More Mileage Info and Flexibility When Planning Trips

[gnuarm]

I'm not a big fan of pulling off the road to charge for 20 minutes. I can't do much in 20 minutes other than listen to the radio. I'd much prefer to skip chargers when I can and have an hour+ charge with a meal and bathroom break. But this is not so easy with the current trip planning in the car.

First, the navigator doesn't give me useful mileage info for me to know if I can skip a charger. Then the navigator doesn't change the route when I skip a charger, still telling me to stop somewhere I won't reach rather than recalculating the supercharger stops. When I plan a trip in Google maps once I have entered my superchargers I can get it to tell me the mileage of each leg of the trip. The problem with Google is it doesn't show the Superchargers other than the ones I've entered. So that makes "what-if" planning harder.

I would love to be able to brainstorm with the guys designing the navigator and online trip planning software. I think it could be so much more useful. I'd also like to get Google to provide a means of trip planning by indicating all the superchargers along your path and letting you select the ones you wish to stop at.

I realized how limited both methods were when I was trying to plan a trip to Kentucky from Virginia. Google said there were two paths about the same distance and time each. The Tesla planner suggested the route to the south through Tennessee. It took quite some effort to find out that the reason the slightly more direct northern route wasn't chosen by Tesla was because reaching superchargers on that route required deviating from the optimal route Google indicated.

 

[MorrisonHiker]

A Better Routeplanner

 

[Uncle Paul]

Tesla system calculates the most efficient route time wise when suggesting stops and lengths of charging. They know that the batteries charge most efficiently in the middle sweet spot of their capacity.

As an alternative, they also show bright red those Superchargers within range, and a lighter pink for those on your route, but out of range (with the buffer that you select)

You can feel pretty confident to skip a charger, and spend additional time at the next red one, if that would work better for your individual meal plans etc.

If you guess incorrectly, it will also notify you when you need to reduce speed to make your selected extended charger stop.

In my X it calculates an efficient route to my destination charger. If I alter course it will recalculate on the fly. It will also recommend different routes if traffic congestion ahead will delay my path, and reroute to optional, less congested routes.

 

[GWord]

I'm not a big fan of pulling off the road to charge for 20 minutes. I can't do much in 20 minutes other than listen to the radio. I'd much prefer to skip chargers when I can and have an hour+ charge with a meal and bathroom break. But this is not so easy with the current trip planning in the car.

First, the navigator doesn't give me useful mileage info for me to know if I can skip a charger. Then the navigator doesn't change the route when I skip a charger, still telling me to stop somewhere I won't reach rather than recalculating the supercharger stops. When I plan a trip in Google maps once I have entered my superchargers I can get it to tell me the mileage of each leg of the trip. The problem with Google is it doesn't show the Superchargers other than the ones I've entered. So that makes "what-if" planning harder.

I would love to be able to brainstorm with the guys designing the navigator and online trip planning software. I think it could be so much more useful. I'd also like to get Google to provide a means of trip planning by indicating all the superchargers along your path and letting you select the ones you wish to stop at.

I realized how limited both methods were when I was trying to plan a trip to Kentucky from Virginia. Google said there were two paths about the same distance and time each. The Tesla planner suggested the route to the south through Tennessee. It took quite some effort to find out that the reason the slightly more direct northern route wasn't chosen by Tesla was because reaching superchargers on that route required deviating from the optimal route Google indicated.

@MorrisonHiker has it right. Look at his link to abetterrouteplanner.com. It does everything you want and more. It was developed in response to all your same criticisms.

 

[bob_p]

Now that Tesla has complete control over the navigation software source code - hopefully we'll start seeing some improvements in functionality, such as route customization and waypoints.

Didn't Musk say we'd see waypoints at some point with the V2 navigation software?

 

[gnuarm]

@MorrisonHiker has it right. Look at his link to abetterrouteplanner.com. It does everything you want and more. It was developed in response to all your same criticisms.

abetterrouteplanner.com is pretty good. It doesn't know any more about my car's mileage than I do however. It all depends on the number you punch in for consumption.

I guess I'm a bit frustrated that I can't get the full range from my car in cold weather. Tesla doesn't give a way to precondition the battery without blasting the interior heaters. I don't have a 240 volt charge port yet and on 120 volts the capacity is maxed out before the battery heat is even applied. If I could only turn on the battery heat, I could leave it on for a few hours before leaving and should have pretty much full range for the first leg of the trip. Instead I'll have to make an extra stop just to put some charge on before I stop to eat.

I guess I'm a bit disappointed in having to make such compromises compared to gasoline powered cars. But on top of that, they don't really provide tools for actually seeing the impact of the things that are important to range. I can see the immediate usage of power or I can see an average over different mileages. But there is no way to see how much of the power I am using is going to heating the cabin. How cold do I need to be to make it to the next charger I wish to stop at rather that stopping at every charger on the route just to make sure I get where I'm going.

This is a far cry from what I had expected.

 

[Feathermerchan]

abetterrouteplanner... CAN know what your consumption is if you let it. Read the instructions. It can look at your history thru your Tesla account.
I do not think you need to blast anything. If you set the desired temp a few degrees over the indicated it will turn on the heat and (I have read) start to heat the battery. The heating systems are completely separate other than sharing the battery.
Considering the other variables abetterrouteplanner... uses it is much more accurate.
I recently traveled from DFW to Kerrville. Tesla wanted me to stop in Waco and Austin to charge. I DID NOT want to stop in or drive thru Austin but was unsure how much charge to pick up in Waco or if I could even get enough. I used abetterrouteplanner.... to plan my trip around Austin (207 mi) and it was pretty easy. I left Waco with 97% because it was my first long trip and arrived fine with 83 miles left. Pretty close to abetterrouteplanner... estimate
With that experience I came home a slightly longer but much simpler route (214 mi) and arrived at Waco with plenty of charge. Its downhill.

