Do you trust the navigation charging schedule?

[ℬête Noire]

I took a long road trip over the Thanksgiving week this year (LA to Nashville and back) in my LR 3. The distance between superchargers from Minor to Springfield Mo. is 240 miles. I charged to 100% at Minor. On the way to Springfield we caught the south-end of winter storm that was hitting well to the north. The temps were below 30 and there was some freezing rain. We went from an expected 12% charge remaining to a "keep speed below 55" warning with nearly 100 miles to go. Around that time a semi doing between 70-75 passed me. I jumped in behind him and followed him at 70+ until about 4 miles to the supercharger in Springfield. Pulled in with 4 miles remaining. My wife was a good sport about it calling it "an adventure." Truth is, I was so stressed about it and became fixated on "making it" that it didn't even occur to me to just search for an alternative charging option. That was stupid but in hindsight, it's part of my paradigm shift of driving ICEs to driving (and surviving) EVs.

Freezing temps do up the stakes a lot.

Yes, with a co-pilot to search plugshare.com it is a lot easier. You can [safely] locate some Plan B options without having to pull over. Spouse had never used it before so it was a learning experience. We had L2 options to be sure. About 40ish miles out I was feeling confident about having 2-3 miles buffer to work, this wasn't my first rodeo. However she'd located two L2 places and I was going to turn off because she was feeling the pressure a lot more than me. Only I miss read the road and missed the turn. It would have been about 2 miles extra driving, due to a divided highway that was fully split apart at that point. That's something of a risk of diverting for an L2, when you're cutting it close already turning off generally becomes a commitment to the new option due to slow-down/speed-up loses.

We passed another L2 turn-off option a little further down the highway but by then the spouse was more willing to just let me run with the initial plan. If we made it we made it, if I ran out of charge she'd have something to hold over me for years? Win-win I guess, right?

 

[ℬête Noire]

The car scheduled 1 60 minute stop with us arriving with 5% battery. We ignored that and went with 2 thirty minute stops and arrived with 12% battery. Not knowing the car, I wasn’t sure if I needed to second guess the range. And I didn’t mind the extra stop since I was traveling to my mother in law’s house and was in no hurry to get there.

And a small rant for today, at the Vancouver Supercharger I couldn’t get a spot because half the stalls were occupied with non Tesla vehicles.

1) Good call. No big loss, the in-car trip planner does seem to be unnecessarily biased towards skipping SC if it can. On the upside it is good about identifying time/mile saving gaps to bypass portions of the network grid.
2) Is it one of those SC with some of the stalls as "general parking for 30 minutes"? My understanding is those get used when the SC gets located in an existing parking lot that local regulations require a certain number of stalls, and stalls 100% dedicated to Tesla use don't count towards meeting the minimum requirement.

 

[BeccaM3]

1) Good call.
2) Is it one of those SC with some of the stalls as "general parking for 30 minutes"? My understanding is those get used when the SC gets located in an existing parking lot that local regulations require a certain number of stalls, and stalls 100% dedicated to Tesla use don't count towards meeting the minimum requirement.

I'm almost positive it's dedicated Tesla parking only.

 

[ℬête Noire]

I'm almost positive it's dedicated Tesla parking only.

So it was just people feeling it was a good place to park their ICE car?

 

[BeccaM3]

So it was just people feeling it was a good place to park their ICE car?

Yes. The SC is in a corner of a Fred Meyer lot and it was very busy from holiday shoppers. They took the Tesla spots rather than drive around and find a vacant spot. I bet if you pulled it up right now on the app it would show half of the spots open because ICE vehicles have parked there and blocked the chargers. At least that's what it was like an hour ago.

 

[TT97]

Yes. The SC is in a corner of a Fred Meyer lot and it was very busy from holiday shoppers. They took the Tesla spots rather than drive around and find a vacant spot. I bet if you pulled it up right now on the app it would show half of the spots open because ICE vehicles have parked there and blocked the chargers. At least that's what it was like an hour ago.

So, how do we charge them idle fees?

 

[ℬête Noire]

So, how do we charge them idle fees?

Yes. You just need one of those new Square merchant attachments for your phone, pictured below, to collect payment.

On a more serious note, it is the owner of the lot that would be in charge of making enforcement decisions about towing etc, not Tesla themselves, if it's located in the corner of a non-dedicated lot? They probably aren't too much in the mood for doing that during the Christmas rush.

 

[stonelance]

I was under the impression that the nav range estimates don't account for altitude gain at all, so that can also lead to inaccurate estimates. Is that true?

 

[dweeks]

I was under the impression that the nav range estimates don't account for altitude gain at all, so that can also lead to inaccurate estimates. Is that true?

Not so. Altitude change IS figured into the range estimate. Plot a drive from Phoenix to Flagstaff and look at the energy usage as you go down into and then up out of the Verde Valley.

 

[dhrivnak]

Generally I find the navigation to be accurate with the exception of charging time as often the nav says to charge for an hour but normally by 40 minutes we are done.

That said cold, rain and headwinds can significantly affect range so remain aware.

