Montreal to Toronto Trip

[iKhalid]

The estimated range left from the trip planner starts optimistic and goes down as it learns more from your driving behavior. I find it to be a good reference.

But the trip planner itself is REALLY BAD. It asked me once to leave Toronto SC, go to Barrie, and come back to Toronto SC, then proceed to Mississauga. Yes, that bad! Not to mention going back to Kingston to my way to Toronto, although it estimated that i would have 7% left when I reach Toronto.

 

[Biker]

Most of you folks know more about the car than I do, but there under Settings you can set the Energy Calculation to Rated or Ideal. Mine is on Rated. Also, I was driving the entire trip in Range Mode. Not sure if that is different from how you are setting things.

iKhalid: the worst piece of SW out of Tesla is the entire Nav system. I didn't mention the points because I thought that they were so well known.

1. Other than the first SC in a Trip summary, all of the other SC distances given are by direct line (i.e. how the crow flies). It often isn't even close to the real distance based on the route that the Nav system maps out.
2. The Nav system will almost always try to re-route you back to the charger you came from, but it will wait until you are about 20 KM down the road before it does that.
3. Sometimes it routes you off of the Interstate even when it's not sending you backwards. This happened several times to me - and traffic was not an issue.

Best courses of action:

1. Use another app such as EVTripplanner or Google to calculate the total driving distance to SCs that are beyond the first one you will encounter.
2. Set Nav to the very next SC and turn off 'Route Me Through SCs'.
3. Look at the big picture map with your final destination and stay on the Interstate (or 400 series hwy) unless you see red.

 

[mrElbe]

On my drive to North Carolina in the last 2 days I always ended up with slightly more % than predicted. Not once it tried to send me back to a Supercharger but then I always add 10% more charge than necessary before continuing my journey. Only intervention I had to do was plotting from Buffalo to Cranberry PA, a 331 km distance. Prediction was 1% of battery left after 100% charge at Buffalo. It tried to route my via Detroit or via Cleveland. So, I just deleted all in between chargers and took off. It was raining and strong head wind and I already have the winter tires on. But cruising at the speed limit, turning Climate off and using range mode I ended up with 10% of battery at Cranberry. So, I couldn't be more satisfied with the predictions.

 

[Chisdad]

Just did the Montreal-Toronto-Montreal trip that I initially inquired about. On the way to Toronto trip planner was giving me under 10% estimate to Kingston, so we stopped in Cornwall for 10 mins. Got the spouse's range anxiety out of the way. But there were very strong headwinds and I was doing 110-120km/h. Arrived in Kingston with 11% - my guess is without the stop we would have arrived with about 3%. Also that day the "Driver Assistance features" were unavailable so couldn't use cruise.
On the way home we made Toronto-Kingston easily. And then Kingston-Montreal (280 km) with 12% to spare (no stopping in Cornwall).

Thanks for everyone's input.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Out of curiosity, how busy is Kingston supercharger?

 

[Chisdad]

Friday at noon there were three of eight being used.
Sunday at 2:30 I was alone and then one other guy showed up.

The biggest hassle was pulling into the Lawrence Ave dealership in Toronto at 4:30 on Friday afternoon. Wasn't a charger available for about 30 minutes. Guys told me that a lot of residents come by and leave their cars to charge rather than charging at home. Same was true on Saturday until after about 4:00 PM - then it was wide open.

They were able to do my seatbelt inspection though - so got that taken care of.

 

[iKhalid]

Out of curiosity, how busy is Kingston supercharger?

It gets busy on weekends or long weekends but it is reasonable and you should have a spot available, but I personally never seen anything like Lawrence SC.

 

[mknox]

The biggest hassle was pulling into the Lawrence Ave dealership in Toronto at 4:30 on Friday afternoon. Wasn't a charger available for about 30 minutes. Guys told me that a lot of residents come by and leave their cars to charge rather than charging at home.

I personally don't have a problem with locals using Superchargers (I know some others do) but LEAVING your car there and blocking stalls is another matter completely. If someone local wants to Supercharge, then stay in your car and move it as soon as you have enough juice!

 

[Chisdad]

Agree fully. But of the seven or so spots that were occupied at Lawrence SC only one had its driver inside.

 

[hingisfan]

It gets busy on weekends or long weekends but it is reasonable and you should have a spot available, but I personally never seen anything like Lawrence SC.

I've only ever seen Kingston full on the Sunday afternoon/evening of a long weekend.

 

[Doug_G]

Just did the Montreal-Toronto-Montreal trip that I initially inquired about. On the way to Toronto trip planner was giving me under 10% estimate to Kingston, so we stopped in Cornwall for 10 mins. Got the spouse's range anxiety out of the way. But there were very strong headwinds and I was doing 110-120km/h. Arrived in Kingston with 11% - my guess is without the stop we would have arrived with about 3%. Also that day the "Driver Assistance features" were unavailable so couldn't use cruise.
On the way home we made Toronto-Kingston easily. And then Kingston-Montreal (280 km) with 12% to spare (no stopping in Cornwall).

Thanks for everyone's input.

Glad to note that you kept an eye on the energy consumption. Don't forget that slowing down just a little bit has a significant impact on range, and the sooner you do it, the more impact it has. That's an important tool when you're pushing the range.