Be honest: is SCing on a long trip annoying?

[Cyclone]

Quick question from one who does not have Tesla in our country yet, why don't they install the SC at the fuel stations? or is there some kind of conflict of interest? other than the fuel of course most large fuel stations have all the convenient shops and window washing one needs plus in our country at least labour is still relatively cheap so we have Fuel attendants

They already do. Some in the US (maybe other countries too) are at fuel stations. As others have said, there are plans/agreements to put more in place at fuel stations. It is not that Tesla "doesn't" do this, it is simply a matter of the negotiation and logistics. 1) Many fuel stations may not have a sufficient power feed to support Superchaging and thus, would then have to undergo construction to make this happen (impacting their primary customers) and 2) depending on space, the fuel station may be unwilling to give up the space required for 6 or more Supercharging stalls that could be used for more pumps.

This doesn't mean that the Superchargers cannot be there. It is just that many fuel stations have thus declined to participate or not been a good fit. For the fuel stations you have between "Cape town to Johannesburg", they may in fact be open to the idea and logistically capable of having the site. But if Tesla is not in your country yet, it is unlikely that they would have opened negotiations with any of these fuel stations to build any Superchargers. It's a chicken-and-the-egg problem. Why spend money and energy on a Supercharger that there are no cars being sold that can use it?!

 

[GTIceman]

I planned ahead, exported CSV, then sent a list of all superchargers to my phone, including actual miles, rated miles, up/down, etc.

I did the same. I also plugged it all into Google Maps and saved it as a route

 

[whitex]

I realize it would be a lot of typing, but it'd be fun if you could post a list of where all of these are (or a map showing which ones you stopped at, from which one could deduce that).

Have fun

Woodstock, Comber, Maumee, Angola, Mishawaka, Country Club Hills,
Rockford Supercharger, Madison, Mauston , La Crosse , Albert Lea , Worthington,
Mitchell, Mitchell, Murdo, Rapid City, Gillette, Sheridan,
Sheridan, Billings, Big Timber, Bozeman, Butte , Missoula,
Superior, Coeur d'Alene, Ritzville, Ellensburg.​

 

[whitex]

I just took my first long road trip (i.e. route needing more than 1 Supercharger stop), and using v8 trip planner in the car I feel it seemed to do a pretty good job at estimating energy usage. The route was mostly down I-5 to northern CA and back. 18 SC stops in total.

I trust the Tesla energy graph for charging. I always arrive within a few percent, and I never do the speed limit.

My experience seems to differ. Here is the trip between Mitchell and Murdo. Perfectly sunny weather, ~60F or so, driving speed limit +/- 10mph. EVTripPlanner did estimate 221 rated miles to be used, it came pretty close. Luckily by then I already learned to overcharge at each SC.

With only a couple exceptions, I arrived at each next SC within a few % +/- of the charge remaining estimated when leaving the previous stop. The couple exceptions it was lower by about 6-8% from the Tesla estimate, I'll have to check my VisibleTesla logs but I assume those were probably the steeper mountainous sections of the trip. not a big worry at the time since I usually aimed to arrive with a conservative 15-20% buffer, often staying a bit longer at a SC than required. I was using TACC and/or AP most of the way, usually set to a few kph over the speed limit, many stretches were 70mph limit.

The picture above is definitely one of the worse ones, but generally I arrived between 5% and 28% lower SoC than Tesla Trip planner predicted. One time it freaked out and told me I won't get there unless I drive 15mph under the limit, even though I charged an additional 20%, but it corrected itself a few minutes later predicting 6%, which ended up about right (even though starting estimate was 28% if I remember correctly). I then started overcharging by 30% when possible, which sucks a little on long legs.

maybe on more challenging route or of course driving faster or more severe weather would make a bigger difference from the estimates. or has the v8 planner improved?? I only did shorter SC road trips with v7 so can't really compare.

This was my first >1 SC trip. On way there I had severe weather, but I think having to drive under speed limit due to weather offset the weather, so experience was very similar (5-28% less SoC than prediceted at SC).

 

[Max*]

I hate that the site redesign months ago cleared all my pictures out. I have the exact opposite. I have one showing me going from 100% down to about 5% and I'm at the gray line (i.e. they're overlapping) and I was going about 10-20mph over the speed limit. BUT it was warmish.

When it's cold, I can go about 10mph over the speed limit and match the line pretty decently.

I have NEVER arrived at 28% below the line. EVER. I have about 30k on my car now, and probably somewhere between 1/2 to 2/3 have been between SpC to SpC

 

[Max*]

Details: Road trip buffer

 

[RogerHScott]

Woodstock, Comber, Maumee

I thought these looked familiar! I've visited those three, in the opposite order. Comber doesn't have a lot to recommend it...

 

[whitex]

I have NEVER arrived at 28% below the line. EVER. I have about 30k on my car now, and probably somewhere between 1/2 to 2/3 have been between SpC to SpC

Maybe there is a difference between your car and mine (your sig only says model S so I cannot compare), battery size, P vs non-P, D vs non-D, etc. What I do know, is that when I entered the correct car, temp and approximate wind in EvTripPlanner, it came very close to what I was using, which was sometimes very different than in car estimates. Also, maybe relevant or not, on the i-90 corridor I drove, AP on v8 seems to think the speed limit is 5-10mph lower than posted (it picks up the sign at 80mph, then after few miles of no signs drops down to 75 or 70mph) - possibly for estimating range it only uses that assumed number. I'd venture to guess that doing 90 instead of 70 can make a significant difference difference.

