First Trip Tips/Suggestions - Phoenix to San Diego

[nobesnickr]

We received our MS85D on Monday and are getting ready for our first road trip. Very excited to see how she does on the open highway, make use of the superchargers and cruise the beach with the "top down".

Has anyone made this trip before and have any suggestions or things I should make sure to prepare for?
Any general guidelines or tips for a rookie on interstate travel?

Thanks much in advance!

 

[kort677]

just watch your speed, and charge 20% more than you need to make the next SC and beware of rain or strong headwinds that will hurt your range.

 

[nobesnickr]

Thanks kort677, I'm planning on just filling up to 80% at each Supercharger along the way to be overly cautious. I've been watching the projection based on consumption the last 15 miles and it seems to vary pretty wildly to what shows on the dash. I assume the one tracking recent driving is more accurate?

Does anyone happen to know if either of the estimations are tied into navigation to account for elevation changes?

 

[JenniferQ]

Try evtripplanner.com. It takes into account type of car, battery, elevation etc. As far as I know, the GPS does not take into account those things or weather.

 

[smsprague]

It's a piece of cake - charge in Gila Bend - skip Yuma - charge in El Centro - when I go to Carlsbad I usually leave El Centro with 220 rated miles

 

[ahm]

It's a simple trip and you should have no problem at all. I agree with JenniferQ look into evtripplanner. It is a great tool for getting an idea on how many rated miles you might need. The car's navigation factors in elevation changes, but not weather conditions. Like kort677 mentioned Headwinds, cold weather, and rain are the three range killers. I like to drive fast and do not rely on the car charge times in the trip planning/nav in the car. You can PM me if you'd like help getting going on evtripplanner and we can find time to chat on the phone.

 

[Roamer]

It's a piece of cake - charge in Gila Bend - skip Yuma - charge in El Centro - when I go to Carlsbad I usually leave El Centro with 220 rated miles

Exactly how I drive from Mesa AZ to Oceanside. On the return I take the scenic two lane to the SC in Indio then Quartzite and home. I charge higher and longer at Quartzite so I can skip Buckeye.

i have made this round trip more than 30 times and have charged at every SC on 1-10 and I-8 as I tried different ways to do it and as new SC's opened up. El Centro was critical to making it easy and the San Diego SC is a great safe zone.

I depart with a full range charge, charge for ten minutes in Gila Bend so I can skip Yuma, then at El Centro I do a long charge so I can skip the San Diego SC and make it nonstop to my house in Oceanside.

For me the return works better on I-10, I leave Oceanside and because it's shorter and more scenic take the two lane direct to Palm Springs and the Indio SC then just grind it out to Quartzite and arrive home with a few miles left. You can run all the way from Indio to Phoenix and never touch the steering wheel. AP works absolutely great on that long run.

My road trip strategy is to depart full, drive as absolutely far and as low as I can. Do all chargeing on the bottom half the battery as much as possible. Only charge enroute high enough to make the next stop with a 10 to 15 % buffer, arrive at my destination as low as possible with a little buffer left. Doing that I can make the run almost as fast as driving an ICE.

After a few legs you will get comfortable not to ICE think and sit around filling up on the slow charge upper half the battery. Unless you are enjoying a great meal there is no reason to sit on the charger, on the slow side of charging, adding range you don't need. Unneeded range is just completly wasted time sitting at an SC. Until you get comfortable with it go ahead and over charge.

The range assurance is a complete waste of time. Just set your destination to the next planned charge stop. Open the energy app and select trips. Then charge to 10 to 15 percent extra. Before you believe any displayed number that looks wrong, cancel the route and re-enter it. Not uncommon for the energy use data to get messed up and say you need a charge when you don't. So cancel and restart before you panic and go back for more charge,

I make the the run in a P85D on staggered 21's at an average speed 5 to 9 over posted. That's about the worst Tesla range possible and I make all the legs with no problem.

 

[Cottonwood]

Good advice on Supercharger charging optimization here: How to save a lot of time on long trips

 

[Roamer]

I might add that the car gets smarter as you drive it. Using the trip energy consumption graph I found that initially it would be off by as much as 6 to 10%. After a few legs, and maybe a software update, it calibrated energy use to how I drive. Now it displays estimated energy use almost exactly how I actually drive. So don't be surprised if the trip graph improves accuracy with each leg you drive.

