After the Pearl, MS supercharger opened last week, I decided to take a real road trip. Memphis has been isolated, with only the Nashville supercharger within the car's range, so I have done very little highway travel to date.
Weather conditions were probably close to ideal, with temps in the 50s and a light quartering tailwind. Some rain towards the end of the trip.
From East Memphis to Pearl is 218 miles, most of it on interstate highway with a 70mph speed limit and few rolling hills. I averaged about 75 mph after getting out of Memphis traffic and arrived in Pearl with 23 rated miles. The trip planner wanted to route me through the Slidell, LA supercharger first (which is well beyond the car's range). I kept trying, and once the range was down to about 150 miles it offered a direct route.
The supercharger in Pearl is conveniently located to 55, and right on one of the common routes from Memphis to the gulf coast (55 to 49 to 98, jackson, hattiesburg, mobile). It is in the parking lot of what looks like a new outlet mall with a food court. I parked in the closest slot to the mall and plugged in. Charging was slower than I expected, took an hour and 12 minutes to go from 23 to 212 rated miles. I gave up at about 225 and left for the next leg to Mobile, AL. The mall closes at 9:00 on a Friday, but the area seems well lit and safe even after hours.
Once again, the trip planner wanted me to go southwest first, and said a total of 470 miles to mobile. The iPhone said 183 and the onboard nav would take Hattiesburg as a destination (83 miles down the road) so we launched. About 10 miles outside of Hattiesburg the nav would accept a direct route to Mobile.
This was an easy drive, mostly 4-lane but frequent stops and enough traffic to keep average speed to about 65 which made range a non-issue. For some reason, the Nav estimated about 1.5 hours longer than it actually took, and didn't fully correct until we were less than 3 miles away.
I'd read about issues with the Mobile SpC, but decided that we'd probably be OK since there was a forecast for moderate rain about the time we'd show up, which should keep ne'er-do-wells indoors. This was a mistake. The parking lot with the superchargers was unlit at that hour (about 0100) and there was active criminal activity within sight of the charger. I was anxious (and my wife was terrified) and I left as soon as I had adequate charge for the last leg. It turns out that I could have called either mall security which is available 24/7 or the Mobile PD which said they'd be happy to send a cruiser.
The onboard nav actually worked OK for the last leg to Destin, except for overestimating the time required by at least 50%.
The Good:
The Model S is a very, very, good road car. It is quiet, stable, has gobs of torque for passing and everything works really well with only a couple of exceptions. It is a very easy car to drive
The internet radio is nice, no commercials and never out of range. The headlights work well and I think the auto high beams are as good as they can be.
The autopilot decreases workload by more than I expected. It was nearly perfect, with only a few minor glitches the whole time. This was on a mix of interstate and secondary roads, day, night, and light rain.Far more relaxing to let the autopilot drive 90% of the time.
The Bad:
Limited range. The Tesla is better than anything else electric, but our other car is a diesel BMW X5 which will easily make this trip unrefueled. The paucity of superchargers in this part of the country and the poor performance of the trip planner exacerbate range anxiety. In a perfect world, someday we'll have teslas with a 500 mile range, which is about as long as I want to sit in a car.
Trip planner/Nav. This is just awful compared to the rest of the car. 15 year old Hondas do better, and every smart phone or $75 Tom-Tom/Garmin portable does vastly better. I'm mystified why this can't be improved, at least to the point of usability. Right now it's worse than useless for traveling. In town it does OK.
Windshield wipers are marginal. At speed, about 25-30% of the bottom of the blade doesn't even contact the windshield. Worse than any car I've owned in decades. Better than my 1968 VW beetle, though. Barely.
The HVAC fan is a constant annoyance. Most often it needs to be at least two units higher than it is. It would be nice to be able to have an "offset" that would automatically increase it to two over whatever thee algorithm thinks it needs. This has improved a lot from earlier versions of the software, but there is still considerable opportunity for improvement. My wife, who is used to the "set and forget" system in our 2010 BMW, was not impressed.
I miss the swiveling headlights from the BMW, especially on poorly lit secondary roads. I though this was a gimmick, but it actually helps a lot.
Whoever decided that shiny chrome was a good idea for the arms that support the side mirrors should be taken out and whipped. At least figuratively. At some angles glare from the sun is unbelievable. I'm planning to try "dipping" these pieces, at least on top.
The Ugly:
Mobile SpC location. It was fine during business hours on the way back, but I wouldn't go after hours again unless I could confirm that security or Mobile PD will be there.
The trip home, mostly in day light, was easy. I left Destin with a full range charge courtesy of the HPWC at club intrawest, I charged there to 90% the afternoon before leaving, and scheduled a charge to start at 2:00 am from the 120 outlet at the condo so we'd be ready to leave late morning.
With electrons to burn , we made very good time to Mobile, and by the time we ate lunch were back over 255 miles of rated range (85D). The mall is run down. but it seems they are trying to renovate and move upscale. Hopefully this will happen.
Mobile to Jackson was also easy, except that the onboard nav wanted me to go 100 miles out of the way through Slidell, LA rather than direct. I ignored it unitl close to Hattiesburg where it again allowed a direct route. The time estimate was still way off.
On the return, I charged in a different stall in Pearl (Jackson) and charged at a normal rate. I didn't see any other Teslas on the entire trip, except for three in Sandestin.
The last leg was a little long at 218 miles, with a headwind of 8-10 knots. At 70-75mph I was running about 315-325wh/mi which was going to be tight. I settled in behind a mail truck for about an hour on AP and the wh/mi dropped to about 250. i tried settings between 3 and 5 and it seemed to make little difference to the power used. he was running right at the speed limit (70) and slowing a little up hills and a little faster down. Driving this way with the autopilot was completely relaxing. We just turned up the radio and watched the world go by. It also gave me a nice pad, and I got home with over 50 miles of rated range
Weather conditions were probably close to ideal, with temps in the 50s and a light quartering tailwind. Some rain towards the end of the trip.
