2500 mile round trip AWD ... findings

[LyftupX]

managed 290 w/m for the round trip.

Charging fairly easy but lots of stops ... sometimes the GPS wants to play it really safe, I over rode this a few times, and sometimes I stopped quickly to play it safe.

What I noticed most

A/C use even on low is good for 35-45 of the 290 W/M which is far too much.

Also another takeaway , AWD efficiency pretty much blows. Add in some wind and rain... double whammy.

Still love the car, but I think I got my long road trip under my belt not sure I’m in a hurry to do it again. Saved $1500+ by not flying and add in the supercharging being free. It was me and my 2 kids and I’m sure they will always remember this loooong trip.

Trip was Sea to LA


AP as a trade off on the long trip with the stops however I think is worth it over driving Gas in some instances....

 

[iMoe]

Thanks for the feedback.
What made the trip so long? Was supercharging slower than expected? I know for me that 3 hours driving would be my limit, so in your scenario I estimate you had to stop 5 or 6 times each leg correct?
I have not had a chance to take my 3 on a long trip and I'm looking forward to it and any feedback is helpful.

 

[GeoX750]

Thanks for your perspective. I have not done a trip that takes more than one charge and have been debating whether to take my S on a few upcoming longer trips over 1,200 miles.

The overriding issue is I do love my car and want to have it with me on trips. I do like to make good time, however, and not want to wait at superchargers and arrive in the middle of the night when I could have arrived hours earlier.

Your Seattle to LA looks like over 1,100 miles with 8 stops with nearly 3 hrs of charging in the 3 AWD. That would be a lot of stops and a lot of added time for me since I have kids and a job too.

What did you do with the kids on the charging stops, I assume they can just play with their devices or nap ?

How do those on this board who swear by their Teslas being no problem on trips deal with long trips ?

On thing I am considering is driving myself with one of the boys and flying the rest of the family.

 

[bedoig]

I'd usually just limit each day to ~500 miles, gas or electric, when traveling with kids. In my Model 3 AWD, that means probably two stops for 15-20 minutes over a 9 hour day of driving. That's assuming a destination charger at my overnight stop, barring that it's one more 20 minute stop. To be honest, my kids are young enough where there's no way we're only stopping twice anyway.

 

[LyftupX]

Checking back in

Looks like drive time only I did great at 17 hours for the trip down.... the stops added 4.5 hrs.

Drive time back closer to 18 hrs , daytime hitting traffic at times. Those times are per Tesla Fi.
SC at times I was hitting 425 mph at the peak.... there is a learning curve where some folks like to pull off and charge when they can grab the most efficiency.

Now it was my first time traveling and I followed the GPS recommendations , until I limped into Grants Pass with 3% battery with AC off and traveling 60 mph that last 30 mins or so.... it was nerve wracking.

I stand by running AC eats a good 30-40 w + because when I turned it off and went fan only, efficiency went up drastically. Also I wonder if the supercharging battery fan , this runs high and this trip was the only time I ever heard or experienced it eats up some battery.

So on the next leg I pulled over in Shasta quickly 17 min charge to build cushion.... so there’s a learning curve to this. I went away from the GPS a few times .... and I followed it others trusting it when it told me I could make it from Corning to Grants Pass with 8% battery ... and it worked.

As for my kids, they are young enough we stopped and basically stretched our legs and grabbed a bite for the long stops. By the time you are done eating the car is charged and ready to go. Shorter ones we just stretched , laughed and made it fun... I napped on 2 due to tiredness. Daughter rode her skateboard down in Gustine ....



On the way back stopped overnight In Grants Pass , nicer hotel that luckily had a charger that juiced me overnight.... that worked perfect! With younger kids frequent stops are necessary and they don’t grumble like maybe older kids would.

Overall AP was on 90% + of the time and this makes the drive very easy, it’s just that tradeoff of time with the charging one has to decide if it’s worth it or not. I did get one AP penalty when I sped up quickly and did not disengage when passing .... I was in timeout until the next SC.

