ABRP and Tesla route planner

[spdpsba]

I was trying to work out SuC stops for a trip to Cornwall. I have not used ABRP in the past for real trips but have checked them before but mainly used the tesla route planners (in the past with battery % in route plans gave some idea about quickly changing the stops if needed). However, as we do not have that luxury now as the battery percentage disappears from the route plans after few seconds I thought I’ll do ABRP route plan and use that.

However, got different battery % when I use ABRP and Tesla maps. The SuC stops are the same: Amesbury and Lifton and return Exeter and Fleet (plese comment if there are any new restrictions here) I kept the ABRP settings as quickest arrival, head & tail wind around 5-10mph, initial charging status 100%, SuC arrival 20%, destination arrival 40%, time to stop around 25 minutes etc.,

The ABRP route has 35% when I reach Amesbury SuC and 20% when I reach Lifton, however, the Tesla one comes up with 10% when I reach Amesbury and around 7% when I reach Lifton. The departure % is roughly the same in Amesbury and Lifton.

So my questions are: Does Tesla takes more data into account before calculating these trips other than what I have given in ABRP - in terms of driving pattern, road conditions (5-10% head and tail wind, dry roads) battery degradation (I have given 5% as degradation with vehicle weight of 200kg)?

Is this difference of roughly 20% extra use of battery percentage as loss in Preconditioning which Tesla calculates and takes into account? And ABRP doesn’t take this into account - I do not have premium membership so not sure how to include preconditioning on this?

Also, if the battery level dips to 7% it is too close to comfort for me (others may have different thresholds), so I may have to stop at Exeter when the levels are slightly around 20% - that may have some impact on my final destination % as I have something planned the next day and there is no granny charging point outside where I am going to stay. So need around 30% to reach Camborne to do a quick supercharge. Any local knowledge of this area near Helston regarding charging will be hugely appreciated - I have podpoint app and Juice card if needed something!

 

[UkNorthampton]

I don't precondition automatically, I think it uses too much energy, especially if you know traffic will slow soon due to rush hour. I aim at a nearby point, but have whole trip with superchargers in history so I can swap between. If you get stuck in slow traffic, you'll use less energy, rains - more energy.

For me... I'd probably have a nearby pin/shop to Amesbury as a target, see if the % improves while driving or gets worse and adjust accordingly. If Amesbury looks safe, at a distance of your choice start preheating by putting final destination (Cornwall) or Amesbury Supercharger as destination. Repeat for next.

I'm not a fan of the extended preheating and when I stop I prefer to stretch legs and get a coffee. All takes time.

 

[andyf1140]

I don't precondition automatically, I think it uses too much energy, especially if you know traffic will slow soon due to rush hour. I aim at a nearby point, but have whole trip with superchargers in history so I can swap between. If you get stuck in slow traffic, you'll use less energy, rains - more energy.

For me... I'd probably have a nearby pin/shop to Amesbury as a target, see if the % improves while driving or gets worse and adjust accordingly. If Amesbury looks safe, at a distance of your choice start preheating by putting final destination (Cornwall) or Amesbury Supercharger as destination. Repeat for next.

I'm not a fan of the extended preheating and when I stop I prefer to stretch legs and get a coffee. All takes time.

I didn't think you could turn pre-conditioning off!?

 

[WannabeOwner]

Is this difference of roughly 20% extra use of battery percentage as loss in Preconditioning which Tesla calculates and takes into account?

I think that is likely. You could try using car SatNav to "nearby" to Supercharger and see if that gives you different predicted arrival (hopefully matching ABRP ) compared to navigating TO the Supercharger PIN.

I find that actual traffic / roadworks delays slow me and improve range, such that I often do better than expected. But if I get a clear 70MPH-all-the-way run its nice to have have enough to get to destination instead of having to slow down!

 

[andyf1140]

However, as we do not have that luxury now as the battery percentage disappears from the route plans after few seconds

If you use the energy app and pick the Trip tab it will give you an up to date consumption consumption chart with predicted % at the destination

 

[spdpsba]

If you use the energy app and pick the Trip tab it will give you an up to date consumption consumption chart with predicted % at the destination

Yes, of course but slightly different to how it was before where you can visually see the waypoints & charging stops % rather than just the destination % in the trip tab.

