DC to Cali Trip

[Herroweric]

Hey everyone,

My wife and I will be driving from Washington, DC to Irvine, CA and will be taking this particular route attached.

We will be driving through Knoxville, Nashville, Memphis, Little Rock, Oklahoma City, Amarillo, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, flagstaff, Vegas into Cali.

Would love to meet other TMC members if anyone happens to be on the road or at a supercharger.

Will be posting updates and see how the car does with a roof box attached.

 

[Silicon Desert]

Nice. I've been along that route lately. It used to be the "Black hole route" where is was almost impossible to get from Memphis to Oklahoma City with super chargers alone. Fortunately, parts of that hole have been plugged lately. Easier to do with just supercharging now.

 

[DavidAsheville]

Enjoy!

 

[Earl]

I definitely want to hear how it goes with the roof box on the Y. Look forward to your report.
I did similar trip a couple of years ago (Hampton Roads, VA to LAX) I pushed it hard and made it in 3 days, in time for a 5:00 pm meeting near LAX. I doubt I'll push so hard if I do it again but, with Ozark and Van Buren, AR open, it should be even easier than when I had to detour almost to Dallas.
Have fun. Maybe even stop by Meteor Crater, Petrified Forest, and the Grand Canyon on your way through.

 

[Vagabond]

Nice looking ride. I am about to head from Texas to New Hampshire myself in a few weeks and I am really looking forward to the trip. I will be curious to see how the roof box impacts range. Keep us updated and I hope you have safe travels!!!

 

[everydaychris]

LOLLL. Bruh. I thought my CA to oregon was gonna be intense. You going across ALL the states haha

 

[Johnny Vector]

I definitely want to hear how it goes with the roof box on the Y. Look forward to your report.
I did similar trip a couple of years ago (Hampton Roads, VA to LAX) I pushed it hard and made it in 3 days, in time for a 5:00 pm meeting near LAX. I doubt I'll push so hard if I do it again but, with Ozark and Van Buren, AR open, it should be even easier than when I had to detour almost to Dallas.
Have fun. Maybe even stop by Meteor Crater, Petrified Forest, and the Grand Canyon on your way through.

Also Lowell Observatory! When I was living there as a child there was no visitor center or anything. Now there's a whole series of stargazing events (outdoors, of course!) and things. It's only a couple miles off your route. (As is Meteor Crater, which is the kind of place that looks sorta-cool in photos but when you actually see it in person and imagine the ka-boom, hoo boy...)

I'm imagining taking some long MY trips out thattaway (from Bowie) when I retire in the not too distant future, so I'll be following this thread closely. Have a great trip!

 

[BrianBigNFun]

one way or round trip? If round trip, taking a different route back?

 

[Blkice]

I would be interested in your total supercharger costs if you keep track of that. Good luck and have fun

 

[Big Earl]

Enjoy! I'm heading to Seattle via Custer, SD in about three weeks in our Model 3. Consider joining the Superchargers Visited game/competition.

Wiki - Superchargers Visited

**** NOTE: We have transitioned to a new platform **** More Info: Supercharging.Life database This is a friendly contest for Tesla owners to track the number of unique public Superchargers where they have charged - "Supercharger count" is the number of unique public Superchargers where you...

teslamotorsclub.com

 

[D.E.]

Hey everyone,

My wife and I will be driving from Washington, DC to Irvine, CA and will be taking this particular route attached.

We will be driving through Knoxville, Nashville, Memphis, Little Rock, Oklahoma City, Amarillo, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, flagstaff, Vegas into Cali.

Would love to meet other TMC members if anyone happens to be on the road or at a supercharger.

Will be posting updates and see how the car does with a roof box attached.

That roof box will severely affect your range. I’d suggest you do a trial run and check before going on that long trip. If you must use the roof box, you can reduce your speed to 55 and see if that makes the range acceptable. As I’m sure you know most of the energy of highway travel is spent simply moving air out of the way. Air resistance goes up as the square of the velocity so speed reduction is important. That roof box is a sail and even though it looks aerodynamic it’s going to severely increase the drag. I’d love to be wrong about this. If you do the trial run, please let me know the results and what you decide.