Now I’m rested and the trip under my belt I joked with the wife and kids ... Grand Canyon and Utah.... let’s do it!!!

No one was excited....

But again I will always and I’m sure my 2 kids will remember this run.... it was last minute I wanted to make something of my kids spring break and we did.

 

[animorph]

I think for those who still need to drive like an ICE car for 5 hours at a stretch, minimize stops,speed as fast as you can, and arrive needing a full day of rest, maybe Tesla road tripping is not for them. I swore off long road trips a few years before getting our X.

We've made three 5500 mile round trips plus many others in our X. We spend about 20% of our travel time Supercharging, some of which is excess charging while we finish eating. We can drive about 12 hours a day comfortably, with two drivers. Usually almost 700 miles or so. Since we've spent about 2.5 hours of that walking around and use AP for 95% of the drive time (and I only drive half the time) I feel fine when we stop for the day. Wish I had done it that way long ago.

Kids might be a different story, but maybe not. They won't have to sit in the car for five hours at a time. Instead they can get out and run around a bit, eat outside the car instead of inside, and explore some interesting places. We visit our kids at their houses now. While they aren't ready to sit for 20 minutes at a Supercharger, one of them has sworn off doing the same 5500 mile round trip with three drivers non-stop.

After I had thought this all out when thinking about Teslas (and reading TMC) I decided to order a Model X instead of a Model S, and use it for road trips. We aim for pretty much all 12.5k miles/year on the X to be road trips.

 

[Rogue one]

I made a road trip a few weeks after I picked up my model 3 long range RWD it was almost exactly 1,000 miles I spent almost exactly 1.5 hours charging. It was broken into 6 15 min stops I would target arriving at the next super charger with 5-7 percent and leave as soon as I had enough charge to reach the next charger, basically 50 percent. It was great, I’m repeating that trip this summer hopefully I will have the update that allows 145 Kw peak charging. ( :

 

[Rocky_H]

Now it was my first time traveling and I followed the GPS recommendations , until I limped into Grants Pass with 3% battery with AC off and traveling 60 mph that last 30 mins or so.... it was nerve wracking.

Unfortunately the parameters the car uses for that "Beta Trip Planner" function uses the worst possible preferences and gives awful recommendations.
The priority it uses is to take the longest possible charging stops to make the least possible number of stops--including skipping over Supercharger locations and everything else be damned! That is about the worst way to travel in a Tesla, and I try to let new Tesla owners know about this as often as possible so they can not have the Trip Planner screw them over like this. These things of 50 and 55+ minutes waiting to charge, going well into the slow range of charging over 90% and then white knuckling to arrive at 6% or 7% is just a terrible way to travel, but that's the type of plan that the car comes up with.

"Splash and Dash" is generally more comfortable. Take the stops every couple of hours, and if that's running from 20% up to about 60 or 70%, that is going to stay in the very fast charging section of the battery and only take like 20-ish minutes, where you can go grab a coffee and leave, without feeling really bored.

And the corollary on that is to alternate short stop, long stop. If you're doing stops about every 2 hours apart, make every other stop a meal break. That will be about 4 hours apart--sit down, get some food. The car will charge up a bit extra over what you need while you're still eating (so you aren't spending any time waiting for the car). And then on the in between ones, you'll have a bit more leftover charge, so they can be short ones like 10-15 minutes, which are easy to kill a little bit of time.

 

[iMoe]

Awesome feedback everyone, thanks!

 

[RLC3]

We've taken our Model S on a number of road trips, mostly from Portland to the San Francisco area. Sometimes we've done it in one day, sometimes in two days. For us the differences between driving in an ICE and our MS almost all favor the Tesla.

We have come to view charging stops as nice breaks. Any meals we are going to have while travelling, we overlap with charging, so that reduces the amount of time we are waiting. If we are not eating at a stop we will go to the bathroom, and maybe walk for 5-10 minutes. And stopping regularly and getting out of the car works miracles in avoiding the soul crushing grind of the 10th, 11th, and 12th hours of unrelieved driving.

