First road trip worries

[JimmyEV]

Hi everyone,
So planning on taking my family to Northern California for the Thanksgiving Holiday. Picked up my SR+ in early Sept so this is going to be my first real road trip in it. A huge factor in buying a Tesla for me was the charging network. So we leave tomorrow around 2pm (when the kids are out of school) and head out from Burbank. I have been watching the grapevine on cal trans twitter account and seems like their may be snowfall tomorrow night, another reason we are leaving a day early. I have taken my ice cars and my former Prius on this road trip atleast 40 times and never have had to use chains. So with the cold weather (51 degrees at the grapevine) killing my range how dicey is this trip? The map in the car makes it seem like it will be fine but with it being a holiday I’m thinking the super chargers may be really crowded. We are not in a rush but being stuck in a car with a 7yo and 2yo isn’t ideal. I’m really just worried about us getting stuck on a closed road for hours with low battery. Any feedback would be appreciated as I need to pack the Model 3 or the 2016 Crv. thanks!

 

[Leeclanual]

Plan on 15% reduction in range...

 

[Tam]

...killing my range how dicey is this trip?...

You are fine as long as you charge appropriately for the occasion such as snow, detours, standing still for road closures until ice thaws out on Tejon pass winter...

 

[BEPA400]

How about crescent city?
13.5 hours including charging..

A Better Routeplanner

I plugged in 40f outside temperature and 300lb extra weight.. play with temperatures and snow etc if you are worried but I think you will find no problem..
Add 10% for rain/snow and it’s 13h50min.

And even better. Add your own destination because I don’t know where you’re actually going.

 

[JimmyEV]

Plan on 15% reduction in range...

Ok thanks

 

[JimmyEV]

You are fine as long as you charge appropriately for the occasion such as snow, detours, standing still for road closures until ice thaws out on Tejon pass winter...

Thanks I will probably charge more than I need to just to be safe.

 

[JimmyEV]

How about crescent city?
13.5 hours including charging..

A Better Routeplanner

I plugged in 40f outside temperature and 300lb extra weight.. play with temperatures and snow etc if you are worried but I think you will find no problem..
Add 10% for rain/snow and it’s 13h50min.

And even better. Add your own destination because I don’t know where you’re actually going.

This is awesome! I have heard about it but never actually saw it. Thanks

 

[JimmyEV]

Taking the Tesla, thanks for all the input. We need to have a little excitement in our lives, plus AutoPilot should make the drive a lot easier.

 

[Darmie]

Let us know how the trip works out. Take pictures of your supercharger stops. Planning a Christmas drive our self and can't wait.

 

[Rocky_H]

These routes are all very well covered with Superchargers at this point, so it shouldn't be any problem, but I might give a word of caution about what the car's trip planning might do.

I'm not sure if any updates have changed this, but I've been bitten by it before. If you just put in your far off final destination and let the car try to pick your Supercharger stops for you, it seemed to have a parameter to try to go for the fewest stops possible with the longest driving legs in between to skip over Superchargers. When I was in Colorado in February 2018, it did that to me, and came up with a plan to fill to almost 100% and arrive with 7% to skip a Supercharger. That was stupid, so don't just go with that kind of recommendation if you see it projecting you with a single digit arrival %. That's being a bit too risky for my taste, especially in the cold.

So I prefer to just show the Superchargers on the map and hit navigate to the next one or two to find out what looks like a good distance to go that I would be able to do with a reasonable buffer of about 15-20%.

 

[JimmyEV]

Charged up at Burbank Towne Center ready to go

 

[JimmyEV]

Made it Kettleman City! Yellow Model 3 nice! Note to self drop off wife and kids at Denny’s before hooking up super charger. Freezing

 

[JimmyEV]

Made it to Casa de Fruta Hollister SC! raining thru Pacheco Pass was nuts! No using Auto Pilot through that. 51 miles from final destination San Jose! Thanks everyone. So glad I took the M3 not sure how the Other car would have done with the wind and rain. My battery has popped a couple times while SC, kinda scary lol. Off to enjoy this ThanksGiving!

 

[toolman335]

Those are great pics. How many chargers are there? That's far bigger than anything we have over here in NH!

 

[jkoya]

Made it Kettleman City! Yellow Model 3 nice! Note to self drop off wife and kids at Denny’s before hooking up super charger. Freezing

Did you have a chance to get a closer look at the Yellow Model 3 - was it a wrap ? Thanks for posting your charging pics - nice memory of your road trip !

 

[JimmyEV]

Those are great pics. How many chargers are there? That's far bigger than anything we have over here in NH!

That is Kettleman City, it is basically the halfway point between Southern Ca and Northern Ca it has 40 Sc and a lounge with Espresso bar I thought I read it was the largest in the US at the moment. Espresso bar is not free

 

[JimmyEV]

Did you have a chance to get a closer look at the Yellow Model 3 - was it a wrap ? Thanks for posting your charging pics - nice memory of your road trip !

No I only had a chance to take some quick pics, it has to be a wrap but I didn’t see the owner nearby to ask. Looks a lot cooler in person than you would think for being yellow. I think the row that it was in are the new V3 chargers. My sr+ is still waiting for 2019.40.x hope we get it before heading back. Thanks for giving me the idea to snap some pics of the SC’s. Just saw that it is snowing on the grapevine so we made it just in time

 

[JimmyEV]

Plan on 15% reduction in range...

Didn’t notice any range depreciation but my SR+ at 100% only shows 233 since I picked it up in 9/19

 

[JimmyEV]

These routes are all very well covered with Superchargers at this point, so it shouldn't be any problem, but I might give a word of caution about what the car's trip planning might do.

I'm not sure if any updates have changed this, but I've been bitten by it before. If you just put in your far off final destination and let the car try to pick your Supercharger stops for you, it seemed to have a parameter to try to go for the fewest stops possible with the longest driving legs in between to skip over Superchargers. When I was in Colorado in February 2018, it did that to me, and came up with a plan to fill to almost 100% and arrive with 7% to skip a Supercharger. That was stupid, so don't just go with that kind of recommendation if you see it projecting you with a single digit arrival %. That's being a bit too risky for my taste, especially in the cold.

So I prefer to just show the Superchargers on the map and hit navigate to the next one or two to find out what looks like a good distance to go that I would be able to do with a reasonable buffer of about 15-20%.

Thank you! Tesla/google maps wanted me to go from KettleMan city to my destination not going over 70mph and arriving with 5% charge. Decided to stop at Hollister SC for 15 mins and get extra 100miles.

 

[jkoya]

Decided to stop at Hollister SC for 15 mins and get extra 100miles.

Great idea to stop and charge in Hollister. Casa de Fruta is a nice spot to stretch the legs and take a break at least ....