Owning Tesla in rural areas

[gr4z]

Hi

First time poster for the forum and appreciate your views. I am looking at a S for company car, I own the business so can control the budget and possible offset for tax reasons. My home is my office.

I would like some input around owning a model S and living in a rual community and commuting to different destinations while traveling around 20k miles per year. The nearest supercharger is around 45 mins away from my home with smaller chargers dotted around but nowhere within 20 miles of home. I am aware of the home chargers and would look to invest in one.

Most of my journeys are all around the UK and I usually stay away from home for 2-3 days a week in Hotels. My morning commute can be 100+ miles, stay away for a few days and then 100+ miles back home. These destinations rarely have any chargers and if they do they are always over subscribed. How do other owners deal with this? Is this just something I just need to get used to and start to factor in charging for my journeys?

Many thanks for any tips.

 

[stigmeister]

In general having a Supercharger near to you isn't really the thing you need. The cost of the power is equal to or more expensive than charging at home. Which as an EV owner you ideally should be doing overnight, every night if needed to ensure you have a full tank of electrons each morning (well 80% or so unless going on a trip next day - see lots of other posts on optimal charging for battery life).

Now having a number of Superchargers en route to most of your likely destinations is important, if you don't have any charging options at the hotels in which you stay.

Certainly I do a few trips of over 200miles one way each month and don't have any charging at a number of the destinations that I stay. Although I do also look for Hotel options with charging using ZapMap these days if possible.

However if no destination charger is available, I just make sure that I top up at a Supercharger en route that ensures I get get back home, via another supercharger on the return leg. Assuming no charge at the destination.

I tend to plan ahead if it is somewhere new using A Better Routeplanner

I've never really had an issue when leaving with 90-100% from home and taking a slight detour to ensure I get adequate charging via a Supercharger on the journey.

 

[theoceanwaves]

Hey and welcome

I have a model S for 3 years now and happy to have a chat with you, see my PM. home chargers are a must and with OLEV government grant you get £500 off the installation! Any new Tesla model S will be able to do a 200miles+ trip as per your requirements, its worth buying a chademo adaptor which allow you to use the fast chargers at motorway services if needed.

 

[gr4z]

Thank you for the replies. I was not aware of A Better Routeplanner which is very useful and the advice of the chademo adapter. It suggests I would need 0:20 charge on either my outward or return journey at Northampton for my week with possible topups during the working week.

I guess this just goes back to basics, planning a weeks journey with the superchargers on the way or trying to book a hotel with chargers available. That could be tricky, especially as most do not have them. Am I making this more difficult than it needs to be, as you just get used to it?

 

[theoceanwaves]

For most of your driving needs as long as you have a good state of charge before leaving your home (80%) then you literally tell the tesla where you want to go and the navigation will route you through any superchargers / destination chargers if necessary. By the time you've had a coffee and comfort break at the services your tesla should have enough charge to continue. I've never had range anxiety

 

[gr4z]

For most of your driving needs as long as you have a good state of charge before leaving your home (80%) then you literally tell the tesla where you want to go and the navigation will route you through any superchargers / destination chargers if necessary. By the time you've had a coffee and comfort break at the services your tesla should have enough charge to continue. I've never had range anxiety

Do you find that the superchargers at service stations are in use and you have to wait? Or is this rare?

 

[henleyregatta]

Really all I have to add is a me-too to what's already been written, but I feel your pain as these were the questions I tortured myself with prior to purchase last year. I think just about the only show-stopping consideration for (any?) EV owner today is: Can I charge at home? If not, probably stick to a Hybrid for now.

If you can, then with the state of the Supercharger network, with the destination / en-route charging options available in These Sceptred Isles, and in particular with the smarts on-board of the navigation and route-planning software, then I'm sure you'll be able to make it work.

One caveat: All of the route planning and navigation options pretty much go one-way only. It takes a little bit of forethought to go beyond that to ensure you've got enough left over for the return journey. In most cases, taking a bit longer to drink that coffee at the Supercharger is enough to give you the buffer you need. I'd wager that any Tesla you can buy right now has the range to get to a suitable (aka Fast) charger if you start with 50% from just about anywhere (...maybe not the North of the Highlands, but just about anywhere else).

You might not be quicker on a given route than an ICE/Hybrid (given you might need a charge to get there), but you will make it. And you'll have more fun and arrive in a much more relaxed state than that driver if you use Autopilot on the way...

