ABRP Crapping Out on Trip

[gnuarm]

I'm having trouble with ABRP acting too much like the Tesla trip planner. I like to plan my drives on the PC with ABRP, but sometimes the tool is a whiny little girl... or maybe I am. Not sure. Apologies to any whiny little girls reading this.

So I'm trying to get a route with several stops that lets me charge where I want as well as drive where I want. ABRP was showing me a preferred route that is on the main highways, which will be clogged when I'm driving. I prefer to take some lesser highways that only take an extra 15 minutes without all the bumper to bumper stuff. I can do that by clicking on one of the suggested alternate routes.

I have to charge at least once to park the car with plenty of charge at the airport. But for some reason, ABRP wants me to charge early in the drive when I have 60% on the battery still. So I opted out on that charger, and now it doesn't give me the alternate route option at all and only offers the congested route! On top of that, it doesn't end the drive at the airport with the amount I indicated. It's only off by 1%, but why would it do that? Spend another minute charging at the suggested stop, and it's all good.

I just hate when tools don't do what they should. I can't trust a tool like that. Between ABRP and the car, it really is like using a cell phone, lots of malfunctions and pretty much as much trouble as it's worth.

 

[cwerdna]

I can't speak to your situation but when I've used ABRP, when I wanted to take highway 99 between Nor Cal and So Cal instead of highway 5 (I drive a CCS car, not a Tesla), I had to force it by adding a Fresno as a waypoint.

Highway 99 has WAY more CCS charging and backups for each stop than 5.

 

[LoudMusic]

ABRP is pretty far from perfect. If you haven't already, I'd make the specific charging location you want a full charge from near the airport as a waypoint and set the charging to what you want as well - probably 90%.

Then add waypoints along the desired route to force it to use that route.

 

[gnuarm]

ABRP is pretty far from perfect. If you haven't already, I'd make the specific charging location you want a full charge from near the airport as a waypoint and set the charging to what you want as well - probably 90%.

Then add waypoints along the desired route to force it to use that route.

Yeah, I've done that in the past. It is the weird "now you have it, now you don't" behavior of offering alternates, then not, that is strange, also, adding the very early charger stop. Maybe it's because this charger is right by the road, while the charger I'd like to use is a mile or so off the path I'll be on.

That's the thing, it is hard enough just using the tool without knowing how it works and having such poor documentation. I really don't like that I have such a hard time figuring out how to make it plan the trip I want to take.

All Google needs to do is add a few features, and ABRP is out of business. As the number of BEVs increases, I expect that's what will happen.

 

[RTPEV]

Sounds like you are not only interested in an alternate route, but a specific alternate route. If that's the case, I would suggest using a waypoint (or several if needed) to put you on your desired route. I do this to avoid the Washington, DC area when heading from New York state to North Carolina, and while the diversion is pretty large (I-81 vs. I-95), I have found a waypoint that does the trick. I've done the same heading north to Maryland to follow US-301 instead of I-95. I would certainly not rely on the alternate routes offered by ABRP (or any tool really) if I really had my heart set on a particular route as those are typically going to vary based on conditions and at least in the case of ABRP are more meant to offer you an alternate charging plan than an alternate route.

As for the early charge stop, as @cwerdna says, it's hard to say without knowing the exact situation, but it probably had its reason for suggesting that stop. Whether that's because the alternate is off-route or a slower or busier charger, we can't say, but if it offered it to you, it was probably found to be the most optimal stop based on the parameters you gave it. But again, if you want to override its suggestion, then you need to add your own charging waypoint.

That all may seem like more "work" on your part, but it sounds like you've already done the work to plan your own route and charging scheme.

 

[LoudMusic]

Yeah, I've done that in the past. It is the weird "now you have it, now you don't" behavior of offering alternates, then not, that is strange, also, adding the very early charger stop. Maybe it's because this charger is right by the road, while the charger I'd like to use is a mile or so off the path I'll be on.

That's the thing, it is hard enough just using the tool without knowing how it works and having such poor documentation. I really don't like that I have such a hard time figuring out how to make it plan the trip I want to take.

All Google needs to do is add a few features, and ABRP is out of business. As the number of BEVs increases, I expect that's what will happen.

I think you are asking quite a lot of a couple completely free solutions to very complex problems.

 

[gnuarm]

Sounds like you are not only interested in an alternate route, but a specific alternate route. If that's the case, I would suggest using a waypoint (or several if needed) to put you on your desired route. I do this to avoid the Washington, DC area when heading from New York state to North Carolina, and while the diversion is pretty large (I-81 vs. I-95), I have found a waypoint that does the trick. I've done the same heading north to Maryland to follow US-301 instead of I-95. I would certainly not rely on the alternate routes offered by ABRP (or any tool really) if I really had my heart set on a particular route as those are typically going to vary based on conditions and at least in the case of ABRP are more meant to offer you an alternate charging plan than an alternate route.

