10% which way??? My somewhat limited experience is that the web page over estimates how much energy is required.
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4250 miles, 29 Superchargers, 0 problems
- Thread starter David99
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- Driving Dynamics Model S
Yes, to be clear, EVtripplanner appears to overestimate by 10% (10% overstated). If the site says 170 rated miles used I can expect it to actually be 155 or so. To be even clearer, I was in a situation where there were backup chargers on the route and could slow down if needed so was comfortable cutting things close. On my first long road trip I had a much different approach.
ChadS
Last tank of gas: March 2009
We are back from our 11,000-mile trip. We used over half of the US superchargers on this trip, some of them twice. My main take away is that Superchargers really, truly make long EV trips easy, pleasant and - perhaps most importantly - unremarkable. Years ago any EV trip was remarkable, and today many short-range BEV trips still get some media attention. But there was really nothing to this, and in fact many other people have done similar (or longer) trips, and we ran in to a few people doing similar trips that are still out there.
Here's a quick summary:
Like David99 said, 0 problems. That's not to say there are never any problems anywhere, but as the chart suggests, there are occasional problems with gas cars too - in fact I suspect flat tires will be a bigger issue than charging for most travelers once the network is built out. Tesla is really doing a remarkable job here. Their "frictionless" model (just plug the car in; no swiping a card, paying, punching buttons on the charger, etc) is sweet. The Superchargers seem spaced at good distances for stretching breaks, and as my wife almost always visits the restroom and gets tea, I was waiting for her more than the car. Somebody trying to set a speed record and willing to wear Depends will prefer a gas car, but for most people hoping to enjoy the trip the charging time is really not an issue. The reduced noise, vibration, fumes and cost (as well as the increased torque and storage space) in an EV really makes the trip more pleasant.
My wife and I already had two EVs - including a Tesla - before we bought the Model S. It was bigger than we needed and more expensive than we wanted, so we considered that it was not necessary - but we bought it anticipating that it would be the only EV really suitable for road trips. It's taking time (our car turned 2 years old during the trip), but it is turning out to be better than we imagined.
It was a 4-week trip, and almost all of my planning time was spent on the few areas (Eastern CA, Maine, Montana) that don't have Superchargers yet. Planning the Supercharger part of the trip is dead simple:
1. Look at the Supercharger map to make sure they are where you want to go
2. At the start of any leg of the trip, pick the next Supercharger on the nav, find out how far away it is, and make sure you have to least 50% more miles than that
3. When you get hungry, get something to eat while charging. There were VERY few Superchargers that didn't have food nearby. You can use tripadvisor to figure out which restaurants are best
4. When you are sleepy, use tripadvisor to find a good hotel near the Supercharger. Not that there's any reason you have to sleep near a Supercharger, but the Supercharger city gives you a good destination to start looking
Random tip:
If you aren't from the NE but plan to drive there, order an EZ-PASS at least two weeks before you go. Sure, you can stop at every toll booth and pay - but man, what a pain; I had no idea how many booths there are, and they all have different payment rules, most only take cash, and some even require exact change in coins. If you wait until you get there, you can find a place that sells them - but it takes a day to activate, by which time you are in another state, and it takes TWO days to work in other states. You don't have to drive on toll roads, but they really are much faster, many Superchargers are on them, and the Model S GPS will constantly try to route you along them for those reasons. Things were MUCH easier on the return trip when our pass was activated. The affected states are: Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Maine, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, West Virginia. On the Model S, mount the transponder as high on the windshield as you can, immediately to the right of the mirror (our was touching the mirror and the headliner; it worked fine there, but only intermittently below the mirror as suggested by EZ-PASS).
The fine print:
1. We did see a few ICE cars parked in Superchargers spots, but not many - and never more than 1 stall was blocked. The closest we came to being blocked out was in Denver where we took the last spot, but all taken spots were Teslas - and one owner returned to his car to leave before we were done plugging in. Plus, there is a Tesla Gallery inside the mall there, and they could have come out and moved one of their cars that was charging. It might help if Tesla had a sign to that effect; we didn't know there was a Gallery there until we went inside the mall.
2. We did have one Supercharger bay that didn't charge us...but we just moved to the next one and it worked fine. We called Tesla's number on the charger to report the issue, and they promised to take care of it. Technically that's a Supercharger not working, but since there was a working one right next to it and no delay to us, it wasn't a problem for us.
