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New Model 3 MR - Drove it 2,800 Miles XCountry Roadtrip - Impressions and Analytics

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Hi Everyone,

My wife and I were in Florida for the holidays when we decided to pull the trigger on a MR Model 3 before the tax credit expires. The only problem is we live in the bay area. Long story short, we took delivery in Jacksonville and drove it back to the bay area in just over 3 days starting on Jan 1 2019.

Over the 3 days and ~2,800 miles I got to learn the car very well. I knew the Model 3 was a great car, but I didn't realize how much I would love it and how flawlessly it could perform a cross country road trip with 50 miles on the odometer.

I wanted to share some data and things we learned on our journey, many of which is common knowledge for existing owners. Hopefully this will help others who are planning long trips in their Model 3.

Journey Details:

Start: Lake City, FL - Jan 1st, 7PM
End: Campbell, CA - Jan 5th, 1230AM

Day 1:
We drove for nearly 23 hours straight only stopping at supercharging stations on the FL panhandle, Alabama, Louisiana, and eastern Texas. We stayed with my wife's parents just south of Dallas. This first leg totaled 1,072 miles with 9 supercharging stops. With SC stops, we averaged 119 miles between SC stops and drove an average speed of 47 MPH.

Day 2:
We left the Dallas area at 5 AM the next morning with icy roads. The car handled the icy roads and sleet very well and held its own on an icy bridge where cars next to us spun out. This day was mostly flat and due west across the Texas oil country with many miles at 80 MPH. We drove for 18.5 hours and drove 969 miles with 8 supercharging stops (we used destination chargers at our hotel in Tuscon). With SC stops, we averaged 121 miles between SC stops and drove an average speed of 52 MPH.

Day 3:
To make things easier and give the battery a break, we stayed at a hotel with Tesla destination chargers and charged overnight. The Wyndam hotel charges $3 per hour of charging which is money well spent when traveling long distance. This last leg was through high dessert and the CA central valley. Speeds were also much higher with speed limits ranging from 70-80 MPH. We drove for 18 hours and drove 885 miles with 8 supercharging stops. With SC stops, we averaged 111 miles between SC stops and drove an average speed of 47 MPH.

Insight on long distance travel:
  • Most SC outside of the west coast are strategically placed ~120 miles apart. Even with larger batteries, it makes sense to stop at every SC to charge for 30 minutes or less before continuing your journey. You waste time and SC space by charging more than 30-40 minutes, or up to 80% charge. It is not worth the range anxiety, reduced speed and climate control to stretch out your drive time.
  • Pay attention to your calculated and estimated range as these are often very different.
  • USE THE TRIP PLANNER - this thing is extremely accurate and well accurately tell you if you can or can't make a distance. On a few legs, mainly in AZ and CA, the Trip Planner said we could skip a SC station by charging 1 hour + at the current station. While this was an option at the relatively vacant SC stations in the eastern US, this isn't a good strategy in the western US where there is much higher demand for SC. Be courteous to fellow owners and share this precious resource when there are others waiting.
  • Plan ahead: Every time we were charging we used the Trip Planner and navigation to understand the next leg and make sure we had enough juice.
Most of my insight above is common knowledge veteran amongst owners, but I wanted to reiterate this after learning first hand. If you have a different opinion, please share.

Insight on my blue midrange model 3, white interior, 18 aeros:
  • If you are in this forum, you know the good and bad about this car. Below are things that stuck out to me in the first week and 3K miles of ownership.
The good:
  • EAP is coming along very well and has gotten better since I first tested. EAP is a LIFESAVER on long road trips like this. I was having a hard time justifying the $5k for it, but I'm so glad I did. If you buy a Tesla, PLEASE get EAP with it. I used EAP for nearly 2/3s of my time behind the wheel and it made the journey so much easier.
  • The streaming radio and sound system are amazing. I'm amazed at the sound quality for an in house Tesla system. The DSP and sound stage are truly impressive.
  • My car was perfect! I've seen my fair share of poorly built Model 3s in the bay area. My VIN is #161K and the paint, fit and finish, and quality are perfect. When we picked up the car I looked over every panel and couldn't find one issue. I hope I am not lucky and other owners receive immaculate cars like mine.
The bad:
  • EAP struggled in some situations and certainly has room for improvement. My biggest complaint is when the car swerves to the right on highway entrance ramps. The car will steer to the right to catch the right lane line but eventually centers once the entrance lane/ramp disappears. EAP also struggled to change lanes on several occasions when the sun seemed to be shining right on the side repeater cameras.

I've been so impressed with the car and happy with the purchase. I feel the mid range is a tremendous value, especially after the price decrease of $2K. I'm not sure many people can realistically justify spending the extra money on the long range version of the car, especially after what I learned about long distance travel. I have more than enough range for daily use and will stick to the 2 hours of 120 mile distance between SC stops on trips moving forward.

