Long range travel

[Zohar]

I traveled from Berkeley, CA to Portland OR this past weekend. It took three recharging stops of approx. 50 mins. each to complete the trip. My last stop was in Springfield, OR at 11:30 pm where I ended up eating at a Denny's as I waited for my batteries to recharge. I was able to force down half a plate of chocolate chip pancakes as I waited. I had the feeling I was waiting for the cast of the movie "Grease" to show up and start singing. It was quite the nostalgic setting.

I'm afraid my model 3 is going to remain an urban perimeter car unless a better solution can be found to recharging the batteries. SpaceX can attach a space capsule to the International Space Station and return safely to earth, yet it takes 50 minutes to recharge my model 3. Maybe there is no way to compare the complexities of these two systems, but somehow someone has to address this issue. Otherwise we're just driving oversized Volkswagen Beetles that really aren't meant for extended highway driving.

 

[commasign]

Maybe you missed the news, but this should help...

Introducing V3 Supercharging

 

[GHammer]

It sounds like maybe this is your first road trip and don't have the hang of of it yet. An EV is not like an ICE where you "fill up" at every stop. 50 minutes per stop seems long, I do that route often and I don't stop for more than 20-30 minutes, 40 minutes max if the weather is bad. The key is to only charge enough to get to the next stop (plus a buffer of 15-20%) and come in at a low state of charge where the charging is the fastest and leave as soon as you have enough to get to the next stop. Charging the battery to full during the trip to skip a charger usually results in overall slower trip.

 

[JasJ]

If possible, always ride the bottom half of the battery from supercharger to supercharger when travelling. Faster charging is less down time. Every couple of hours charge for 20-30 minutes or enough time for a bio-break, snack and a chance to stretch the legs. Never charge past 80% when travelling unless you have to, it's generally a waste of time as it goes sooooo slowly.

 

[deemo]

According to A Better Routeplanner, if use LR RWD Model 3 - should charge 4 times for about 17 min each, total of 62 minutes of charging to go from Berkeley to Portland.

 

[deemo]

Leave Berkeley 90% drive 02:30 159 miles

Corning 32% 56% 00:09 $4.83 02:00 109 miles

Mt. Shasta 10% 53% 00:17 $8.61 01:59 117 miles

Grants Pass 15% 59% 00:17 $8.77 02:17 138 miles

Springfield 10% 51% 00:16 $8.25 01:42 106 miles
Arrive Portland 15% 259 Wh/mi 01:02 $30 10:29 629 miles 11:31

 

[NeverFollow]

I traveled from Berkeley, CA to Portland OR this past weekend.
It took three recharging stops of approx. 50 mins. each to complete the trip.

I checked and this is what the Tesla navigation recommend.

It would nice if the Tesla navigation would have setting for

- 'maximum battery charging level' or
- 'optimum charge for travel time'

the same way as you can select

- 'avoid tool road' or
- 'avoid ferry'

Honestly I rarely use the Tesa navigation because I cannot select my own itinireary,
or modify the proposed itinerary like this is possible when using Google map.

 

[ratsbew]

As others have said....you're doing it wrong.

A properly planned road trip involves leaving home with a 90-100% charge, driving the car 250 miles down to 10% (on Autopilot of course), plugging in at a Tesla Supercharger station for about 10-15 minutes while you take a break or get food, driving for another ~100 miles to the next Supercharger and repeat. The battery charges fastest between 10% and 50% (up to 120 kilowatts) so you want to get back on the road as soon as the charging rate begins to slow.

Following the in-car charge times is highly conservative...you won't run out of charge, but you'll also waste a lot of time.

 

[Rocky_H]

It took three recharging stops of approx. 50 mins. each to complete the trip. [...] yet it takes 50 minutes to recharge my model 3.

Having only three stops was what caught my eye as being a problem. I don't want to put the blame on you, because it was Tesla who put this horrific and wrong charging advice into the Trip Planner they have in the car, and it is causing just this kind of irritation and discontent and dissatisfaction with the product that they should really be avoiding.

The (Beta) Trip Planner in the car seems to be programmed with a preference for doing the longest charge times possible, with the fewest amount of stops possible to try to skip over charging locations. That is about the most cumbersome, annoying, boring, anxiety-inducing, and inefficient way to do it. It just flat-out sucks, but you didn't know any better because that's what the car recommended. I'm glad I got my car back in 2014, before that Trip Planner existed, so I discovered these things from other Tesla drivers in forums before that came out with the car giving bad recommendations.

