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5700 Mile Model Y Road Trip noob style

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Sorry for the long post, I wanted to share our road trip experience as a positive example for other electric noobs like me. I have had a 2022 MYP since November 2021 and have over 13k miles on it so far.

I started in Sacramento early Saturday morning at 90 percent and drove to Salt Lake City the first day. Had one adult and three kids in the car and used the ABRP to plan our trip, but used the Tesla navigation while driving. The Tesla nav had us charging longer and driving longer but after watching the “out of spec” YT guy we found that more frequent stops that were shorter were preferable. While charging I would search for superchargers along our route and occasionally add them to reduce charging time. I decided that we would “push” the first day and do 12 hours in the car with the thought of the following days the kids would be antsy and I would have to limit car time. I was shocked when everyone agreed that the first day “wasn’t bad at all” 😅

The next day we started out after breakfast with a nearly full charge thanks to our hotel. I set the charge to 90% when we went to bed, then changed to 100% when we woke up so it was 98ish by the time we hit the road. With SLC in our rear view mirror, we started across Wyoming with our same quick stop charging method that was working for us. Most of the stops had excellent facilities but some didn’t, so we just made a habit of using them when available. I didn’t book a hotel because we all agreed that we would stop when we were hungry and tired. We stopped in Ogalala Nebraska for dinner and while eating at one of the best Mexican restaurants ever… (I know) we decided to travel one more leg and stay in north platte Nebraska. Brrrr 23 degrees, but I had learned the lesson of always charging while the battery is warm, so parked it with 70ish percent and woke up to 66ish percent. Plenty of charge to make it to the next charger with a warmer battery.

Leaving Nebraska and through Iowa it was much of the same. Many of the superchargers were in HyVee parking lots and were amazing. Thank you Wahlburgers 🤤 Since we were eating, I just let the car charge as much as it could and thankfully so. I happened to be talking on the phone with a friend and that silences the nav so I missed a charging stop. I didn’t notice until it navigated to the next one and had a 3% arrival estimate. I thought about turning around, but I was an expert by this time 😄 so I slowed a bit and followed a semi for about 30 minutes until the arrival estimate was >10%. We ended up staying in Davenport Iowa at the Blackhawk. Nice place but no chargers and kinda spendy, so just made sure we had plenty of charge to get to the next supercharger.

We were heading to Columbus Ohio the next day and it was another wash rinse repeat day with more of the same. We rented the FSD a few weeks before we left and for a road trip it is amazing. At the end of every day I honestly felt refreshed. During the short periods where I didn’t use autopilot or FSD, I could feel the tension in my neck and shoulders as well as Elon’s voice saying “you are 10x more likely to crash” 🤣 We decided to stop early in Dayton and devote half a day to the Air Force museum.

The next day we enjoyed the museum and drove to Youngstown Ohio, an odd supercharger desert. I had noted this before the trip and to save time I brought the mobile connector and a nema 6-50 adapter to plug into my Father’s shop.

We spent a few days in Youngstown then headed to Columbus Ohio where we picked up my wife from the airport and stayed with some friends and family for a few days. We never had to bother them with any charging nonsense since there were superchargers around. Now would be the test… two adults in the front and three kids shoulder to shoulder in the back. Did I make a mistake not getting a model X 😬

We left Columbus and headed south on a “short” 6 hour drive to Pigeon Forge where we rented a house on the top on a hill with some family and friends. We supercharged when we got there to 90% and didn’t really worry about charging since it was just daily excursions around the area. The second day I noticed a 20amp 120 outlet where my car was parked at our rental house so I said what the heck, it’s free and plugged in. While I was doing that, one of the homeowners down the street offered to let us use his newly installed charger. I was grateful but declined since I was already on the high end of our charge state.

We left Pigeon Forge TN a few days later and decided to travel home on a more southern route. I spent the day explaining and demonstrating to my wife how the stops, charging and autopilot/FSD worked. She took to it rather quickly and we arrived to Little Rock Arkansas after a full day driving. We spent 20 minutes charging before heading to the hotel and after we arrived my wife commented how smooth everything went on her first big day of driving.