I took pictures at nearly every SC stop to document my journey. Please check out the pics here: Supercharging - Google Drive

If you have any questions, comments, or opinions on my post above, please DM me.
 
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Nice write up, but why is the average speed so low (47, 52mph...), even on highways? Sounds like you were crawling. In the end and after my own 6 months of experience, I would never go below Long Range; you simply can't replace having extra juice any time you want or need it IMHO.
 
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Excellent report.
I'm also surprised by the low throughput speed. What SoC readings did the car show when you pulled into the Superchargers ? It sounds like you were cycling between 35 and 80% SoC, which probably also matches up with your report of 30 minutes to add 120 miles. This series of photos taken from my phone while charging show the effect of SoC on charging rate. Note that the car is an LR model and the reported kW charge rate is NOT the rate at that moment, it is the average for the session *. The SoC can be derived by dividing the range reported by 310.

I can understand why you would err on the safe side wrt to battery charge in a new car and on a long trip but with experience and some confidence I think you will find yourself cycling between 15-20% and 60-65% and gain much improved Supercharger rates that shave about ~ 10 minutes off each charge. Then each 120 mile leg driven at 65 mph will take 110 minutes and another 20 minutes to charge instead of 30 minutes. Your throughput speed will increase by ~ 9%

Somewhat incidentally, this is one of the benefits of the larger battery: a shift to the left of the cycling range and a commensurate bump in average charging rate.

* This graph shows the approximate charging rate for the SoC intervals I monitored. It is only approximate because I don't show seconds on the clock. I cannot use the average session kW to figure out the interval because I do not know how many kWh were added to the battery before the first photo. Spreadsheet data.
Note: I excluded one data point as an outlier.

upload_2019-1-9_5-12-54.png
 
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Thanks for the report!

How much did it cost total for the Superchargers? A Better Routeplanner is estimating such a trip to ~112$. I'm still hesitating between a new Model 3 or a CPO S with free Supercharging, wondering if it's worth the difference.

[edit]: I just realized you might have got the 6 months free Supercharging...
 
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Thanks for the report!

How much did it cost total for the Superchargers? A Better Routeplanner is estimating such a trip to ~112$. I'm still hesitating between a new Model 3 or a CPO S with free Supercharging, wondering if it's worth the difference.

[edit]: I just realized you might have got the 6 months free Supercharging...

I'm not sure how much the total trip would cost without free Supercharging, but it would easily be 1/4 to 1/3 the price of gas. My wife has a 2003 Nissan Pathfinder that gets 17 MPG on premium gas, so the Model 3 is in a totally different league of efficiency.

We were strongly considering a 2015 70 or 70D. While I would have loved free Supercharging for life, I think the Model 3 is ultimately the better car for us. There is still plenty of storage and I love the fact it is smaller and more nimble. You also can't beat that new car smell and feel. If you have any other questions, please DM me; I know both cars very well.

Thanks for the report. You said The hotel charger $3/hr for destination charging and you thought that was a great deal. If you wrote that correctly I think that’s a terrible deal. Most hotels are free and at $3/hr that could get pretty pricey.

I agree that $3 per hour is slightly expensive compared to other charging options. For us, it was worth the $20 to not have to SC or take more time on the road. It was well worth the convenience of waking up to a fully charged battery the next day.

I suspect that the average speed it total number of miles divided by (finish time - start time) This would include all charging and biology functions. This is actually a pretty good average time.

Correct. I think you have to look at this calculated average when driving and EV long distance. We drove between the speed limit and +5 MPH most of the trip. Because we were stopping at every SC station we were comfortable driving at 80 MPH with heat. The one leg we tried to stretch we had to lower our speed to 65 MPH and keep the climate lower than we would have liked.
 
nice write up and pics. you certainly dove right in!

curious what your wh/mile were? what kind of speeds were you getting at the supercharger?

so with that ~120 miles between stops you were arriving at the supercharger with 20% and charging to 75% roughly?
 
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nice write up and pics. you certainly dove right in!

curious what your wh/mile were? what kind of speeds were you getting at the supercharger?

so with that ~120 miles between stops you were arriving at the supercharger with 20% and charging to 75% roughly?

Good questions. There is a lot more data I could have shared. Here is what I remember.

From FL to TX, we were the ONLY ones at the SC stations along our route. It was only in TX did we start to find SC stations with 1 or 2 other Teslas. This was so unusual to see compared to CA. Because of this, I would get max SC speeds.

I'm happy to confirm the midrange battery can charge at 120KW like the LR. In most stations we could get 150+ miles in 30 mins or so charging from 10-20% SOC. If you have a dedicate stall, the MR will charge as fast as any other Tesla. I'm hoping these new cells are capable of more when the new SC comes out.


Regarding WH/mile:

Driving 70 with the climate at 70 degrees I could easily get 240-260 WH/mile. Heat can really make this jump to 300+.

Even driving 75-80 MPH with no heat we could get 270-290 WH/mile.

