Amarillo to Trinidad, CO supercharger stats - round trip

[rafacq]

Driving to Houston in November (Thanksgiving). I’ve looked at ABRP and Plugshare. For the last 20 years I’ve 9 times out of 10 taken the Denver -> Salina, KS -> Houston trip as I find the interstate is easier. But the idea of saving an hour of driving going through Amarillo is appealing.

So Plugshare walks me through:
View attachment 598954
but ABRP says Trinidad -> Amarillo would be dangerous:
View attachment 598953

For those who have done this (based on the posts above - there are a few) - what do you suggest?
Model 3 LR. At 100% - I do get the full 320miles.

I don’t have a 3, mine is a 2015 S85D. At 100% I get 267 range. I have not tried that but get the same warning on ABRP. With 320 miles at 100%, I would feel confident, weather cooperating. As you come down Dalhart, you can always get a boost at the city park NEMA 14-50 should you need it, but more than likely you will be fine.

Stay 65mph or below climbing Raton pass. Keep an eye on the energy chart in the car and speed up if things look good by the time you cross into Texas.

 

[Munky.]

So I did Trinidad to Amarillo a couple of weeks ago...here's the data from my model 3 performance with a passenger and about 150 extra lbs of luggage... I wish I had attempted going the other way but I only used it coming back to Texas.

 

[denverag03]

Just did Denver to south of Amarillo in a Model Y Long Range. 3 people in the car with some baggage. Sorry for the lack of Teslafi info.

Left home In Denver with around 80% charge
44 degrees or so, drove 75-80mph
10 min charge in CO Springs to 83%,
Warming up to around 55 degrees, drove 75-80 mph
Arrived at Trinidad with just under 20% left
Took about 40 minutes to charge to 100 percent at Trinidad
Drove 55mph over Raton pass, 65 mph until about Dalhart, stepping up to 75-80 for the rest
Arrived at Amarillo with 16% charge
Charged in Amarillo to 80%
Made it to south Lubbock with 22% left

 

[denverag03]

As a follow up, ABRP had the default (296 wh/mi) setting and it tried to restrict my speed on 87 to 55mph. I disobeyed that (a little) obviously. My actual wh/mi was around 288.

 

[outdoordawg]

Model 3 LR Aero 2020. Plan on driving from Austin to Denver end of December a week before Christmas, and plan to do it non stop. I will have wife and 3 kids as passengers. Should I do the amarillo to trinidad route or should I drive up through kansas? I am a little nervous about the raton pass conditions and also range anxiety driving the amarillo trinidad route. ABRP shows 19hr total time via kansas which is ok considering 2 drivers.

 

[garrett5688]

Model 3 LR Aero 2020. Plan on driving from Austin to Denver end of December a week before Christmas, and plan to do it non stop. I will have wife and 3 kids as passengers. Should I do the amarillo to trinidad route or should I drive up through kansas? I am a little nervous about the raton pass conditions and also range anxiety driving the amarillo trinidad route. ABRP shows 19hr total time via kansas which is ok considering 2 drivers.

kansas, but it is a long trip in one shot. My wife still reminds me. We’ve done the trip again spending the night in Salina and it was much less stressful.

however this was our preAP S85, so your range plus AP should make it better.

 

[outdoordawg]

Thanks for your suggestion. Yes my M3 has FSD, so I am counting on that making the Austin - salina - denver doable in one shot. I was considering staying the night in salina if we get too tired. This is my 1st trip to Denver in a non-ice and 1st road trip in a Tesla. Previously (2002-2008) we have driven straight to Colorado springs and to Denver through amarillo in my AWD suv and never gave it a thought.

 

[garrett5688]

~1000 miles is too much for 1 day of driving for me personally, ICE or EV, but everyone is different.

the cold weather will reduce your efficiency and increase charge times. being your first EV road trip, i would suggest planning to stay along the way. you can always cancel the hotel reservation, or change your return trip to 1 day if it ends up being an easy trip.

 

[IronCoffee_Max]

Nov 21-22 I drove from Denver to Houston. M3 LR AWD (Sep 2020 build date - so new battery too). This Friday I’ll be driving back. Driving through Kansas. Myself, my 22 yr old son, and 9 year old daughter. Full luggage set. 90% of drive using NoA.

On the way to Houston we stopped in OKC overnight. On the way back, my son wants to drive in one shot. I’m skeptical since I did it 4 weeks ago in a truck and it was brutal.

When I get back I was planning on doing a post with all my TeslaMate info for reference when I get back to Denver.

