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Elon "About to end range anxiety"

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After our last trip, It's quite clear to me that with the new "Range Anxiety" preventing software, you still have to use your head while on a trip.
I agree. The software is still in its infancy from a usability perspective. I haven't played with it extensively yet, but the basic things I naively think I should be able to do to edit my trip, I apparently can't.

In sharp contrast.... I played with the evtripplanner site the other day before a day trip of about 360 km round trip, with plenty of up and down. I set the parameters very carefully and drove to what I said I would, speed limit wise. When I got back, I adjusted the temperature settings etc. to reflect what I actually saw and ran it again. Evtripplanner estimated my consumption at 170 Wh/km... the trip meter in the car indicated a realized power consumption of 171 Wh/km.

That was only one test... but wow...! If the site is advertising correctly and the developer is in fact the 16 year old kid accepting donations for his college fund, perhaps Tesla should be hiring him to develop their trip planning app. I'll experiment with it more to see if this was a one-off lucky hit, but if he can do it as accurately as this test suggests, without the inside information the Tesla folks must have, surely the in-car app should be better than it is!
 
After our last trip, It's quite clear to me that with the new "Range Anxiety" preventing software, you still have to use your head while on a trip. We stopped at the Ft Myers SC a few days ago on the way home to the East Coast of Florida. It was our first stop at a SC on a trip since the "Anxiety Elimination" Software download. After 17 min charging the touch screen said we had enough juice for the 150 mile Highway trip home. Rated range was at 175 mi. Quite a bit lower than I would have stopped at in the past. But wanted to give it a test so unplugged and got back in the car and immediately got a "Drive Slowly" warning. Plugged back in and charged a few minutes to 185 mi thinking it would be a good test but knowing I might have to drive slower than I normally do to make it. Sure enough, about 15 minutes into the drive the % remaining at destination started dropping and the "Drove Slowly" warning came up. Still no problem as driving right at at the Speed Limit (and being passed by nearly every car on the road) held the % remaining constant at 8%. Then the unexpected (which in S Florida should always be expected I suppose). A very small rain cell over the Everglades passage blew up into a monster. Intense rain and wind and its power sucking by-product forced us to drive as slowly as 45 mph and even at that speed our % remaining after 20 min in the storm was at 6% with 100 mi to drive and 120 rated miles. Much smaller buffer than I would ever want at highway speeds 100 mi from home. Had to drive at or slightly below the speed limit & pulled into garage with 14 mi rated range remaining. Was an interesting test of the new software and it certainly underscored the fact that one should never trust the software alone. Will be taking a much longer trip in a couple of weeks and will most definitely go back to doing my normal calculating and reasoning.

I had a similar experience. The whole concept of "you have enough now, get back on the road" is not a good idea. At best you are locked into not detouring to enjoy a scenic overlook or a landmark or something, not to mention bad unexpected things. I think if I ever took a serious roadtrip I would basically take the time to range charge or 90% charge every time to maximize safety and fun.
 
After our last trip, It's quite clear to me that with the new "Range Anxiety" preventing software, you still have to use your head while on a trip.

I agree. The software is still in its infancy from a usability perspective.

I had a similar experience. The whole concept of "you have enough now, get back on the road" is not a good idea.

Have you guys seen some of the more recent posts in this thread? Intelligent supercharger routing FAIL

Your comments are kind!
 
Incidentally, if anyone is ever tempted to use the apps idea of when you have enough range, be extra cautious if it's raining. The energy use goes WAAY up, we saw about a 35% increase driving in continuous pretty heavy rain. Had we used the estimated charging time to continue we'd have been in pretty serious trouble.