The next day we headed to Amarillo Texas and ran into the first hiccup in our trip. We charged before we left Arkansas and our first scheduled stop after was in Oklahoma City OK. My wife was driving and I was continually checking the supercharger there. I kept noticing that there were only 1 or 2 open chargers and then it showed a short wait before we arrived. I plugged into a charger and the car failed to charge. I sent the wife and kids to use the facilities and proceeded to ask some of the other people charging what the deal was and they said the two chargers at the end were broken 😠 I then waited my turn to use a charger and it was showing a 45 minute charge time and I had already been monkeying around for 20 minutes. I checked the nav and found another charger that was halfway to our next scheduled charge and selected it. The charge time dropped to 15 minutes and we were out of there. 😅no further issues.

The next day we wanted to check out Grand Junction Colorado so used the Tesla nav and took off as usual. The first two legs were pretty straightforward but the next seemed a little suspect. We were supposed to charge up to 70ish percent and drive for 3.5 hours in mountainous terrain. This didn’t sit well with me so I charged for an extra 20 minutes to 90 something percent. We ended up skipping a SC stop and making it all the way to GJ Colorado. Long story short, it would have been fine 😅 We have always been interested in Grand Junction as a place to live, sigh, when we pulled into charge, a pickup backed in next to us and started revving their engine. We ignored them, they lost interest and left, but what a first impression 😅

Next leg we decided to drive as far as we felt comfortable and ended in Winnemucca NV. It was “only” 6 hours from home but we decided to just start fresh the next day with what we have come to feel as a short day driving.

I didn’t reset the trip odometer but when I inputted our trip with stops it came to over 5700mi. with no excursion miles, so all in we were probably over 6000 miles 😮 Autopilot set to 80mph on 95% of freeway miles and I would estimate over 97% of the driving was Autopilot/FSD. This trip was by far the best and most enjoyable road trip I have ever been on. Stopping every 2-2.5hrs to charge worked out so well and resulted in a nearly stress free experience. FSD rental was great, I didn’t use the navigate on Autopilot feature much because it would randomly change lanes on occasion, but instead just used the turn stalk to execute a lane change when needed.

I toyed with the idea of buying a set of Gemini wheels for the trip but in the end just went with the 21s that the car came with. I packed a plug kit and compressor as insurance. We have a three piece luggage set and I removed two wheels from the middle size suitcase so it would fit under the rear hatchback area. The other two suitcases easily fit along with another small suitcase and IKEA bag for miscellaneous treasures. We also used the fitted luggage in the front for dirty laundry and souvenir storage. The luggage sat low and did not interfere with rear visibility at all.

This trip has transformed how we view travel time automotively. 7-8 hours to Legoland used to be so tedious even in a black label Lincoln, (or our old Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid) but now we are exploring trips in the 13-14 hour drive range. Anywho, thanks for reading and I hope our account helps others contemplating the same. Can’t wait until the next one.

TL:DR The Y is a great road trip car thanks mostly to the SC network, Autopilot and great storage.
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Gotta say, the pickup driver revving his engine near your car is not unknown. I guess they think gas or diesel pickups are the only way to fly, but we had a similar experience charging at a service station that had allowed Tesla to install a couple chargers over in a corner of their lot. A pickup driver pulled his truck near, got out, reached down for a rock, and threw it at my car! (he missed)

I plan to walk up to anyone who acts aggressive and ask questions about their truck from now on, like how it drives in snow and ice, how it takes hills, how big is the engine, etc. Let them brag, and perhaps answer a few questions about electric cars and trucks when they get ready. Who knows, might make a friend.
 
Gotta say, the pickup driver revving his engine near your car is not unknown. I guess they think gas or diesel pickups are the only way to fly, but we had a similar experience charging at a service station that had allowed Tesla to install a couple chargers over in a corner of their lot. A pickup driver pulled his truck near, got out, reached down for a rock, and threw it at my car! (he missed)

I plan to walk up to anyone who acts aggressive and ask questions about their truck from now on, like how it drives in snow and ice, how it takes hills, how big is the engine, etc. Let them brag, and perhaps answer a few questions about electric cars and trucks when they get ready. Who knows, might make a friend.
I like your plan 👍 sometimes us EV owners produce excess “smug” instead of smog. (Shamelessly ripped off from south park)

Change is hard for many people but once they get talking most humans have the capability of being cool.
 
I like your plan 👍 sometimes us EV owners produce excess “smug” instead of smog. (Shamelessly ripped off from south park)

Change is hard for many people but once they get talking most humans have the capability of being cool.
I'm still figuring out the best way to respond to some questions. The first one always seems to be "How long does it take to charge?", and I haven't yet figured out the best way to respond. I've tried things like "the range lasts longer than my bladder" combined with "by the time I'm done using the facilities and grabbing a coffee or snack it's pretty much ready to go". But I'm trying to come up with a way to get across the point that you mainly need to change how you think about fueling the car, and once you do that, unless you're trying to beat some kind of record, road trips really don't take noticeably longer.

