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Charging along east coast trip to Washington,DC
- Thread starter mileszat
- Start date
one of the downsides of road tripping in an EV is the extra time necessary for charging stops.
If you are the type that tries to make a trip in record times by never stopping then taking a trip in your tesla isn't for you.
Many of us enjoy the slower pace enforced by having to make stops every couple of hours, you can get out, use the rest room, strech your legs and just chill for 20-30 minutes during the charge.
If you are the type that tries to make a trip in record times by never stopping then taking a trip in your tesla isn't for you.
Many of us enjoy the slower pace enforced by having to make stops every couple of hours, you can get out, use the rest room, strech your legs and just chill for 20-30 minutes during the charge.
Don't use the navigation system to plan trips. EV Trip Planner shows 7:40 of driving with 0:54 charging at Bloomsburg, PA in an S90.
My experience has been that you should always plan trips ahead of time using either Supercharge.info or EVTripPlanner and don't count on the navigation system to use the optimal route. (87,780 Model S miles driven).
BlueRocket
S90D HW3.0 MCU1 "No FSD 7 years" 2022.8.10.16
Good question.
Driving up and down the east coast, the trip planner rarely takes the optimal route. I've followed it stupidly several times, where I could have saved time and mileage by taking a slightly different route.
On new routes I always have Google maps open right next to the 17" screen. I don't trust the planner at all.
tinm
2020 Model S LR+ Owner
I'm just starting the return half of a trip to the DC araa (2000 mi out, 2000 mi back) today, and was dismayed at the lack of chargers in the DC area. I had to drive all the way out to Laurel MD and charge there to get a real charge as the 3mi/hr trickle from the ordinary AC outlet in the garage at the home where we're staying just wasn't cutting it. I wish metro DC had a charger in Montgomery County MD.
You will find this issued raised repeatedly throughout the archives.
The tesla built in trip planner does not allow what if scenarios, like what if I say at SC#2 longer and have a leisurely lunch... What if I go through city X.
The Tesla trip planner is a combination of a 3rd party navigation software, with Tesla specifics and Google Maps. Sometimes it makes choices that are not optimal.
jamtek
Member
The Mandarin Oriental in DC has a destination charger (Tesla HPWC) and they will leave you hooked up all night so you have a full charge in the morning. Great place to stay and excellent location in the city if you are looking for good accommodations in DC. Great staff and beautiful rooms.
That's a good question. I don't know. But I have had many instances where the Tesla navigation will take a much longer route than necessary, including some where the Tesla route would have left me with inadequate charge to make my destination. It seems to give priority to using highways when much shorter routes on local roads are available, and it seems to give priority to using toll roads, when there are perfectly good non-toll roads available. On long trips, I always have my route planned out on a spreadsheet and have a printed copy. Then I will enter a destination in the Tesla nav and make sure the mileage is what I expect - if not, I adjust accordingly. Planning a route in detail is just so much easier on a computer.
fasteddie7
Active Member
I agree with how navigation takes some odd routes. I typically use google maps to plot my destination, then break it up into smaller trips, pick "landmark" places along routes and navigate to those, which keep me on google's route while allowing me to see estimate energy consumption and remaining.
I've found the nav to work pretty good for long trips. It is usually wrong about arrival times though - it seems to always give longer travel times than reality.
The sites folks have mentioned may help. I'd be interested in a few details though: 1) your model/battery size 2) what was the SOC when you had nav compute a route and 3) what was the route it gave, including charging points and times, and total trip time.
Google maps suggests a direct route of 390->99->15->22->83->695->95.
One issue is that it seems like there are limited superchargers directly along the north portion of your route, unless you can make it to Harrisburg (~266mi) in one shot. But if you can make it to the Bloomsburg supercharger (~219mi), though it's a little off your route (~40mi additional distance) , you should only have to stop once. So that means something like a 1.5 hour delay.
The sites folks have mentioned may help. I'd be interested in a few details though: 1) your model/battery size 2) what was the SOC when you had nav compute a route and 3) what was the route it gave, including charging points and times, and total trip time.
Google maps suggests a direct route of 390->99->15->22->83->695->95.
One issue is that it seems like there are limited superchargers directly along the north portion of your route, unless you can make it to Harrisburg (~266mi) in one shot. But if you can make it to the Bloomsburg supercharger (~219mi), though it's a little off your route (~40mi additional distance) , you should only have to stop once. So that means something like a 1.5 hour delay.
Based on my one trip last fall to the DC area, I agree, although we made out OK. While it is true that there are several hotels in the area with destination chargers, the ones I looked at were much more expensive than the suburban (Arlington) hotel we used, so I decided the substantial extra cost was not necessary or worth it for our trip.
We spent some time looking for Level 2 chargers in the Arlington area one day. The only ones we found near our route that day were some Blink chargers in a mall. I do not have a Blink account and was not able to reach them for a temporary access, so it was not a satisfactory experience. I'd suggest getting a Blink card in advance if that option sounds useful while someone is in the area. Fortunately, we mostly used public transportation and some Uber trips while we were there, so as it happened we were Ok without any local charging.
It happened that the Laurel Supercharger opened while we were in DC. So on the way into the area, we stopped at the "temporary" supercharger at a mall in Bethesda (where there is a Tesla store). We hit Laurel on the way home.
The Montgomery mall used to have an under-powered 2-bay supercharger. It was recently removed. However, they still have a few HPWCs and 14-50 outlets. There are also many hotels and other public charging in the area (including chademo). The Tyson's corner service center has a supercharger that is intended for internal only use, but if you call ahead they will frequently accommodate.
Lastly, don't forget plugshare. Many of us are willing to share our HPWCs.
By the way, for anyone else travelling to DC along the northeast corridor, i wrote a post about my charging experiences that may (or may not) be helpful for your planning...
First long road trip in our Model S
First long road trip in our Model S
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