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Poll: ABRP or Trip Planner

ABRP or Tesla Built In Trip Planner

  • ABRP

    Votes: 17 60.7%
  • Trip Planner

    Votes: 11 39.3%

  • Total voters
    28
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Hi Friends,

I am gearing up to go on a long road trip again. I have used ABRP in the past--but haven't travelled for a bit. Wondering if the build in Trip Planner is getting better, or if ABRP is still far superior? Does Trip Planner account for weather and things like that, given that it can access all that data from inside the car? Interested to hear others experience over the last 6-12 months with Trip Planner improvements!
 
Well, neither. I hate the interface of ABRP. So for offline pre-looking before a trip, I use www.evtripplanner.com. That's just to check sometimes if a route doesn't have really obvious interstate highway Supercharger coverage, and I need to see about a longer stretch. But then when I'm actually driving, the nav in the car is just fine. I select the next Supercharger and go. I don't like to be really uptight and detailed about pre-plotting out stops and how many minutes, etc. etc.

If you're talking about the trip planning tool on Tesla's website, that is garbage--don't even try to use that.
 
ABRP for pre-trip planning. In-car nav for real-time execution.

Nav was good for me, a little optimistic for my lead-foot wife. As far as I know it doesn't explicitly consider weather, other than the effects it had during your last 30 miles. That probably led to our problem when switching drivers, with the wife's last 30 miles going into my initial estimate and my last 30 into her initial estimate. Kind of a pain if the initial estimate was optimistic and you end up having to slow down. Once you get going (30 miles into your driving segment) the nav estimate settles down nicely. It's never going to be perfect.
 
We did our first long trip from Oregon to Nebraska. I planned the trip on both before we left. The arrival times were similar. I preferred Tesla’s trip planner. It’s easier in the car. While the trip segments are often longer we were more relaxed at our destinations. I was surprised at the price of ABRP yearly subscription. It is too high for the amount of use we would get from it & I don’t want a monthly subscription either.
We played backgammon while charging & the games can take longer than the charging. We didn’t want to leave a game unfinished.:D
 
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My major concern with Trip Planner is that it doesn't take into account round trips (other than telling you how much would be available for a return trip). Driving from my home to Gatlinburg, TN, for example, would not leave enough charge for me to get to the first supercharger on the return trip. And there are no destination chargers at all in Gatlinburg. By plotting a round trip on line, it can be done with a 15-minute (each way) detour to a supercharger, but the in-car trip planner can't tell me about that.

Someone asked, during battery day, about waypoints, and Musk replied that it can be done. So maybe it will be there in a few revisions of the software.
 
For extended road trips(multi-day), especially in winter, I use ABRP.
If you configure the set-up, it can take into account your driving speed(exceeding posted limit), outside temperature, weather condition (dry or wet), vehicle extra load, etc. Tesla's in-car planner left me driving at reduced speeds several times, just to make it to the next charger. (it doesn't take exterior temp. or speed into account).
 
Hi Friends,

I am gearing up to go on a long road trip again. I have used ABRP in the past--but haven't travelled for a bit. Wondering if the build in Trip Planner is getting better, or if ABRP is still far superior? Does Trip Planner account for weather and things like that, given that it can access all that data from inside the car? Interested to hear others experience over the last 6-12 months with Trip Planner improvements!
If you are just calculating for pushing limits of charging abrp is good but in all honesty I use the Tesla planner and I’ve taken close to 15 road trips in the year and a half since I’ve owned it. It’s fine I usually like having a buffer of 15% so if I arrive at a charger less than that I either stay longer or go to a closer charger. That it. Not sure why people would really need abrp unless you are pushing time. Like when I was making sure I don’t get stranded in Death Valley I used abrp just for preliminary route planning but then used the Tesla planner while driving.
 
I just did a round trip from Los Angeles to Idaho and the Tesla Planner had me reduce speed one time to 65mph in a 75mph zone, which had semi trucks, and towing vehicles having to pass me. What the Tesla Planner did was skip a charging station to save me time? So on the return trip, I mapped things out in ABRP and using the Tesla Planner, just added destinations to the third supercharger location. No missed charging stations anymore and I can go 80mph, my desired speed on the fwy. Never trust the car to plan on the fly, always have it mapped out before hand and make sure you don't miss a charging station. Any leg longer than 200 miles can be problematic, so plan accordingly.
 
My comment was about Destination Chargers. Those are not Destination Chargers.
Yes, these do not happen to be that particular brand. What I don't get is why you have an aversion to using them and are dismissing them as unusable. They are not any different than the Tesla (TM) ones.
Further, one is not available unless you are staying at that motel,
...or eat at their restaurant.
...or offer them $10 to let you use it.
Regardless, this would be exactly the same case with any Tesla brand Destination Charger. They are almost all at hotels. You seem to think Tesla Destination Chargers (TM) are always freely available. They generally aren't. They are provided by businesses who are paying for the electricity to them, so they do reserve them for their customers or charge money for the use of them, which is just like the two locations I just pointed out.
and I suspect that the other is only for customers at that restaurant.
Yeah, or probably if you offer them a few bucks. Still, why do you expect them to be free? Why is there a problem with paying these places for the use of their amenities if you need charging?
 
What the Tesla Planner did was skip a charging station to save me time
Yep--that is why I warn people of this every chance I get on the forums. This is an awful thing to do to people. The Nav planning in the car is fine IF you are picking your next Supercharger directly. But if you just pick your far off final destination, and let it try to pick which Superchargers you should use, it tries to skip some that you really need and really screws things up for people.
 
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Yes, these do not happen to be that particular brand. What I don't get is why you have an aversion to using them and are dismissing them as unusable. They are not any different than the Tesla (TM) ones.

...or eat at their restaurant.
...or offer them $10 to let you use it.
Regardless, this would be exactly the same case with any Tesla brand Destination Charger. They are almost all at hotels. You seem to think Tesla Destination Chargers (TM) are always freely available. They generally aren't. They are provided by businesses who are paying for the electricity to them, so they do reserve them for their customers or charge money for the use of them, which is just like the two locations I just pointed out.

Yeah, or probably if you offer them a few bucks. Still, why do you expect them to be free? Why is there a problem with paying these places for the use of their amenities if you need charging?
I am not expecting them to be free, but I would like for them to be convenient. Those two are so inconveniently located as to be useless for me.
 
Yep--that is why I warn people of this every chance I get on the forums. This is an awful thing to do to people. The Nav planning in the car is fine IF you are picking your next Supercharger directly. But if you just pick your far off final destination, and let it try to pick which Superchargers you should use, it tries to skip some that you really need and really screws things up for people.
I've read you posting this in other threads and thank you for that! I'm taking delivery tomorrow and will remember this for my long trips...first one will be this weekend.
 
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I’ve been using an iOS app named “EV Trip Optimizer for Tesla” for long trip planning (between TX and CA, MI, or FL) for several years. Lots of automated features to plan charging stops, but the feature I use most is that I can set a “preferred” length of driving day (say, 9 hours) and it’ll show me where that puts me along the route (with charging time included) - I pick a waypoint nearby and segment the trip there. Rinse and repeat to chop the trip into segments.

I use the in-car nav during the trip to keep an eye on things. I program the intended waypoints into the nav as favorites before I leave, then bounce between selecting the waypoint or intermediate Superchargers as needed. As I close in on the current day’s waypoint, I’ll select the following day’s waypoint from favorites to help figure how how much I need to charge for tomorrow’s driving.

I’ve tried using ABRP, but could never get used to the user interface...
 
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