 

[prabhu]

Many route planners such as ABRP and Tesla fail to consider the human aspect. Tesla once asked me to drive for 3 hours 15 mins to the next SC when it was noon and I had a family of 4. Sure I have a long-range vehicle that would have easily made the 3-hour trip but surely the Tesla engineers could see the time and no of occupants and program a feature that offers a sensible route plan? ABRP is a bit like Linux offering too many parameters to configure. In the end, I used zap-map to find a rapid charger that is less than an hour away with nice amenities. I plan the SC vs other charger stops manually and use the energy consumption chart to get an idea of how hard I could hammer or drive on chill mode.

 

[UkNorthampton]

I didn't think you could turn pre-conditioning off!?

You can remove supercharger stops from the navigation. It might say you'll get there with 2%, -20% whatever. This will stop pre-conditioning. The downside is more manual stuff. Toggling between destinations in navigation allows you to go into pre-conditioning when you think it's right. Or the manual has another option. For me, I'd like more control over pre-conditioning but I understand why Tesla have done it this way.

Model Y Owner's Manual | Tesla

Learn how to operate and customize your navigation settings.

www.tesla.com

To remove Supercharger stops and display directions only, touch Remove all charging stops at the bottom of the turn-by-turn direction list. If you remove charging stops, the turn-by-turn direction list may display an alert indicating that charging is needed to reach your destination. To add Supercharger stops back to the turn-by-turn direction list, touch Add charging stops.

 

[andyf1140]

Thanks, that's good to know

 

[a1psx]

You can also tap the preconditioning text to disable it.

 

[cezdoc]

...

The ABRP route has 35% when I reach Amesbury SuC and 20% when I reach Lifton, however, the Tesla one comes up with 10% when I reach Amesbury and around 7% when I reach Lifton. The departure % is roughly the same in Amesbury and Lifton.

...

Looking at the example above, I don't generally see such a big discrepancy between ABRP and the in-car nav. If you're using the planner on Tesla's webpage I wouldn't trust it - it's more to illustrate the practicality of the cars for would-be owners than to give accurate predictions. If it's the in-car prediction I wonder if there is a spurious setting in the ABRP inputs?

I always check ABRP a few days ahead for long trips and find it's generally more accurate than the Tesla in-car trip planner. I have a late 2015 MS70 and the in-car Nav doesn't seem to account for the reduced supercharging rates which can make a significant difference on a multiple stop trip. With ABRP it's also easy to experiment by avoiding small/slow superchargers. The only parameter I usually change is temperature and weight of luggage & passengers (car model etc. is remembered between trips); ABRP remembers the model settings etc. so they only have to be set up once. As far as I can tell, ABRP does not account for traffic congestion so travel times can be optimistic but the flip side is that the energy use is less if you are driving more slowly - meaning a bit of time is recovered by not needing to charge as much.

The in-car Nav does seem to account for temperature and congestion, and I think I read that they may start bringing in an adjustment for weather in future software releases.

My preferred method these days is to use ABRP in advance to estimate how much % is needed to travel between charge stops on a preferred route. I make a note of these figures and then on the day see how close the car & Nav is getting to those predictions. If it's cold and there's a headwind, I'll charge 5-10% more; conversely if conditions are more favourable I can leave each charging stop a little earlier/be more confident of being okay with a lower predicted state of charge for the next stop.

 

[UkNorthampton]

Looking at the example above, I don't generally see such a big discrepancy between ABRP and the in-car nav. If you're using the planner on Tesla's webpage I wouldn't trust it - it's more to illustrate the practicality of the cars for would-be owners than to give accurate predictions. If it's the in-car prediction I wonder if there is a spurious setting in the ABRP inputs?