As for the early charge stop, as @cwerdna says, it's hard to say without knowing the exact situation, but it probably had its reason for suggesting that stop. Whether that's because the alternate is off-route or a slower or busier charger, we can't say, but if it offered it to you, it was probably found to be the most optimal stop based on the parameters you gave it. But again, if you want to override its suggestion, then you need to add your own charging waypoint.

That all may seem like more "work" on your part, but it sounds like you've already done the work to plan your own route and charging scheme.

The first go gave me choices in routes. Like Google maps, but with no indication how, I clicked on the alternate route, and it was good, other than wanting me to charge somewhere I didn't want to charge (very early in the trip, so the longest possible charge time). When I excluded that charger, it then dropped the offer of the alternate route.

My number one complaint with ABRP is having to dick around with the tool to make it do something useful. The main use of ABRP is to explore what-if questions. Otherwise, I can just plan the trip in the car as I go. If there are no alternatives, or they become very difficult to use (like having to exclude bad choices for chargers), then it is pointless.

The second level of complaint is the near total lack of indication of how to use it. I frequently have one of several information boxes pop up over the map with no indication of how to get rid of them or why they are there. I have to reboot the web page to get rid of them. That's just plain silly.

 

[gnuarm]

I think you are asking quite a lot of a couple completely free solutions to very complex problems.

It's not a complex problem. The real problem is no information from ABRP on how to use the tool or exactly what it is doing. Why would it have me charge after 40 miles of a 125 mile drive when there are two or three other chargers along the route?

I have tried contacting ABRP support about various issues and the result is often lame.

Not sure why the tool being free is significant. The routing in the car is "free" with the car, but I still expect a level of functionality. With the recent addition of multiple waypoints, the in-car router is only a bit less useful than ABRP, mostly because I have to be in the car to use it.

 

[LoudMusic]

It's not a complex problem. The real problem is no information from ABRP on how to use the tool or exactly what it is doing. Why would it have me charge after 40 miles of a 125 mile drive when there are two or three other chargers along the route?

I have tried contacting ABRP support about various issues and the result is often lame.

Not sure why the tool being free is significant. The routing in the car is "free" with the car, but I still expect a level of functionality. With the recent addition of multiple waypoints, the in-car router is only a bit less useful than ABRP, mostly because I have to be in the car to use it.

You had to buy a $100K+ car to get that "free" navigation software. You don't even have to have a user account to use ABRP. A portion of the money you spent on the car pays a team of developers to work on the software. How are the ABRP people feeding their families? They probably have other jobs and they're probably a very small group of people. They don't have time or desire to teach you how to use their free software. If you want to volunteer your time to write the user manual I bet they'd appreciate it.

 

[RTPEV]

It's not a complex problem. The real problem is no information from ABRP on how to use the tool or exactly what it is doing.

I'll agree with you that there is not a lot of documentation on how to use ABRP, and the UI tends to change each time I really get around to using it for real purposes (such as taking a long road trip, which only happens a few times a year). But I have that problem with just about anything these days including phone apps which constantly like to change their UI by adding icons that you seem to have to be "in the know" to know what to do. Even the "competing" navigation apps like Waze and Google maps have frustrated me with changing interfaces and apparent lost functionality.

That said, there is a very good user community that is there to offer help, but you do have to be willing to accept that maybe you are not using the tool in an appropriate manner.

Why would it have me charge after 40 miles of a 125 mile drive when there are two or three other chargers along the route?

Hard to tell without knowing the specifics, but again, what I would have suggested would be to use waypoints to ensure you were routed on your preferred route, and then use the Alternates button to examine other charging possibilities (my understanding of your problem is that that when you selected Alternates, it lost your preferred routing preference).

I have tried contacting ABRP support about various issues and the result is often lame.

What support path did you use?

They used to use their forums, which was good because the user community could also step in and help out as well, although my experience is that they usually had good responses from the developers.

Now they have shifted to using a bug system, which does suffer from not being as "visible" to the user community, although again, I have usually gotten good (although not always satisfactory--in the case I am thinking of it was a limitation of something in the map software or something that they had no control over).

With the recent addition of multiple waypoints, the in-car router is only a bit less useful than ABRP, mostly because I have to be in the car to use it.

Then I suppose you should just use the in-car nav if it more or less meets your needs.

 

[Rocky_H]

I have never liked the interface of ABRP, so I still use EVTripPlanner.com for my route checking. It came first, and is more simple and basic, but everything is very straightforward on the main screen, without having to go dig through menus to find the options to turn on or off like ABRP does.

 

[RTPEV]

I have never liked the interface of ABRP, so I still use EVTripPlanner.com for my route checking. It came first, and is more simple and basic, but everything is very straightforward on the main screen, without having to go dig through menus to find the options to turn on or off like ABRP does.

