Charging on Road Trips for Newbie

[scgaskill]

If anything, 85% of 85% (which is 72.25%) might be too optimistic unless you started at 100% and were driving sorta slow!

Sorry, right, it could be optimistic, but not nearly as optimistic as assuming you'll get anywhere near the EPA estimate. I read your reply too quickly and was thinking that my swag was too conservative!

Often non-EVers, when they hear that I bought a Tesla, ask me what the range is. This is a quick way to tell them that if they're considering an EV not to take the EPA estimate as gospel, that these two factors alone account for around a quarter less range than they may be thinking. If they're interested and want to get more specific, then a deeper conversation can be had.

I was just thinking of another analogy, I'm a scuba diver and non-divers ALWAYS ask "how long can you stay down?". There are a ton of variables that affect bottom time but most people in a casual conversation don't want a ton of detail, so we always summarize it and give a range. If they are really interested then I can talk to them about all the variables that affect it, and get into dive physiology, nitrogen absorption, etc.

 

[mborkow]

Sorry, right, it could be optimistic, but not nearly as optimistic as assuming you'll get anywhere near the EPA estimate. I read your reply too quickly and was thinking that my swag was too conservative!

Often non-EVers, when they hear that I bought a Tesla, ask me what the range is. This is a quick way to tell them that if they're considering an EV not to take the EPA estimate as gospel, that these two factors alone account for around a quarter less range than they may be thinking. If they're interested and want to get more specific, then a deeper conversation can be had.

I was just thinking of another analogy, I'm a scuba diver and non-divers ALWAYS ask "how long can you stay down?". There are a ton of variables that affect bottom time but most people in a casual conversation don't want a ton of detail, so we always summarize it and give a range. If they are really interested then I can talk to them about all the variables that affect it, and get into dive physiology, nitrogen absorption, etc.

I’m still too new to my car to give a real world estimate…but if you are using 70% of your battery normally (80% down to 10%) and get 70% of EPA estimate, that would be realistic, I think. But mostly, I meant my post as humor (and how pie in the sky Tesla’s estimates are); it was not intended to critique your post, per se.

 

[scgaskill]

I’m still too new to my car to give a real world estimate…but if you are using 70% of your battery normally (80% down to 10%) and get 70% of EPA estimate, that would be realistic, I think. But mostly, I meant my post as humor (and how pie in the sky Tesla’s estimates are); it was not intended to critique your post, per se.

, no worries.

Yeah, I've had my "vintage" 2014 MS60 for about 4 months and am learning as I go as well. I saw another post asking what users with older models like mine were seeing for battery degradation which led me to charge my car to 100% for the first time and then compare it's estimated range vs the original EPA estimate.

My battery pack has degraded about 7% in 9 years which seems about right compared to the few other replies I've seen. So when I actually "did the math" using my "85% of 85% swag" I factored in degradation as a third variable and it seemed to work out pretty close.

I'm a Sales Engineer by trade and thought this swag was a good conversation starter that was easy for non-EVers to understand. Everybody understands that YMMV, and that no different with EVs, but doesn't hurt to remind them.

And most people don't try to roll into the gas station on fumes, and that's no different for EVs as well, but the consequences for EVs are much more serious. If you run out of gas, you may have to borrow a 2 gallon gas can from a friendly gas station and walk/Uber back to the car,then you're back on the road with a second stop at the gas station to return the gas can and in 5-10 minutes fill the tank. Or call AAA for similar service.

EVs don't have anything like that. It's much more critical to get the car to a charger, any kind of a charger, before running the battery down to zero. It's not like AAA can come to your car with a mobile AC charger or portable battery pack to put in the trunk/frunk to get you to a charger!

Post-COVID not many of my customers are back in the office and doing lunch meetings like like we used to, so I haven't done as much analysis of my battery's real-life range. That's my next science project!