 

[henleyregatta]

Do you find that the superchargers at service stations are in use and you have to wait? Or is this rare?

I've only ever queued - for 15 minutes or so - at off-service station chargers (older 2-bay chargers in Bristol Cribbs Causeway and the Winchester one). It's more common to arrive at Service Station chargers to find all 8+ bays empty, in my experience.

Having said that, the Model-3's are coming and we can expect the ratio of cars:chargers to increase considerably once they turn up in bulk, so who knows?

 

[stigmeister]

Do you find that the superchargers at service stations are in use and you have to wait? Or is this rare?

As above, it's only really the older 2 bay sites that are a problem. Warrington M56 and Bristol that have been issues for me. However now in the navigation you can see the status and how busy these are. If you have a 100kWh battery you may be able to skip one Supercharger to get to the next, depending on route and the part of the country you are in. Certainly heading from the NW up to Scotland there are overlapping stations now, that mean you can usually miss one out if it's busy.

Again, they are normally more empty than full, but with M3 coming then things will most likely change as per the last post.

 

[stigmeister]

One caveat: All of the route planning and navigation options pretty much go one-way only. It takes a little bit of forethought to go beyond that to ensure you've got enough left over for the return journey. In most cases, taking a bit longer to drink that coffee at the Supercharger is enough to give you the buffer you need. I'd wager that any Tesla you can buy right now has the range to get to a suitable (aka Fast) charger if you start with 50% from just about anywhere (...maybe not the North of the Highlands, but just about anywhere else).

This is important. If you have charging at your destination you can pretty much just use the onboard Navigation to ensure you get there and not have range anxiety.

However, if you don't have destination charging and need a return trip, this is a current gap in the Nav on a Tesla and where "Abetterrouteplanner" comes in, with various waypoints or force a stop at a particular Supercharger and see it model the rest of your trip.

Disappointing that we still need an external service like this, but helpful non the less when you are first getting the hang of things and when heading somewhere quite a distance away that you have not been to before in your Tesla.

Overall though, I don't find I mind the slightly longer wait, as most of it's drinking coffee, rather than standing in the wet and waiting to pay. Charging is getting quicker with the software update on pre warm and 145kw. And as per the other poster, with AP it is such a relaxed and easy drive if you want it to be. Especially in traffic or roadworks.

 

[gr4z]

I've only ever queued - for 15 minutes or so - at off-service station chargers (older 2-bay chargers in Bristol Cribbs Causeway and the Winchester one). It's more common to arrive at Service Station chargers to find all 8+ bays empty, in my experience.

Having said that, the Model-3's are coming and we can expect the ratio of cars:chargers to increase considerably once they turn up in bulk, so who knows?

Thanks for these answers - very useful.

What about the etiquette at say hotels? These only have 1 maybe 2 points, what happens if someone checks in at 3 or 4pm and leaves their car plugged in until the following morning when they check out. You can't use it at all and their car might be full at 11pm. Is there some sort of method to use the charger when another car has been charged to 90-100%?

 

[henleyregatta]

Thanks for these answers - very useful.

What about the etiquette at say hotels? These only have 1 maybe 2 points, what happens if someone checks in at 3 or 4pm and leaves their car plugged in until the following morning when they check out. You can't use it at all and their car might be full at 11pm. Is there some sort of method to use the charger when another car has been charged to 90-100%?

I can't speak for the specific case as I've never personally tried it. But general charger etiquette is to only stay plugged in if you're actually charging (and to move the car from the spot once you're done being the obvious corollary). Certainly if I'd left mine on charge like this I'd be aiming to move it before turning in for the night (and if I thought there'd be trouble I'd try and leave a contact number on display / at reception to negotiate a move if someone with a greater need came along). There's always going to be those around who are too selfish / unthinking to go along with this and then I think your options are limited - the cable will usually be locked into the car and either permanently attached to the charger or quite possibly locked at that end too.

I've no idea how much this is a theoretical problem vs an actual one, but it might be pragmatic to have a plan-B handy just in case (e.g. is there a fast-charger within existing range you could use if the hotel charger isn't available / isn't likely to be available in time?).

 

[Lasairfion]

Someone suggested somewhere that since A Better Routeplanner has waypoints, you can put the whole journey in there and back home, with your destination as the waypoint. That way you can work out the whole lot.

