First Tesla M3 SR+ road trip

[bogich]

I've been driving my M3 SR+ for the last 2 months, mainly commuting 36 miles a day and weekend city driving. I bought it as a commuter car and never considered it as good road trip car. My line of thought was - buy the lower priced Tesla as a commuter and run the SUV on the long trips.

Well, last weekend I change my mind! Besides, being on the smaller size for the party of 4(with 2 days worth of personal luggage), the car did great. Not in a moment I had to wait on the car to charge - it was done way before we finished refueling ourselves. For the 593 miles from D.C. to NYC and back(plus some NYC driving), I had to stop twice at a supercharger, where I paid total of $13.

Starting at 100% from home - first charge took about 30 min after 198 miles off driving and I charged more than I needed. I had a free destination charger at the hotel in NYC, but I didn't even fully used the service, since for two nights I only topped off about 25% each night. Second charge on the way back took about 20 min, since this time I new I didn't have to wait more and I still came back home with 23% to spare.

So there you have it - if anyone have any doubt, whether SR+ is good enough for this type of weekend getaway - don't hesitate anymore - save your $10k and get the SR+

 

[billh13850]

I'm still glad I got the LR, need the range out here in the @$$ end of nowhere, but more power to you!

 

[Matt L]

Nice efficiency

 

[bogich]

BTW, not trying to convince anyone LR is a bad choice. There are many use cases where it makes more sense than SR+. But the daily commuter with less than 150 miles a day, who would do occasional ~500 mile trips would be just fine with it. Again, I'm not saying I'll do 1500 mile in SR+ or even in M3. I'd still pick the old dinosaur juice burning SUV(since I still can't afford Model X ).

 

[mrclean90]

Are you running with the aero covers? And what's your tire pressure?

 

[bogich]

Yeah, I had the aero covers On this time. Speed was typical - passed slower vehicles and kept with traffic most of the time. Tire pressure was 42 PSI cold(gets to 45-46 PSI when they warm up).

 

[kirkhilles]

As someone who currently (I have a M3 SR+ on order) drives a Leaf with only 12 kw of actual available power (2012 - bad battery loss), I know a thing or two about range anxiety and the reality is you get used to thinking about it and generally "find a way" to make the power work. I mean, certainly, if you can afford and have the desire to get the LR version then definitely do it, but I'd bet a lot of people make the decision based on fear and that's not the best way to buy an automobile. The Standard Range (particularly if it's a software-locked larger battery) should do fine for most people 99%+ of the time. I guess it's all how you handle the 1%.

 

[billh13850]

As someone who currently (I have a M3 SR+ on order) drives a Leaf with only 12 kw of actual available power (2012 - bad battery loss), I know a thing or two about range anxiety and the reality is you get used to thinking about it and generally "find a way" to make the power work. I mean, certainly, if you can afford and have the desire to get the LR version then definitely do it, but I'd bet a lot of people make the decision based on fear and that's not the best way to buy an automobile. The Standard Range (particularly if it's a software-locked larger battery) should do fine for most people 99%+ of the time. I guess it's all how you handle the 1%.

As more superchargers open up, the SR makes sense in a lot more areas as well. Just in the 9 months I've had my Model 3, 2 new superchargers have opened up "in just the right spots" to substantially ease my range anxiety with the LR, as well as making an SR much more feasible in this area. I think more rural superchargers "opens up" new territories for the SR and SR+ markets.

 

[willow_hiller]

As more superchargers open up, the SR makes sense in a lot more areas as well. Just in the 9 months I've had my Model 3, 2 new superchargers have opened up "in just the right spots" to substantially ease my range anxiety with the LR, as well as making an SR much more feasible in this area. I think more rural superchargers "opens up" new territories for the SR and SR+ markets.

Playing around with A Better Route Planner, it's hard to find a destination that the SR+ cannot reach in North America in warm weather. Only real dead-zone is the Dakotas. In cold weather, I wouldn't try a coast-to-coast, but there are so many Superchargers up and down the East coast the SR+ can make it from Bangor, ME to Miami, FL in a 20 degree snowstorm.

 

[billh13850]

I do enough round trips into superchargerless "holes" that I still end up cutting it closer than I'd like, especially during winter with the snows on. Now, one more supercharger near Ithaca and Oneonta (both planned), and one maybe near Dansville, and the SR would be more viable here.

If your trip is a simple "point A to point B", it's easier, but my trips often involve points C and D for picking up and dropping off friends &etc. Adding side destinations in a "hole" eats up that extra range quickly...

 

[Leafdriver333]

230 mile trip is totally tolerable in a SR+.
I wish Seatac airport had superchargers...