Well, if you don't like the interface of ABRP, just wait 5 minutes and it will change!

 

[LoudMusic]

Well, if you don't like the interface of ABRP, just wait 5 minutes and it will change!

That's how long it takes to load a route, so he's waiting one way or another.

 

[gnuarm]

Huh! I was actually able to use ABRP in the Tesla while waiting to charge! I didn't have time to explore options. I've found the Tesla browser to work better after a reboot of the UI. In this case I had to reboot while driving which meant I was without instruments for a bit. I also lost the sound feedback for some controls, maybe the turn signal. Or maybe the turn signal didn't work while rebooting the UI. Don't remember.

 

[gnuarm]

You had to buy a $100K+ car to get that "free" navigation software. You don't even have to have a user account to use ABRP. A portion of the money you spent on the car pays a team of developers to work on the software. How are the ABRP people feeding their families? They probably have other jobs and they're probably a very small group of people. They don't have time or desire to teach you how to use their free software. If you want to volunteer your time to write the user manual I bet they'd appreciate it.

Of course I have a user account on ABRP. That's the only way you can get it to work with your car. I haven't paid for the Premium account, because it doesn't offer much that I could make use of. I suppose the real time traffic could be useful.

Don't think for a minute this is some guys working in their basements for the greater good. It may have started as a hobby project, but they are putting together a company and a product with the intent of making it very desirable to other companies. I can assure you they are going to reap the benefits of the Premium service and providing services to other companies. Eventually they will be bought by someone with either the intent to boost it into a world class product, or the intent of ripping out the valuable bits to enhance their own product and trashing the rest.

I would be happy to pay for the Premium service, but not for a product that makes me want to tear out my hair every time I sit down to use it.

 

[gnuarm]

As long as I'm on a roll... I tried evtripplanner.com and found it pretty unusable. I don't have the vision of a 20 year old and some of the fonts they use are entirely too small. The browser zoom works on some of the text, but not all. But it makes the Tesla icons on the map really big.

It doesn't start with any given state of charge and so doesn't seem to know when you might need a charge. At least I couldn't figure out how to get to do that. I guess it's a work in progress.

 

[rhumbliner]

I’ve always preferred evtripplanner over ABRP but I believe it’s no longer supported. Witness the list of EV’s in the pull down — Model Y isn’t listed. So I use ABRP but wish evtripplaner was current.

 

[gnuarm]

Then I suppose you should just use the in-car nav if it more or less meets your needs.

It doesn't. The car can only plan a trip starting from the car's current location. It also requires that you be in the car. If I am in Puerto Rico and the car is in Baltimore wanting to plan my return with any charging that is needed as well as a possible meal stop, that's a problem. I also have need to plan trips from my home, when I'm not at home. So the starting point and state of charge would not be where the car is. So something like ABRP is very useful if it works in a way that the user can understand. Just this morning I got it into a mode of displaying something I didn't want to see and I could not find a control to return to the main screen. I had to close the page and start over.

This is why, as much as anything, we need a lot more chargers, so planning is not needed and cars with a 400 mile range so they have an actual 300 mile useful range. My car started with around 289 mile range. It's 7% down after 4 years and even with starting a trip 100% charged, I can only reach 240 miles, returning with 11% remaining.

I don't know if a model X will ever be a keeper, due to the many problems the cars have and the high cost of any repairs at Tesla. But I'd like to drive this car indefinitely. When the battery dies, I'd like to replace it with something with better range. But I seriously doubt Tesla will ever support that. If anything, the older cars will likely have the battery replaced with the same old battery, with a higher price tag.

 

[gnuarm]

ABRP is really being a PITA this morning. Trying to plan a trip Monday and Tuesday and the tool is being very uncooperative. I have five waypoints and added charging at one. I tried planning a schedule by entering departure times at the various waypoints. It sort of works, but I don't like the charging stops and the final leg of the route is on a toll road that leads to heavily congested roads. I've tried blocking chargers, but if I block one, it picks another poor choice. When I block that one, it returns to the first. If I use the map to block them both, it forgets all the info I've entered and goes back to planning the trip as if I were leaving now and did not actually spend any time at any of the stops (also forgetting to charge at the one).

This tool is definitely not ready for prime time. I can use the car to plan a trip from A to B at the time I'm ready to leave. ABRP is not really much better... at least in the bits that work.

 

[gnuarm]

Jeez! ABRP is really messed up today. I've got a trip with five waypoints, plus the starting point. ABRP keeps deleting one! Plus it does this thing where, every time I switch to another window and return to see if the routing has completed, the routing has completed, but starts again! There's something about moving focus away from the window and back, that makes it restart to some extent. It shows London, even though I'm in the US and then redraws the map of my route and starts the routing all over again.

I don't know if they've broken something or if this is intentional. It makes the tool much harder to use now.