 

[Max*]

Maybe there is a difference between your car and mine (your sig only says model S so I cannot compare), battery size, P vs non-P, D vs non-D, etc. What I do know, is that when I entered the correct car, temp and approximate wind in EvTripPlanner, it came very close to what I was using, which was sometimes very different than in car estimates.

70D mid-2015

So yes, lots of differences between my car and your car. Could also be east-coast vs. west coast.

I see this discussion pretty often, and there's two camps. One states that the in-car trip planner is perfect. The other states that it's completely unreliable. I'm not sure what the correlation is.

But for me, it's always been good. Sometimes not as good as the picture I screenshoted above (with speed details in the link below it), but if my trip planner came in 28% below estimate - and the weather was average, and I was going about 10mph over the speed limit, I'd be calling Tesla and yelling at them. Now if you had a 50mph headwind, yeah, I can believe that.

There's a website, someone on this forum made it, which shows the head/tail wind, and speed in the in-car browser. I have it bookmarked in my car, I rarely use it though. This might help figure out the huge discrepancies.

 

[whitex]

Details: Road trip buffer

I don't think my car can do 206 miles doing anywhere near 90mph unless it's mostly downhill with a decent tail-wind...

EvTripPlanner tells me the following between Mitchell and Murdo for my car:

Actual distance miles = 138.9
Avg speed = 83
Rated miles used = 221
Segment Wh/m = 478
Up feet = 3310
Down feet = 2395
Energy KWh = 66​

It turned out to be pretty accurate, though I did get impatient a little and left the SC before 100% (next time, I'm charging to 100% for that stretch or any other segment that EvTripPlanner tells me over 200 rated miles needed). The car estimated 28-ish % (I'm reading from the graph) but arrived with 3%, so about 25% less than estimated.

On the bright side, I'm pretty sure my battery cells are balanced now, something I never do but have seen people suggesting doing from time to time (discharge all the way, then charge full).

 

[jerry33]

The Trip Planner is a bit conservative, but that's okay by me.

 

[Max*]

I don't think my car can do 206 miles doing anywhere near 90mph unless it's mostly downhill with a decent tail-wind...

Like I said [north]east-coast vs. west coast. Our speed limits are 55-65mph, and I do 10-20mph over. If I do 90mph, I would not get the above graph.

 

[Kommisar]

A friend and I drove up from the SF Bay Area to Seattle (literally a day after picking up the vehicle from the Fremont factory).

We had no problems at any of the Supercharger stations. The car was usually done charging enough to get to the next station before we were back from grabbing a bite to eat, or drink, or use the bathroom.

It was actually a really nice way to break up a road trip - getting out and stretching your legs every 2-3 hours.

The Caveat is that we never had to wait for a station to be available. I've heard horror stories about going into LA and having to wait at the Tejon Ranch station, for instance.

 

[RogerHScott]

I've heard horror stories about going into LA

You can stop right there

 

[f-stop]

70D mid-2015

So yes, lots of differences between my car and your car. Could also be east-coast vs. west coast. [...]

in my case (ie another where Tesla nav energy estimates seemed fine), 70D, late 2015 - driving up/down the west cost, just this month...
so maybe difference compared to @whitex 's experience is more to do with the cars than geography?

[...]
The Caveat is that we never had to wait for a station to be available. I've heard horror stories about going into LA and having to wait at the Tejon Ranch station, for instance.

of the 18 Supercharger stops I made in my trip, the only one that was full (it had a lineup) was at the Fremont factory. Our factory tour guide said that she thinks most of the people using it are locals.

 

[Electric700]

After driving coast to coast for 4 days, updating as promised. They say a picture is worth a 1000 words, so saving myself some typing As you can see, outside of California the SC picture looks a little different. These are pictures from all superchargers I visited over 4 days (in order from top left).

To answer OP's original question, I actually like the charge-drive-charge cycle, except when I had to charge past 80%, then the charging did get a little long.

PS> Don't trust Tesla trip planner unless you're planning to drive under the speed limit, especially through places with 70 or 80 mph speed limits. Use EVTripPlanner for a much better estimate.

Nice collage of Supercharger photos, Whitex! I would love to go all the way across the country sometime. As of now I've only traveled to a few states in my Model S, but the Supercharger experience was great overall.

 

[whitex]

in my case (ie another where Tesla nav energy estimates seemed fine), 70D, late 2015 - driving up/down the west cost, just this month...
so maybe difference compared to @whitex 's experience is more to do with the cars than geography?

I think it's the speed, as energy usage goes up exponentially with speed. This combined with Tesla's outdated speed limit database for some of the areas line Montana. That and of course some people do drive at or below speed limit - hypermiling can get you hundreds of miles to 1 charge. Just my educated guess. The fact that evtripplanner estimates the energy very close, tells me that it's not just my car or my driving. I just wish Tesla trip planner could do the same, especially that they have real-time data about weather and road closures (but that's another issue altogether).

 

[whitex]

The Trip Planner is a bit conservative, but that's okay by me.
View attachment 200360

Why did you charge to 100% if you had full confidence in the trip planner estimate?

 

[jerry33]

Why did you charge to 100% if you had full confidence in the trip planner estimate?

Mostly because I hadn't charged to 100% for six months, and I wanted to see what the 100% was (292 Ideal miles). It was at home, so it didn't use any driving time.

 

[whitex]

Mostly because I hadn't charged to 100% for six months, and I wanted to see what the 100% was (292 Ideal miles). It was at home, so it didn't use any driving time.

I don't know about you, but I particularly dislike reduced regen (feels like something it wrong with the car), so I avoid charging >95% except when I know I'm heading directly to a highway and I need the range.