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How do you set up your Tesla for long trips? Sunglasses, coolers and app selections oh my!

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#21
I have a collapsible bucket I fill with basic tools like my impact driver, hammer, utility knife, pliers, screw & bit assortment, duct tape, No Rinse Wash, and microfiber towels.

My tools and duct tape came in really handy when I ran over some aluminum road debris that cut part of the wheel well lining. I was able to bunch up the duct tape behind the piece and put a screw into it to make a temporary fastener so it stopped flapping against the wheel.

And a heavy gauge 100' extension cord in the frunk has always let me get at least a 12 amp charge at any hotel.
 
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#23
ReturnZero said:
Little off topic, but what are some good Tesla Podcasts? I listen to a couple good Apple/Mac shows but would like some Tessa ones to add to the mix while walking downtown.
Click to expand...
I listen to The Tesla Show and Ride The Lightening. And I do really find that while long distance driving, at night especially, music will lull me to sleep while concentrating on an oral presentation keeps me more awake. But then I am thinking about driving beyond Supercharger range where you want to really use most of your charge so that when you get up with a full charge from your hotel level 2 overnight fill-up you can get further before having to stop at the next level 2 charger. With the spread out of the Supercharger network and more Chademo chargers becoming available where I tend to road trip, that is becoming less of an consideration.
 
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#24
Great list in all the posts above. We do a lot of Road Trips (over 13,000 miles already in 3 months of ownership). The one thing I did not see above is TOILET PAPER. I learned by experience many, many, years ago that you should never leave home without toilet paper, paper towels, and baby wipes. On our two-week, 7,000 mile cross country trip in June/July we stopped at a SC late at night with available restroom, but no toilet paper or paper towels in it. I almost left our supply there for other travelers but in the end decided that we may need it again. Turns out that we did not but you never know. Maybe next time we will bring two rolls.

Many, many, many years ago as a young college student driving home for a holiday weekend on a lonely country road I saw a car off the side of the road with a kid trying to scrape dirt from the hard clay of middle Georgia to throw onto his engine which was on fire. I stopped to help and eventually we were able to smother the fire. I got home very late that night, but the next morning I went to town and bought a fire extinguisher to carry in the trunk of my car. Now, many years later I still carry a fire extinguisher. In all these years I have had the opportunity to use them twice and helped save someone from loosing their car. Once in the engine compartment, the other was the right front tire (break pad over-heating and catching fire). I have never needed any for myself, but just knowing that I was able to help someone else was worth the expense. You just never know. We do not carry gasoline in our Teslas but it could be invaluable if we ever come across a vehicle fire, or any fire for that matter. How may brush fires start from someone throwing a cigarette butt out the window???
 
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#25
These posts are amazing! Does anyone have a preferred app location setup? Do people have rear facing camera, or nav up top? What about the center stack and phone holders? I'm trying to figure out how to keep eyes on road with very little fiddling...
 
#26
buttershrimp said:
These posts are amazing! Does anyone have a preferred app location setup? Do people have rear facing camera, or nav up top? What about the center stack and phone holders? I'm trying to figure out how to keep eyes on road with very little fiddling...
Click to expand...
I wish nav on top didn't hide all the buttons. Sometimes I put it on bottom just because of that. But it's not my preferred way.
 
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#27
We always carry a ViAir 84P air compressor https://www.amazon.com/VIAIR-85P-Portable-Air-Compressor/dp/B0036E9VB6 to:
  • inflate a punctured tire enough to get you to a tire shop... instead of having to wait for a Tesla tow truck
  • re-inflate a punctured tire after we plug it with our Safety Seal tire plug kit
  • avoid the frustrating hunt for a working air compressor when you need one because the temperature dropped or altitude changed.
The last scenario happened to us on our early AM departure from Green River, UT in March. First gas station didn't have ANY air and the 2nd one required quarters at the rate of one a minute... and we didn't have a roll of quarters in our Tesla so had to go inside to beg for them. Oh and their pressure gauge was WAY off.

I've also picked up nails in our tires which bled out slowly so no TPMS warning on my drive home... but the next morning TPMS shows tire low or FLAT.