 

[Angreval]

In our area (Quebec, Canada) there is not enough supercharger to reach many regions. However there is a large number of Level 3 charger, but, if the S and X have an adapter for these chargers, there is no adapter for the Model 3. Tesla is holding on thes adapters as the Model 3 sold in Europe are comptatible with all level 3 chargers other than Tesla's.

 

[Lostb0y]

I have the Standard Range Plus and I did wonder when all the model X cars came out with the 208-265 mile ranges I read several posts of people traveling all over. Is it the colder winter weather that makes it not possible? I live in Minnesota and while I do have a heated garage, I do wonder if it’s possible to still travel. Only had the Tesla a few months.

 

[jgmartin]

I recently picked up an SR+ as well, and also did a short (~480mi) round trip to Miami from Orlando to test it out. My experience was very much in line with yours: with two kids in the car, the idea of driving more than two hours uninterrupted or having a stop take less than 20 minutes is kind of a pipe dream. In both instances that we had to stop, the car was done charging long before the kids were ready to go again. It's really a complete non-issue for our particular situation. Now, if you're a single guy trying to run across the country in record time with a bottle for a bathroom, maybe not so much.

As for the day to day, again this really isn't an issue. We just wake up every morning with 90% charge and drive all we want. I don't think the battery has ever been below 50-60% using it that way in town.

As far as LR vs SR, it's just a matter of what's more appropriate for the use case. There's a lot of confirmation bias online, as always, so everyone wants a pat on the back for making whatever decision they came down on. It's never sensible to spend $6-10k on something you'll probably never use.

I think the fact that we consider range a primary 'spec' when comparing these cars is telling of how far we still have to go in parts of the country when it comes to charging infrastructure. How many people knew or cared the range of the last gas car they purchased? Until the primary concern is efficiency and the range is an afterthought for everyone (as it is for most of us in the city) range anxiety *is* real. the real, long-term solution isn't bigger batteries (that negatively impact everything *except* range)... it's more charging and faster stations.

so, yea... SR+ is fine unless you live in the middle of nowhere... and if you do, your truck probably has like 700+ miles of range to serve as a decent backup

 

[spacemnspiff]

Thanks for posting this thread. I too have a SR+ that I got 2 months ago and have been enjoying it thoroughly. I primarily thought that it would be a commute car and we would use the minivan for longer road trips. And I was second guessing myself if I should have gone for LR, but I don't need to. My main use case is commute to work and take kids to their activities and reading from this thread, looks like I could use it for longer trips as well.

On a side note, I like that you use the battery percentage indication instead of range as a metric.

 

[mrclean90]

The SR+ is a tremendous deal at $39k. After CA incentives its basically the same price as a loaded Honds Accord.

 

[bogich]

@jgmartin
I totally agree with you! Battery capacity was an issue with the 24kWh batteries. It is the charging infrastructure that causes the range anxiety.
My 2016 Chrysler 200 V6 was doing about 17.5MPG in the city(14 when I ran it on E85), with a 12 gallon tank - guess how many miles I could do on a single tank? But I never had range anxiety, because gas stations are on every corner. What if there were fast chargers at every gas station? How many people would then care, if they had 240 or 300 miles of range on a single battery charge?

 

[jgmartin]

Yes... this is important. Bigger batteries are not a solution, and the ones we have now are already too large. Granted, improvements in the energy density of batteries will make them smaller and lighter all else equal, but the entire point is efficiency. Weight ruins everything, and less is always better. More, faster chargers in more places mean more efficient cars and no range anxiety. Bigger batteries are bandaids, ultimately.

 

[srs5694]

FWIW, I recently returned from a week-long road trip during which I put 1831 miles on my LR RWD Model 3. (Google Maps says 1707 miles, but I did some extra driving at one stop, and took a couple of wrong turns.) I skipped most of the Superchargers on my route, and the Supercharging was, if anything, too fast for me -- I always got way more charge than I needed to reach my next stop in the time it took me to deal with my own biological needs like eating.

Of course, mine is an LR RWD with 325 miles of range, not the SR+'s 240 miles of range; but I'm sure an SR+ would have been more than adequate, even for this long trip. Most of my Supercharges added between 20kWh and 40kWh of charge, although one was 50kWh, so for that one, I might have had to make two stops in an SR+ rather than one in my LR RWD, at least once a range safety margin was added.

 

[davewill]

Yeah, after doing San Diego to Berkeley and back in my RAV4EV with CHAdeMO (12hrs one way), road trips in a Model 3 that only has 220 miles of range, and the supercharger network, seems like unparalleled luxury.