I just finished a 5000-mile road trip in the western US. I put a few posts on the Portland Tesla Owners Facebook group. I had lots of questions and feedback and I’ve combined my lessons learned into a single post.
TLDR: Rimetrix wheel covers have good range and an M3 AWD is a great road trip car. The Tesla nav app and the supercharger network are not ready for mainstream adoption. The physics of battery charging may also be confusing to mainstream users.
My car is a 2-year-old M3 dual motor. It is stock except that it has Rimetrix wheel covers. I prefer how they look and that they protect the wheels from curb rash.
Started last Tuesday morning heading out, from near Portland Oregon, across the northern tier with stops at Yellowstone and Mt Rushmore. I was nervous about going through Cody Wy. Charging infrastructure there is thin and has a history of unreliability. I was able to charge at a 110V wall plug at the hotel that would have been enough to get to Sheridan Supercharger. I was also able to charge at the Wild West L2 charger at the Cody Museum. Both L2 chargers had problems. I was able to get one to work and left at 90%.
From Mt Rushmore headed south, almost exclusively on back roads. heading for Oklahoma City to see family. There are lots of DC charging in OKC. Not so much for Tesla, compared to other similarly sized cities. Hotel had destination chargers, so all was good.
Headed home, from OKC, on I-40. Stopped in Albuquerque to visit friends and stopped in Sedona for sightseeing. Then stopped in LA area for more visits with family and then headed home on I5. Arrived home Thursday evening after 10 days of travel.
We generally drove between 75 and 85 mph where the limit was 70 or higher. It did become obvious that 85 had way higher consumption than 75. I would estimate 310 Wh/mi vs 270 Wh/mi. We came in under a total of 270 as about 20% of driving was < 65 mph because we were on slower roads or because of road work on interstates. We consistently came in with range upside relative to ABRP or Tesla nav app forecasts.
For the 20k miles I've done prior, the average Wh/mi was 271. The average speed was lower. I don't know the Rimetrix covers were better than the Tesla aero wheel covers. I am pretty sure they are not worse.
I had to find a lot of superchargers for the first time, over a short time. Way too many are in out of the way places, particularly behind hotels, with no other services nearby. For EVs to become mainstream, we need much more charging infrastructure. We also need the infrastructure to be obvious and near all the services people need to travel. We, as early adopters, will use web sites and apps, like Plugshare, to figure where to look. Mainstream car drivers don't want to do that. I also saw signs directing people to EV charging. These were typically L2 J1772 chargers. When it said "Fast", these were chargers other than Tesla. Tesla needs to work on this. Signs with directions would be nice. Signs before the exit saying “EV Charging” showing the brands and the charge rates would be great.
We averaged 500 miles a day, with 3 days over 700 miles. The car was comfortable. My wife and I are retired. With charging, we generally stopped about every 2 hours. If we had no need for fuel or charging, we would have stopped about every 3. I expect that driving our Tesla, extended our time to cover a distance by about 7%. This was fine. Except for Cody Wy, we always had superchargers where we needed them. Road tripping our Tesla was just fine. I don't know that I would find an ID4 or Mach E acceptable. While they have the range, they aren’t as efficient, so they take longer to charge per mile traveled.
For planning charging on the trip, in addition to the Tesla nav app, I used A Better Route Planner (ABRP) and Plugshare.
One thing new people may not realize is, when using DC chargers, the car charges much faster in the bottom half of the battery than in the top half. The fastest way to travel is usually to drive about 2 hours at freeway speed, arriving at a charger at a little over 10% state of charge (SOC). You charge for 10 to 15 minutes while using restrooms and grabbing quick food and drink and then drive 2 more hours. ABRP plans this well.
ABRP is a very customizable route planner. It lets you optimize your trip for maximum speed down the highway. The Tesla navigation app minimizes stops. I used ABRP to plan where I would charge when moving. The Tesla nav app is fairly good at determining when you have enough power to make it to your next planned stop. If you are going to charge at your next supercharger stop, always set the supercharger as your navigate to point. This lets you see how much SOC you will have when you get there, and it lets the car calculate when to precondition the battery for faster charging. The Tesla battery charges faster at around 39 C. I typically left the current charger when the app says I will have 15% SOC when I get to the next supercharger. I arrived at the next charger at 9 to 17 % with this technique. Most of the time at the high end of the band.
