Planning a Road Trip & Cutting it Close

[Mike321]

Depends on "ideal." 75 mph will suck range down pretty quickly — much faster than 65 mph, for example. However, nav will make the initial estimate of battery percentage while charging based on usual and customary speeds for the route. It isn't always accurate so be sure to add in a sizeable buffer until you get used to how it compares to your driving. Takes a few trip legs to get a feel for it.

Nevertheless, once you get going and Nav sees your actual energy consumption, it will adjust by shifting the estimated percentage at destination. If that number is dropping steadily, rather than dropping then stabilizing, slow down a bit until it does stabilize. Or pick a nearer Supercharger Station and blast away. Even five mph makes a significant difference.

Most road trip newcomers will charge to a higher buffer to get comfortable what the real range is on a given highway at speed. Do be aware that rain or headwinds can decrease range by a lot — if you face such weather, charge a bit extra. I consider 15% plenty for a typical road trip leg but you might want to go with 20% to 30% at first.

In general, shorter trip legs, say 100 miles, have a lot more leeway than longer ones over 200 miles. There is less time/distance to use up the buffer on short trip legs. In my Y LR I routinely do 150 to 200 miles, but any longer than that and my partner and I will need a restroom break anyway. More short charges are easier to manage than a few long ones. Four and a half hours is my typical driving limit without a rest stop and that's pushing it. Three to three and a half hours is better. YMMV.

Thank you, I appreciate all of this.

 

[kpanda17]

You will need some sort of energy estimate to get an idea of likely Supercharger stops (perhaps twice as often than without the trailer). Once you are under way, Nav will see that your energy usage is vastly higher than expected and it will adjust the battery percentage estimage at (next) stop to reflect the actual energy consumption. Then it should model your trip leg usage pretty well. Much like making the drive with a huge headwind!

As always, the slower you go, the farther you go and this is even more true when towing a trailer.

I’ve reviewed lots of info on the resulting wh/mile and 450-500 seems to be the bumber
Put that number into ABRP and I have my trip planned
Rhe in vehicle energy app will be the proof during the trip

Wish me luck

 

[cwerdna]

I've never had to atop at an RV park but I've read where others have. If you can't make the next SC, an RV park is a lot better than being stranded. I ALWAYS carry an EVSE (cord) with a 14-50, 6-50 and 120V. I also carry a spare. We've got near 80,000 miles on two Teslas with more than 15,000 on Supercharging. Just follow the nav and monitor the est charge at your next stop and adjust speed, hvac accordingly. When navigating, the car will tell you to slow down to xx speed to make it to the next stop. I've had that happen twice to me. Never been stranded.

None of my EVs has ever come with an L2 EVSE and I've never had an L2 EVSE. I don't charge at home anyway. One of my former EVs came with a L1 120 volt EVSE that could be fed 240 volts w/o damaging it but it'd be 12 amps max at 240 volts.

My 1st ones did not. Feeding those 200+ volts WILL damage it.

No idea about my current one. It's listed as L1 only. No reason for me to bother. It's not like I have any sort of 240 volt outlet in my garage. Only have NEMA 5-15 there.

I will agree with the bolded part, but really that's a last resort. Finding a CCS1 DC FC (but you'd need https://shop.tesla.com/product/ccs-combo-1-adapter) with decent ratings and recent check-ins on Plugshare is FAR preferable to (also screening on Plugshare) to https://www.tesla.com/destination-charging or J1772 EVSE.

RV park would be after that. Even if you found a place with working NEMA 14-50 outlet, with https://shop.tesla.com/product/mobile-connector the best you could do is 32 amps * 240 bolts = 7680 watts = 7.68 kW. About the worst CCS1 DC FCs you could find are "24 kW" (e.g. https://smartchargeamerica.com/electric-car-chargers/commercial/chargepoint-express-100-cpe100/). Those will start in the high teens kW and ramp up as the voltage rises. 50 kW DC FCs are easy to find and Electrify America's are all 150 or "350" kW.

I've never had a spare tire w/my EVs since they came with none. I'm past 100K miles across 4 EVs but have done <4K miles of EV road trips, but have used DC FCs on plenty of times. The DC FC near home at 19 cents per kWh is significantly cheaper than charging at home on Pacific Gouge & Extort. That said, if I had more time (work and other things keep me busy) and wasn't leasing my current EV, I might do more road trips and would consider buying a spare that fits.

I also have never run out. Been driving BEVs since end of July 2013.

 

[Feathermerchan]

cwerdna - Our experiences are very different. Both of my Teslas came with V2 (32A) EVSEs. I keep them in the cars. I bought V1 EVSEs for home charging as they permit up to 40A charging. Charging at an RV park at 32A will add about 30 miles of range in an hour. If you just need a few miles it's a reasonable choice. I ran two circuits for charging and use both. Our current electric contract is about 13¢/kWh. But we also have solar and the 'buyback' rate is about 2¢ so we try to charge on excess solar that otherwise would have gone back on the grid. As for spares, we also carry tire plug kits and compressors. About a week after getting our Y we had a small piece of steel in the left rear that had to be plugged. I cannot recall ever having a flat on the road but have had a few in the driveway. We only carry the spares on long trips.

 

[laservet]

I have found the Tesla nav to be very accurate. On one trip it predicted I would arrive at home with 7 miles of range left. I didn't drive the speed limit, but I didn't drive 80 mph, either. As I backed into my garage it clicked from 8 to 7 miles. Telsa takes all kinds of things into account when it calculates range, including weather, elevation changes, temperature, tire pressure, driver's driving habits, number of passengers (it looks at passengers both for the extra weight and also for the extra load on the hvac system), rain, even the devices plugged into the USB ports.

 

[Mike728]

I have found the Tesla nav to be very accurate. On one trip it predicted I would arrive at home with 7 miles of range left. I didn't drive the speed limit, but I didn't drive 80 mph, either. As I backed into my garage it clicked from 8 to 7 miles. Telsa takes all kinds of things into account when it calculates range, including weather, elevation changes, temperature, tire pressure, driver's driving habits, number of passengers (it looks at passengers both for the extra weight and also for the extra load on the hvac system), rain, even the devices plugged into the USB ports.

It doesn't seem to take rain into account. I had it tell me I would arrive with plenty to spare (~15%) on a 130 mile trip. It was pouring out. During the drive the vehicle instructed me to slow down to 55 in order to make it, but I was in a 70MPH zone, so no way was I going to put our lives at risk. I ended up making it with 5% left.

 

[Unclepaul]

A great feature of Tesla Navigation is that it will do on the fly adjustments to your predicted range and length of charging stops as you drive and in real time. IF you driver faster, have headwinds, rain, temperature changes, or are in heavy traffic, it will alert you to remaining range, ets. It will look ahead to see which Superchargers may be congested, and suggest alternative charging stops..
They more you use it, the better you will get at predicting best strategies for your travels.

Their system is getting better all the time. Latest feature will show how many empty spots are available at in range Superchargers. WIll also use on the fly data to see how many other Tesla are routing to those same spots.