3. We did use some campgrounds where there weren't Superchargers nearby, and so some might argue that we did spend money on electricity. However, we were there to spend the night (we didn't use them during the day) so I'm willing to brush that off.
4. There were a few times when we did watch our usage carefully, and came in to a Supercharger with single-digit miles remaining. My practice is to leave with a 50% buffer and that has always worked, but when it's bad weather (cold, rain or wind) AND there is an elevation gain AND I was going fast, we sometimes used almost the full buffer. I just made sure we didn't go below the buffer margin (so, for example, with 10 miles left to the destination I'd want to see at least 15 miles of range) unless we'd been going uphill and I knew downhill was coming, and it always worked out without us having to change our driving - so I was never worried about it. But people that don't want to monitor - or that want to go REALLY fast - might want an even bigger buffer as arriving with single digits can be disconcerting to new drivers.
5. Because the Superchargers aren't everywhere yet, we did sometimes have to take longer routes to reach our destination, and we did have to use campgrounds at a few destinations. No question the Supercharger network doesn't support every trip optimally today. But if they keep growing it as they have, it is just a matter of time...
Here is the car at Yosemite:
At Mesa Verde:
At Pike's Peak:
Camping on the Atlantic near Acadia National Park in Maine:
At Nauna's Bella Casa Ristorante in Montclair, NJ (home of the first EVSE in NJ) with tommolog and his i3:
At a National Drive Electric Week event in Madison, NJ. Slackjaw, MPT, Electragirl and Tommolog should be in this picture somewhere:
Here's a quick summary:
| Number of times we ran out of juice | 0 |
| Number of times we drove slowly to make sure we'd reach our destination | 0 |
| Number of times we turned off heat/AC to make sure we'd reach our destination | 0 |
| Number of times we "sweated bullets" worrying about reaching our destination | 0 |
| Number of times we were ICEd | 0 |
| Number of times the Superchargers were all in use | 0 |
| Number of times the Superchargers weren't working | 0 |
| Amount of money spent on electricity | 0 |
| Number of cars we saw on the side of the road out of gas (only counting ones we saw with a gas can): | 3 |
Like David99 said, 0 problems. That's not to say there are never any problems anywhere, but as the chart suggests, there are occasional problems with gas cars too - in fact I suspect flat tires will be a bigger issue than charging for most travelers once the network is built out. Tesla is really doing a remarkable job here. Their "frictionless" model (just plug the car in; no swiping a card, paying, punching buttons on the charger, etc) is sweet. The Superchargers seem spaced at good distances for stretching breaks, and as my wife almost always visits the restroom and gets tea, I was waiting for her more than the car. Somebody trying to set a speed record and willing to wear Depends will prefer a gas car, but for most people hoping to enjoy the trip the charging time is really not an issue. The reduced noise, vibration, fumes and cost (as well as the increased torque and storage space) in an EV really makes the trip more pleasant.
My wife and I already had two EVs - including a Tesla - before we bought the Model S. It was bigger than we needed and more expensive than we wanted, so we considered that it was not necessary - but we bought it anticipating that it would be the only EV really suitable for road trips. It's taking time (our car turned 2 years old during the trip), but it is turning out to be better than we imagined.
It was a 4-week trip, and almost all of my planning time was spent on the few areas (Eastern CA, Maine, Montana) that don't have Superchargers yet. Planning the Supercharger part of the trip is dead simple:
1. Look at the Supercharger map to make sure they are where you want to go
2. At the start of any leg of the trip, pick the next Supercharger on the nav, find out how far away it is, and make sure you have to least 50% more miles than that
3. When you get hungry, get something to eat while charging. There were VERY few Superchargers that didn't have food nearby. You can use tripadvisor to figure out which restaurants are best
4. When you are sleepy, use tripadvisor to find a good hotel near the Supercharger. Not that there's any reason you have to sleep near a Supercharger, but the Supercharger city gives you a good destination to start looking
Random tip:
If you aren't from the NE but plan to drive there, order an EZ-PASS at least two weeks before you go. Sure, you can stop at every toll booth and pay - but man, what a pain; I had no idea how many booths there are, and they all have different payment rules, most only take cash, and some even require exact change in coins. If you wait until you get there, you can find a place that sells them - but it takes a day to activate, by which time you are in another state, and it takes TWO days to work in other states. You don't have to drive on toll roads, but they really are much faster, many Superchargers are on them, and the Model S GPS will constantly try to route you along them for those reasons. Things were MUCH easier on the return trip when our pass was activated. The affected states are: Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Maine, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, West Virginia. On the Model S, mount the transponder as high on the windshield as you can, immediately to the right of the mirror (our was touching the mirror and the headliner; it worked fine there, but only intermittently below the mirror as suggested by EZ-PASS).