If you see the car telling you 50 or more minutes charging, it's giving you a bad recommendation. As @[email protected] was mentioning, it feels way less annoying to hit up more stops for 15-20 minutes. First, it's using the faster charging lower portion of the battery, so it's more efficient, and Second, it's just harder to get bored in the first 15-20 minutes. You get out, walk across the street to use the bathroom and get a snack or coffee, check email or Facebook and then get back in the car and go. You don't really feel like you're wasting time or waiting for it, because you can kill a short period of time easily without noticing it much. But you run out of things to do by the 35th minute or the 46th minute, and it really starts to feel like it's inconveniencing you.

So I find it much better to pick your own stops. Select the next Supercharger along the interstate, and see what that drive time or arrival battery % shows. If you've got a lot extra at the moment, then sure, maybe skip one to run the battery lower, but certainly avoid doing very long charges if you're waiting for the car.

On these long multi-stop trips, frequently a plan of alternating long/short/long/short works well for fitting in your meal breaks. Let's assume about 2 hours of driving in between. You take a meal stop, the car charges up extra, like more than you need because you're still eating. At the next one, you have leftover charge, so it's a quick 10-15 minute charge. Then, after another 2 hours, it's low, and it's been 4 hours since the last meal stop, so maybe you eat again for a longer charge. It feels better that way, because the "waiting" ones are short, but the ones that are longer are where you are busy with something that takes you more time, so you're not really "waiting".

 

[adaptabl]

It sounds like maybe this is your first road trip and don't have the hang of of it yet. An EV is not like an ICE where you "fill up" at every stop. 50 minutes per stop seems long, I do that route often and I don't stop for more than 20-30 minutes, 40 minutes max if the weather is bad. The key is to only charge enough to get to the next stop (plus a buffer of 15-20%) and come in at a low state of charge where the charging is the fastest and leave as soon as you have enough to get to the next stop. Charging the battery to full during the trip to skip a charger usually results in overall slower trip.

Hope you don't hit a big traffic delay or a road closure. We were rerouted 75 miles and 3 hours delay for an I75 closure in Tennessee due to a rock fall. Would of been totally screwed (not stopping in the hill country of Tennessee if it can be avoided). Passed lots of gas stations but no chargers on the back roads. This whole charging situation needs more work for EV's to viable for everyone.

 

[GHammer]

Hope you don't hit a big traffic delay or a road closure. We were rerouted 75 miles and 3 hours delay for an I75 closure in Tennessee due to a rock fall. Would of been totally screwed (not stopping in the hill country of Tennessee if it can be avoided). Passed lots of gas stations but no chargers on the back roads. This whole charging situation needs more work for EV's to viable for everyone.

unexpected stuff happens on road trips no matter what vehicle you take. Big traffic delays are not a problem, the car uses very little energy when stopped or moving slowly, I've waited in a delay 5 hours with no effect on my charging strategy. Reroutes are an issue and I've had those, but 75 miles additional is pretty extreme, and I would say quite rare. My longest reroute was 30 miles around a flooded road and because the reroute was moving so slowly my energy usage was low and was able to traverse it with little additional loss in the overall charge. In tens of thousands of miles of road tripping, I'm quite confident in my strategy.

 

[davidalai]

According to A Better Routeplanner, if use LR RWD Model 3 - should charge 4 times for about 17 min each, total of 62 minutes of charging to go from Berkeley to Portland.

Wow. Thanks for this site! This looks to be very useful. Any quirks about using A Better RoutePlanner I should know about?

 

[TheGrimSweeper]

Congrats on the first roadtrip. As others, have said you are doing it wrong.

The car charges very fast at superchargers from 10% to 50% charge. Takes roughly 15 minutes or so, you can grab a coffee or take a pee and be basically on your way.

It sounds like you kept trying to charge it to 100%. From 50% to 100% the charging slows down dramatically to protect the integrity and longevity of the battery.

Supercharger V3 rollout will help decrease these times even further. But really you just have to re-train yourself, as its not like gas cars.

Other option is to just plan your route to take your time. When I do roadtrips, with my wife and 8 month old daughter, we NEVER stop for less than 30 minutes every few hours anyway, which is more than enough to get ample charge.

 

[Oldschool496]

I'm afraid my model 3 is going to remain an urban perimeter

Well after reading all these replies, does anything click. I drive a 75D Model S and this is how I attack the problem. With Degradation and the fact the car never had any more then 259 miles of range when new, the bottom example is exactly how I would do this with 240 fully charge range now. The result would also be the same. v3 charging is going to help both Model S and TM3 also in the future.

