Greetings and a Q about range and highway speeds

[Steve in SLO]

Hi all,
This is my first post here and likely not my last since I will be buying a Roadster 1.5 tomorrow.
I’m excited at the prospect, since I’ve been enamored by EVs ever since leasing a lowly Fiat 500e...such a fun car around town. I will be driving it from the Torrance SC to San Luis Obispo, at just under 200 miles. I have searched the forum and can’t much info about what happens to range when the Roadster is driven at 70–75 mph, rather than 60–65 mph for prolonged periods of time. This particular car has an ideal range of about 180 miles in normal mode. I figure I will be stopping in Santa Barbara with my son for dinner and charging a couple hours there. I’m sure I can muster some cruising speed discipline, but coming from a Porsche GT3, this isn’t really natural for me. Any input to this question?
Thanks in advance, all, and I am appreciative for what I have learned from this place already.
Steve

 

[spsheridan]

@Steve in SLO, take a look at this table regarding ranges achieved by various Tesla models at various speeds. There's only one entry for the Roadster but you might find it helpful.
Tesla Range Table - Teslike.com

 

[roblab]

I doubt that you will need to charge more than about 20 minutes. Sure wish you had more battery.

 

[Steve in SLO]

Thanks much, that chart helps tremendously. Looks like -12-16 miles range for every five mph increase in highway speed. Looks like we will be cruising, not racing home.

 

[ewoodrick]

To get a idea of what speed does, at about 30 mph, the Model 3 can get 600+ miles! Twice the EPA number.

Air resistance increases exponentially with speed. It's a nasty animal and the reason why all manufacturers run their cars through wind tunnel tests, not just EVs.

Of course this does assume that it is fully charged on delivery.

 

[spsheridan]

Glad that helps and welcome aboard @Steve in SLO! I'm pretty new here as well and have found it to be a very useful site with helpful folks. Enjoy your Roadster! I drove one several years ago as my first EV experience and was blown away.

 

[gregd]

I doubt that you will need to charge more than about 20 minutes. Sure wish you had more battery.

Mmmm, no, he will definitely need more time than that. This isn't a Model S/X/3 with supercharging. Unless he can find a 70 amp outlet, it's about 20-30 miles of range per hour of charging.

I've driven to my daughter's place a few times. It's about 220 miles, nearly all freeway (65mph limit). What I do is start with a Range charge (212 miles on my car; his battery is slightly better), and stop once about in the middle for lunch at a Park & Ride that has 30 amp / 240 volt stations. I have something to eat, and give the car about 90 minutes of juice. That gets me to her place with about 65 miles to spare (that's in Range mode; it's 42 in Standard), enough for some unexpected detours along the way. You don't want to let the battery get down too low.

There's a game that I play while driving distance, which is to have the car's Nav system or Google Maps running, giving me the remaining distance to the destination. Every so often, look at the car's Ideal range, and subtract. That will give you an estimate of how much range you will have when you get there. Try to see how that number changes over time. I can usually keep it fairly constant if I don't hot rod it too much.

 

[gregd]

To get a idea of what speed does, at about 30 mph, the Model 3 can get 600+ miles! Twice the EPA number.

Air resistance increases exponentially with speed. It's a nasty animal and the reason why all manufacturers run their cars through wind tunnel tests, not just EVs.

Of course this does assume that it is fully charged on delivery.

Actually, it goes by the cube of the speed. 2x the speed, 8x the drag.

 

[Steve in SLO]

Thanks, all. The seller will deliver fully charged and I’m planning on a 2 hour break in Santa Barbara. Just joined ChargePoint and have PlugShare on my phone. Also have a CAN adapter, so I feel prepared. We are taking the Amtrak Surfliner down (my son loves trains), so it should be a fun adventure.

 

[gregd]

Thanks, all. The seller will deliver fully charged and I’m planning on a 2 hour break in Santa Barbara. Just joined ChargePoint and have PlugShare on my phone. Also have a CAN adapter, so I feel prepared. We are taking the Amtrak Surfliner down (my son loves trains), so it should be a fun adventure.

Excellent, and welcome to wonderful, if not a bit quirky world of the Roadster!

Just to be clear, when the seller has it "fully charged", make sure they do a Range charge just before you leave. (*) You don't want it sitting there at max charge for too long (it stresses the battery). Also, which CAN adapter is it? The CAN-JR will take the J1772 public charging stations (NOT ChaDeMo or CCS quick charging), and the CAN-SR will give access to the Tesla Destination (NOT supercharging) stations. Both work very well, but you need to match up station and adapter, of course.

(*) The consignment dealer I bought my car from drove it to my house, some 140 miles. He didn't think much about speed (we won't discuss numbers...), and didn't know about range charging. He arrived with 6 miles left...

 

[Steve in SLO]

Hi Gregd, thanks, and I am used to quirky, having owned a few British cars as well as early BMWs and Porsches.
The seller will charge in range mode before I pick it up, and I will make sure the SC does the latest firmware upgrade. It will come with a Tesla J1772 adapter, and a CAN SR, so I should be good. Excited for the day!