 

[cezdoc]

Don't underestimate the usefulness of a heavy duty extension cable run from an ordinary 3-pin plug. This will add about 6 miles of "typical" range per hour to a Model S - so a 10 hour overnight stay adds a very useful 60 miles of range. Far more convenient to top up while you're parked than to have to hunt around for a public charger and then sit and wait until you have enough range to continue. The 3-pin option means you don't need to hunt down a hotel with proper EV charge points. As stated above until/unless you have regular ports of call where you know what the charging arrangements will be it's sensible to have a Plan B (e.g. local public charger, or Supercharge to a higher %) just in case.

Also have a look at plugshare.com and zap-map.com which show virtually all public charge points covering different networks. They have the advantage of comments from users flagging up any issues or handy tips.

 

[vitesse]

Have you ever needed to use one of the other public EV charging services?

In general having a Supercharger near to you isn't really the thing you need. The cost of the power is equal to or more expensive than charging at home. Which as an EV owner you ideally should be doing overnight, every night if needed to ensure you have a full tank of electrons each morning (well 80% or so unless going on a trip next day - see lots of other posts on optimal charging for battery life).

Now having a number of Superchargers en route to most of your likely destinations is important, if you don't have any charging options at the hotels in which you stay.

Certainly I do a few trips of over 200miles one way each month and don't have any charging at a number of the destinations that I stay. Although I do also look for Hotel options with charging using ZapMap these days if possible.

However if no destination charger is available, I just make sure that I top up at a Supercharger en route that ensures I get get back home, via another supercharger on the return leg. Assuming no charge at the destination.

I tend to plan ahead if it is somewhere new using A Better Routeplanner

I've never really had an issue when leaving with 90-100% from home and taking a slight detour to ensure I get adequate charging via a Supercharger on the journey.

 

[IanMcL]

Similar to above, my 'local' supercharger is Norton Park hotel, at Sutton Scotney, aka Winchester. There are only 2 bays, so it is busier than most - but still lots of availability. Cribs Causeway by John Lewis is hopeless, however, just down the road is Gordano services and that's great.

My regular trip is 235 Miles, each way. As it is motorway, for a large distance, there are chargers I pick up and take a break. Always space!

My recommendation....don't worry about it, just do it. It is not an issue.

 

[.jg.]

What everyone else said... Charging at home is the big deal. On a normal single phase supply, charging at 32A will give you 22 miles per hour of charge - so an overnight charge should provide more than enough range to reach the nearest superchargers.
As an alternative to the Chademo adaptor (which is a bit pricey), there is talk (and photos) of a CCS adaptor for Model S and X cars.

 

[WannabeOwner]

I do 27,000 miles a year, 10-12% of that is at Supercharger, I have home charging. I have a number of rambling thoughts (sorry about that ...)

Can I charge at home? If not, probably stick to a Hybrid for now.

Absolutely agree with that.

I am looking at a S for company car, I own the business so can control the budget and possible offset for tax reasons

I'm the same. I charge at work (no Benefit-in-Kind on that) [works out 50:50 in practice], and Supercharger use is about 10% of my overall; yours may well be higher if you are on the road a lot. Either way, the saving is significant - EV is 2-3p per mile for Leccy, so even if you have to pay for home-juice its not significant - 20K miles might be as little as £400 a year for "fuel"

BIK on the car is some stupid aberration (16%?) for the current period, it was lower before, and is going to drop back to a tiny amount for EVs

100% first year tax writeoff is handy if you can use the money for something, during ownership, but you will then pay tax on the sale price at the end (or sell the vehicle to yourself at cheapest price you can find ... etc.)

20k miles per year

I reckon you currently spend 8 hours a year standing pumping on smelly forecourts, and queuing to pay ...once you have EV you will HATE doing that in ICE cars

My home is my office

You might need a means of allocating EV-charging electricity cost to the business. There are 3rd party logging tools, e.g. TeslaFi, that log how much Juice you use (at each location) and where you go, so may help with sorting out "Business Mileage and Charging"

The nearest supercharger is around 45 mins away from my home

You don't need any local charging, you will travel 150 miles before you need a charge. However, well placed Supercharger(s) on your common routes back to home are handy. Your best Supercharger, on a journey, is the one furthest away from you (which you have range enough to reach, Natch!)