I always check ABRP a few days ahead for long trips and find it's generally more accurate than the Tesla in-car trip planner. I have a late 2015 MS70 and the in-car Nav doesn't seem to account for the reduced supercharging rates which can make a significant difference on a multiple stop trip. With ABRP it's also easy to experiment by avoiding small/slow superchargers. The only parameter I usually change is temperature and weight of luggage & passengers (car model etc. is remembered between trips); ABRP remembers the model settings etc. so they only have to be set up once. As far as I can tell, ABRP does not account for traffic congestion so travel times can be optimistic but the flip side is that the energy use is less if you are driving more slowly - meaning a bit of time is recovered by not needing to charge as much.

The in-car Nav does seem to account for temperature and congestion, and I think I read that they may start bringing in an adjustment for weather in future software releases.

My preferred method these days is to use ABRP in advance to estimate how much % is needed to travel between charge stops on a preferred route. I make a note of these figures and then on the day see how close the car & Nav is getting to those predictions. If it's cold and there's a headwind, I'll charge 5-10% more; conversely if conditions are more favourable I can leave each charging stop a little earlier/be more confident of being okay with a lower predicted state of charge for the next stop.

I also do a roundtrip/return journey plan on ABRP, print out map and table (button bottom right) so I have more choices each way.

 

[spdpsba]

Looking at the example above, I don't generally see such a big discrepancy between ABRP and the in-car nav. If you're using the planner on Tesla's webpage I wouldn't trust it - it's more to illustrate the practicality of the cars for would-be owners than to give accurate predictions. If it's the in-car prediction I wonder if there is a spurious setting in the ABRP inputs?

I always check ABRP a few days ahead for long trips and find it's generally more accurate than the Tesla in-car trip planner. I have a late 2015 MS70 and the in-car Nav doesn't seem to account for the reduced supercharging rates which can make a significant difference on a multiple stop trip. With ABRP it's also easy to experiment by avoiding small/slow superchargers. The only parameter I usually change is temperature and weight of luggage & passengers (car model etc. is remembered between trips); ABRP remembers the model settings etc. so they only have to be set up once. As far as I can tell, ABRP does not account for traffic congestion so travel times can be optimistic but the flip side is that the energy use is less if you are driving more slowly - meaning a bit of time is recovered by not needing to charge as much.

The in-car Nav does seem to account for temperature and congestion, and I think I read that they may start bringing in an adjustment for weather in future software releases.

My preferred method these days is to use ABRP in advance to estimate how much % is needed to travel between charge stops on a preferred route. I make a note of these figures and then on the day see how close the car & Nav is getting to those predictions. If it's cold and there's a headwind, I'll charge 5-10% more; conversely if conditions are more favourable I can leave each charging stop a little earlier/be more confident of being okay with a lower predicted state of charge for the next stop.

It is the in car trip planner. Tesla is actively managing the batteries now (with preconditioning starting some 80 miles ahead etc.,) so people charge quickly and the time spent is shorter. But it has a downside of batteries running out quickly and charger destinations are re routed etc.,

I think it is a double edged sword - more and more customers wants EV to be like an ICE spending just 10-15 minutes quickly charging and that comes with a disadvantage of preconditioning very early and batteries running out earlier than planned and spending a little more £££ charging!

Tweeted Elon, will see whether we get any options to change some settings in trip planner.

 

[spooksman]

You can also tap the preconditioning text to disable it.

Does that actually turn off the preconditioning, or just hide the message? It would seem counter intuitive to make turning it off so easy when there is no simple way to turn it back on, except by re-planning the route. I guess I could try and see if the arrival percentage goes back up

Like others here, I have been unimpressed with the extended preconditioning times - they seem to be a big win for Tesla, but not so much for me, so I have adopted the 'nearby place' approach as well. Finer control over the preconditioning would be a most welcome addition.

I always use the 'graph' to see how I'm doing against plan - sadly of late (when it's cold), the graph is always more optimistic than reality for me....

 

[Fursty Ferret]

You can also tap the preconditioning text to disable it.

This just hides the message...

 

[GtiMart]

If ABRP is showing less consumption than the Tesla, I think you have not entered the advanced settings properly. Go in advanced mode and make sure you enter everything properly.

 

[Mrklaw]

if you’ve had your car for a while you should have a feel for wh/mile for the kinds of roads you’ll be on (motorway, A road etc). So you can take a look at the distances between stops and what ABRP and Tesla show you as arrival %, and see if one seems more accurate than the other for you?