This one is good: JasJ writes-
If possible, always ride the bottom half of the battery from supercharger to supercharger when travelling. Faster charging is less down time. Every couple of hours charge for 20-30 minutes or enough time for a bio-break, snack and a chance to stretch the legs. Never charge past 80% when travelling unless you have to, it's generally a waste of time as it goes sooooo slowly.

this one is much the same riding the lower half of the battery: deemo writes-

Leave Berkeley 90% drive 02:30 159 miles

Corning 32% 56% 00:09 $4.83 02:00 109 miles

Mt. Shasta 10% 53% 00:17 $8.61 01:59 117 miles

Grants Pass 15% 59% 00:17 $8.77 02:17 138 miles

Springfield 10% 51% 00:16 $8.25 01:42 106 miles
Arrive Portland 15% 259 Wh/mi 01:02 $30 10:29 629 miles 11:31

With the proliferation of Superchargers and Destination Charging this has become so easy. You also arrive refreshed and not so frazzled.

 

[Oldschool496]

I'm afraid my model 3 is going to remain an urban perimeter

Well after reading all these replies, does anything click. I drive a 75D Model S and this is how I attack the problem. With Degradation and the fact the car never had any more then 259 miles of range when new, the bottom example is exactly how I would do this with 240 fully charge range now. The result would also be the same. v3 charging is going to help both Model S and TM3 also in the future.

This one is good: JasJ writes-
If possible, always ride the bottom half of the battery from supercharger to supercharger when travelling. Faster charging is less down time. Every couple of hours charge for 20-30 minutes or enough time for a bio-break, snack and a chance to stretch the legs. Never charge past 80% when travelling unless you have to, it's generally a waste of time as it goes sooooo slowly.

this one is much the same riding the lower half of the battery: deemo writes-

Leave Berkeley 90% drive 02:30 159 miles

Corning 32% 56% 00:09 $4.83 02:00 109 miles

Mt. Shasta 10% 53% 00:17 $8.61 01:59 117 miles

Grants Pass 15% 59% 00:17 $8.77 02:17 138 miles

Springfield 10% 51% 00:16 $8.25 01:42 106 miles
Arrive Portland 15% 259 Wh/mi 01:02 $30 10:29 629 miles 11:31

With the proliferation of Superchargers and Destination Charging this has become so easy. You also arrive refreshed and not so frazzled.

 

[GHammer]

OP hasn't returned, I guess they didn't really want any help or discussion, just wanted to complain.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

I traveled from Berkeley, CA to Portland OR this past weekend. It took three recharging stops of approx. 50 mins. each to complete the trip. My last stop was in Springfield, OR at 11:30 pm where I ended up eating at a Denny's as I waited for my batteries to recharge. I was able to force down half a plate of chocolate chip pancakes as I waited. I had the feeling I was waiting for the cast of the movie "Grease" to show up and start singing. It was quite the nostalgic setting.

I'm afraid my model 3 is going to remain an urban perimeter car unless a better solution can be found to recharging the batteries. SpaceX can attach a space capsule to the International Space Station and return safely to earth, yet it takes 50 minutes to recharge my model 3. Maybe there is no way to compare the complexities of these two systems, but somehow someone has to address this issue. Otherwise we're just driving oversized Volkswagen Beetles that really aren't meant for extended highway driving.

What type of Model 3? Where did you charge? What time were you driving? What was the weather?

With multiple 50 minute charges, it sounds like you were trying to charge to a relatively high state of charge.
The fastest way to travel long distance is usually to:
(1) start with a full battery
(2) drive as fast as you want
(3) stop at the last Supercharger your car will take you to without the state of charge dropping below about 10%
(4) charge to a moderate state of charge where charging doesn't slow down much, and then leave
(5) go to 2

That being said, there are two issues out there:
(1) Northern California/Southern Oregon has some relatively large gaps between Superchargers at the moment. When the gaps between Superchargers are larger, it's harder to have optimal charging as you may either be forced to stop too much (with each stop adding time due to the diversion from the highway), or too little (with each stop requiring charging to a higher state of charge).

But, Tesla's map indicates that it hopes to add Superchargers in Williams, CA, Redding, CA, Roseburg, OR and Salem, OR which would reduce the distances between the Superchargers along that route.
Find Us | Tesla

(2) The Model 3 battery doesn't have a separate heater, instead relying on capturing waste heat, which means that it's possible that you could have had one of the charges be slower than normal. Tesla says it's going to add a battery heating mode to the software that will deliberately generate more waste heat to warm the battery as you are approaching a Supercharger.

 

[Oldschool496]

OP hasn't returned, I guess they didn't really want any help or discussion, just wanted to complain.

It appears that way, Surreal time he had at Denny's perhaps did him in.

 

[M3BlueGeorgia]

Wow. Thanks for this site! This looks to be very useful. Any quirks about using A Better RoutePlanner I should know about?

Make sure you setup the parameters correctly. The defaults aren't correct.

Also, unless you are an experienced Tesla road-tripper, set the expected arrival charge level for 20% at Superchargers and some greater amount at your destination.

 

[everettpa1]

Worst part is he/she went to Denny's. Yuck.