A few notes:

1. I normally have no range anxiety, but since SCs are spaced out especially as you go through OKC/TX - I wanted 20% buffer.
2. The cold really made a huge difference to my range.
3. In Kansas/OKC - I was doing about 180m or less between stops.
4. Once we got to warmer Texas, our range went up considerably.
5. I also was doing shorter charges as it was faster to do 15/20m charges with more stops than 60min charges and fewer stops
6. When we ate, we would do a full charge
   
7. I found many of the stops were at Holiday Inn Expresses - so on the way back, if we need to stop - that’s where I’ll go.
8. No v3 SC. All v2.
9. NoA did amazingly…except where it didn’t (toll booth, some construction stuff where I myself couldn’t figure out stuff, like OKC) It actually drove through a rain-storm I couldn’t see, but it did.
10. Corsicana SC - free coffee to Tesla owners
11. Tesla Nav was way too optimistic. Maybe if I drove exactly the speed limit or it was warmer…
12. ABRP worked really well for planning. I paid the $5 for the month to get real-time info for the trip. I found their plan was pessimistic compared to reality, but better than Tesla Nav.

 

[Hydrocarbon302]

We made the trip in our loaner LR RWD M3 from Andrews to Colorado Springs. We charged to 100% before we left and warmed the car up while still plugged in. Tesla Nav never said to slow down, but ABRP premium said don’t go over 65mph all the way to Amarillo.

After Lubbock we had 53% battery remaining and a projected arrival percentage of 16%! I went from 65mph to 80mph and arrived at Amarillo with 12%.

We again charged to 100% and ABRP didn’t restrict our speed this time. Tesla Nav projected our arrival at Trinidad with 12% but I didn’t know how accurate it was going to be climbing hills, so I only went 65mph until Clayton. The projected range climbed to 17%, so again I increased my speed to 75mph. We arrived at Trinidad with 15%!

I thought man this was easy, why was I worried? Well temps on the way there were in the 60s-70s and we had a slight tail wind. On the way back the temps dropped into the 40s-50s and that tail wind turned into a 25mph head wind.

From Trinidad to Amarillo wasn’t bad. There was a pretty good side wind but range wasn’t affected too bad. The Tesla Nav projected an arrival percentage of 16% but I adjusted my speed to arrive at 10%.

Amarillo back home sucked! We charged again to 100% (this poor battery) and had a projected arrival percentage of 12%, but ABRP knew better, and said 58mph max. Just a few miles after unplugging going 65mph the Tesla Nav said to keep below 60mph to reach destination. I executed my hyper miler skills and dropped the temp to 65, and fan speed to 4. And most importantly I tuned off that damn baby shark song that my kids were listening to, I said “do you want to sleep on the side of the road or do you want to get home? Every watt counts here!” At 58mph we had a projected arrival percentage of 5%. After about 15 miles I found my “buddy”, a tractor trailer going about 70 mph. I jumped behind him and followed at a safe but efficient distance. AP was useless at this following distance but slowly our projected arrival percentage started to increase. We went from 5% at 58mph to 17% at 70mph by the time we got to Lubbock! Sadly there still wasn’t enough watts for baby shark.. We lost our wind breaker buddy, but we were in good shape at this point. We kicked the heater up and increased our speed to 80mph most of the way home to arrive at 7%.

it was a fun trip and the car did very well. We would not have made it if we were in our MYP instead of our loaner. Hopefully when Tesla is done stacking super chargers in CA they’ll throw us a bone out here in NM/West TX

 

[The_Sasquatch]

I just completed this trip on Monday in a brand new LR AWD model Y... it was a close one. We had been driving for 12 hours by the time we reached Amarillo at 9pm, and in hindsight we should have stopped there for the night, but we already had a reservation in Raton, so we pushed on. We left Amarillo at 99% and ABRP told me to do 55 all the way in order to get in with 10% remaining and be ready to go over the pass to Trinidad in the morning... neither the cars nav nor ABRP was considering the headwind that we ran into during the last 100mi, we ended up limping into Raton with 15mi remaining doing 35-45 the last 60 miles.

I want to plug the Raton Pass Motor Inn, on the north end of town... the new owners were very friendly and happy to let me plug into the outlets they have next to their parking spaces. They are also actively working on getting destination chargers installed.

It was 14F and the wind was blowing hard when we arrived at 2AM, so the 120V travel charger didn't add any miles overnight, but it did at least keep the battery warm enough that when the sun came up and the wind died it was able to charge at 5mi/hr. By 9AM we had 25mi of range and decided to attempt to make it over the pass. By climbing slowly behind the truck traffic, and descending similarly slow, We were able to go from the north end of Raton to the Trinidad Supercharger using only 4% range.

Once there are a few destination chargers in Raton, this Dallas/Denver route will become a lot less nerve-wracking.