If a Supercharger is available on route then the journey is shorter if you drive faster and charge longer (up to about 90 MPH, but I presume you don't drive faster than that ).

Car charges fastest when empty, and slowly for the top 10%, agonisingly so for the last 5% - so refill when nearly empty is best.

In UK chances are high you get held up in traffic / roadworks, which will use less energy. So if you stop at Supercharger 100 to 50 miles from destination, then by that time your battery will be low, for fastest charging, and also you will have a much better prediction of energy required to get to destination ... so if traffic has been bad you will just need a splash-and-go.

After you put Destination into SatNav you can view the Energy Graph. That is a line (usually straight, unless significant mountains) from your start energy level to the predicted arrival energy, as you drive an ACTUAL line is added so you can see the difference. For me the two are usually very close. I like to aim to arrive with 10%+ (20+ miles) for detours etc. so if the ACTUAL line dips below that I slow down. Driving at 50 MPH makes a HUGE difference to consumption. As I approach my destination then if I have energy to spare I bump up the cruise control from 75 MPH

I am aware of the home chargers and would look to invest in one

yes, you need that. On the days when you drive less than, say, 200 miles you will leave with a "full tank", no range concern, and you can just drive it like you stole it. Also, home Leccy will be the cheapest (well ... unless "free at work"). Assuming you have Economy-7 tariff, or similar Off-Peak, the car can be scheduled to charge during that time, so you will pay around 50% less than peak Rate for Leccy.

£500-ish to install though, but if your "fuse box" is on the other side of the house (from where you park) that will bump the cost up. Consider having Sparky install a Commando (backup) socket too - useful for other EV visitors - maybe an outdoor 13 AMP socket to Hoover the car etc. I recommend a tethered wall charger - so you don't have to get the supplied cable out every time you charge. Same if you have it inside a garage instead of outside parking.

If you have PV on roof and IF you are parked at home during daylight/sun hours then a Zappi charger may be best - it will divert spare PV energy to car, instead of exporting it.

My morning commute can be 100+ miles, stay away for a few days and then 100+ miles back home

Worth getting a high quality extension (13AMP) lead [in any case, e.g when visiting friends, their frayed lawn mower extension lead is not a good choice]. I am not shy about plugging into any outside socket I can find at a hotel; someone recently said that they have dangled a cable out of hotel window .. "I'd like a room overlooking the car park please" might be the new reservation requirement

13AMP plug 5-6 MPH - 10-12 hours overnight at the hotel, maybe?
7kW (e.g. home wall charger and typical "EV Destination charger") and much of the Type-2 that I have used = 22-23 MPH

Supercharger 10% - 70% = 30 minutes (i.e. 10% [irrespective of battery size] every 5 minutes)
CHAdeMO is about 10% per 15 minutes, but can maintain that rate to higher %age.
CCS adaptor "coming soon", dunno about performance of that.

Note that 13AMP is less efficient than 7kW, so not a good choice for regular home usage
Note 2 Supercharging a cold battery in Winter is slow (so night before arrival better than cold morning-after)

When visiting a client I only want to charge on Return leg. Charging on outbound means that I may encounter all-stalls-occupied which adds an unpredictable amount of time to my arrival time. Even if 50% of the stalls are occupied, and you have to "pair share", you get a reduced charge (until the other car leaves). These things are rare; since 2015 all bar one site that Tesla has opened have been 8 stalls or more. So a buying criteria, for me, is "has range to reach client AND back to Supercharger"

Can you do Emails whilst charging? That will make the stop time-neutral - you won't have to do those emails when you get to destination. My Starbucks / Costa spend has increased significantly though!

For your hotel overnight-stop there is a stop-resume energy penalty. If you park overnight you will lose some range; part of that is parasitic loss (the electronics chatting to HQ, and will be MUCH worse if you use badly behaved APPs to monitor the vehicle; something else to learn to grapple with), part is setting off with a cold battery / cabin. This is mostly a winter problem. Leaving with a cold battery has a significant energy penalty to get cabin and battery warmed up. If you are a travelling salesman, with multiple stops in the day with a 1+ hour stop, your battery will be cold (in Winter) by the time you leave That will need more charge (bit hard to guess, but at least 20% less range in Winter than Summer). If plugged in then Pre-conditioning before departure [using Shore Power] reduces that, but cold battery is still an issue in Winter.

