So just got done with the first leg of my CBR-MEL-ADL-CBR tour.
Drive down to Melbourne was fantastic, 99% on FSD/EAP, could spot several improvements over my last significant road trip in November last year.
- I did get the lane change bail out a couple of times, I think someone else here mentioned this is an issue on the Hume, but not something I had experienced on the CBR-BNE trips. I think I might have caught one of them on camera, definitely seems to be related to the camber of the road, both times it was in an area where there was a significant camber on the road, it just didn't want to change back into the left lanes (both times were going to the left), I managed to force it by holding the left indicator down and it went ok. I'll hopefully have all of that on video. Apart from that though, lane changes were fantastic.
- Trying to go into exit lanes randomly. I had experienced this on the trip to BNE, this time it was MUCH better. On the trip to Brisbane it did it a few times, sometimes it 'swerved' slightly and corrected itself, others I stopped it myself, never ever got close to actually leaving the lane. This time it was MUCH more gentle and it gave a warning each time with the indicator, which was extremely handy. It only actually made a move 2 or 3 times, with the warning it barely got to move the wheel a few cm's and it was such a gentle motion that the passengers would hardly have noticed. A couple of other times it just gave one or a half indicator click like it was thinking about doing it but realised it was wrong. This was definitely a big improvement.
- Slow downs, I had two slight slow downs, one while passing a large semi, wasn't really paying as much attention as I should have been on that one, was talking to my wife so it got down about 7 or 8 km/h below what I was set to, the second time was a car swerving all over his lane and freaked it out, that one I was ready for and only lost 2 or 3 km/h. One really impressive sight was a large truck crossing the highway in front of me, about 150m away. On the previous trip it would have slowed down for that, it visualised it but just kept at speed, so I was really happy with that and count this area as a decent improvement as well.
- Speed cameras, all of the speed cameras that were on the route were shown (there were no mobile ones which I suspect are not implemented yet) it saved me once, had a Merc who was constantly speeding up and slowing down, got the sh1ts and had just got into the right hand lane and was half way through planting it when I saw the speed camera ahead wording on the nav and then saw the symbol. I count that as a big win, it definitely would have nabbed me at least 20k over.
- Charging- I overrode the stop it had intended (Holbrook) as I wanted to check out the new V4 cabinets at Albury. Got there with 25% left which I was quite happy with after ~350km. Had a good meal there and within about 30 mins I was already at 97% and had enough to get to Melbourne, again was pretty happy that CBR to MEL is definitely feasible with one charge stop in a RWD model. Decided to check out the Evie charger at Avenel and just do a quick top up there. First time using an Evie charger, it was OK, much slower than advertised, said it was up to 350kw in the app, but only managed about 70kw, I think I went from ~50% to ~60% or something like that. Anyhow, got to MEL with plenty of charge for tripping around over the next couple of days. All up cost me $42 in charing, would have cost $83 in fuel. As far as time spent, we had lunch in Albury for 30 mins and spent 10 mins topping up at Avenel (which was purely voluntary could have easily skipped that stop). If I'd been driving our ICE vehicle, I would have had to stop for fuel, 10 mins is a good average, and then I'd still have had to take time to go to the bathroom, eat, etc, so the time I spent in Albury would have been exactly the same as we didn't spend any time waiting for charging. At best it's break even, if you count the fact that the second stop was purely voluntary to check out a different brand charger, then the EV was 10 mins quicker.
Overall was an excellent drive, the new Model 3 is significantly better than the 2019 one I did the last trip in. Everyone felt the seats were much more comfortable, considerably quieter, fantastic sound system like all Tesla's, Autopilot is just fantastic for long drives and makes a HUGE difference. Really stoked to see the level of improvements over my last long drive, especially given we are on such an 'old' version compared to the current stack.
Spending a few days here with friends then we head to the Barossa via the great ocean road.