I used the Plugshare app for 2 things. First, I used it to look at what services are available at the supercharger. The Tesla Nav app and ABRP will also do this. But I like the Plugshare maps better and it helps to read the comments people have put in about the charger. In several cases, I've had the nav app send me the wrong way to find the supercharger. If you read Plugshare, this may tell you. Second, I use the Plugshare app to find other chargers near hotels or other places I may stop. Unless you have $500 adapters, you can't charge on CHADEMO or CCS chargers. I recommend you filter those out. The app will then show you the superchargers and AC chargers near your stop. If you have the adapter for J1772 and your charging cable, you can charge at any of the AC chargers on the map. I did this 4 times on my trip. 3 times overnight at hotels and once while in a museum.
In general, I tried to spend the night at a place with a supercharger nearby and used that. I didn't use hotel chargers as much as I could. I have high status with Bonvoy (Marriott) and get lots of benefits from using them. It seems that the overnight hotel chargers were much more common at Hampton Inns (Hilton). But I didn't use them because I tended to pick Bonvoy near superchargers.
Some new Tesla drivers may not know this. Tesla superchargers are either V2 or V3. V2 peak at 150kW. V3 peak at 250kW. The peak charge rate is far less important than the fact the V2 150kW peak is shared between 2 plugs. It only saves a few minutes to have peak charging at 250 kW over 150 kW as the charge rate is battery limited above about 35% for my M3. When you arrive at a V2 site, you see that the stalls are labeled with a number and a letter, e.g. 1A, 2B. If you find that someone is plugged into 1A, you don't want to plug into 1B if both 2A or 2B are open. Try to pick a unique numbered stall to avoid being throttled at low speed.
When I'm planning a stop and there is a V2 and V3 close together, I look in the nav app to see how busy they are. If neither are particularly busy, I chose to stop at the one where the services are closer. For example, I usually prefer Grants Pass to Medford Oregon. There are many close services in Grants Pass. The Medford charger is near a Kmart and it's a bit of a walk to the nearest fast food.
I hope this helps new owners on their first road trips.
TLDR: Rimetrix wheel covers have good range and an M3 AWD is a great road trip car. The Tesla nav app and the supercharger network are not ready for mainstream adoption. The physics of battery charging may also be confusing to mainstream users.
My car is a 2-year-old M3 dual motor. It is stock except that it has Rimetrix wheel covers. I prefer how they look and that they protect the wheels from curb rash.
Started last Tuesday morning heading out, from near Portland Oregon, across the northern tier with stops at Yellowstone and Mt Rushmore. I was nervous about going through Cody Wy. Charging infrastructure there is thin and has a history of unreliability. I was able to charge at a 110V wall plug at the hotel that would have been enough to get to Sheridan Supercharger. I was also able to charge at the Wild West L2 charger at the Cody Museum. Both L2 chargers had problems. I was able to get one to work and left at 90%.
From Mt Rushmore headed south, almost exclusively on back roads. heading for Oklahoma City to see family. There are lots of DC charging in OKC. Not so much for Tesla, compared to other similarly sized cities. Hotel had destination chargers, so all was good.
Headed home, from OKC, on I-40. Stopped in Albuquerque to visit friends and stopped in Sedona for sightseeing. Then stopped in LA area for more visits with family and then headed home on I5. Arrived home Thursday evening after 10 days of travel.
We generally drove between 75 and 85 mph where the limit was 70 or higher. It did become obvious that 85 had way higher consumption than 75. I would estimate 310 Wh/mi vs 270 Wh/mi. We came in under a total of 270 as about 20% of driving was < 65 mph because we were on slower roads or because of road work on interstates. We consistently came in with range upside relative to ABRP or Tesla nav app forecasts.
For the 20k miles I've done prior, the average Wh/mi was 271. The average speed was lower. I don't know the Rimetrix covers were better than the Tesla aero wheel covers. I am pretty sure they are not worse.