I tend to use them more as guidelines. If I know I can skip a SC I may still choose to stop there if I need a break, but its good to know that is my choice rather than the car neeidng me to stop

 

[kuruma]

on longer trips, we always end up arriving with more charge than the car or ABRP says we're going to have. The way to do this is to set your speed at 60 and then find a lorry to sit behind. If a faster lorry overtakes that lorry, wait until there's plenty of space between the two and then pull round to tail the faster one.

This saves a significant amount of energy and, because you are rarely overtaking or having to move over for some boy racer in your boot, is also a significantly more relaxing way to drive. It's also a comfort to know that no matter what the road throws at you (think detours for road closures) you'll have plenty of energy to get to where you want to be.

Yes, it's slower, but if you were really worried about reaching your destination 15 minutes later than everyone else, you wouldn't have bought an electric car that refuels 15 minutes slower than ICE vehicles now would you

On longer trips on smaller roads, you can also save energy by driving using the regen gauge with the aim being to ensure that as little of the black shows as possible. Slower acceleration will do this, and coasting downhill maximises regen. On longer hills, you can actually generate enough regen to make the battery percentage go up.

All in all both my wife and I are pretty competitive and we like seeing how much we can beat the car, so to speak. The kids are getting into it too, and combined with our powerwall/solar challenge to use as little of the grid as possible at home, they are developing a healthy appreciation of how precious energy is which can only be good for their (and everyone else's) future.

 

[Toblerone]

on longer trips, we always end up arriving with more charge than the car or ABRP says we're going to have. The way to do this is to set your speed at 60 and then find a lorry to sit behind. If a faster lorry overtakes that lorry, wait until there's plenty of space between the two and then pull round to tail the faster one.

This saves a significant amount of energy and, because you are rarely overtaking or having to move over for some boy racer in your boot, is also a significantly more relaxing way to drive. It's also a comfort to know that no matter what the road throws at you (think detours for road closures) you'll have plenty of energy to get to where you want to be.

Yes, it's slower, but if you were really worried about reaching your destination 15 minutes later than everyone else, you wouldn't have bought an electric car that refuels 15 minutes slower than ICE vehicles now would you

On longer trips on smaller roads, you can also save energy by driving using the regen gauge with the aim being to ensure that as little of the black shows as possible. Slower acceleration will do this, and coasting downhill maximises regen. On longer hills, you can actually generate enough regen to make the battery percentage go up.

All in all both my wife and I are pretty competitive and we like seeing how much we can beat the car, so to speak. The kids are getting into it too, and combined with our powerwall/solar challenge to use as little of the grid as possible at home, they are developing a healthy appreciation of how precious energy is which can only be good for their (and everyone else's) future.

‘Liked’ for the honourable intentions and for staying out of the fast lane when some of us have places to be

If I’m starting with a full charge (potentially from solar) I’m saving time from not filling-up first. And if I’m arriving with a greater than expected percentage, I see that as a challenge to arrive sooner!

 

[WannabeOwner]

if you were really worried about reaching your destination 15 minutes later than everyone else, you wouldn't have bought an electric car that refuels 15 minutes slower than ICE vehicles now would you

Although ... ... when I first got EV (doing 25K miles a year) I was Supercharging two days a month because out-of-range. So that was 2x20 minutes a month, which exactly matched the 4x10 minutes standing-and-pumping and queuing-and-paying - except that for the 20 minutes I was Supercharging I was doing emails, so "time neutral". An extra 8 billable hours a year . Having replaced that with a car that has 20-25% more range I'm now only Supercharging a couple of times a year ...

I only follow a lorry when my range is tight for that leg.

using the regen gauge with the aim being to ensure that as little of the black shows as possible

Prefer the Model-S for this as I can put it in Neutral for zero energy use - gain a few MPH on the downslope and let it bleed off on the flat before putting it back into Drive.

All in all both my wife and I are pretty competitive ...

My hypermiling challenge is lifting off at just the right moment to arrive at the next bend / junction at the correct speed not to have to use the brakes at all.