AWESOME! My next trip is going to be sooooo much fun! Wonderful to be able to take the Tesla this time, instead of renting a crappy ICE.
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Eastern Canada Superchargers
- Thread starter Doug_G
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- Canada Supercharging
AWESOME! My next trip is going to be sooooo much fun! Wonderful to be able to take the Tesla this time, instead of renting a crappy ICE.
RichardC
Cdn Sig & Solar Supporter
This is great news, New York, Boston, Washington and Florida are now all easily accessible!
Peter_M
Member
Yup, timing is great for my drive to Florida in 2 weeks. 13 supercharger stops and NO L2 charging! Total time from Ottawa to Orlando including driving and charging should be just over 30 hours vs. about 21 for an ICE. 5 1/2 hrs of the difference is the 13 charging stops, and the rest is the longer route via I-95 rather than I-81 for the first part. I'm not complaining - it's still a 3 day trip and it'll be so nice to go superchargers all the way. In a few places I can even skip over some SCs because they're close enough - Edison NJ and Bethesda MD. It even turns out that the place we're staying has an L2 charging station - not planned, just a bonus.
Depeche Mode
Member
Almost... from Montréal, there's either Plattsburgh / South Burlington missing + White River junction and we're in business! (at least for Boston)
I've been trying unsuccessfully to find evidence of a permit for the White River Junction area. It does appear from two Tesla Motors communications that the location will be in West Lebanon, NH (across the river from White River Junction, VT).
Depeche Mode
Member
I'm good with West Lebanon... hope it'll be done by the end of summer!
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It would be great if you would give us info about your Florida trip (SC that you used, average energy used if possible for some stretch, etc.). I personally want to do the trip for the next holiday period and it would be great to have some heads up! Thanks in advance
Peter_M
Member
It would be great if you would give us info about your Florida trip (SC that you used, average energy used if possible for some stretch, etc.). I personally want to do the trip for the next holiday period and it would be great to have some heads up! Thanks in advance
Sure, I'll report back when I return. I guess the easiest way to collect data is to take a picture of the dashboard including clock, trip odometer and SOC before and after each charging session; the trick is remembering to do it every time
. I have a spreadsheet where I enter the time and distance between SCs (from Google Maps), and fiddle with the time spent charging at each SC and it calculates the battery level (in rated km and %) when arriving at and leaving each SC. It reflects the taper as the battery charges (using data from mochouinard), and it uses two consumption rates, for "cold" and "warm" climates. On the road, I'll use the car's trip energy calculator (if I'm following the route the Nav chooses), but the spreadsheet is a useful planning guide. I can share it if people are interested - it's basic but could be helpful for others planning a long SC trip.
Kalud
Active Member
Peter and Depeche Mode, I did the trip last August. I made a very precise spreadsheet with leg time, charging time etc and finally stopped using at the second supercharger. It's a lot simpler than you think it is. You just charge for the distance to next SC + buffer. Since I was heavy (6 humans + luggages for 1 month + 2 strollers + a Thule box on the roof), I used a factor of 1.3.
Next SC 100mi away -> leaving when Rated available is 130. Every one get back in the car and buckle up when there is 10mi left to charge.
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I'd like to add, it's was fun doing the spreadsheet and approximating the SC charging curve to get a function like time needed if state of charge = x. Planning is part of the whole trip and it should give you good estimate of time needed. We ended up driving 24h (left a Friday night) and got an hotel at Santee, and drive the last stretch the next morning.
We enjoyed it and will do it again next summer.
Think about tire rotation before leaving.
Next SC 100mi away -> leaving when Rated available is 130. Every one get back in the car and buckle up when there is 10mi left to charge.
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I'd like to add, it's was fun doing the spreadsheet and approximating the SC charging curve to get a function like time needed if state of charge = x. Planning is part of the whole trip and it should give you good estimate of time needed. We ended up driving 24h (left a Friday night) and got an hotel at Santee, and drive the last stretch the next morning.
We enjoyed it and will do it again next summer.
Think about tire rotation before leaving.
mnx
2018 M3P
For Washington I wouldn't exactly call it easy. From Hamilton, ON I can drive straight to Washington DC in my ICE and it's 723km. If I have to drive Hamilton -> Kingston -> Utica -> NJ -> Albany ... -> Washington (to follow the SC route) it's 1315km. Once Comber, ON is online it will actually be shorter to go that way! (1132km).
At least once Erie, PA and Buffalo, NY Superchagers are in it will cut it down to a respectable 848km. That I would call easy.
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Depeche Mode
Member
Sure, I'll report back when I return. I guess the easiest way to collect data is to take a picture of the dashboard including clock, trip odometer and SOC before and after each charging session; the trick is remembering to do it every time
That would be fantastic!
Keep us posted!