 

[IronCoffee_Max]

Exactly. I know people can do this route…its possible but I don’t recommend it to people because of the risk and what you have to do to make it work. Tesla really needs to get that SC in Clayton. Then this will be the way I always take.

 

[Tectonic]

in order to get in with 10% remaining and be ready to go over the pass to Trinidad in the morning

Glad you made it! It's a really good thing you were able to plug in overnight - if you hadn't, even if you had arrived with 10%, after sitting out overnight in the cold you could have been nearly down to zero in the morning.

BTW, I posted this in the Clayton supercharger thread already, but a grant for a DCFC (probably CCS/CHAdeMO) seems to have been funded for installation in Des Moines, NM at some point: https://www.env.nm.gov/vw-settlemen...020/04/VW-Project-Selection_22Apr20_LDZEV.pdf

 

[RestlessTexas]

Planning on Denver - > Houston in the Dec 22 time frame. A little concerned about Trinidad to Amarillo. Do you think I can make it in a LR Model Y (albeit full with five adults, two dogs, and a thule)? Also are winter tires necessary for this trip?

We are en route Texas to Denver now in 2016 Model X 90D and concerned too about the Amarillo to Trinidad area too. How did it go for you?

 

[Munky.]

We are en route Texas to Denver now in 2016 Model X 90D and concerned too about the Amarillo to Trinidad area too. How did it go for you?

You can possibly make Trinidad to Amarillo but there's no way in a 90D that you'll make it Amarillo to Trinidad. Go through Kansas or Las Vegas, NM.

 

[Stunam3]

We made this trip in a '20 P3D- mid-November. Charged to 100% and left Amarillo at around 10PM :-/. Temperature ~ 40F when we left Amarillo. For the first hour or so I kept speed at 55mph. Kept it below 65mph until we got to Raton. Temperatures dropped and leveled around 20F for the second half of the trip. We kept the heater off until the last 25% of the trip, seat heaters on max. It was freezing! Anyway, once we got within about 30 miles of Trinidad, with ~15-20% remaining, and I knew we were going to make it fine, on comes the heater and up goes the speed to 70-75mph! We arrived with about a little under 10% remaining as I recall. I'm not sure what percentage we would have had had we run the heater the whole time, which would have been a lot more pleasant.

In any case, you really don't want to get stuck on this route in winter, very unpleasant. I hadn't found this thread prior to our trip, but if I did it again, I would bring my NEMA 14-50 adapter and have the option of stopping at one of the mentioned RV parks to top off.

 

[RestlessTexas]

You can possibly make Trinidad to Amarillo but there's no way in a 90D that you'll make it Amarillo to Trinidad. Go through Kansas or Las Vegas, NM.

Yes. We are going Tucamari, Santa Rosa, Las Vegas, Trinidad, Colorado Springs. I’m white knuckle, knots in stomach about Las Vegas to Trinidad and Trinidad to Colorado Springs.
This feeling is not enjoyable at all. We will go back Kansas and Oklahoma. For now though, we are committed this route. Takes too long to back track.

 

[Munky.]

Yes. We are going Tucamari, Santa Rosa, Las Vegas, Trinidad, Colorado Springs. I’m white knuckle, knots in stomach about Las Vegas to Trinidad and Trinidad to Colorado Springs.
This feeling is not enjoyable at all. We will go back Kansas and Oklahoma. For now though, we are committed this route. Takes too long to back track.

Are you using abetterrouteplanner.com? I’m seeing you should be just fine going through Las Vegas

 

[RestlessTexas]

You can possibly make Trinidad to Amarillo but there's no way in a 90D that you'll make it Amarillo to Trinidad. Go through Kansas or Las Vegas, NM.

Are you using abetterrouteplanner.com? I’m seeing you should be just fine going through Las Vegas

We made it with 10-13% per stop. given the range we got that’s only 15 miles to spare. I used abetterrouteplanner and the Tesla mapping. ABRP was more accurate as I updated our actual usage rates.
The Tesla Trip page never failed to drop a good 10% from its initial estimate only a few minutes into the next leg. As long as we stayed at 65mph our estimated arrival percent stayed mostly the same (after initial drop). But if we popped up to 68mph, the arrival percent would drop about 1% every 2 minutes. It was a little frustrating to drive 10mph below the limit, but was worth not arriving dangerously low.

I think we’ve sorta figured out her personality now. We should be a lot less anxious on the way home. Our first long trip taught us that the pace of driving 2 hours, charging 1 hour is a new level of patience.

 

[Twiglett]

I see that Clayton now shows as Q1 2021 so hopefully this route will become much more straightforward