The ViAir 84P is the best air compressor choice for our Teslas since bigger ViAir models will blow the 12V fuse... and smaller ones (which actually weigh about the same) will take much longer to fill your tires.

Oh and the ViAir compressors are great to fill bicycle tires too... Just make sure you put a Schrader to Presta valve adapter in your ViAir bag since most high end bikes use Presta valves. The adapters only cost a buck or two at your local bike shop or 80¢ for TWO on eBay (you'll drop one and never find it again... GUARANTEED) NEW 2Pcs Presta to Schrader Tube Pump Tool Converter Bicycle Tire Valve Adaptor | eBay
 
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#28
buttershrimp said:
These posts are amazing! Does anyone have a preferred app location setup? Do people have rear facing camera, or nav up top? What about the center stack and phone holders? I'm trying to figure out how to keep eyes on road with very little fiddling...
Click to expand...
I was also concerned about taking my eyes off the road. Not a problem. Can perform nearly all tasks via steering wheel controls & voice commands.
Right side of console set to recent calls, left to music. I try to use Autopilot or at least TACC (Traffic Aware Cruise Control) in situations where I want to focus more attention on the 17" screen.
I generally have music on bottom half & nav on top.
Set Calander to come up at start-up in case I want to navigate to an event location. I make an effort to put locations on all calendar events now.
 
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#29
BrokerDon said:
We always carry a ViAir 84P air compressor https://www.amazon.com/VIAIR-85P-Portable-Air-Compressor/dp/B0036E9VB6 to:
  • inflate a punctured tire enough to get you to a tire shop... instead of having to wait for a Tesla tow truck
  • re-inflate a punctured tire after we plug it with our Safety Seal tire plug kit
  • avoid the frustrating hunt for a working air compressor when you need one because the temperature dropped or altitude changed.
The last scenario happened to us on our early AM departure from Green River, UT in March. First gas station didn't have ANY air and the 2nd one required quarters at the rate of one a minute... and we didn't have a roll of quarters in our Tesla so had to go inside to beg for them. Oh and their pressure gauge was WAY off.

I've also picked up nails in our tires which bled out slowly so no TPMS warning on my drive home... but the next morning TPMS shows tire low or FLAT.

The ViAir 84P is the best air compressor choice for our Teslas since bigger ViAir models will blow the 12V fuse... and smaller ones (which actually weigh about the same) will take much longer to fill your tires.

Oh and the ViAir compressors are great to fill bicycle tires too... Just make sure you put a Schrader to Presta valve adapter in your ViAir bag since most high end bikes use Presta valves. The adapters only cost a buck or two at your local bike shop or 80¢ for TWO on eBay (you'll drop one and never find it again... GUARANTEED) NEW 2Pcs Presta to Schrader Tube Pump Tool Converter Bicycle Tire Valve Adaptor | eBay
Click to expand...

Will second this - I have the same compressor (85P).

It's fast, runs fine from the console 12V, reaches all 4 tires, is compact, and is less than $50.

Good peace of mind along with a plug kit. It's not a spare and a jack, but now that we have microfrunks instead of full-size frunks, there's no room for a spare anyway.
 
#32
The one thing I didn't see mentioned is a 4G LTE Wi-Fi HotSpot. It's a must have for our family. Racked up 95GB on our last one-week road trip. We happen to live in a city where AT&T doesn't impose throttling after 22GB. That seems to carry over wherever you happen to use the HotSpot so we watched lots of movies in the car and in hotel rooms along the way.
 
#36
bmah said:
o I found a pilot's kneeboard is helpful to keep various random things organized, like extra memory cards for my dash cam, USB cables, notepad and pens, charging cards, printouts of trip-planning stuff, paper maps, etc. Plus it was an excuse for me (a non-pilot) to buy something from Sportys. :D I use this:

Flight Gear HP Bi-Fold Kneeboard
Click to expand...

OMG I need this! I had no idea this was a product.

My dad and I are doing The Great Race next year and I've been thinking about some sort of lapdesk like this. Thanks mbah!
 
#37
bcampbelllds said:
A must have website for when you road trip.

Tesla Traffic Incidents and Information

Load it on then bottom half of the screen.
Click to expand...

Read this thread to learn to also add winds and elevation to the Waze display.

