Just finished a road trip in my 2021 Model 3 Standard Range Plus and thought I'd post my overall impressions. This was my first real road trip in the car. It was my wife, my two dogs, me, and 100-200 pounds of baggage leaving Missouri and doing a week-long tour of Vermont. Originally my car had a max range of 253 miles, and now it's teetering on 245 miles. I have the LFP battery so will charge to 100% fairly often compared to people with other chemistries.
My take-aways from this trip:
1. The standard range (RWD) Model 3--coupled with the supercharger network--is more than capable of road tripping. I passed by a lot of superchargers during the trip, because I didn't need them. I rarely supercharge in normal conditions, but this experience made it clear how big an advantage Tesla has with its charging network. In our experience, the car can go farther on a single charge than our bladders can tolerate. And in almost every case, the car was ready to continue before we were at each charging stop. So the notion that you have to wait around for your car to charge is--in our experience--pure myth.
2. As good as the supercharging network is, I didn't need to totally rely on it. Using Plugshare, I was able to charge at a lot of Level 2 chargers while we were stopped. Sometimes that'd be while we were eating at a restaurant, sometimes while we were staying overnight at a hotel, and sometimes while we were sight-seeing. It was great because in those cases we were going to be stopped anyway, so adding 10-20% SoC while we were visiting a tourist attraction was awesome, cheap, and usually easy. I highly recommend people download and make accounts on all the major charging apps. I also recommend everyone "check in" to chargers on Plugshare, because it gave us peace of mind looking at our next destination and seeing a recent check-in at a charger in the area, plus we could see if there would be dining and bathrooms nearby. Plugshare was a really good friend on the trip, and is maybe underused in the Tesla community because the supercharger network is so reliable.
3. My car's efficiency was not as good as I'm used to seeing (i.e. power consumption was higher than I had planned). In good whether, it's not unusual to get 200 wh/mi over my 100 mile commute (often lower). But the long sections of freeway driving at 70-75 MPH (with no regen) would often leave me at 250-260 wh/mi, effectively reducing my actual range closer to 200 miles. As soon as we were in Vermont for our vacation there, this range improved since we were driving on local roads and state highways. But doing plug your "normal" consumption figures into ABRP and expect them to hold true during transcontinental travel.
4. Speaking of ABRP, I think it may be overrated for trip planning. I used it the first couple days--entering and adjusting all the pertinent numbers as we went. But BY FAR the car's trip calculations were more accurate and reliable than ABRP. To the point that I stopped using it, except maybe to do occasional pre-planning from a hotel room.
5. I don't have FSD, but Autopilot is all you really need for road trips. Autopilot was almost flawless on both interstates and highways during my trip. I had maybe 2-3 cases of phantom braking the whole time (I was expecting far more. I would take over driving in tricky situations or when we were about to exit the interstate, but for a trip like this Autopilot effectively does 80% of the driving between destinations. Because I wasn't so mentally exhausted from the driving, I found this extended my driving day from 8-10 hours to 12-14 hours. It decreased a 3 day trip from Vermont to Missouri down to a 2 day trip.
6. I brought a little chargable vacuum, glass cleaner, armor all, and some rags with me. Before we set out each day, I would vacuum up interior and wipe down the dash, etc. Seems like a little thing, but it made the car far more pleasant than if I'd just let it get disgusting during the trip. The exterior got really dirty, but keeping the interior tidy was a bit like slipping into a fresh pair of underwear--it just helped set a positive tone for the trip.
Those were the big things that stuck out to me. If anyone has any questions, let me know. For the record, my wife commented many times about how comfortable the Model 3 was for her on the road trip--I used to drive Nissan Frontier pickup truck, which would hurt her back on long trips, but the Model 3 seats were to her liking. We also had a pet seat cover in the rear for our (small) dogs, and used seatbelt harnesses for them while driving.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have a very, very dirty Tesla Model 3 to detail.
My take-aways from this trip:
1. The standard range (RWD) Model 3--coupled with the supercharger network--is more than capable of road tripping. I passed by a lot of superchargers during the trip, because I didn't need them. I rarely supercharge in normal conditions, but this experience made it clear how big an advantage Tesla has with its charging network. In our experience, the car can go farther on a single charge than our bladders can tolerate. And in almost every case, the car was ready to continue before we were at each charging stop. So the notion that you have to wait around for your car to charge is--in our experience--pure myth.
2. As good as the supercharging network is, I didn't need to totally rely on it. Using Plugshare, I was able to charge at a lot of Level 2 chargers while we were stopped. Sometimes that'd be while we were eating at a restaurant, sometimes while we were staying overnight at a hotel, and sometimes while we were sight-seeing. It was great because in those cases we were going to be stopped anyway, so adding 10-20% SoC while we were visiting a tourist attraction was awesome, cheap, and usually easy. I highly recommend people download and make accounts on all the major charging apps. I also recommend everyone "check in" to chargers on Plugshare, because it gave us peace of mind looking at our next destination and seeing a recent check-in at a charger in the area, plus we could see if there would be dining and bathrooms nearby. Plugshare was a really good friend on the trip, and is maybe underused in the Tesla community because the supercharger network is so reliable.
3. My car's efficiency was not as good as I'm used to seeing (i.e. power consumption was higher than I had planned). In good whether, it's not unusual to get 200 wh/mi over my 100 mile commute (often lower). But the long sections of freeway driving at 70-75 MPH (with no regen) would often leave me at 250-260 wh/mi, effectively reducing my actual range closer to 200 miles. As soon as we were in Vermont for our vacation there, this range improved since we were driving on local roads and state highways. But doing plug your "normal" consumption figures into ABRP and expect them to hold true during transcontinental travel.
4. Speaking of ABRP, I think it may be overrated for trip planning. I used it the first couple days--entering and adjusting all the pertinent numbers as we went. But BY FAR the car's trip calculations were more accurate and reliable than ABRP. To the point that I stopped using it, except maybe to do occasional pre-planning from a hotel room.
5. I don't have FSD, but Autopilot is all you really need for road trips. Autopilot was almost flawless on both interstates and highways during my trip. I had maybe 2-3 cases of phantom braking the whole time (I was expecting far more. I would take over driving in tricky situations or when we were about to exit the interstate, but for a trip like this Autopilot effectively does 80% of the driving between destinations. Because I wasn't so mentally exhausted from the driving, I found this extended my driving day from 8-10 hours to 12-14 hours. It decreased a 3 day trip from Vermont to Missouri down to a 2 day trip.
6. I brought a little chargable vacuum, glass cleaner, armor all, and some rags with me. Before we set out each day, I would vacuum up interior and wipe down the dash, etc. Seems like a little thing, but it made the car far more pleasant than if I'd just let it get disgusting during the trip. The exterior got really dirty, but keeping the interior tidy was a bit like slipping into a fresh pair of underwear--it just helped set a positive tone for the trip.
Those were the big things that stuck out to me. If anyone has any questions, let me know. For the record, my wife commented many times about how comfortable the Model 3 was for her on the road trip--I used to drive Nissan Frontier pickup truck, which would hurt her back on long trips, but the Model 3 seats were to her liking. We also had a pet seat cover in the rear for our (small) dogs, and used seatbelt harnesses for them while driving.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have a very, very dirty Tesla Model 3 to detail.