 

[longshot49]

Long range trips : evtriplanner

 

[Aieukl378]

I always found the Nav "charge level upon arrival" estimate very accurate but as stated by others, when the conditions are less then ideal not so much. As a back up range estimator you'll want to use the Energy graph(App Launcher>Energy) as it will give you a real time range estimate based on your recent driving(last 5, 15 or 30 miles). For instance, If you're traveling in the winter with a head wind or driving though a mountainous area it will average your battery usage and give you a total projected range estimate based on your miles driven in those conditions. Very helpful.

 

[israndy]

The one thing I didn't see people mention is that the car learns your driving so estimates from a drive the first week I had my car were wildly different than a few months into owning it. NOW I trust it, I have even come to trust arriving with 3% as an estimate. That's still 12 miles or so and Elon has explained that when the range indicator hits zero you still have 15 miles that you can use w/o issue. That means they are not expecting YOU to be responsible to protect the batteries if you drive it to zero you are still not in the bad battery range.

I have yet to drive the battery that low, but checking in on TezLab it appears a lot of you do that regularly. As was said previously if things change the car will let you know to slow down. The estimate for recharging always seems high, many times I am getting food and the car is texting me it's ready to go again. I think the reason the estimate is so high is to account for a bunch of cars getting in the way of you charging immediately. "Hard to know the future is"

I do tend to not charge very long at a charger if we are at Fred Meyer's the wife will shop. Otherwise, 50% (150+ miles) is enough and I am ready to get back out there, so 15-20 minutes at a charger is a long time. I also like to leave the car at a Volta or hotel charger overnight, cause I pay for Supercharging. And there is a LOT of free charging in Columbia SC

-Randy

 

[clostridium]

The one thing I didn't see people mention is that the car learns your driving so estimates from a drive the first week I had my car were wildly different than a few months into owning it. NOW I trust it, I have even come to trust arriving with 3% as an estimate. That's still 12 miles or so and Elon has explained that when the range indicator hits zero you still have 15 miles that you can use w/o issue. That means they are not expecting YOU to be responsible to protect the batteries if you drive it to zero you are still not in the bad battery range.

I have yet to drive the battery that low, but checking in on TezLab it appears a lot of you do that regularly. As was said previously if things change the car will let you know to slow down. The estimate for recharging always seems high, many times I am getting food and the car is texting me it's ready to go again. I think the reason the estimate is so high is to account for a bunch of cars getting in the way of you charging immediately. "Hard to know the future is"

I do tend to not charge very long at a charger if we are at Fred Meyer's the wife will shop. Otherwise, 50% (150+ miles) is enough and I am ready to get back out there, so 15-20 minutes at a charger is a long time. I also like to leave the car at a Volta or hotel charger overnight, cause I pay for Supercharging. And there is a LOT of free charging in Columbia SC

-Randy

Are you sure that it learns the driving style and updated the estimates? If you are referencing the Nav system updating your expected arrival battery SOC based on your driving on the route that is true. If you are referencing the range the car displays above the battery icon on the left side of the screen that is not the case based on what I’ve seen on these forums in the past 18 months. That range is not changed based on driving style. It changes only based on battery degradation and temporarily based on cold battery that has transient range loss when you see the snowflake icon.

 

[Matt L]

The car scheduled 1 60 minute stop with us arriving with 5% battery. We ignored that and went with 2 thirty minute stops and arrived with 12% battery. Not knowing the car, I wasn’t sure if I needed to second guess the range. And I didn’t mind the extra stop since I was traveling to my mother in law’s house and was in no hurry to get there.

And a small rant for today, at the Vancouver Supercharger I couldn’t get a spot because half the stalls were occupied with non Tesla vehicles.

This is something Tesla needs to get active on. If we all went and EV’d a gas station in the middle of nowhere and didn’t allow the use of gas pumps, you can bet the police and tow trucks would show up in short order.

Tesla needs to reevaluate the status of the land it is setting these superchargers up on. Whatever the status, they need it to be where towing and fines are enforced.

 

[notAnExpert]

... Also, very briefly, the car flashed a needs service warning, unable to charge. The warning lasted for maybe 10 seconds and went away. It charged without issue when we stopped an hour later. Should I look into this?

I had a similar experience. I posted at Anyone familiar with "Service required. Unable to charge." message? . It may be harmless, but it is easy enough to have Tesla Service Center folks remotely take a look at your car’s logs. Good luck and congrats on the new car.

 

[israndy]

And don't forget to say "Bug Report" to the Tesla when you see that so it timestamps your logs and prevents them from being purged before Tesla can look.

-Randy

 

[stonelance]

As for nav charging schedule, I just drove back home ~350 miles. Started with ~85% charge, nav said I would be at 29% SOC when reaching the supercharger I had set as the destination. Arrived with 13% left. I drove about 6-10 mph over the speed limit, and the journey was over a mountain pass with temps down to 20F. No rain, but the car was also pretty dirty (with aero covers on). So make sure to leave a pretty good buffer unless you plan to drive slow.

 

[BeccaM3]

I had a similar experience. I posted at Anyone familiar with "Service required. Unable to charge." message? . It may be harmless, but it is easy enough to have Tesla Service Center folks remotely take a look at your car’s logs. Good luck and congrats on the new car.

Thank you. That's exactly what the car did. I sent a message to service but have not heard back.