I just finished a trip from DC to the Florida Keys and back (2 days each way), and at more than half the stops the car was ready before we were. In Hardeeville SC after we hit the loo, bought some chips, and ate our sandwiches, we were caught by the Coldstone Creamery so by the time we were done getting ice cream the car was completely (90%) charged so we skipped the next planned stop.

I need to find a way to make that kind of point in the 30 seconds you have when someone leans out the window of their car and starts asking questions. Preferably with some humor to keep their attention. Anyone got an elevator pitch that has had good results?
 
I'm still figuring out the best way to respond to some questions. The first one always seems to be "How long does it take to charge?", and I haven't yet figured out the best way to respond. I've tried things like "the range lasts longer than my bladder" combined with "by the time I'm done using the facilities and grabbing a coffee or snack it's pretty much ready to go". But I'm trying to come up with a way to get across the point that you mainly need to change how you think about fueling the car, and once you do that, unless you're trying to beat some kind of record, road trips really don't take noticeably longer.

I just finished a trip from DC to the Florida Keys and back (2 days each way), and at more than half the stops the car was ready before we were. In Hardeeville SC after we hit the loo, bought some chips, and ate our sandwiches, we were caught by the Coldstone Creamery so by the time we were done getting ice cream the car was completely (90%) charged so we skipped the next planned stop.

I need to find a way to make that kind of point in the 30 seconds you have when someone leans out the window of their car and starts asking questions. Preferably with some humor to keep their attention. Anyone got an elevator pitch that has had good results?
It is interesting that is always the first question I get as well. I didn't have a good answer the first time. Started going down the path of 240V vs 115V. (Hint: don't do that) :)

Now what I say is "I drive 2.5 hours and charge for 15-20 minutes when I stop for a bathroom or stretch break." If they ask how many miles that is I say, "Around 200-220 miles."
 
It is interesting that is always the first question I get as well. I didn't have a good answer the first time. Started going down the path of 240V vs 115V. (Hint: don't do that) :)

Now what I say is "I drive 2.5 hours and charge for 15-20 minutes when I stop for a bathroom or stretch break." If they ask how many miles that is I say, "Around 200-220 miles."
I always say this:

"
Most of charging happens at home. I plug it in at night before bed and it is almost full with over 250 miles of range the next day morning before I head out. And I don't need to plug it in every day. My routine needs plugging in at home only once or twice a week.

- When I drive long distance, which is only a few times a year, I drive for two to three hours and plug it in Tesla's fast chargers for about 20 to 30 minutes. It is always charged and ready to go before I am ready to leave.

Long distance driving sure requires some planning and may not be as convenient as a gas car. It takes approx the same amount of time to get to the destination as a gas car, as long as you take breaks and eat in the same place as you are charging, which sometimes is a nuisance and not the preferred choice when you are travelling with family. But then again that is only a few times a year, and I don't mind that given the need to never have to go to a gas station every week, and always start the day with a full tank for a cheap price
"

The above always gets a very positive nod and agreement that EVs are better. A very few respond with, 'well that won't work for me as I do a lot long distance travel'. And I don't fight that argument and readily agree with them, with, 'sure EVs may not work for you in terms of time spent on the road, but it will save a lot of money', and leave it at that.
 
Sorry for the long post, I wanted to share our road trip experience as a positive example for other electric noobs like me. I have had a 2022 MYP since November 2021 and have over 13k miles on it so far.

I started in Sacramento early Saturday morning at 90 percent and drove to Salt Lake City the first day. Had one adult and three kids in the car and used the ABRP to plan our trip, but used the Tesla navigation while driving. The Tesla nav had us charging longer and driving longer but after watching the “out of spec” YT guy we found that more frequent stops that were shorter were preferable. While charging I would search for superchargers along our route and occasionally add them to reduce charging time. I decided that we would “push” the first day and do 12 hours in the car with the thought of the following days the kids would be antsy and I would have to limit car time. I was shocked when everyone agreed that the first day “wasn’t bad at all” 😅

The next day we started out after breakfast with a nearly full charge thanks to our hotel. I set the charge to 90% when we went to bed, then changed to 100% when we woke up so it was 98ish by the time we hit the road. With SLC in our rear view mirror, we started across Wyoming with our same quick stop charging method that was working for us. Most of the stops had excellent facilities but some didn’t, so we just made a habit of using them when available. I didn’t book a hotel because we all agreed that we would stop when we were hungry and tired. We stopped in Ogalala Nebraska for dinner and while eating at one of the best Mexican restaurants ever… (I know) we decided to travel one more leg and stay in north platte Nebraska. Brrrr 23 degrees, but I had learned the lesson of always charging while the battery is warm, so parked it with 70ish percent and woke up to 66ish percent. Plenty of charge to make it to the next charger with a warmer battery.

