what people are used to doing with gas cars. DON'T just plug in and then sit there and wait and stare at the screen. You WILL get bored, and it will seem to take too long doing nothing. Always plug in and walk off and do something. It doesn't have to be much, but go down the street and get a coffee and come back. 15 minutes will disappear like you didn't even notice it, and it won't seem like you're waiting for the car.

 

[doogie84]

Thanks all for the advice!

 

[db93]

On a recent road trip, I had little time to do much
Use a restroom, maybe clean the windshield, and ready for next destination
Stops were 10-20m mostly every 3 hrs or so

2020 MYLR

 

[Ciaopec]

Contemplating renting a Model Y LR via Turo to travel from N. Indiana to southern Florida, in a few weeks. Indianapolis-Louisville-Nashville-Atlanta-Tampa. Fam of 4, we were planning on making an overnight stop both ways regardless. Car would have unlimited miles & free supercharger charging.

Sent you a PM

 

[ThomasD]

Tifton GA has a Hotel with Tesla chargers just get there early. Restaurants within a 5 minute walk

 

[garrett5688]

Will you have access to use the app when renting through Turo? If not, that could be a big downside.