 

[gnuarm]

abetterrouteplanner... CAN know what your consumption is if you let it. Read the instructions. It can look at your history thru your Tesla account.
I do not think you need to blast anything. If you set the desired temp a few degrees over the indicated it will turn on the heat and (I have read) start to heat the battery. The heating systems are completely separate other than sharing the battery.
Considering the other variables abetterrouteplanner... uses it is much more accurate.
I recently traveled from DFW to Kerrville. Tesla wanted me to stop in Waco and Austin to charge. I DID NOT want to stop in or drive thru Austin but was unsure how much charge to pick up in Waco or if I could even get enough. I used abetterrouteplanner.... to plan my trip around Austin (207 mi) and it was pretty easy. I left Waco with 97% because it was my first long trip and arrived fine with 83 miles left. Pretty close to abetterrouteplanner... estimate
With that experience I came home a slightly longer but much simpler route (214 mi) and arrived at Waco with plenty of charge. Its downhill.

Perhaps I don't understand the battery preconditioning then. I thought the only way to precondition is to turn on the interior heat from the phone app. Yes, I can set the temperature, but even on the low temperature (it only goes down to 60) it maxes the current from 120 volts. Worse it seems to run the defroster no matter what and that was what cracked my windshield. I tried the "LO" setting and it still maxes out the 120 volt circuit, but it seems to be running the AC with an interior temperature in the 40's and an outside temperature of 27 °F. Meanwhile it sucks down the battery.

BTW, does the app tell you the outside temperature? I can't find that.

 

[Feathermerchan]

The app does not but weather stations will. Except inside your garage.

It may run the defrost below a certain OAT to make sure the windshield is clear. That can require A/C.

As far as maxing out the 120V current, preheating the battery requires a lot of power. There is only 1.4 kW available on 120V so maxing out is expected. Same wattage as a hair dryer more or less.

 

[gnuarm]

The app does not but weather stations will. Except inside your garage.

It may run the defrost below a certain OAT to make sure the windshield is clear. That can require A/C.

As far as maxing out the 120V current, preheating the battery requires a lot of power. There is only 1.4 kW available on 120V so maxing out is expected. Same wattage as a hair dryer more or less.

The car tells me the outside temperature. It's on the dash. I'm led to believe that's what it uses to decide if the battery should be preconditioned or not.

The A/C runs when the setting temperature is lowered below 60 degrees which results in a setting of "LO" rather than a temperature. It doesn't seem to matter what the cabin temperature is.

1.4 kW is the same power as a space heater which is no small amount of heat. That is a lot more than is needed to warm an ICE overnight to allow them to start in -40 degrees weather. It can be used to warm the Tesla battery if it's not all sucked up to heat the passenger compartment. Even if it's not enough to bring the battery up fully, the problem is with the current set up I can't do anything without sucking power out of the battery. So I have to start with a dead cold battery with greatly reduced range and no regenerative braking, a double whammy to range.

 

[Feathermerchan]

I do not know the specifics but I'm sure Tesla knows the battery needs to be heated.
Engine heaters I have used have been in the 800W range.
The battery in a Tesla Model 3 long range weighs around 1,000 lb. An ICE weighs probably half that or less.
So it takes more heat to warm it up. It also has a lot of surface area.

You might try using an IR gun to measure the temp of the underside of the car before and after heating to see how much it changes.

 

[gnuarm]

I've got a trip today. I was charging from 120 volts last night and I forgot to cancel the program I have on the outlet, so it cut off the current at 6 AM. I turned it back on at 7:30 and will leave in an hour or so. We'll see if charging at a low rate has much impact on the temperature, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't. In the past I still had no or very little engine braking.

One thing I've noticed about my usage is that when starting out the consumption rate is very high, near 600 Wh/mi. That lasts for a couple/three miles or so, I don't recall exactly. It occurred to me that since this is a measurement, not a prediction, it would be showing the effect of driving on a cold battery. Even if the battery takes a while to warm up enough to allow higher rates of engine braking, the consumption rate may improve more quickly. I really wish there was a way to pull this data out of the car. I'd love to be able to massage it a bit and look for patterns to help me understand in more detail the factors in mileage and range. I recall many years ago an engineer I knew had a tiny econobox. He turned the A/C on and off to find it dropped the speed of his car 2 mph. So then he knew the power consumption of his A/C. lol

 

[gnuarm]

I haven't seen that charging from 120 volts has any noticeable impact on the battery performance. In fact, I used a Supercharger today to put a few miles on and found it was charging very slowly, likely because the battery was cold. After ten minutes it had not sped up much. It seems charging from a Supercharger is not a fast way to warm up a battery either. I couldn't get the phone app to turn on preconditioning. So I pulled out and drove the car hard for a bit till the battery warmed up. Then I could charge much faster. I only needed to drive a couple of miles zipping up to 50, then drifting down to 30 the whole time. Not sure how good it is for the battery. They limit regeneration to something like 30 kW meanwhile allow 200 kW and higher acceleration.