It's September 2021, and the "Beta Trip Planner" built into the car is still horrific at Supercharger selection

[Rocky_H]

It is late 2021. Why is the "Beta Trip Planner" that is built into navigation still so awful at choosing Superchargers?! Here's what just happened today.

I am on my way home from a large 1,800 mile vacation trip. I dropped my wife off at the Los Angeles airport this morning, since she hates road trips and didn't want to sit through the two days of driving back from Los Angeles to Boise. So she gets to be done with it while I enjoy my road tripping. Bear in mind here, that I couldn't pre-plan the exact first Supercharger stop ahead of time, since I didn't know what my state of charge would be when I got to the airport this morning, so I figured I would just throw in Carson City, NV, where my stop tonight will be, and let the Nav pick the first place. That part should be easy enough, right? Instant fail.

As I pulled away from the curb at departures, with about 50% battery, I put it in, and it said to drive straight to the Mojave, CA Supercharger, arriving with 4%. Are you F'ing KIDDING ME?!?! There should be NO excuse now for EVER recommending someone to skip Superchargers to arrive with 4%. Period. This should have been fixed YEARS ago!

That insane route is passing by six Superchargers along the way to make me white knuckle and clench to barely make it to Mojave. And I was driving at this point, so I could only take small glances to find something closer to reroute to. I went to Grenada Hills to fill up for a while first.

But this makes me really angry. A new EV owner wouldn't necessarily know how pointlessly terrible that recommendation is, or that there are much better options, and that they need to cancel/override what the car is recommending to make this trip work reasonably. This is the kind of thing that hurts the reputation of EVs and intentionally produces range anxiety when there is no reason to.

It is because of this programmed-in setting of using the least number of stops possible, but it takes that to these kinds of ridiculous extremes that are really bad for new owners. A fairly straightforward setting they could make available to the users is just a minimum threshold %. If it tries to pick a route that arrives with less than XX%, no-go. Redo it to make larger arrival margins that meet the minimum user threshold. We should be able to set that at something reasonable, like 10-20%.

 

[JimBob 909]

I just entered into A Better Route Planner a route from LAX to Boise Id. Starting at LAX with 50% SOC. It shows Mojave as the first stop also. Using our MS (2019 Raven preprogrammed) it show 10% soc arriving at Mojave.

 

[Rocky_H]

I just entered into A Better Route Planner a route from LAX to Boise Id. Starting at LAX with 50% SOC. It shows Mojave as the first stop also. Using our MS (2019 Raven preprogrammed) it show 10% soc arriving at Mojave.

Regarding the ABRP part, sure, recommending to arrive somewhere with 10% would be kind of reasonable. 4% is not. But also, ABRP has a place for that threshold variable I mentioned, where you can tell it to not allow an arrival percent below 10, and it will make sure to set the route accordingly. Move that variable up from 10, and it won't recommend non-stop to Mojave.

And I don't remember what my exact state of charge was; I think around 50-some. But the Raven versions have the permanent magnet motor with much better efficiency levels than my old 2014 Model S 85, so that does make sense that it could show 10% at arrival rather than 4% even if they did have the same beginning charge level.

 

[WhiteWi]

I try to arrive with 5% at superchargers I don’t get what the fuzz about.

 

[Rocky_H]

I try to arrive with 5% at superchargers I don’t get what the fuzz about.

Because an initial estimation of 5% before leaving frequently turns into "Drive less than 65 mph to make your destination" "Drive less than 55 mph to make your destination" "Drive less than 45 mph to make your destination", etc. It sucks. Headwinds can make the initial estimation worthless. As I was coming down on this trip though Utah, I got a little impatient, with not going up to my usual margins and only starting off with a little over 10%, and had a crummy drive, having to keep slowing and hiding behind semi trucks, and such to make it work. I hate that.

Also, I don't know if you have seen this behavior in the car before, but I credit @AlanSubie4Life for cluing me into this little tidbit:
If the car shows 5% before you start, it's lying! I got to see this again just yesterday, when I was charging in McDermitt, NV for a tricky long drive home up U.S. 95. I had my home set in Navigation and was charging up, with the energy screen showing my battery % and arrival %.

65% -- 5%
70% -- 5%
75% -- 5%
80% -- 5%
I think it was somewhere a bit above 80% that it finally started to show that I would have some larger than 5% margin at arrival. If it's showing only 5%, it is not telling you this, but is counting on the fact that it will be nagging you to "Drive slower than XX mph to make your destination" most of the way. If I would have been stupid enough to trust leaving with only 65%, with a 5% arrival estimate, I would have not made it.

 

[WhiteWi]

Because an initial estimation of 5% before leaving frequently turns into "Drive less than 65 mph to make your destination" "Drive less than 55 mph to make your destination" "Drive less than 45 mph to make your destination", etc. It sucks. Headwinds can make the initial estimation worthless. As I was coming down on this trip though Utah, I got a little impatient, with not going up to my usual margins and only starting off with a little over 10%, and had a crummy drive, having to keep slowing and hiding behind semi trucks, and such to make it work. I hate that.

Also, I don't know if you have seen this behavior in the car before, but I credit @AlanSubie4Life for cluing me into this little tidbit:
If the car shows 5% before you start, it's lying! I got to see this again just yesterday, when I was charging in McDermitt, NV for a tricky long drive home up U.S. 95. I had my home set in Navigation and was charging up, with the energy screen showing my battery % and arrival %.

65% -- 5%
70% -- 5%
75% -- 5%
80% -- 5%
I think it was somewhere a bit above 80% that it finally started to show that I would have some larger than 5% margin at arrival. If it's showing only 5%, it is not telling you this, but is counting on the fact that it will be nagging you to "Drive slower than XX mph to make your destination" most of the way. If I would have been stupid enough to trust leaving with only 65%, with a 5% arrival estimate, I would have not made it.

Just came back this week from short trip down to Savannah. When I left supercharger car was showing I would arrive with 5% to my house but I end up arriving with 13%. I didn’t slow down or hid behind the Semis. On top of that I have 16 S 75. Go figure. I don’t argue that headwinds or heavy rain or any other weather effect could had dramatic effect. When weather is not that great obviously I raise my margins higher to be on the safe side.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

65% -- 5%
70% -- 5%
75% -- 5%
80% -- 5%
I think it was somewhere a bit above 80% that it finally started to show that I would have some larger than 5% margin at arrival.

That's a much larger window of SOC over which the arrival charge stays the same than I have ever seen! Must have been something specific about the route. But for sure 5-10% past the "Enough charge to reach your destination," I have seen. I believe it starts telling you you can make your destination as soon as it gets to 5% arrival charge? The exact behavior I have not studied really closely but definitely the phenomenon you mention does exist. Margin is good!

There are a lot of factors. It is certainly possible to beat the estimates, but it's also possible to fall short. It all depends.