Peter_M
Member
Yes, the spreadsheet is partly just for fun and partly so that next time I plan a trip, I'll know whether doing a spreadsheet in advance is worth the effort for working out what route to take, which SCs to skip, etc. I'll probably find as you did that it's not necessary for a SC-only trip. But if there are L2 charging stops along the way, minimizing the time there is worth a bit of effort, and before Utica came online, I had one L2 stop in the list.
Here's the spreadsheet - let me know if you have questions on how it works.
View attachment Florida trip plan.xlsx
Depeche Mode
Member
Kalud
Active Member
Feel free to share infos of your trip!
I did:
Left Montreal in the afternoon
Albany (Had dinner there on a Friday night, good mall with food court)
Hamilton Marketplace (during the night, everything closed)
Newark (on the highway, food and "gas" stop)
Woodbridge
Glen Allen (nice spot for Lunch time)
Rocky Mount (lots of hotel there, stayed overnight on our way back then straight to Montreal...)
Lumberton (lots of food / shopping)
Santee (lots of hotels, stayed overnight)
Savannah (its at the airport, follow direction for Economy Parking, take ticket to get in, then get ticket inside to get out, its free for Tesla, just show your key / smartphone app)
St. Augustine (this could cost you a bit if your wife like shopping... You're warned)
Port Orange (best picture taken there with a palm tree)
Orlando (wasn't open, charged at hotel overnight)
Best advice I could give you, arrive near 0% at each superchargers. You'll charge much faster and then only charge for the strict minimum you need including a small buffer (in case of a surprise strong head wind, rain, etc). Adjust speed based on the Estimated range on the graph (set to average). I started at the posted speed limit and then increased speed a bit during the last half of each waypoints. I never had to go under the speed limit.
- Avoid Edison if possible (depending of time of the day, could be intense traffic)
- Avoid Bethesda, only a "temporary two stalls unit limited to 90 kW)
- To save time, if temperature is not too harsh, try skipping Paramus or Hamilton Marketplace. Just don't do both its a waste of time IMHO. I thing Albany - Paramus - Newark is the way to go in current temperatures.
The first time I did a road trip in my Roadster, I meticulously planned it using a spreadsheet along with the efficiency curves published by Tesla.
The second time I hopped in the car and drove.
(Mind you at the time the only thing available for charging was the rare campground NEMA 14-50 and hotel 110V plugs, so some caution was in order!)
Peter_M
Member
Thanks - I was planning to skip Edison and Bethesda, but maybe I can skip one more. And I may shrink my buffer if the weather's good and I find I'm not cutting it too close.
Depeche Mode
Member
With your experience, would you rather go for the 90% for each stop (therefore longer in between trips) or go with a faster speed charge (up to 50%-70%) but with more frequent stops?
Faster charge beats all. You can Supercharge faster than you can drive, in kph, so you can boot it and arrive on fumes. Level II is the other way round;it makes sense to drive slower to save charging time.
I'm trying to wrap my head around that logic but I guess that makes sense. That'll affect my next road trip plans for sure. thanks
I'd be curious to see if that applies with the colder winter temps we've been getting recently (-20C or thereabouts).
SC is not as rapid with a cold battery, and I find this year that my regen limiter stays present (around the 30-40 kWh mark) for my entire 15km commute, despite pre-heating for 30 minutes, and not using range mode. ? change since v6.x.
I seem to remember that last year it would often be gone by the time I got home.
I have not had a chance to do a longer highway drive in similar temperatures to assess whether this remains the case.
For Washington I wouldn't exactly call it easy. From Hamilton, ON I can drive straight to Washington DC in my ICE and it's 723km. If I have to drive Hamilton -> Kingston -> Utica -> NJ -> Albany ... -> Washington (to follow the SC route) it's 1315km. Once Comber, ON is online it will actually be shorter to go that way! (1132km).
At least once Erie, PA and Buffalo, NY Superchagers are in it will cut it down to a respectable 848km. That I would call easy.
I hear you. For our March 2015 drive to Georgia I did compared the standard Google-suggested ICE route to the Tesla supercharger route that I'd have to take through Kingston, Utica, etc. It's a 5 hour difference, so 10 hours both ways. I'm very seriously considering dropping my plans to take the Model S this year, which sucks. If Buffalo was online I think I could make it straight from Buffalo to Cranberry and then I'd only be tacking on 2 hours to the drive. Very acceptable for the pleasure of taking the S.
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Doug's suggestion makes perfect sense when the SuperCharger is not out of your way. If you have to waste 5 minutes each way (getting to SC and back to your route) then the 10 minutes total might be best used charging up for some extra time and skipping a charger. But if you're literally 2 minutes out of the way I agree with his thesis. You can drive faster and charge super fast when you hit the charge nearly empty.
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