Dream energy dash widget

[mattmass]

I know, this is wishful thinking. But I thought maybe others would have opinions here.

90% of my driving is long distance. I need to supercharge at least once, possibly twice based on wind/temps/driving speeds. I have found the trip planner to be extremely helpful and reasonably accurate. But I need to pay attention, at least a bit, to know if I can safely bypass a SC or not.

I would love a much more comprehensive energy usage widget!

- breakdown of driving vs secondary systems (HVAC etc) power
- logarithmic instantaneous power from the pre 7.0 days
- trip planner projections

The first two seem totally doable giving the existing energy widget design. Adding in trip planner projections might be tricky, but I'm sure something is doable. I'd even take just the projected arrival SoC. But I'd prefer a graph.

I get the impression that Tesla wants to demphasize the "special" nature of the car as much as possible. To discourage people from obsessing about range and just drive. I think this is a fine goal. But, range still matters on trips. Just a little more deference to that in the heads up UI would make me a much more satisfied owner.

 

[Stiction]

driving vs secondary too much detail for average joe.

Log power is still there..orange and green...???

Energy graph in trip planner *does* give you SOC at end...even with multi-supercharger route (new in 8.0)....not sure what you are talking about here??

Nav also gives percent at end in the directions list, and if you enable it percent at end of round trip to current destination too.

 

[mattmass]

driving vs secondary too much detail for average joe.

Log power is still there..orange and green...???

Energy graph in trip planner *does* give you SOC at end...even with multi-supercharger route (new in 8.0)....not sure what you are talking about here??

Nav also gives percent at end in the directions list, and if you enable it percent at end of round trip to current destination too.

I'll think I'd need more evidence that breaking down driving vs secondary is actually too much detail. I do agree it feels that way at first. Tesla was willing to break down trip vs daily charging. This is a much more complex concept, and causes considerable confusion, even on this forum. I know this is a different issue, but it does illustrate how willing Tesla is to add considerable UX complexity when they feel it really matters.

The current energy instrument panel gauge is no longer logarithmic. It may not be linear, but it certainly looks that way to my eye. It makes it much more difficult to judge low power usage. For me, this is the majority of my driving. This was discussed quite a bit when 7.0 was released.

I'm, of course, aware of what is available in the navigation app. And the 8.0 changes are welcome. I'd just like some of that info with more heads-up accessibility.

I still think these changes would make for a better intrument cluster behind the wheel. But I can totally see others not being into it.

 

[amallah]

It would be nice to have more options to model out scenarios. I don't care about charge at all on my commute, but on long road trips, I spend a lot of time wondering things like:
"what will be the impact of the speed I drive?"
"what will the impact of how long I charge at this next supercharger"
"what is the effect of internal/external temperature"
"are we including the weight of the contents of the car in these calculations"
"is headwind/tailwind having an effect"

Maybe the computer is taking those things into account, maybe not. Either way, it would be nice to somehow integrate this information into the display.

 

[mattmass]

@amallah those would be fantastic! I'm not certain there's enough screen real estate to fit these all into the dash widget. But, for the energy app on the main screen, I think they would work great. It really would be useful to see a well-thought out visualization of as many factors affecting range as possible.

I'll also just take this quick opportunity to correct myself about the scale on the current energy widget. I was definitely wrong about it being linear. I cannot quite determine what the scale actually is. There are ticks at -50, 0, 75, 150, 300. So, I cannot really say what's going on, other than I found the power UI from 6.0 (and earlier) to be far superior and really miss it.

 

[Chopr147]

Personally I like to keep it simple. "destination arrival of 18%" is good to have and I have found to be very accurate. I continuously look at the "last 5 mile" display for energy usage. I can understand some people wanting more I guess, but i'm a just drive it kind 'a guy

 

[mattmass]

Personally I like to keep it simple. "destination arrival of 18%" is good to have and I have found to be very accurate. I continuously look at the "last 5 mile" display for energy usage. I can understand some people wanting more I guess, but i'm a just drive it kind 'a guy

I also really love the destination SoC. 8.0 moving to the nav screen was a real improvement. But, you wouldn't appreciate even just that on the widget? I find it far less distracting to just glance at the instrument cluster than the main screen.

 

[scottm]

After a while, you just get to "know" how different factors affect the draw on the battery and will impact range. Most are within your control.

Some aren't: headwind, altitude change, temperature swings... which can affect range a lot. You can use other EV trip planner Apps on your phone that try to take these things into account, or enter as variables, to give better predictions.

I think this will all come home if Tesla sells enough cars collect big data, analyzing it in real time and feeding the data back to the fleet... Teslas that have driven the stretch in front of you 30 minutes ago will provided the data to give your range estimator a better idea of what to tell you.