Tesla Winds and Elevation Web Browser App

In the thread you will learn how to set up an account on the two different accounts that you will need, then add them into the waze app. I was able to do it, so I am sure most of you will be able to follow the instructions to do it also. I first set it up on my laptop, then emailed the link to myself, opened email on the car and clicked on the link. Once logged in you can leave it logged in and saved on favorites. Any time I want it I just open from favorites and it is already logged in to my account. Oh, and these accounts are free, so no subscription costs to worry about.

I use the Tesla GPS in the top screen and the Waze with wind and elevation on the bottom. With both I see traffic conditions with the added benefit of seeing if I have head-winds or tail-winds and by how much, as well as elevation changes. I keep the Waze scaled down to see traffic further out while on the trip, then zoom in when entering heavier city traffic.
 
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#38
Oh man, that is nice... I have to get this to work.

I have a lot of stuff setup now... based on feedback from this thread. I have the driver display with odometer and trip display on the left, with energy on the right, but also, I have an iPhone on a suction device positioned from the left little triangle window near the left side mirror so that it stays fixed even if you roll down the window, this points directly at me while not obstructing the air-conditioning vent. I have all the vents in the car turned off (or minimal flow by pushing the vents to the right to be closed), with a sunshade up on the all glass roof to conserve energy, and I am using a steripen solar charger that I put up between the all glass roof and the sun shade so that keeps the phone charged without getting wires in the way.... but you have to fix the little solar panel above your head or it will slide out of the sunshade . This step is probably unecessary since it is likely that only a tiny amount of energy is used by the phone charger in the car. but I'm kind of in to hypermiling right now, so oh well.

I have a rubbermaid bucket in the front seat leg space with plenty of replacement trash bags (which I need to change to black bags instead of white to get rid of the distracting reflection), I have leatherman tool, lighter, regular knife and tire gauge in the front with insurance and license stuff. In the trunk, I have the tesla charging equipment, the tesla tire fixer pump, a 100 foot extension cord. I have a yeti flip going in the font seat, stacked to the rafters with core drinking water... I got paper towels, steripens and mcr water filtration pump with nuun tablets to keep me hydrated in case I have to cut open a cactus and kill a rattlesnake to get to the water. I have wet wipes in the trunk (courtesy of my avatar), I have a water proof pet blanket on the floor ready to lay on the seat in case I have to piss into a bio bag... and I'm not afraid to do it, even with AP2. Heck if I had AP1 then I probably wouldn't even use a pet blanket beneath me.

I have a swiss megamat mattress in the trunk with 3 inches of MMA mats lining the trunk so everything is level. I have some twistable sunshades ready to go if I have to block side windows while I sleep at superchargers... I have fly fishing equipment ready to roll in the rear trunk basement storage area... with waders and fly rods, (scott radian and sage accel and a sage 2 weight circa rod because I like to party). Hmmmm, what else.... Austin to New Mexico next week... can't wait.

Oh and I almost forgot! I just discovered the inroute iPhone app, which is amazing ... I plan to check this at superchargers to check weather and wind direction in case I decide to go for a 330 mile uphill stretch from sweetwater to santa rosa (which is unlikely, but just in case the remnants of Hurricane Harvey decides to throw a 10 mph tailwind my way I want to be prepared)...

I decided not to go out and buy a gun for this trip because I'm not yet paranoid enough, and I am way more likely to shoot myself in the leg while yelling' "break yo self fool!" to some dickhead in an ICE who cut me off in New Mexico while I'm all jacked up on caffeine and five hour energies (the nerd equivalent of meth amphetamine since I just binge watched breaking bad and I'm pretty sure I might run into Tuco, but I guess I'll just have to talk my way out of a bad situation if that happens. Am I missing anything guys? Thanks for your help!
 
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#39
In the almost 4 years with our Nissan Leaf we learned to hypermile. With our Tesla we do follow most of those practices with our local driving as we plug in when we return home. On our cross-country driving all hypermiling seems to go away. We cruise at 80 mph in Auto-pilot along the freeway so if traffic slows down so do we, but we are no longer the slow car on the road. We know there is a SC just up the road and make sure we get there. We only charge enough to get there with a 10 to 20% reserve, depending on winds and elevation changes.
 
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