I'm just now starting to get familiar with the Wh/mi usage, what it's telling me, and how my driving style affect this, and how I can adjust things on the fly to squeeze out a bit more range if needed. Up to now, I've just watched my charge percentage. I charge to 90-95% normally and try not to run it down below 10%. That's why I used 85% for my swag, 95% down to 10% to be the effective range.

 

[Rocky_H]

EVs don't have anything like that. It's much more critical to get the car to a charger, any kind of a charger, before running the battery down to zero. It's not like AAA can come to your car with a mobile AC charger or portable battery pack to put in the trunk/frunk to get you to a charger!

That is exactly the service AAA offers. For real. But it's only in some states and regions, so you can't expect it everywhere in the United States.

All the Electric Vehicle Perks That Come with a AAA membership!

Electric vehicles (EVs) are not new to AAA. Over the past decade, we have committed to learning, developing, and servicing EVs as their popularity has grown. We offer a variety of benefits specifically for those interested in EVs.

www.aaa.com

"If you run out of charge, we will come to you and give you enough boost to get you to the nearest charging station or home. The best part – for AAA members, this service is provided at no additional charge."

 

[cusetownusa]

EVs don't have anything like that. It's much more critical to get the car to a charger, any kind of a charger, before running the battery down to zero. It's not like AAA can come to your car with a mobile AC charger or portable battery pack to put in the trunk/frunk to get you to a charger!

With more and more EVs having bidirectional charging, it won’t be long before it will be easier to give someone a boost than walk/Uber to the nearest gas station.

 

[scgaskill]

That is exactly the service AAA offers. For real. But it's only in some states and regions, so you can't expect it everywhere in the United States.

All the Electric Vehicle Perks That Come with a AAA membership!

Electric vehicles (EVs) are not new to AAA. Over the past decade, we have committed to learning, developing, and servicing EVs as their popularity has grown. We offer a variety of benefits specifically for those interested in EVs.

www.aaa.com

"If you run out of charge, we will come to you and give you enough boost to get you to the nearest charging station or home. The best part – for AAA members, this service is provided at no additional charge."

I stand corrected, thanks! I'm a AAA customer since long before getting the MS60 so good to know. I'll definitely check it out. "The times they are a changin'!". But I suspect that it's pretty limited for now.

 

[scgaskill]

I stand corrected, thanks! I'm a AAA customer since long before getting the MS60 so good to know. I'll definitely check it out. "The times they are a changin'!". But I suspect that it's pretty limited for now.

Chicago isn't on the list!

 

[hmadsen]

, no worries.

EVs don't have anything like that. It's much more critical to get the car to a charger, any kind of a charger, before running the battery down to zero. It's not like AAA can come to your car with a mobile AC charger or portable battery pack to put in the trunk/frunk to get you to a charger!

Here they actually do.

They arrive with a generator that can supply the 11KW that the car can accept, and they obviously only charge it enough for you to be able to get to the nearest "real" charger.

If on the motorway, they do often tow it to the nearest charger, but that is because the law states that on motorways they must use the method that is the fastest to get the car away from the breakdown lane. In a petrol/diesel car it is faster to just chug a gallon of fuel in the car compared to towing it, but if the car has just passed an exit then there might be "30 minutes worth of charging" until the next exit / charger, so in that case it is faster to just load it onto a flatbed truck and haul it away.

 

[scgaskill]

That is exactly the service AAA offers. For real. But it's only in some states and regions, so you can't expect it everywhere in the United States.

All the Electric Vehicle Perks That Come with a AAA membership!

Electric vehicles (EVs) are not new to AAA. Over the past decade, we have committed to learning, developing, and servicing EVs as their popularity has grown. We offer a variety of benefits specifically for those interested in EVs.

www.aaa.com

"If you run out of charge, we will come to you and give you enough boost to get you to the nearest charging station or home. The best part – for AAA members, this service is provided at no additional charge."

Here they actually do.

They arrive with a generator that can supply the 11KW that the car can accept, and they obviously only charge it enough for you to be able to get to the nearest "real" charger.

