I left for Kyabram (VIC) from the Gold Coast on the 19th of Dec and arrived back on the 29th. Our trip was rushed to get to the VIC border to save Xmas (6 yo would have been devastated, as all presents were at my sister's place) and then back to QLD to avoid any possibility of getting stuck in quarantine. We had planned to spend time in Sydney and Canberra, plus spend more time in some places on the way back.
We took the M1 down to Kempsey for the first night. Then to Newcastle and out to Dubbo for the second night. A big drive down through Cowra to Gundagai, over the border at Albury-Wodonga and then through Sheparton to Kyabram. We stuck to Tesla Superchargers on the way down, except for a test of the Chargefox rapid charger at Gundagai that failed after 10 mins, so and I had to switch to the Supercharger anyway.
One the way back we went from Kyabram to Wagga Wagga and up to Cowra. A sprint to Dubbo for the zoo and then on to Tamworth via a gravel road and going through Goonoo State Conservation Area to Coonabarabran. Tamworth back to the Gold Coast was on the Hume highway crossing the border at Wallangarra (only 3 cars and about as many minutes wait). I went over the mountain rather than on the toll roads that take you towards Brisbane before coming down on the M1.
Anyway, here are the overall stats for the trip with my Model 3 Performance with the boot packed full plus 2 adults and 2 kids, AC on at 22C:
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At times I could see consumption average over 200 Wh/km, especially on hot days >35C. Unfortunately I was not diligent enough to capture each stop, but here is the worst I captured from Gundagai to Wodonga:
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On a day that the car was reporting as 39C the tyre pressures were getting high from 42 psi when cold:
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What's the actual limit before we should get worried?
As a comparison, this is what I had returning from Springwood to Helensvale today with just myself in the car.
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Here is the overall stats for the car:
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I didn't take the safe and normal routes which meant I ended up on some pretty crappy B and C roads. Getting off the beaten track is great to see some different scenery, but I couldn't risk Autopilot for fear of hitting a rough patch or pothole with low profile tyres. On some A roads I didn't feel comfortable leaving Autopilot on when it came to reasonably sharp bends. It tends to stay too far left and even A roads have a few rough edges in places.
Unfortunately I still hit a few things I shouldn't have and ended up with some wheel rim damage and a new tyre. I'm not actually sure when I did this, as it was on the front passenger side, but my step father noticed it when he did an inspection upon arriving at their place.
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That's 3 tyres in a year
. I think I'll get a Model Y LR with standard tyres for the family road trips and keep the Model 3 Performance as a city/highway car.
Overall I'm very happy with how the car performed. I'd like the Tesla trip range to be a bit more accurate, as it was always optimistic and I could watch the destination battery charge tick down over the length of the trip. ABRP was much closer to reality, from my experience.
Lessons from my first big road trip:
- Superchargers are faster than family breaks. I'd often be anxious and have to hurry everyone up or go and move the car to avoid idle fees before the family was finished with eating/toilet breaks.
- I'd target Superchargers for short breaks and 50 KW Chargefox/NRMA/etc. for meals + a look around.
- A/C seems better now than when I first got the car with no problems even at near 40C temps.
- Buy a windscreen cleaner (like the ones at service stations) and water spray bottle to clean your windscreen. I did that once in Kyabram and it made the trip back much more pleasant. I keep mine in the frunk.
- Charge often and more than what you need, even when you think you don't need to. Single NRMA chargers can be in use (Ioniq at Armidale that didn't use the PlugShare app, I'm looking at you!), so it's handy to just move on to the next one if you can. We just went to Glen Innes and had brunch there instead of a late breakfast at Armidale.
- Disengaging TACC at a "60 km/h Ahead" sign and then turning it on again once the car picked up the 60 km/h sign proved to be fairly accurate for most towns. However, waiting to hit the 100 km/h sign before being able to accelerate is frustrating for me and definitely for the cars behind. It would be nice to automate this a bit better.
