Sorry to hear your frustration, I'm currently on a road trip with the family and good EV planning is crucial when stretching the range. I noticed you have 22" wheels, an immediate range improvement of at least 10% can be had by just going with 20" wheels. The stock slip stream wheels provide for the best efficiency, they can be powdercoated or the next best thing is the T-sportline black turbines in 20" not as much of a watt hog as the 22". I'm currently averaging ~400Wh/m @ 80mph in 90 degrees with some slipstreaming. Good luck and safe driving.
I was in Montana last week and I didn't have anywhere near the range problems that OP had. Granted, I'm in a Model S, not an X, but I was also travelling at SIGNIFICANTLY higher speeds. On a trip between Bozeman and Whitehall, which is about 120 miles round trip, I left Bozeman with about 200 miles of range and came back with about 50. For most of the trip I was running triple digit speeds.
I've always been pretty impressed with how efficient this car is at high speeds. (I have 19" wheels). Maybe the aerodynamics of the X really hurts efficiency at speed?
Something is seriously wrong with this particular X.
Which tires? What tire pressure? How is alignment doing?
Sounds to me like the OP was driving into a headwind, that energy usage is WAY high even for a car with 22s, that or the OP was driving around at 85mph...
The 22" wheels, the tires, the aerodynamics, the weight. It's a totally different bird.
Yeah. It sounds like the combination of a headwind (~10MPH), the high speed-limits of these western highways, and the original placement of the Superchargers, optimized (and presumably tested) for the Model S, not the Model X, all conspired to make this a horrible experience for me. (I'll consider 400Wh/mi, 250Wh/km, a goal for the future — but tentatively, EVTripping is suggesting I should expect more like ~290-310 Wh/km on the route back.)
This is making me wish I had a
third set of wheels, specifically for all-weather roadtripping (20" wheels, all-weather tires, I suppose?) Anyway, With foreknowledge and planning, I'll be able to
predict which stretches are going to require severe under-speeding to reasonably attain.
We just got back a week ago from a 9,200 mile road trip in our X P90DL with 22" wheels. We did the Sam stretch the OP pictured from Chicago area across WI and SD to Whitefish MT. We did Ann Arbor MI to Onalaska, WI one one day, the to Keystone SD the next, then Bozeman, then Whitefish. We had no trouble with range, driving speed limits plus 5 most of the time. Trip planner is very accurate, but assumes speed limit (reasonable), but does not adjust for 22" wheels I don't think which doesn't make sense. We typically arrived at a charger with between 5 and 10% less than whatever the trip planner estimated. So we always just waited until we have 15 to 20% estimated remaining SC at the next stop before departing.
Average Wh/mile for the whole 9200 miles was 398.
Hm. I'm imagining it's
gotta be the headwind? You were driving at ~80, and not seeing more than 5-10% losses over the onboard Trip Planner's estimates? Because your trip sounds nearly identical to mine (car, wheels, speeds, route, chargers used, etc); and I was definitely seeing ~25-30% more loss than the Planner indicated.)
I set my Trip meter when I left, but I completely forgot to check it when I arrived here, unfortunately. Ugh. Anecdotally, I'd guess I averaged something like 310 Wh/km over the entire Chicago — Bozeman trip; i.e. ~500 Wh/mile. I'm shocked a headwind could account for so much, especially as you have the same inefficient wheels.
Surprised you would charge to 100%. Most of us have learned to charge for enough to get to the next charger plus a buffer. Best to arrive at a SC with lower miles as it charges much quicker.
Also, if necessary to charge to 100%, try to leave soon after you hit 100 - batteries don't like being fully charged - staying less than 90% will make them last longer.
I'm not sure if you missed it in the original post, but this wasn't an option: I
had to charge to 100%, on nearly every leg: the first couple times were luckly accidents (I would have been stranded, if I'd trusted my faulty trip-planning / the tools in the car! I lucked out by waiting for other reasons.) Trust me, I understand the charging curve; I'm very aware of how much time is lost as it starts to slow down past ~55%, and I wouldn't normally choose to wait the additional 30-ish minutes it seems to take between ~90% and 100%; but I'm almost certainly going to do the same thing on the way home, simply because I see no alternative.
I agree with all these replies. I took a 2500 trip soon after I received my Model X last month. I found it to be very accurate on it's trip meter. As other said, just charge enough to reach to the next charger and trip meter will tell you that. For factor of safety, I always charge till 20% charge left after reaching next charger. I never had any problem.
Same thing I said to the above guy: I must have been unclear in the OP (which is totally possible, I was ... effectively in the middle of a nervous breakdown, after three traumatically-close legs in a row!), but did not see that I
was charging to ~20% above the estimation? ~20% above the in-car Trip Planner's estimation, was ~10% too low to reach the destination. Leaving the SC with 100%, I would be
projected to arrive with ~32%, I'd
expect to arrive ~12%, and I'd
actually arrive with ~2%.