The energy chart is completly useless and provides no useful information. I use the trip graph. Less stress. It takes into account elevation and driving habits.

Evtripplanner is a little irritating to use but once you get the hang of its data input it is a wonderful tool for estimating trips.

 

[Jool]

Just wanted to point out that the San Diego supercharger can get pretty busy in the middle of the weekdays. Never seen it completely full, but a lot of owners seem to top up their charge during their lunch break so plan accordingly :smile: Enjoy your trip!

 

[jepicken]

It's a piece of cake - charge in Gila Bend - skip Yuma - charge in El Centro - when I go to Carlsbad I usually leave El Centro with 220 rated miles

+1 on the "skip Yuma" part. That supercharger is in a horrible location; there are no decent restaurants or anything else within walking distance. Only stop there if you absolutely need to charge, and don't expect to do anything else while charging.

Overall it is a simple trip. Set the nav destination to your next planned charging stop, and use the Trip Energy Prediction display to estimate how much range you'll have left when you get there. If the estimated range remaining gets uncomfortably low, just slow down.

 

[smsprague]

If you do use the Yuma SC Lutes Casino in old downtown is an easy walk and pretty good.

 

[nobesnickr]

Thank you everyone for the great feedback. Just pulled into the SC in Gila Bend. She had about 56% charge from home to here. I'll take everyone's advice and skip Yuma and just keep a keen eye on the prediction. The trip planner on the energy screen was pretty spot on but the projected miles one is still a shot in the dark it seems.

Obligatory first supercharger picture below :

 

[nobesnickr]

Unfortunately I used a bit to much of the go fast pedal so had to make a pit stop in Yuma. Definitely recommend a skip as everyone else mentioned. I probably couldn't have made it to be next one but still a bit anxious. Wonderful trip so far though and good to get out and stretch our legs

 

[ShotgunF15E]

Drove round trip from San Diego, Goodyear/Luke AFB, back to San Diego. Battery was never an issue. In fact, Most of the time I kept speeding up to keep up with traffic. (80-90). Just kept an eye on the trip screen and kept the SOC at destination above 10%. Autopilot worked almost flawlessly. Never had a trip in a car be so enjoyable. Skipped Yuma on the way back with no problem and enjoyed all the looks as I rocketed past folks going up the mountain. Coasted back into San Diego with tons of charge. What a great trip.

 

[mikeash]

Just to elaborate a bit on what the various estimates are....

The main figure shown on the dash is rated (or ideal, if you changed the settings) miles. That's basically, if you drive the same way as the official testing, that's how far you can go. In practice, you'll achieve that range going around 65-70MPH on level ground. It will overestimate your remaining range in many real situations, since you're often going faster or have to deal with terrain.

The projected range on the energy graph is a dumb projection of the past into the future. It looks at your efficiency for the last 5/15/30 miles and says, if this goes on, you'll make it this far. If you're at the peak of a long climb, it will vastly underestimate your remaining range, because it'll assume you're going to keep on climbing forever. Likewise if you're at the bottom of a long descent, it will vastly overestimate your remaining range.

The trip graph is the only one of the bunch which actually tries to look at your route and predict the future based on it. It looks at typical speeds and elevation changes and based on that it projects how much charge you'll have left on arrival. This tends to make it the most realistic of the bunch, but it doesn't account for things like wind, so it's not always correct. Usually it's the one to watch, but re-check it every so often to see if the projection starts to change. If it's starting to drop a lot, then something is making you less efficient than it thinks you should be. Depending on your situation, you may want to slow down, stop early, or just keep an eye on it.

 

[Tslacg]

We received our MS85D on Monday and are getting ready for our first road trip. Very excited to see how she does on the open highway, make use of the superchargers and cruise the beach with the "top down".

Has anyone made this trip before and have any suggestions or things I should make sure to prepare for?
Any general guidelines or tips for a rookie on interstate travel?

Thanks much in advance!

You'll be good with an 85d. I just recently did the trip in an s70 and was fine the whole way.

Be cautious of headwinds between Yuma and el centro, but charging to 80% each SC will be more than plenty. Have fun!