If on the motorway, they do often tow it to the nearest charger, but that is because the law states that on motorways they must use the method that is the fastest to get the car away from the breakdown lane. In a petrol/diesel car it is faster to just chug a gallon of fuel in the car compared to towing it, but if the car has just passed an exit then there might be "30 minutes worth of charging" until the next exit / charger, so in that case it is faster to just load it onto a flatbed truck and haul it away.

Yeah thanks, I'm a AAA member and wasn't aware of that.

But I checked yesterday when Rocky_H also mentioned this and found that they don't offer this in Chicago, only in certain cities, and I'd be curious how many of these vehicles they have in each city and what the wait times might be. See attached. But for ICE cars you can wait a long time too, so not a knock on the EV charging option.

My home charger charges at 9kWh rate so I'm familiar with that speed, though I don't usually sit there and watch it. 11kWh is a bit faster. It'd take a while to get say 10% charge added to get back to a charging station.

It's certainly good that it's an option several, if not all, places.

My point is that "pouring current" into an EV battery, even at SuC charging rates, still takes significantly longer and is more complex than pouring a few gallons of gas into the tank to get to the next gas station and finish filling the tank.

We need to be more careful, it's not as simple as an ICE car running on readily available, easily transportable gasoline. A friend or family member could be called and show up with a 5-gallon gas can easily and for a car that gets 25mpg, fairly typical these days, could pour it in the tank giving 125 miles of range.

How long would it take to get 125 miles of range charging at 11kW? But you wouldn't sit by the side of the road charging at 11kW that long, you'd charge at 11kW to get maybe 10 miles of range to get you to, hopefully a SuC, but maybe a L2 destination charger that might only charge at 6kWh rate.

My 2014 MS60 isn't licenced for SuC, and if you read my other posts you'll see Tesla wants $12K to enable it, so it never will have SuC. So this issue is "near and dear" to my heart! If I misjudge and run my battery down, I'll be stuck for hours slow charging just to get home!

It is what it is, and we all accept that as part of owning an EV.

 

[davewill]

My 2014 MS60 isn't licenced for SuC, and if you read my other posts you'll see Tesla wants $12K to enable it, so it never will have SuC.

They really ought to give up on that silly restriction since they now charge for Supercharging.

 

[scgaskill]

They really ought to give up on that silly restriction since they now charge for Supercharging.

I couldn't agree more. I thought they relented when I recently requested a formal quote to get that $12K in writing and to see if there was any other hardware required. They quoted an $800 battery inspection and told me if it passed the inspection they'd enable SuC, but as PAYG, vs the $12K for FUSC.

I told them a week before the inspection that I wouldn't do the inspection if it would then result in me being told that my battery was fine, now pay us $12K to enable SuC. I told them that AFAIK the car had NEVER been licensed for SuC. I dropped off the car last Tuesday at 8:30am.

They didn't even START looking at it until Thursday at 4:00pm, then they promptly realized that, the car WASNT a salvage car that lost SuC (nobody ever said it was!) and that it really WOULD COST $12K to enable SuC, sorry, there's NO PAYG option for my car and other like mine!

 

[scgaskill]

And before I even bought the car, I had them inspect it, and when I asked THEN, I was told it would cost $2500 to enable SuC NOT $12K! So I bought the car thinking that if I decided I needed it, after some time getting familiar with it and it's range, I could add SuC for $2.5K. Now that I own the car the price has been jacked up nearly 5X!!!

 

[scgaskill]

So while they are actively trying to get others to trade in their older models with FUSC, for me, that's the ONLY option they give me! WTF!?!?!?!?

 

[Rocky_H]

My 2014 MS60 isn't licenced for SuC, and if you read my other posts you'll see Tesla wants $12K to enable it, so it never will have SuC. So this issue is "near and dear" to my heart! If I misjudge and run my battery down, I'll be stuck for hours slow charging just to get home!

I decided when I got my car back in 2014 that I was just NEVER EVER going to be "that guy" whose Tesla ran out of energy and got stuck by the side of the road. I didn't want to give a black eye to the electric car movement, so I would make sure that never happened. And you can. It just takes paying attention and being careful. You can do some annoyingly slow driving if you must, but it will make sure you don't run completely out.