Stopping regularly every 2-3 hours also removes all disagreements over bathroom stop timing, and actually eliminates bathroom only stops, which we used to have on occasion. The amount of time we are just waiting for charging to finish is quite small - I can't remember it ever exceeding 15 minutes at a stop on any of our trips.

One reason for that is that we manage battery state during the drive so that we charge only enough to arrive at the next SC with a comfortable safety margin, unless we are having a meal stop, in which case we will let it charge to 90 or more percent if the SC is not busy. When we do that, we can charge for a shorter time at the next SC.

In good weather with warm temperatures we will leave when the trip planner says we would have 10% charge at the next supercharging stop. Usually we arrive with more than that, and we've never been below 8% when we actually arrived. In cold or ugly weather we at least double that, and err on the plus side. This isn't something you want to push hard. Arriving safely without frightening charge levels is worth a few extra minutes of charging.

So now we arrive after a long drive feeling happy and relaxed. That never used to happen. So we don't resent the small amount of extra time charging takes. We get rewarded for that by how we feel.

Have fun travelling!

 

[montreid]

We just completed San Diego-Grand Canyon -Phoenix -San Diego loop in Model 3 LR Aero.
1700 miles total with 268 wh/mi which ironically our average to date on the car .. Tires are nearly replacement time too.

It was wild to watch the consumption on the climbs, but even cooler watching the battery recharge on 6% grades down from Flagstaff to Phoenix while travelling 79-83 MPH most of the highway trip.

EAP saved a lot of mental energy and 6+ hours driving was cinch and plenty of energy to run around at day's end of drive.

A Better Routeplanner was right on spot on planning SOC desires and yields --- my new TripTik

 

[NthMonkey]

It would be great if Tesla would incorporate some preferences into the Nav. I want to be able to set the minimum charge I'm comfortable with and what I want to have in the tank when we arrive (in case we're going somewhere with no charging access and don't plan to stay there forever. I want it to take into account altitude and road conditions, as well as my driving habits (ok, those aren't just preferences, they're probably a bit harder to build in, but BRP did it on a shoestring). I use nav for turn by turn at this point, but I don't trust it at all on charge stops -- I keep BRP open on the browser and let it tell me where to stop and for how long.

 

[dcdttu]

A good thing to remember is that, while you may have had X amount of charging time in a Tesla, you still would have had Y amount of time stopped for health breaks / getting gas / eating / whatever in a gas car. Not saying it's nearly as much, but it might make you say "I charged 4 hours on this trip, but would have probably stopped for 2 hours regardless to eat and gas up and such, so really it's only 2 extra hours for the EV."

 

[l&blue]

It would be great if Tesla would incorporate some preferences into the Nav. I want to be able to set the minimum charge I'm comfortable with and what I want to have in the tank when we arrive (in case we're going somewhere with no charging access and don't plan to stay there forever. I want it to take into account altitude and road conditions, as well as my driving habits (ok, those aren't just preferences, they're probably a bit harder to build in, but BRP did it on a shoestring). I use nav for turn by turn at this point, but I don't trust it at all on charge stops -- I keep BRP open on the browser and let it tell me where to stop and for how long.

Sorry for my ignorance on the subject, but what is BRP? Many thanks!

 

[l&blue]

We've taken our Model S on a number of road trips, mostly from Portland to the San Francisco area. Sometimes we've done it in one day, sometimes in two days. For us the differences between driving in an ICE and our MS almost all favor the Tesla.

We have come to view charging stops as nice breaks. Any meals we are going to have while travelling, we overlap with charging, so that reduces the amount of time we are waiting. If we are not eating at a stop we will go to the bathroom, and maybe walk for 5-10 minutes. And stopping regularly and getting out of the car works miracles in avoiding the soul crushing grind of the 10th, 11th, and 12th hours of unrelieved driving.

Stopping regularly every 2-3 hours also removes all disagreements over bathroom stop timing, and actually eliminates bathroom only stops, which we used to have on occasion. The amount of time we are just waiting for charging to finish is quite small - I can't remember it ever exceeding 15 minutes at a stop on any of our trips.