For most of the trip the temps were in the 40s-50s with lots of rain. We never turned the HVAC above 72.

To date, my average WH/mile is 268 with about 90% of driving on the highway.

With limited HVAC, this car is very efficient.
 
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I'm a little dubious of your thinking about Supercharger stops. If 100 people vie for 100 spaces and fill to the brim how is that different than 200 people filling half way? Seems like its 6 of one and 1/2 dozen of the other.
Because the KW get shared by pair. If it’s half full and everyone has their own set they will get full rate. If the place is full everyone is sharing.
 
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Good to see that the MR is feasible for long road trips. I will be interested to see how the SR does when it's available.
People have been driving the Model S 60 across the country since 2013, and that car only had 208 miles rated range when new. Supercharging peaks at 90 kW in that car. I drove mine from Austin to Yosemite a few summers ago. Of course the Model 3 MR is feasible for long road trips. The short range will be too, it will just take a little longer as they’ll be needing to charge more at the top of the supercharger curve for some legs like the S 60.
 
50 mph gross time is perfectly laudable - especially when traveling with another person.

Nice string of 1,000+ mile days.

In about a month, I'll end up doing much the same trip in reverse with a stop in West Texas for the Golden Spike Ceremony (search forums for the Fort Stockton SC thread). Nothing like getting to and through Texas with all due alacrity. Heh.

I don't expect to do much better, timewise, in an S90D with ~6% degradation (276-mile max range now, down from 294 at factory pickup).
 
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Nice write up, but why is the average speed so low (47, 52mph...), even on highways? Sounds like you were crawling.

In years past, I have driven the 1200 miles from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas around 30 times in my HEV. Our gross average speed is always around 50 mph (we do it in two 12 hour days). That includes driving mostly 70/80 mph out in the Viscaino Desert where you won't see another car on the road for 10 minutes at a time, as well as lunch stops, gasoline stops, potty stops for the dog. military inspection stops, and 25 mph traveling through dusty villages. OP's figures make perfect sense.

Regarding driving in Mexico:
1. It is perfectly safe with lots of smiling, friendly people......and GREAT food at roadside shacks
2. Gasoline is plentiful but no longer cheap, expect to pay USA prices or higher
3. DO NOT TRAVEL AT NIGHT! Not because of bandits, but because of free range cows, horses, and goats that migrate to pavement at night to keep warm. They are hard to see when hidden in the numerous dips in the road. We see a couple of dead cows along the road each day that have been hit the previous night.
 
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Because the KW get shared by pair. If it’s half full and everyone has their own set they will get full rate. If the place is full everyone is sharing.
I'm new to this, as a result, I can't make out your point. I know the pair charging will be at a reduced rate. Are you saying that if there are 1/2 the number of cars things will be better? I don't think that is part of the original or my posts. My point was that if everyone charges from 1/2 to full how is that different than charging from empty to full. As the 1/2 charging cars will need to frequent the chargers twice as often. Thus doubling the car population.
 
I'm new to this, as a result, I can't make out your point. I know the pair charging will be at a reduced rate. Are you saying that if there are 1/2 the number of cars things will be better? I don't think that is part of the original or my posts. My point was that if everyone charges from 1/2 to full how is that different than charging from empty to full. As the 1/2 charging cars will need to frequent the chargers twice as often. Thus doubling the car population.
The major issue is topping off. The time to go from 20-80% is fast. From 80-100% takes a lot longer.
 
Excellent report.
This series of photos taken from my phone while charging show the effect of SoC on charging rate. Note that the car is an LR model and the reported kW charge rate is NOT the rate at that moment, it is the average for the session *. The SoC can be derived by dividing the range reported by 310.

The kW charge rate is pretty close to instantaneous - it may be an average of a small window for smoothing purposes, but the window is measured in seconds not over the entire session.

As an example, see this video of a P100D supercharging:

  1. The charge rate (kW) ramps up too quickly for it to be a session average. In the first 3 minutes, the reported charge rate is < 70 kW. The charge rate reaches 100 kW by 4:00 - for this to be a session average, the car would need to average > 190 kW from 3:00 to 4:00.
    ((70*3)+190)/4 = 100.0
  2. The charge rate ramps down too quickly for it to be a session average. The car sustains 110 kW until 26:57. At 33:33, the car reports 90 kW charge rate. For the charge rate to be a session average, the car would need to average 7 kW from 26:57 to 33:33 (during which time the car SOC increased from 46% to 56%).
    ((110*27)+(7*6.5))/33.5 = 90.0
However, the "distance charge rate" - km/h in the video, miles/hour in US cars - is indeed closer to a session average. At 26:57 the car reports 462 km/h, at 33:33 the car reports 458 km/h. At 1:03:23 the car reaches 90% and reports 378 km/h.

The final charge rate delivered during hte charging session is 90% of 507 km rated range in 65 minutes, or 421 km/h - between the 462 km/h reported when the car began tapering and the final 378 km/h measurement.
 
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