So while they are actively trying to get others to trade in their older models with FUSC, for me, that's the ONLY option they give me! WTF!?!?!?!?

Well, yeah, I told you in that other thread you need to keep asking around to managers at other service centers until you find someone who has been there long enough to have some experience and knows what they are talking about. Tesla definitely is NOT authorizing any new cars to have permanent FUSC, so I'm pretty sure that $12,000 price isn't really valid, because they just won't do that. It should be something like $2500 or so for the pay as you go option, and there is someone, somewhere to knows how to set that up and get it done. You just need to pursue that with other places to find someone who can do it.

 

[scgaskill]

I decided when I got my car back in 2014 that I was just NEVER EVER going to be "that guy" whose Tesla ran out of energy and got stuck by the side of the road. I didn't want to give a black eye to the electric car movement, so I would make sure that never happened. And you can. It just takes paying attention and being careful. You can do some annoyingly slow driving if you must, but it will make sure you don't run completely out.


Well, yeah, I told you in that other thread you need to keep asking around to managers at other service centers until you find someone who has been there long enough to have some experience and knows what they are talking about. Tesla definitely is NOT authorizing any new cars to have permanent FUSC, so I'm pretty sure that $12,000 price isn't really valid, because they just won't do that. It should be something like $2500 or so for the pay as you go option, and there is someone, somewhere to knows how to set that up and get it done. You just need to pursue that with other places to find someone who can do it.

Thanks Rocky. Yeah, as much as we might hate to admit it, running out of battery is a much bigger issue for us than for ICE drivers out of gas. The AAA mobile charger option is a great start but it's in its early stages and not available everywhere. We just have to be more careful.

I did go to a second SC as a "sanity check" and they first told me, in person, that the $12K FUSC option was all that is available. It was only when, a week later, I asked to get it in writing that the nitwits came up with the Battery Inspection / Re-enabling SuC option for my car that I told them had never had SuC AFAIK, but they convinced themselves that maybe my car was a salvage car that had lost SuC and needed it back - NOBODY ever said it was! They just made that up from thin air!

Tomorrow I'm back at the SC because the HomeLink I bought off eBay won't pair with the Tesla. I pointed out that they enabled the HL HW module but didn't enable the SW license, the mobile app still says "No Homelink" under "specs and warranty", and maybe, like every other SW licensed feature, the programming is checking that license and finding I'm not licensed, it times out. It'd be nice if it posted a descriptive error but it doesn't.

The opener is now paired with my two Hyundai's (with the HL in the rear view mirror) and a MyQ hub. I spoke with Homelink and they said to talk to Tesla, that the software runs on the MCU it is not programmed into the module itself.

Tesla SC suggested that the location of the module, not in the missing bracket, was causing the opener signal to be blocked by the bumper. The only problem with that theory is that the programming never gets far enough to prompt me to stand in front of the car with my remote so the module can learn the code from the remote!

I even took the HL module out of the body and set it on the top of the engine compartment next to the frunk latch, nothing but air between it and the opener! It doesn't matter, it's not getting to the point of trying to learn the code and pair with the opener.

The SM said it'd be a lot easier to troubleshoot it if I brought it back in so they could connect it up and look at the logs/alerts whatever, and that they have an opener that they can try to program it with. I'm sure they will leave the SW unlicensed and blame the used module. Id like to see the SW enabled and see if it will then program.

It'd be different if it prompted me to use my remote and then timed out without learning the code from the remote, indicating a weak battery or faulty module. Or if it learned the code from the remote but then couldn't pair with the opener, indicating a problem with the module of some type.

They mentioned there being multiple revisions. I asked them which ones my car and MCU SW supported but he couldn't tell me. It was sold as being for 2012 to 2016 MS's and I have the part number of the module. I will check the service site to see if I can find the module P/N and confirm it's the right part.