 

[slcasner]

Definitely want to keep the speed at 65 or below. Use cruise control to help with that.

My most frequent long trip is Sunnyvale to Santa Barbara with a stop in SLO to charge at Dr. Lloyd Marcum's office where the charger delivers a full 240V 70A, the max speed for the Roadster. That doesn't help you, but when looking for Destination Chargers, choose one that delivers 16kW if possible. I have not found 70A charging in Santa Barbara, but we have not needed it since that we are usually staying there. I see now there are Destination Chargers at the Hyatt Centric Santa Barbara claiming 16kW.

One time when we were passing through Santa Barbara and thought we could charge at the Biltmore but found they only ran at 30 or 40A (and now they don't work at all), we bailed and continued south to the Four Seasons in Westlake where we were able to charge at 70A. That would be an option for you heading north, but it's only about 50 miles into your drive so not as advantageous.

 

[Steve in SLO]

Well, we did the deal yesterday and I am now the proud owner of Roadster # 364.
After a nice 5 1/2 hour train ride on the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner, my son and I took an Uber from Union Station to the Torrance SC. We met the regional roadster tech, Mervyn, who was very helpful in giving me an overview of all aspects of the car. From there we drove to Santa Barbara, and with the usual crappy 405 traffic made it there with just under 100 mile range remaining. Interestingly, the ideal range in range mode and our actual miles travelled

matched within 1 mile of each other. We took advantage of the hospitality of the Fess Parker Hilton along the beach and charged for free on their Tesla charger for about 2 1/2 hours while we walked to Stearns Wharf and grabbed dinner. Now with 140-ish range miles, we drove up and over Highway 154 and arrived home with just under 30 miles range remaining, So all was good and we didn’t have to push it home the last 10 miles.
Some impressions: (as a background, my main driver is a 2005 Mini Cooper S with popped up suspension but otherwise stock. I also just sold my 2004 Porsche GT3 of 11 years).
First, the car feels very solid and heavy. The fact that the original chassis is now carrying around nearly half a ton of extra weight is apparent, but the mods to it seem to be well engineered. Suspension was more compliant than I thought it would be, But still was proper sports car stiff when I hit potholes and the like.
Originally felt the understeer quite a bit, as both my other cars are dialed in to oversteer some, but made peace with that by the end of the trip.
Traveling 65 mph as my upper limit, I was afraid I would feel like I was driving slowly in this car, but not so.
Temps were in the 40s for the latter half of the trip and the cabin got cold, despite maximal heating efforts. Good thing we brought our light jackets!
In/out is not as bad as I remember from the times I have driven a Lotus Elise. I have pretty long legs and size 13 feet, so the foot well got a little uncomfortable after about three hours, but no big deal.
Car seemed pretty quick the one or two times I hopped on it a bit at freeway speed. Then I got home and read the manual that stated power was reduced to 50% in range mode. I can’t wait to put it on normal and play a bit!
Overall, I really like the driving experience of this car. It is quirky enough to endear me with my Luddite – leanings, yet still futuristic enough to please my son.

 

[da2ny]

Congratulations! And welcome to a great group of enthusiasts.

 

[Steve in SLO]

Thanks!
While this thread has some attention, I couldn’t figure out what this high-tech listening device was clipped to the underside of the dash to the right of the steering wheel. Anybody recognize this specific product?
TIA,
Steve

 

[da2ny]

Microphone for Blu-tooth hands free phone via JVC head unit?

 

[gregd]

Yeah, presume that's the microphone for the in-dash unit. On my 2.0, it's a lumpy thing glued to the dash itself around there (so that it picks up all the car vibrations), aimed at the driver's right knee. Yours might work better than mine. Most folks who call me when I'm in the car spend a few minutes trying to talk, then just tell me "call me back when you're not in the car!".

Regarding the car's heat, first line of defense should be the seat heaters. They're basically free from a battery drain perspective, and they work pretty well. Then go for the cabin heat. It helps the passenger side of the car better than the driver, but I haven't found it inadequate.

 

[Steve in SLO]

Figured it was probably something to do with the hands-free phone, but don’t have the JVC manual.
Regarding the cold cabin: Heated seats did help. When I got home I read that I needed to push the heater button to activate the heat/cool dial. Rookie move, surely not my last.

 

[im4uttx]

Congrats! Looks nice. Glad you had no trouble with the drive home. The range is heavily influenced by driving habits, in traffic not being able to punch it and in range mode probably kept it more towards the ideal end of the spectrum. I hate it when traffic is the reason I can't pull the range well below ideal...

 

[ViperDoc]

CONGRATULATIONS!

If you are looking for "faster" charging on the road, I would definitely recommend at least getting a CAN (don't remember if it is the CAN Jr or CAN Sr, since I have both) from Henry Sharp. He is on TMC, and one of these will let you use a Model S/X/3 destination charger to charge at 70/80 amps. Beyond that, you might wish to consider the JdeMO aftermarket kit (search the board) that will let you use ChadeMO chargers to charger faster. I just had mine installed a bit ago, because I wanted to take longer trips with faster charging.