First Road Trip (2014 S60)

[Qbenjamin]

I plan to update this thread as I notice things on my trip, but figured I make a thread to begin my observations.

First off, the range on the S60 is VERY limited in actual highway conditions. I'm taking a 277 mile trip, and I noticed that I can barely make it 130 miles before I'm at about 5% battery life (AC at 74; radio & NAV; outside temp at 89F). This is a bit scary, as I thought that I would be able to get this range easily when fully charged at around 200 miles being indicated in the dash. I have been averaging about 75 mph, so this has in fact affected my overall range.

The supercharging station in St. Port Lucie is amazingly fast. I noticed that the car was displaying a charge of 276 mph while charging. I was at 4% battery life when I started charging, and I charged to 184 miles within 40 mins flat.

Autopilot is absolutely amazing, and I wouldn't buy another Tesla without it. I pretty much set it, and keep my hand on the steering wheel to ensure that it stays engaged. The AP1 does tend to fluctuate speeds depending on the type of road irregardless of it being an actual highway or not. In some areas it would only do 5 mph over the limit, in others it (AP1) would go as high as 20 mph over the limit (not encouraging you to do this, I pretty much set it at 10 mph over on the highway).

When I made it to my destination, I noticed that there wasn't an actual SC anywhere near me, but there were parking places that offered the EV charging ports. One thing I will do on my next trip, is to ensure that I use a destination hotel charging station. One thing that you can do, is to use a SC near your hotel before you check-in for the night.

More to follow...

 

[Qbenjamin]

Reserved

 

[Qbenjamin]

Reserved

 

[BerTX]

Glad you are enjoying learning about your car. Sounds like you are having fun, and that's important.

One little thing to point out that a lot of people new to Supercharging don't realize -- the calculated MPH charging rate is the AVERAGE rate for that session, not an instantaneous rate. Toward the end of your charging, you may feel that the car is still charging at a rapid rate because that number will still be high, when in fact it has tapered off significantly. Look at your kW rate to tell the rate at that particular time in the charge cycle. It will start off high (sorry, I don't know the typical rate for a 2014 S60, up around 90-95 kW probably) but will slowly reduce until you are getting a fairly small amount of charging as you approach 90-100%.

 

[Qbenjamin]

Th

Glad you are enjoying learning about your car. Sounds like you are having fun, and that's important.

One little thing to point out that a lot of people new to Supercharging don't realize -- the calculated MPH charging rate is the AVERAGE rate for that session, not an instantaneous rate. Toward the end of your charging, you may feel that the car is still charging at a rapid rate because that number will still be high, when in fact it has tapered off significantly. Look at your kW rate to tell the rate at that particular time in the charge cycle. It will start off high (sorry, I don't know the typical rate for a 2014 S60, up around 90-95 kW probably) but will slowly reduce until you are getting a fairly small amount of charging as you approach 90-100%.

Thx, I did notice that once it approached the 85%+ areas, the charging slowed significantly. All good though, it was still nice to be able to get to 90% within 40 mins from a near dead battery.

 

[Qbenjamin]

So I finally finished my road trip yesterday, and I can say that I was impressed with the comfort and ride overall. My biggest knock is that the highway range is off by as much as 30% when driving. I started out with 205 miles again to a full charge, and I barely made it to the nearest SC, which was 126 miles away (got there at 6%). I was doing 75 pretty much the entire trip, but didn't think that that speed would affect the range THAT much.

My wife now has serious range anxiety, so we probably won't ever be able to take it on a road trip again. I'm still impressed though, but definitely need a bigger battery if we attempt another short trip like this one. Driving 2 hours just to have to stop for an hour to charge is no good.