Leaving Nebraska and through Iowa it was much of the same. Many of the superchargers were in HyVee parking lots and were amazing. Thank you Wahlburgers 🤤 Since we were eating, I just let the car charge as much as it could and thankfully so. I happened to be talking on the phone with a friend and that silences the nav so I missed a charging stop. I didn’t notice until it navigated to the next one and had a 3% arrival estimate. I thought about turning around, but I was an expert by this time 😄 so I slowed a bit and followed a semi for about 30 minutes until the arrival estimate was >10%. We ended up staying in Davenport Iowa at the Blackhawk. Nice place but no chargers and kinda spendy, so just made sure we had plenty of charge to get to the next supercharger.

We were heading to Columbus Ohio the next day and it was another wash rinse repeat day with more of the same. We rented the FSD a few weeks before we left and for a road trip it is amazing. At the end of every day I honestly felt refreshed. During the short periods where I didn’t use autopilot or FSD, I could feel the tension in my neck and shoulders as well as Elon’s voice saying “you are 10x more likely to crash” 🤣 We decided to stop early in Dayton and devote half a day to the Air Force museum.

The next day we enjoyed the museum and drove to Youngstown Ohio, an odd supercharger desert. I had noted this before the trip and to save time I brought the mobile connector and a nema 6-50 adapter to plug into my Father’s shop.

We spent a few days in Youngstown then headed to Columbus Ohio where we picked up my wife from the airport and stayed with some friends and family for a few days. We never had to bother them with any charging nonsense since there were superchargers around. Now would be the test… two adults in the front and three kids shoulder to shoulder in the back. Did I make a mistake not getting a model X 😬

We left Columbus and headed south on a “short” 6 hour drive to Pigeon Forge where we rented a house on the top on a hill with some family and friends. We supercharged when we got there to 90% and didn’t really worry about charging since it was just daily excursions around the area. The second day I noticed a 20amp 120 outlet where my car was parked at our rental house so I said what the heck, it’s free and plugged in. While I was doing that, one of the homeowners down the street offered to let us use his newly installed charger. I was grateful but declined since I was already on the high end of our charge state.

We left Pigeon Forge TN a few days later and decided to travel home on a more southern route. I spent the day explaining and demonstrating to my wife how the stops, charging and autopilot/FSD worked. She took to it rather quickly and we arrived to Little Rock Arkansas after a full day driving. We spent 20 minutes charging before heading to the hotel and after we arrived my wife commented how smooth everything went on her first big day of driving.

The next day we headed to Amarillo Texas and ran into the first hiccup in our trip. We charged before we left Arkansas and our first scheduled stop after was in Oklahoma City OK. My wife was driving and I was continually checking the supercharger there. I kept noticing that there were only 1 or 2 open chargers and then it showed a short wait before we arrived. I plugged into a charger and the car failed to charge. I sent the wife and kids to use the facilities and proceeded to ask some of the other people charging what the deal was and they said the two chargers at the end were broken 😠 I then waited my turn to use a charger and it was showing a 45 minute charge time and I had already been monkeying around for 20 minutes. I checked the nav and found another charger that was halfway to our next scheduled charge and selected it. The charge time dropped to 15 minutes and we were out of there. 😅no further issues.

The next day we wanted to check out Grand Junction Colorado so used the Tesla nav and took off as usual. The first two legs were pretty straightforward but the next seemed a little suspect. We were supposed to charge up to 70ish percent and drive for 3.5 hours in mountainous terrain. This didn’t sit well with me so I charged for an extra 20 minutes to 90 something percent. We ended up skipping a SC stop and making it all the way to GJ Colorado. Long story short, it would have been fine 😅 We have always been interested in Grand Junction as a place to live, sigh, when we pulled into charge, a pickup backed in next to us and started revving their engine. We ignored them, they lost interest and left, but what a first impression 😅

Next leg we decided to drive as far as we felt comfortable and ended in Winnemucca NV. It was “only” 6 hours from home but we decided to just start fresh the next day with what we have come to feel as a short day driving.

