HELP! Road trip question...We leave tomorrow, and I'm slightly panicked.

[TheAustin]

Don't know if I missed this but: What does the Greenbrier have for charging?

6 Eaton J1772 Chargers...Totally free, no card/account required. I was shocked. Without that, I wouldn't have undertaken this trip.

 

[AmpedUP]

Ok, that sounds like Level 2 charging. Eaton specifies it might be 30 to 70 amps. How fast were you able to charge?

 

[David_Cary]

Not that I know for sure but 70 Amps don't generally exist in the US. The Leaf can use 30 amps so the extra charge for a 70 amp unit only made sense in the last year. Even still, Leafs have been around 3 times longer than Tesla Model S.

No one goes around staying at Greenbrier for 6 hours anyway so 30 amps is fine.

 

[Mayhemm]

The energy/rated range consumption estimates from EVTripPlanner.com were way too conservative, to the point where it was unusable. Even when I low-balled my figures, their estimates were way off-base from reality. On one hand, it made me super-prepared, and hyper-vigilant about my energy consumption...On the other hand, it led to range anxiety, and created a lack of confidence in being able to use it as a viable tool for EV route planning/energy consumption.

I suspected this was the case (it said I'd need to travel 48mph just to make my 249-mile drive in the summer). However, the site has unofficially released a BETA 2 version of the trip planner, which seems to be less conservative. Whether it will prove more accurate remains to be seen.

For those of you planning trips in cold weather or at high altitude, please try our new (not-yet-published) version of EVTripPlanner as it compensates better for those things. Let us know how accurate it is for your trips. Thanks - and enjoy!

Cold weather/altitude-adjusted planner: http://evtripplanner.com/planner/carview_beta2
Reference sheets & calculations (PDF and XLS): http://evtripplanner.com/calcs.php

We have thousands of users each week now...think Tesla will integrate energy planning into Nav soon????

 

[TheAustin]

One last update: We just arrived home...8 days, 7 states, 8 charging stops (4 of them Superchargers), and over 1,200 miles later, we just completed an amazing road trip from the Eastern end of Long Island to the hills of West Virginia, and back. And not only did we do it all in an electric car, we did it without being inconvenienced by having to wait and charge anywhere. We charged 8 times, all for free. Overnight in a parking garage in NYC, for several days while at the Greenbrier, overnight last night at a hotel in Georgetown...And then two stops at the Newark, Delaware and Glen Allen, Virginia Superchargers (there and back), while we ate meals, and arrived back at the car with a full charge every time. Fantastic.

And one final note of accomplishment: After taking detailed notes and making careful calculations, we concluded that, although we had planned to stop at the new JFK Supercharger in the way home, we felt as though we could make the 222 mile journey from Newark, Delaware back to the Hamptons with 10-12 miles to spare.

We pulled into our driveway this evening at 8:30pm with 9 miles to spare, capping off a great family road trip in our Model S filled with great memories, and thankfully very little drama in getting there or back again

 

[JohnQ]

Congrats on the successful trip, both with the car and with the family. It's a huge confidence booster to make it work, isn't it?