The fine print:
1. We did see a few ICE cars parked in Superchargers spots, but not many - and never more than 1 stall was blocked. The closest we came to being blocked out was in Denver where we took the last spot, but all taken spots were Teslas - and one owner returned to his car to leave before we were done plugging in. Plus, there is a Tesla Gallery inside the mall there, and they could have come out and moved one of their cars that was charging. It might help if Tesla had a sign to that effect; we didn't know there was a Gallery there until we went inside the mall.
2. We did have one Supercharger bay that didn't charge us...but we just moved to the next one and it worked fine. We called Tesla's number on the charger to report the issue, and they promised to take care of it. Technically that's a Supercharger not working, but since there was a working one right next to it and no delay to us, it wasn't a problem for us.
3. We did use some campgrounds where there weren't Superchargers nearby, and so some might argue that we did spend money on electricity. However, we were there to spend the night (we didn't use them during the day) so I'm willing to brush that off.
4. There were a few times when we did watch our usage carefully, and came in to a Supercharger with single-digit miles remaining. My practice is to leave with a 50% buffer and that has always worked, but when it's bad weather (cold, rain or wind) AND there is an elevation gain AND I was going fast, we sometimes used almost the full buffer. I just made sure we didn't go below the buffer margin (so, for example, with 10 miles left to the destination I'd want to see at least 15 miles of range) unless we'd been going uphill and I knew downhill was coming, and it always worked out without us having to change our driving - so I was never worried about it. But people that don't want to monitor - or that want to go REALLY fast - might want an even bigger buffer as arriving with single digits can be disconcerting to new drivers.
5. Because the Superchargers aren't everywhere yet, we did sometimes have to take longer routes to reach our destination, and we did have to use campgrounds at a few destinations. No question the Supercharger network doesn't support every trip optimally today. But if they keep growing it as they have, it is just a matter of time...
Here is the car at Yosemite:
At Mesa Verde:
At Pike's Peak:
Camping on the Atlantic near Acadia National Park in Maine:
At Nauna's Bella Casa Ristorante in Montclair, NJ (home of the first EVSE in NJ) with tommolog and his i3:
At a National Drive Electric Week event in Madison, NJ. Slackjaw, MPT, Electragirl and Tommolog should be in this picture somewhere:
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Raffy.Roma
Rome (Italy)
ChadS
Last tank of gas: March 2009
Good eye...the Torklift Central folks did use my wife's car to film the bit for The Law (as well as for the EcoHitch). They offered me one, and I was really tempted...but unfortunately I've already got three holes in my nosecone, so I figured I'd stick with what I have.
- - - Updated - - -
Yeah, I like how that turned out too. It was fairly direct sun, and the car had been washed more recently in that pic than in the others. The other difference is that I took that pic (and the one in Maine, with no sun) with my cell phone, while the others my wife took with her SLR. I'm not overjoyed with my cell phone camera, but I do like how it treated the color there.
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ChadS
Last tank of gas: March 2009
Not everybody out there has heard of Tesla (I had at least one woman that had never seen an electric car before and was asking the old "can it go on the freeway" type of questions) but an awful lot of people have. Any they tend to see them as desirable, albeit expensive.
But even people that seemed pretty familiar with Tesla generally were not very familiar with the Supercharger network. They had no idea how fast it charges, or that there's no charge to use it, or that there are enough of them you can drive around the country. Most were extremely impressed to hear it. Tesla is not currently restricted by demand, but if they head in that direction getting the word out about the Supercharger network should help.
But even people that seemed pretty familiar with Tesla generally were not very familiar with the Supercharger network. They had no idea how fast it charges, or that there's no charge to use it, or that there are enough of them you can drive around the country. Most were extremely impressed to hear it. Tesla is not currently restricted by demand, but if they head in that direction getting the word out about the Supercharger network should help.