I didn’t reset the trip odometer but when I inputted our trip with stops it came to over 5700mi. with no excursion miles, so all in we were probably over 6000 miles 😮 Autopilot set to 80mph on 95% of freeway miles and I would estimate over 97% of the driving was Autopilot/FSD. This trip was by far the best and most enjoyable road trip I have ever been on. Stopping every 2-2.5hrs to charge worked out so well and resulted in a nearly stress free experience. FSD rental was great, I didn’t use the navigate on Autopilot feature much because it would randomly change lanes on occasion, but instead just used the turn stalk to execute a lane change when needed.

I toyed with the idea of buying a set of Gemini wheels for the trip but in the end just went with the 21s that the car came with. I packed a plug kit and compressor as insurance. We have a three piece luggage set and I removed two wheels from the middle size suitcase so it would fit under the rear hatchback area. The other two suitcases easily fit along with another small suitcase and IKEA bag for miscellaneous treasures. We also used the fitted luggage in the front for dirty laundry and souvenir storage. The luggage sat low and did not interfere with rear visibility at all.

This trip has transformed how we view travel time automotively. 7-8 hours to Legoland used to be so tedious even in a black label Lincoln, (or our old Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid) but now we are exploring trips in the 13-14 hour drive range. Anywho, thanks for reading and I hope our account helps others contemplating the same. Can’t wait until the next one.

TL:DR The Y is a great road trip car thanks mostly to the SC network, Autopilot and great storage.
View attachment 799836View attachment 799834
Fantastic post!! That home looks beautiful.

Enjoy!
 
Great story. Did you sense any added value to buying a CHAdeMO or CCS adapter "just in case"? In travelling around the upper Midwest, I notice a lot of those charge stations very available. Worth the investment?

I just did my first road trip. I’m glad I had the CCS adapter. I got to the Supercharge with 11% left and the line was 10 cars deep. I drove 2 miles down the road to an Electrify America charge and there was no line.
 
Great story. Did you sense any added value to buying a CHAdeMO or CCS adapter "just in case"? In travelling around the upper Midwest, I notice a lot of those charge stations very available. Worth the investment?
I’m a big “just in case” guy and started to toy with the idea of ordering one of the Korea CCS adapters. The juice just isn’t worth the squeeze for me at that price point. I never felt the need for that safety blanket on our trip, but I have also never ran into a big charging line 🤷‍♂️

One of the main dissuading factors for me is I kind of think the public CCS chargers will start becoming quite busy in the near future. Lately the EA stations around here have gotten quite busy with VWs topping off with their free charging. Can’t wait till f150s and hummers start charging their huge packs 🙃

If I frequented areas where CCS was cheaper I would definitely own one and when the price comes down I will even if I never use it.
 
Thanks for the long reply I enjoyed reading all of it. I live in CO sorry for the welcome in Grand Junction 😬 Types like that are everywhere sadly. Im planning a trip to Phoenix to dip my toes in the road-trip arena but am having trouble with trip planner. Seems it wants to have my first charge 5 hours into the trip arriving with a -47%. It does give me a warning that I need to charge before reaching that charger but I’m confused why it didn’t pick a charging spot out of the dozen I would pass. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Anyone have a suggestion? Im sure it’s newbie operating error since I only have had my Y for a month all help welcome. Glad you had such a great trip and thanks for sharing!
 
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Thanks for the long reply I enjoyed reading all of it. I live in CO sorry for the welcome in Grand Junction 😬 Types like that are everywhere sadly. Im planning a trip to Phoenix to dip my toes in the road-trip arena but am having trouble with trip planner. Seems it wants to have my first charge 5 hours into the trip arriving with a -47%. It does give me a warning that I need to charge before reaching that charger but I’m confused why it didn’t pick a charging spot out of the dozen I would pass. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Anyone have a suggestion? Im sure it’s newbie operating error since I only have had my Y for a month all help welcome. Glad you had such a great trip and thanks for sharing!
Hmmm that's weird all right. You can add in a charging stop manually if the nav algorithm is struggling -- click the lightning bolt on the right to see the chargers, then click on a charger and add it to the route.
 