Yes, it takes 15-20% more time than gas powered car, but you don't feel as tired because you have to charge the car every 2-3 hours of driving and you have to get out and move your feet, which makes you more alert. Proper charging station info and little bit of planning makes this long trip really enjoyable.
I think, minus the headwind, and with some better planning tools (EVTripping) and more foreknowledge (most of which I now have!), I won't hate roadtripping in my X as much as I hated this first leg of driving; but I'm also pretty sure, even with all the knowledge from this thread, it's never going to quite live up to the feel of roadtripping in an ICE.
Frankly, I can live with the downsides; and as I can avoid any more
intense ranxiety like that which spawned this thread, the upsides of this car will
more than make up for roadtrips being a little annoying.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
the Wh/Mi (Wh/Km) go up sharply the faster you go. I think the biggest problem is doing 80mph. Another thing, what is the wind situation, if you're driving into a headwind, that will decrease range further. A 10 mph headwind is like driving 10 mph faster.
Speed kills range, especially at speeds over 65 mph. If rated range is @65mph figure roughly a 25 mile drop in range for every 10mph over that.
Slow down and enjoy the journey.
Charging to 100% takes way longer than just reducing your driving speed. In other words, you will arrive faster by charging to 90% and just driving 10MPH slower vs charging to 100% and driving faster. That last 10% of charging takes forever.
Y'all must live in places where the speed-limits are really low (65, 70 MPH?)! I definitely didn't have trouble with her
until I tried this route: the roads in North Dakota, Wyoming, Montana are almost entirely 80MPH; so that's not really an option.
(That is, unless, you guys are just ... compfortable traveling 10 or 15 MPH underneath the speed-limit? Ignoring the fact that I've spent my life thus-far driving 20km/h (~12MPH?)
over the speed-limit, and that there's a huge lifestyle adjustment here that I didn't expect in buying a car like this, can we talk about how
unbelievably unsafe it is to be travelling at ~25km/h
underneath the speed-limit on a public highway? Please, no. If you're doing this, get off my roads.
O_O)
Anyway: I'll crank down beneath the speed-limit if I need to to reach the supercharger, of course; but I
absolutely consider that an unequivocal failure on Tesla's part. Sure, I don't necessarily expect them to place Superchargers close enough that someone can travel
over the speed-limit; but if they're literally unreachable in anything-other-than-ideal-situations (read: headwind, heavy interior load, large elevation changes, unexpected emergency bathroom break for the family ...) without travelling abnormally, dangerously, far under the speed-limit, then
Tesla has failed, here; either in its placement of Superchargers, or in its design of the Model X.
I am more like you! Here is the wilds of Montana my car had me charge to full and go 205 miles through passes. I was definite anxiety, drafting, slowing down and arriving with 13 miles. Not horrid, but dropping to 70, then 60 when the speed limit is 80 is a pain! Wish the car would say how fast to go to reach the destination and that there were more superchargers.
This. Ugh. I know Tesla is focusing on deployment in Europe right now, and capacity-increases at existing SCs ... but I swear, it
can't just be me: they desperately need to review some of the U.S. routes, and place a couple supplamentary stations along routes that the newer, less-aerodynamic, usually-more-loaded Model X struggles with.
/=
In my model S doing 65 to 75 mph ive found that the Tesla battery estimate remaining to be conservative. I typically arrive with much more than expected.
Is the same not true of the MX?
Can I not just rely on the trip planner?
Well, I suspect this thread is a pretty effective answer for you; clearly, not everyone shares my experience, but I would
absolutely do some prospective trip-planning on EVTripping, if you're planning on purchasing a Model X. Make sure the routes you're interested in are well-covered with Superchargers (i.e. no stretches ≥ 230km / 150 miles, or where EVTripping is suggesting you charge to 100%).
tl;dr, from everything I'm hearing of the S ... no. The experience is very different. Maybe v8.0 will include a revamped Trip Planner that works better for the Model X? One can hope?
:x
FWIW, I found that a good rule of thumb is was that I could do 2 miles per percentage point of battery. I quickly switched my battery display off of miles because it was inaccurate. If I have 60% battery, I know I can do 120 miles. The same rule for km is about 3 to 1.
This is actually super-useful. Since reading your post, I've done some tentative math and experimentation, and it looks like I can pretty-reliably expect 2½km per percentage-point. I'm definitely going to be using this heavily!
This, and the ‘start slow, finish fast’ advice for mitigating ranxiety, are definitely the best things to come out of this thread so far.
Or alternatively, do none of these things, drive the car and enjoy it, and stop and charge when you need to. That's what I've been doing for 2 years, works great.
I would also recommend against a pink wrap and referring to your car by a name.
I'm glad that works for you. Personally, I would recommend against assuming what works for you will work for others, either pragmatically (enjoy your presumable 65MPH roads and closely-spaced Superchargers, because your approach is sure as hell not working over here) or aesthetically (she's named Verity, she's the
prettiest pink princess, and I
dare you to come say otherwise to my face!
(;)
Are your dogs pink?, I want to see pics.
No, but they're
hella cute nonetheless!