 

[bmah]

If you aren't familiar with it, you should learn how to use the trip planner's energy graph. Basically, with a destination input into the navigation system (such as your next charging stop), tap the icon (top center?) on the CID that looks like a graph, then tap the tab that says "Trip". That shows your projected energy usage from your current location to the navigation destination (in gray), and how your actual usage compares to that (in green/yellow/red). I've found it to be pretty accurate. If you think you're not going to make it to your destination (or if you want more energy reserves left when you get there), that graph should point it out to you early enough for you to take some corrective action. (The easiest thing to do is slow down BTW.)

I'd say try this out on some shorter trips (maybe by yourself?) to get the hang of it. Once you've got some confidence in it, you can explain what's going on to your wife, so she can see how close (or not) you're getting to the bottom of the battery. (In my wife's case she likes having extra energy reserves so she can drive faster, but that's another story.)

Another tactic that some drivers (including myself) do is to have energy expressed in percentages, not in terms of rated miles. The rated miles can trick you a bit into thinking that you only need X number of rated miles to travel X miles of distance, which as you've discovered isn't always true. The percentage is what's used on the trip planner's energy graph.

Bruce.

 

[kort677]

So I finally finished my road trip yesterday, and I can say that I was impressed with the comfort and ride overall. My biggest knock is that the highway range is off by as much as 30% when driving. I started out with 205 miles again to a full charge, and I barely made it to the nearest SC, which was 126 miles away (got there at 6%). I was doing 75 pretty much the entire trip, but didn't think that that speed would affect the range THAT much.

My wife now has serious range anxiety, so we probably won't ever be able to take it on a road trip again. I'm still impressed though, but definitely need a bigger battery if we attempt another short trip like this one. Driving 2 hours just to have to stop for an hour to charge is no good.

arriving with 6% isn't a big issue. you need to slow down a bit if you are concerned about making the next SpC, bringing down just a few mph will easily save you another 2% of range. I don't know if you factored in weather conditions, headwinds will take a big hit on range and if it is raining you'll lose some range as well. I am assuming you stayed in FLA so you probably didn't use the heater, but using the heater carries a range penalty as well. One trick many of us use is drafting bigger vehicles, even drafting a big SUV will get you a little more range. As noted the planner in the car works well but discount the initial readings because they aren't accurate, you can force a recalc by canceling the nav and then reenter the trip after 15 minutes of driving.

 

[Qbenjamin]

Appreciate the advice, but I probably won't take it on another road trip regardless. If the posted speed limit is 70, I'm going to do at least that speed. Not that big of a deal, but hopefully others will see this and not expect to get the rated miles like I thought on a long distance trip in the southern states where the speed limits are much higher than the north (I'm from Chicago, and the highest speed limits I remember seeing in IL was 60).

 

[bmah]

OP: Fair enough. Driving an EV on a long road trip takes a slightly different mindset than taking an ICE (or hybrid) car, and it requires some changes that you might not be able to make, or might not be willing to make. The point of my post (and others) is I think to make sure you really know the resources and options available to you, so you can have a better experience in the future.

My family and I just did our first 1000-mile road trip and it went wonderfully...before that we'd done a bunch of trips of around 300 miles round-trip, some requiring the use of non-Tesla chargers. So to me it's a bit unfortunate that you bought your Tesla, did one road trip, then gave up on ever using it for any future road trips. But only you can determine what's right for you.

Know that if you want to revisit this problem in the future with the approach of "I really want to do such-and-so trip, but I need some ideas to make it work", there will be a lot of people in the Tesla community who will try to help you out.

Bruce.

 

[Qbenjamin]

OP: Fair enough. Driving an EV on a long road trip takes a slightly different mindset than taking an ICE (or hybrid) car, and it requires some changes that you might not be able to make, or might not be willing to make. The point of my post (and others) is I think to make sure you really know the resources and options available to you, so you can have a better experience in the future.

My family and I just did our first 1000-mile road trip and it went wonderfully...before that we'd done a bunch of trips of around 300 miles round-trip, some requiring the use of non-Tesla chargers. So to me it's a bit unfortunate that you bought your Tesla, did one road trip, then gave up on ever using it for any future road trips. But only you can determine what's right for you.