Other thoughts occurring to me:

My advice would be to buy the biggest battery / longest range. The difference in capital cost between 75 and 100kWh is huge, and if you divide that by the additional miles range the £/mile is terrifying ... but ... the calculation I suggest you need to do is how much it will reduce your need to road-charge. I'm pleased I bought the bigger battery, even though I only rely on it a couple of times a month. On some journeys I can reach destination without charging, avoid having to detour on others (because I can reach the further charger, which is on-route), and I already started out with more range so charge less at Supercharger, and bigger battery charges faster and overall the hours-saved is worth the cost of bigger battery. Might be some Man Maths involved!

Trying your common journeys in A Better Route Planner will allow you to get a good estimate for each model, and you can also set e.g. 20% "penalty" to re-test those same journeys in Winter. The new Long Range model (more efficient motors) looks very promising - 15% more range I think. ABRP already has that in the available models (as beta)

Note that you will not get 20% loss on a single winter journey (unless it is Arctic that day, but in that case its not a good day to be driving 200 miles from home ...), it is the "park for an hour in winter" scenario which is worst case for EVs

Have you considered a Model-3? The M3 has a CCS charger socket instead, this is the new standard (introduced since MS/MX was launched). Tesla have converted 2 or 4 stalls at each Supercharger to also have CCS cables, ready for M3, so they can still charge there, and they can use any 3rd party CCS charger. There are loads already, although they are slow, and 3rd party is dreadful (compared to Supercharger experience). However, Fast CCS is coming, so likely in 3-year ownership of the car that you will have loads more charging choices with CCS. Not sure on M3 delivery timescale, but provided you want a high-end model I reckon they'll start shipping in July, and even being last in the queue I reckon it will only add a month or two before you got one.

Model-3 CCS charging is capable of faster charging than MS/MX, and the car is more efficient so already goes more miles per kWh than MS / MX.

If buying knew get a Referral code off someone - its get you (and them) some free Supercharging.

 

[henleyregatta]

Couple of thoughts expanding on WannabeOwner's excellent and voluminous post:

1. Ignore what's happening to the Energy Usage chart and the Wh/Mile rate for the first 10 minutes of a drive especially in the depths of winter. The figures will scare the beejesus out of you until the car warms up a bit (inside and, more importantly, battery). For the trips I've been making, which nearly always start with ~20 miles of cross-country before hitting dual carriageways, the "departure tax" makes it look like the trip's going to use anything up to 2x the predicted energy. But: it'll settle down. It always does. ~50 miles after departure gives me a much more accurate picture of arrival State-of-Charge and consumption
2. The Trip Planner's single most useful feature for me is it'll give you SoC at destination and estimate SoC for return journey. It's that number that best drives your charging needs. If you've not done the route prep / planning, then check the map en route and as you get within 5 miles of the closest supercharger to your destination, cancel and re-input the route. If the estimated SoC for the return is negative or below your comfort margin (5% summer, 10% winter?), that's your cue to stop for a splash and dash.
3. Whenever the ambient temperature is below about 15 C, and until we get and can assess the utility of the promised battery pre-heat function, it's always going to be MUCH quicker to charge-on-arrival rather than before departure. I've learnt this the hard way: Stopping in the dead of winter at a SC even 15 miles / 20 minutes after departure (so some heat in the pack...) I'll spend the first 15 minutes or so at a paltry 35kW. In fact in this profile it's hard to ever achieve full rate on my battery pack - by the time it warms up enough to accept it, I'm reaching the start of tapering. This could be entirely avoided if I charged on the way out.
   
4. WannabeOwner's comments about Starbucks/Costa costs are real. Free supercharging is a myth - it always costs me a coffee if it's at a services and if I've got a car full the costs easily outweigh the electricity savings

 

[henleyregatta]

Someone suggested somewhere that since A Better Routeplanner has waypoints, you can put the whole journey in there and back home, with your destination as the waypoint. That way you can work out the whole lot.

I've been struggling recently with ABRP, in that for trips I'm making out-and-back where I'll need a charge, it's been recommending that I charge at closest-SC-to-destination to 100% and then splash-and-dash on the way back. This is clearly sub-optimal given charge taper, I'm far better off splash-and-dashing outbound (...enough to get to destination and back to SC on return leg) and charging to higher SoC (...starting from lower) on the return to reach home.

At the very least: do apply a bit of logic to whatever it's telling you, don't just take it as gospel.