 

[Big Earl]

That roof box will severely affect your range. I’d suggest you do a trial run and check before going on that long trip. If you must use the roof box, you can reduce your speed to 55 and see if that makes the range acceptable. As I’m sure you know most of the energy of highway travel is spent simply moving air out of the way. Air resistance goes up as the square of the velocity so speed reduction is important. That roof box is a sail and even though it looks aerodynamic it’s going to severely increase the drag. I’d love to be wrong about this. If you do the trial run, please let me know the results and what you decide.

A cross-country trip at 55 MPH? That sounds miserable. I'd rather spend a little extra time charging.

 

[D.E.]

Here is a Consumer Reports article about fuel economy with a roof rack and roof box installed. Their sedan had a 19% gas mileage hit at 65 MPH. That car was a 2019 Nissan Altima which has a drag coefficient of 0.26. Your Y has a drag coefficient of 0.23. If you assume the same carrier on both cars, that rooftop box will have more of an effect on your car, because your car starts off with less drag and more efficiently moves through the air. The relative increase in drag will be greater. There may be other factors as well, such as the gap under the cartop carrier and that effect on the air passage over the car.

So I’d probably assume a 25% or so reduction of range at 65 mph.

Do you think there’s any way to avoid the use of the cartop carrier?

That CR article: How Rooftop Carriers Affect Fuel Economy for Cars and SUVs

 

[D.E.]

A cross-country trip at 55 MPH? That sounds miserable. I'd rather spend a little extra time charging.

You are absolutely right. It’d be nice to pack everything inside somehow, leave that cartop box at home, and go 70.

 

[Big Earl]

You are absolutely right. It’d be nice to pack everything inside somehow, leave that cartop box at home, and go 70.

I don't really see the need to make that sacrifice in anything other than a standard range Y. The long range should have plenty of range to make typical 110 mile Supercharger hops without charging over 70%, without slowing down and without removing the roof box.

Kyle from Out of Spec Motoring took a long trip with a roof box on his Model 3 Performance and was pleasantly surprised by how little it impacted his range. The impact, of course, depends on the style and size of roof box and some other factors.

Here is episode 1 of his video series involving the roof box:

The roof box makes its cameo appearance in episode 2:

 

[D.E.]

That box pictured in your post looks a little more aerodynamic than the one pictured in the original post for this thread. Look, I’m not arguing with you, just suggesting he test his rig before embarking on a long trip where a reduction of range might be an important factor.

 

[D.E.]

Here’s a Youtube video that shows a much more severe impact on range with the cartop carrier.

 

[TNIrish]

Hey everyone,

My wife and I will be driving from Washington, DC to Irvine, CA and will be taking this particular route attached.

We will be driving through Knoxville, Nashville, Memphis, Little Rock, Oklahoma City, Amarillo, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, flagstaff, Vegas into Cali.

Would love to meet other TMC members if anyone happens to be on the road or at a supercharger.

Will be posting updates and see how the car does with a roof box attached.

That sounds like an amazing trip! I'm in Knoxville and my parents will probably be making a similar trip in a year or so, so they will be curious to see how your trip goes

 

[saltsman]

If you didn't already own the roof box, I'd suggest a rear hitch box. They're quite a bit more efficient being tucked down below the slipstream.

StowAway Cargo Carriers - Versatility in Action.

How many times have you wished you had more space for your road trip? Packing up for a road trip requires careful planning - how much to take and where to put it.

www.stowaway2.com

 

[Johnny Vector]

If you didn't already own the roof box, I'd suggest a rear hitch box. They're quite a bit more efficient being tucked down below the slipstream.

StowAway Cargo Carriers - Versatility in Action.

How many times have you wished you had more space for your road trip? Packing up for a road trip requires careful planning - how much to take and where to put it.

www.stowaway2.com

How much does that get in the way of the rear camera?