From East Memphis to Pearl is 218 miles, most of it on interstate highway with a 70mph speed limit and few rolling hills. I averaged about 75 mph after getting out of Memphis traffic and arrived in Pearl with 23 rated miles. The trip planner wanted to route me through the Slidell, LA supercharger first (which is well beyond the car's range). I kept trying, and once the range was down to about 150 miles it offered a direct route.
The supercharger in Pearl is conveniently located to 55, and right on one of the common routes from Memphis to the gulf coast (55 to 49 to 98, jackson, hattiesburg, mobile). It is in the parking lot of what looks like a new outlet mall with a food court. I parked in the closest slot to the mall and plugged in. Charging was slower than I expected, took an hour and 12 minutes to go from 23 to 212 rated miles. I gave up at about 225 and left for the next leg to Mobile, AL. The mall closes at 9:00 on a Friday, but the area seems well lit and safe even after hours.
Once again, the trip planner wanted me to go southwest first, and said a total of 470 miles to mobile. The iPhone said 183 and the onboard nav would take Hattiesburg as a destination (83 miles down the road) so we launched. About 10 miles outside of Hattiesburg the nav would accept a direct route to Mobile.
This was an easy drive, mostly 4-lane but frequent stops and enough traffic to keep average speed to about 65 which made range a non-issue. For some reason, the Nav estimated about 1.5 hours longer than it actually took, and didn't fully correct until we were less than 3 miles away.
I'd read about issues with the Mobile SpC, but decided that we'd probably be OK since there was a forecast for moderate rain about the time we'd show up, which should keep ne'er-do-wells indoors. This was a mistake. The parking lot with the superchargers was unlit at that hour (about 0100) and there was active criminal activity within sight of the charger. I was anxious (and my wife was terrified) and I left as soon as I had adequate charge for the last leg. It turns out that I could have called either mall security which is available 24/7 or the Mobile PD which said they'd be happy to send a cruiser.
The onboard nav actually worked OK for the last leg to Destin, except for overestimating the time required by at least 50%.
The Good:
The Model S is a very, very, good road car. It is quiet, stable, has gobs of torque for passing and everything works really well with only a couple of exceptions. It is a very easy car to drive
The internet radio is nice, no commercials and never out of range. The headlights work well and I think the auto high beams are as good as they can be.
The autopilot decreases workload by more than I expected. It was nearly perfect, with only a few minor glitches the whole time. This was on a mix of interstate and secondary roads, day, night, and light rain.Far more relaxing to let the autopilot drive 90% of the time.
The Bad:
Limited range. The Tesla is better than anything else electric, but our other car is a diesel BMW X5 which will easily make this trip unrefueled. The paucity of superchargers in this part of the country and the poor performance of the trip planner exacerbate range anxiety. In a perfect world, someday we'll have teslas with a 500 mile range, which is about as long as I want to sit in a car.
Trip planner/Nav. This is just awful compared to the rest of the car. 15 year old Hondas do better, and every smart phone or $75 Tom-Tom/Garmin portable does vastly better. I'm mystified why this can't be improved, at least to the point of usability. Right now it's worse than useless for traveling. In town it does OK.
Windshield wipers are marginal. At speed, about 25-30% of the bottom of the blade doesn't even contact the windshield. Worse than any car I've owned in decades. Better than my 1968 VW beetle, though. Barely.
The HVAC fan is a constant annoyance. Most often it needs to be at least two units higher than it is. It would be nice to be able to have an "offset" that would automatically increase it to two over whatever thee algorithm thinks it needs. This has improved a lot from earlier versions of the software, but there is still considerable opportunity for improvement. My wife, who is used to the "set and forget" system in our 2010 BMW, was not impressed.
I miss the swiveling headlights from the BMW, especially on poorly lit secondary roads. I though this was a gimmick, but it actually helps a lot.
Whoever decided that shiny chrome was a good idea for the arms that support the side mirrors should be taken out and whipped. At least figuratively. At some angles glare from the sun is unbelievable. I'm planning to try "dipping" these pieces, at least on top.
The Ugly:
Mobile SpC location. It was fine during business hours on the way back, but I wouldn't go after hours again unless I could confirm that security or Mobile PD will be there.
The trip home, mostly in day light, was easy. I left Destin with a full range charge courtesy of the HPWC at club intrawest, I charged there to 90% the afternoon before leaving, and scheduled a charge to start at 2:00 am from the 120 outlet at the condo so we'd be ready to leave late morning.
With electrons to burn , we made very good time to Mobile, and by the time we ate lunch were back over 255 miles of rated range (85D). The mall is run down. but it seems they are trying to renovate and move upscale. Hopefully this will happen.
Mobile to Jackson was also easy, except that the onboard nav wanted me to go 100 miles out of the way through Slidell, LA rather than direct. I ignored it unitl close to Hattiesburg where it again allowed a direct route. The time estimate was still way off.
On the return, I charged in a different stall in Pearl (Jackson) and charged at a normal rate. I didn't see any other Teslas on the entire trip, except for three in Sandestin.
The last leg was a little long at 218 miles, with a headwind of 8-10 knots. At 70-75mph I was running about 315-325wh/mi which was going to be tight. I settled in behind a mail truck for about an hour on AP and the wh/mi dropped to about 250. i tried settings between 3 and 5 and it seemed to make little difference to the power used. he was running right at the speed limit (70) and slowing a little up hills and a little faster down. Driving this way with the autopilot was completely relaxing. We just turned up the radio and watched the world go by. It also gave me a nice pad, and I got home with over 50 miles of rated range