 

[scgaskill]

Thanks Rocky. Yeah, as much as we might hate to admit it, running out of battery is a much bigger issue for us than for ICE drivers. The AAA mobile charger option is a great start but it's in its early stages.

I did go to a second SC as a "sanity check" and they first told me, in person, that the $12K FUSC option was all that is available. It was only when, a week later, I asked to get it in writing that the nitwits came up with the Battery Inspection / Re-enabling SuC option for my car that I told them had never had SuC AFAIK, but they convinced themselves that maybe my car was a salvage car that had lost SuC and needed it back - NOBODY ever said it was! They just made that up from thin air!

Tomorrow I'm back at the SC because the HomeLink I bought off eBay won't pair with the Tesla. I pointed out that they enabled the HL HW module but didn't enable the SW license, the mobile app still says "No Homelink" under "specs and warranty", and maybe, like every other SW licensed feature, the programming is checking that license and finding I'm not licensed, it times out. It'd be nice if it posted a descriptive error but it doesn't.

The opener is now paired with my two Hyundai's (with the HL in the rear view mirror) and a MyQ hub. I spoke with Homelink and they said to talk to Tesla, that the software runs on the MCU it is not programmed into the module itself.

Tesla SC suggested that the location of the module, not in the missing bracket, was causing the opener signal to be blocked by the bumper. The only problem with that theory is that the programming never gets far enough to prompt me to stand in front of the car with my remote so the module can learn the code from the remote!

I even took the HL module out of the body and set it on the top of the engine compartment next to the frunk latch, nothing but air between it and the opener! It doesn't matter, it's not getting to the point of trying to learn the code and pair with the opener.

The SM said it'd be a lot easier to troubleshoot it if I brought it back in so they could connect it up and look at the logs/alerts whatever, and that they have an opener that they can try to program it with. I'm sure they will leave the SW unlicensed and blame the used module. Id like to see the SW enabled and see if it will then program.

It'd be different if it prompted me to use my remote and then timed out without learning the code from the remote, indicating a weak battery or faulty module. Or if it learned the code from the remote but then couldn't pair with the opener, indicating a problem with the module of some type.

They mentioned there being multiple revisions. I asked them which ones my car and MCU SW supported but he couldn't tell me. It was sold as being for 2012 to 2016 MS's and I have the part number of the module. I will check the service site to see if I can find the module P/N and confirm it's the right part.

The service manual for 2012-2020 S's shows the P/N of my HL module, 1005371 as being set to gen1 in the gateway config.

 

[Rocky_H]

It was only when, a week later, I asked to get it in writing that the nitwits came up with the Battery Inspection / Re-enabling SuC option for my car that I told them had never had SuC AFAIK, but they convinced themselves that maybe my car was a salvage car that had lost SuC and needed it back - NOBODY ever said it was! They just made that up from thin air!

Well, sort of. It's not exactly made up out of thin air. It comes of Tesla having grown so fast. Most of the people there have only been there a few years, and they have no earthly idea that Tesla EVER had any cars that DIDN'T have Supercharging. So they think all of them had it to begin with, and the only way for a car to not have it now is because it lost it through an accident and salvage title. They don't know that things were different 10 years ago and Tesla sold cars where Supercharging capability was optional. Because this is really old stuff. Literally when that S60 ended in about 2015(?), that was the last one of their cars that could be bought without Supercharging.

So this will take some doing finding a longtimer who understands this and can figure out how to apply the right solution. And actually, this might not start from your local service center. We've seen before where owners are dealing with clueless newbies at their local service center that if someone can talk with an old service manage at another service center who understands it, they can get the service code of what the real solution is that needs to be applied. And then armed with that information, you can go back to the service center and present them with that work item# and have them look it up to know what really needs to be done.

I think this might be worth creating a new thread in the Model S charging section to ask this specific question: Now today, in 2024, can someone find out what the actual work code is to enable Supercharging on an old 2013 S60? It's most likely not the $12,000 one, and it's definitely not the high voltage inspection thing for salvage cars. It's got to be something else.