Thanks for the long reply I enjoyed reading all of it. I live in CO sorry for the welcome in Grand Junction 😬 Types like that are everywhere sadly. Im planning a trip to Phoenix to dip my toes in the road-trip arena but am having trouble with trip planner. Seems it wants to have my first charge 5 hours into the trip arriving with a -47%. It does give me a warning that I need to charge before reaching that charger but I’m confused why it didn’t pick a charging spot out of the dozen I would pass. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Anyone have a suggestion? Im sure it’s newbie operating error since I only have had my Y for a month all help welcome. Glad you had such a great trip and thanks for sharing!
That is strange behavior, sometimes I would have to end and restart our navigation during the trip. Somehow after a few charging stops the calculations would be off. Certainly doesn’t sound the same as what you describe so can’t be much help there. Maybe a hard reset and try again approach 🤷‍♂️

Every time we go to Reno, I can almost guarantee we see a pickup in a charging stall. I always kind of wonder what the thought process is.
 
Thanks for the long reply I enjoyed reading all of it. I live in CO sorry for the welcome in Grand Junction 😬 Types like that are everywhere sadly. Im planning a trip to Phoenix to dip my toes in the road-trip arena but am having trouble with trip planner. Seems it wants to have my first charge 5 hours into the trip arriving with a -47%. It does give me a warning that I need to charge before reaching that charger but I’m confused why it didn’t pick a charging spot out of the dozen I would pass. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Anyone have a suggestion? Im sure it’s newbie operating error since I only have had my Y for a month all help welcome. Glad you had such a great trip and thanks for sharing!

That would happen if you inadvertently pressed the option to remove charging stops. Cancel and replan, and it should give you a viable route.
 
Hmmm that's weird all right. You can add in a charging stop manually if the nav algorithm is struggling -- click the lightning bolt on the right to see the chargers, then click on a charger and add it to the route.
Thank you. Wanted to avoid that on the initial route but may have to. People have given great suggestions so I gave a few things to try.
 
Awesome post! We'll be using our myp to drive from SoCal to Houston this year and another trip to Portland. I've only had it for a couple months now and I'm still trying to get an idea of how long road trips will shake out

At 80 mph doing hwy travel, how many miles do you estimate the car can do from 80% down to 20%? When traveling I would prefer to keep the battery in this range if possible. My daily commute seems to use about 30-35% battery for 70 miles (leave the house at 80%, get back at 45-50%). Seems like I can expect about 150ish miles at 80mph to go from 80% down to 20% but maybe you have a better idea since you just did a long trip
I do Scottsdale to Katy (Houston suburb) along I-10 several times a year and will advise to just use Nav to guide you. Once you hit New Mexico, stop at all the SCs (especially Van Horn and Ft Stockton) until San Antonio since they are few and far between in eastern NM and West Texas.
 
Awesome post! We'll be using our myp to drive from SoCal to Houston this year and another trip to Portland. I've only had it for a couple months now and I'm still trying to get an idea of how long road trips will shake out

At 80 mph doing hwy travel, how many miles do you estimate the car can do from 80% down to 20%? When traveling I would prefer to keep the battery in this range if possible. My daily commute seems to use about 30-35% battery for 70 miles (leave the house at 80%, get back at 45-50%). Seems like I can expect about 150ish miles at 80mph to go from 80% down to 20% but maybe you have a better idea since you just did a long trip
My recommendations:

- start with 100% charge from your garage.
-Don't hesitate to charge to 90% on each SC, if you can afford to wait for 10 more minutes.
- Driving at 75 mph and no headwind, you can drive 190 miles with around 50 miles left in the tank. Headwinds will reduce the buffer. Headwinds are the real concern in these long stretches.
 
Thanks for the long reply I enjoyed reading all of it. I live in CO sorry for the welcome in Grand Junction 😬 Types like that are everywhere sadly. Im planning a trip to Phoenix to dip my toes in the road-trip arena but am having trouble with trip planner. Seems it wants to have my first charge 5 hours into the trip arriving with a -47%. It does give me a warning that I need to charge before reaching that charger but I’m confused why it didn’t pick a charging spot out of the dozen I would pass. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Anyone have a suggestion? Im sure it’s newbie operating error since I only have had my Y for a month all help welcome. Glad you had such a great trip and thanks for sharing!
I'll be taking that same trip in Sep (part of a longer trip) so just plugged in "Grand Junction" to Phoenix in A Better Route Planner (ABRP) and it shows making 4 stops over 666 miles, down through Moab, Page, and Flagstaff. Total of 4 charging stops lasting around 90 minutes. I recommend getting set up on ABRP and using it to plan trips in advance - use settings first to fine tune your particulars. It's a great planning tool - use it in concert with the MY Nav.