One reason for that is that we manage battery state during the drive so that we charge only enough to arrive at the next SC with a comfortable safety margin, unless we are having a meal stop, in which case we will let it charge to 90 or more percent if the SC is not busy. When we do that, we can charge for a shorter time at the next SC.

In good weather with warm temperatures we will leave when the trip planner says we would have 10% charge at the next supercharging stop. Usually we arrive with more than that, and we've never been below 8% when we actually arrived. In cold or ugly weather we at least double that, and err on the plus side. This isn't something you want to push hard. Arriving safely without frightening charge levels is worth a few extra minutes of charging.

So now we arrive after a long drive feeling happy and relaxed. That never used to happen. So we don't resent the small amount of extra time charging takes. We get rewarded for that by how we feel.

Have fun travelling!

Hi, What model S you have?

 

[EV at last]

We just did our first long-distance trip in our LR RW 3 from central California to central Oregon—500 miles. Both directions, we arrived at our destinations feeling far less tired than in our previous vehicles! (And we’re a retired “old” couple.) I’m convinced that the lack of engine noise and vibration is less tiring. The comfortable and fully adjustable seats help, too.

It was windy both directions and pretty cold (36-46° F) coming back. Don’t know enough to tell you the W/M, but it definitely used a lot more in the cold weather on the way home.

I agree that the on-board planner was way too optimistic, and we stopped at the available SC’s to avoid range anxiety. Glad we did. Forgot to use the Better Route Planner app, darn it. Will try it next time.

Overall, we’re extremely happy with the experience, it took almost exactly the same amount of time as with our ICE cars, and it was super fun sharing the car experience with the kids and grandkids!!

Waiting for the mobile service guy to arrrive at our home in an hour is so to rotate the tires (first time) and discuss some minor issues. How cool is that? Service at home! LOVE this car (and we aren’t “car people”).

 

[dfwatt]

Unfortunately the parameters the car uses for that "Beta Trip Planner" function uses the worst possible preferences and gives awful recommendations.
The priority it uses is to take the longest possible charging stops to make the least possible number of stops--including skipping over Supercharger locations and everything else be damned! That is about the worst way to travel in a Tesla, and I try to let new Tesla owners know about this as often as possible so they can not have the Trip Planner screw them over like this. These things of 50 and 55+ minutes waiting to charge, going well into the slow range of charging over 90% and then white knuckling to arrive at 6% or 7% is just a terrible way to travel, but that's the type of plan that the car comes up with.

"Splash and Dash" is generally more comfortable. Take the stops every couple of hours, and if that's running from 20% up to about 60 or 70%, that is going to stay in the very fast charging section of the battery and only take like 20-ish minutes, where you can go grab a coffee and leave, without feeling really bored.

And the corollary on that is to alternate short stop, long stop. If you're doing stops about every 2 hours apart, make every other stop a meal break. That will be about 4 hours apart--sit down, get some food. The car will charge up a bit extra over what you need while you're still eating (so you aren't spending any time waiting for the car). And then on the in between ones, you'll have a bit more leftover charge, so they can be short ones like 10-15 minutes, which are easy to kill a little bit of time.

Plus one on all that. Totally consistent with our experience as well. Sometimes however, you do have to white knuckle it, to avoid a particularly unpleasant SC location, like Savannah GE for example, which means to have to go longer between stops. And given that the traffic goes crazy fast these days . . . your range can crater. There are times when I am going 70, and being passed literally by every frikin' car on the road.

The fastest car (likely) on the road . . . .is the slowest car on the road? WUWT?

 

[MorrisonHiker]

Sorry for my ignorance on the subject, but what is BRP? Many thanks!

A Better Routeplanner

 

[TMeister]

Make sure you look at the sticky threads in the Model S: Battery & Charging forum. Plenty of experience represented in those threads about exactly this subject.

 

[cwmagui]

Sorry for my ignorance on the subject, but what is BRP? Many thanks!

Click here: A Better Routeplanner