Know that if you want to revisit this problem in the future with the approach of "I really want to do such-and-so trip, but I need some ideas to make it work", there will be a lot of people in the Tesla community who will try to help you out.

Bruce.

Thx, I wasn't too keen on putting all those miles on my car to begin with. I'd rather rent a car for road trips anyway, that's what I've always done.

 

[kort677]

Thx, I wasn't too keen on putting all those miles on my car to begin with. I'd rather rent a car for road trips anyway, that's what I've always done.

you shouldn't be wary of putting miles on the car, unlike an ICE, the wear and tear of miles isn't as detrimental to the tesla. the car is made to be driven, drive it! you just need to learn how to preplan the trips that are beyond your initial charge.

 

[Qbenjamin]

you just need to learn how to preplan the trips that are beyond your initial charge.

The trips were planned out via the SC network, but I could barely make to one that was only 120 miles away from an initial 205 mile charge. I understand now that the rated range isn't going to work for me doing nearly the posted highway speed limits in FL.

 

[eye.surgeon]

Once you gain experience with the trip planner energy graph, you'll feel very comfortable exploiting the whole range of the car. I don't sweat pulling up with less than 10% charge or even lower because I know from the energy graph that I'm going to make it. I took a trip last weekend, and I realized after 2.5 years of ownership that I hardly even think about range any more.

 

[Swift]

Appreciate the advice, but I probably won't take it on another road trip regardless. If the posted speed limit is 70, I'm going to do at least that speed.

That's the issue. It's hard to go slower when the flow of traffic on a big highway is operating 5-15 over the limit.

 

[youlikeadajuice]

The trips were planned out via the SC network, but I could barely make to one that was only 120 miles away from an initial 205 mile charge. I understand now that the rated range isn't going to work for me doing nearly the posted highway speed limits in FL.

Have you checked your tire pressure? You should be able to do well over 120 actual miles in flat, sunny Florida in an S60. My wife and I road-tripped from NJ to Florida and back last May and had zero trouble getting 160 actual miles out of a 90% charge (2013 S60) doing 75-80mph with 2 adults a dog and a car full of luggage. We only charged to 100% twice the entire trip. It seems like something is wrong.

 

[kort677]

The trips were planned out via the SC network, but I could barely make to one that was only 120 miles away from an initial 205 mile charge. I understand now that the rated range isn't going to work for me doing nearly the posted highway speed limits in FL.

my friend, something is very wrong if you cannot get 120 miles with a 205 rated charge level.

 

[Qbenjamin]

my friend, something is very wrong if you cannot get 120 miles with a 205 rated charge level.

I made it 124 miles to the SC at 6% from the initial charge of 205.

 

[Qbenjamin]

Have you checked your tire pressure? You should be able to do well over 120 actual miles in flat, sunny Florida in an S60. My wife and I road-tripped from NJ to Florida and back last May and had zero trouble getting 160 actual miles out of a 90% charge (2013 S60) doing 75-80mph with 2 adults a dog and a car full of luggage. We only charged to 100% twice the entire trip. It seems like something is wrong.

It was checked at 42 all the way around prior to the trip.

 

[JasJ]

Try 45 psi. Something is off.
I did a 2500 mile trip from Houston to Orlando and back in March and the Car NAV and EV trip planner.com were within 1-4% of actual SOC estimate by the time we arrived at the next SC. This was in a loaner MS 60D (75D battery) and 45-46 PSI in all tires and we typically drove 3-10mph over posted speed the entire way (excepting traffic). Only time the SOC estimate was wrong was when the temps dipped into the upper 30's one night, then the SOC was off by 8% (arrived at 14% when estimated 22%) and tire pressure dipped to 42...hmmm. What tires do you have on your car? Continental Conti-silent was on the loaner. We had 600+ lbs of people and luggage in the car as well.