I had to find a lot of superchargers for the first time, over a short time. Way too many are in out of the way places, particularly behind hotels, with no other services nearby. For EVs to become mainstream, we need much more charging infrastructure. We also need the infrastructure to be obvious and near all the services people need to travel. We, as early adopters, will use web sites and apps, like Plugshare, to figure where to look. Mainstream car drivers don't want to do that. I also saw signs directing people to EV charging. These were typically L2 J1772 chargers. When it said "Fast", these were chargers other than Tesla. Tesla needs to work on this. Signs with directions would be nice. Signs before the exit saying “EV Charging” showing the brands and the charge rates would be great.
We averaged 500 miles a day, with 3 days over 700 miles. The car was comfortable. My wife and I are retired. With charging, we generally stopped about every 2 hours. If we had no need for fuel or charging, we would have stopped about every 3. I expect that driving our Tesla, extended our time to cover a distance by about 7%. This was fine. Except for Cody Wy, we always had superchargers where we needed them. Road tripping our Tesla was just fine. I don't know that I would find an ID4 or Mach E acceptable. While they have the range, they aren’t as efficient, so they take longer to charge per mile traveled.
For planning charging on the trip, in addition to the Tesla nav app, I used A Better Route Planner (ABRP) and Plugshare.
One thing new people may not realize is, when using DC chargers, the car charges much faster in the bottom half of the battery than in the top half. The fastest way to travel is usually to drive about 2 hours at freeway speed, arriving at a charger at a little over 10% state of charge (SOC). You charge for 10 to 15 minutes while using restrooms and grabbing quick food and drink and then drive 2 more hours. ABRP plans this well.
ABRP is a very customizable route planner. It lets you optimize your trip for maximum speed down the highway. The Tesla navigation app minimizes stops. I used ABRP to plan where I would charge when moving. The Tesla nav app is fairly good at determining when you have enough power to make it to your next planned stop. If you are going to charge at your next supercharger stop, always set the supercharger as your navigate to point. This lets you see how much SOC you will have when you get there, and it lets the car calculate when to precondition the battery for faster charging. The Tesla battery charges faster at around 39 C. I typically left the current charger when the app says I will have 15% SOC when I get to the next supercharger. I arrived at the next charger at 9 to 17 % with this technique. Most of the time at the high end of the band.
I used the Plugshare app for 2 things. First, I used it to look at what services are available at the supercharger. The Tesla Nav app and ABRP will also do this. But I like the Plugshare maps better and it helps to read the comments people have put in about the charger. In several cases, I've had the nav app send me the wrong way to find the supercharger. If you read Plugshare, this may tell you. Second, I use the Plugshare app to find other chargers near hotels or other places I may stop. Unless you have $500 adapters, you can't charge on CHADEMO or CCS chargers. I recommend you filter those out. The app will then show you the superchargers and AC chargers near your stop. If you have the adapter for J1772 and your charging cable, you can charge at any of the AC chargers on the map. I did this 4 times on my trip. 3 times overnight at hotels and once while in a museum.
In general, I tried to spend the night at a place with a supercharger nearby and used that. I didn't use hotel chargers as much as I could. I have high status with Bonvoy (Marriott) and get lots of benefits from using them. It seems that the overnight hotel chargers were much more common at Hampton Inns (Hilton). But I didn't use them because I tended to pick Bonvoy near superchargers.
Some new Tesla drivers may not know this. Tesla superchargers are either V2 or V3. V2 peak at 150kW. V3 peak at 250kW. The peak charge rate is far less important than the fact the V2 150kW peak is shared between 2 plugs. It only saves a few minutes to have peak charging at 250 kW over 150 kW as the charge rate is battery limited above about 35% for my M3. When you arrive at a V2 site, you see that the stalls are labeled with a number and a letter, e.g. 1A, 2B. If you find that someone is plugged into 1A, you don't want to plug into 1B if both 2A or 2B are open. Try to pick a unique numbered stall to avoid being throttled at low speed.
When I'm planning a stop and there is a V2 and V3 close together, I look in the nav app to see how busy they are. If neither are particularly busy, I chose to stop at the one where the services are closer. For example, I usually prefer Grants Pass to Medford Oregon. There are many close services in Grants Pass. The Medford charger is near a Kmart and it's a bit of a walk to the nearest fast food.
I hope this helps new owners on their first road trips.
