Portland, OR to Bay Area, CA in a 60kWh Model S

[ChrisPDX]

I just returned last night. The return trip went even better! I was worried with TMC Connect that the GP and Mt Shasta SCs would be busy with traffic heading south, but that wasn't the case. In fact I only saw one other MS which was about 10-30 minutes behind me. Oddly enough for 3 stops they plugged into the same SC pair as me. I wanted to tell them not to do that as they were slowing down their charge rate, but I never actually meet them. Oh well.

Below is my return trip data. I'm having issues with the data going there, but it mostly matches. I also have two columns that show the EV Trip Planner data on reaching that site. Sorry for the bad formatting, but it's the best I could do without spending too much time on this (you may have to go full screen on your browser to read it).

What it all boils down to, if the weather is nice, you can charge to 20-30 miles above EV Trip Planner's numbers and have plenty of buffer to get there. The closer you leave with the trip numbers, the less buffer but faster charging you'll have. Please note I hit a lot of wind (mostly cross-wind) from GP to home. Otherwise my usage probably would have been better. But with that buffer, I was able to drive around 10% over the limit when possible.

Some other notes:

• EV Trip planner uses some odd calculations when figuring range miles used. On my trip there, I had one leg with 150 rated miles or 46.3kWh and a return leg with 149 rated miles or 43.6kWh. So even though I generally came in below it's numbers, a buffer is still a good idea!

• GP-Springfield, do half a range charge. Once the charge rate drops below 20kW, you get diminishing returns on time. So go ahead and stop there and leave. You'll have plenty of charge to make it without hypermiling unless the weather is bad.

• Heading out of Mt Shasta in either direction requires so little charge, you won't spend much time there. I over charged on the way back simply because I couldn't eat lunch fast enough!
• Vacaville-Corning legs had such high ratings because it was such high speed with no mountains to slow you down. It's easy to go 80+ for most of it, but you're Wh/mile will go way up!

Good luck! I had a wonderful drive. Sure I couldn't charge as fast as the MS85s and had to be more careful, but the good news is it's not difficult and you can drive like normal without worry.

 

[ckessel]

Very cool, thanks for posting that. Looks like you spent about 1:20 charging more than I did in my MS85, though I didn't keep careful notes and you had a somewhat longer drive (I left from Sonoma). Sounds like a pretty comfortable trip in a 60 .

 

[SFOTurtle]

Chris, thanks for posting the data. Very useful for us 60 owners who are thinking about making the trip. One thing I'm not clear about is the GP to Springfield leg and your comment to do "half a range charge." Not sure what you mean by "half a range charge." It looks like you left GP with 185 rated and made it to Springfield with 23. That would seem to suggest that you want to have at least 180 rated in good weather conditions, and more in bad weather, for that leg northbound.

 

[ChrisPDX]

What I mean by "half a range charge" is about 95% of a full range charge. Basically when it's half way between the normal standard charge and a 100% max range charge. This is where it really starts to slow down the charging rate and takes forever to complete. Fortunately you should have over 180 miles at this point and not need to wait another 30-45 minutes to get that last few percent of charge. Just don't go crazy trying to drive it at 80+ MPH continuously and you should be fine in an MS60. :smile:

 

[Jeffgtx]

Hi Chris. Thanks for all the great detail! I'll be keeping a similar log and will post for comparison. Your wh/mi numbers give me more confidence now.

And thanks for for everyone who provided input in this thread so far. Really put my mind at ease about this trip.

Jeff

 

[Bugeater]

Even if you find yourself needing a charge when you're not in range of a supercharger, my wife and I went from the south bay up to Portland over a year ago. We had no problem finding slow chargers along the way. Especially in Oregon.

 

[Jeffgtx]

Well, we made it there and back safe in sound. Ev trip planner was slightly conservative except for the Vacaville to Corning leg. Each time, we were well over the Wh/mi estimate despite going slower. on the way up, the car felt very heavy during that leg, which experience tells me means there was a heavy headwind.
went up on a thursday and at most there would be one other car charing at each leg, but usually we were alone.
on the way back on a monday there was a time where at least 4 cars were charing at each stop, but we never had to wait

all in all, very pleased with the trip and the model S handled it like a champ. the lowest i ever arrived with for rated miles was in the 30s.

here is my excel log. sorry it is so big. thanks again for everyone's input, which made this a lot less nerve racking.

4 adults, 1 toddler and more luggage than you can fit on a plane.
1,325 miles round trip
431.3 kWh of energy consumed
326Wh/mi vs evtripplanner.com estiamte of 333
63 avg mph vs evtrip planner estiamte of 67
21 hours of driving
11 hours of charging/eating/shopping