Potential future buyer with questions...

[gtae07]

I've been EV shopping/researching for a few months with the goal of ordering sometime next year. With EV pickups either out of the price range or not available anytime soon, and the Bolt now definitely out of the picture the list has essentially narrowed to either a Model 3 or Model Y (and leaning towards the former). I've been lurking here for a couple months trying to absorb what I can, but I still have a few questions. In no particular order:

- How (mentally) hard have you found it to get down to the 10-20% range before charging on a trip? I'm one of those people that doesn't like to let the gas gauge go below half full (we live in hurricane country) and I like to have at least an hour reserve when I'm flying. Our most frequent road trip doesn't have many chargers along the route and I'd get a little wary of running out of options.

- Is it possible to specify/ensure I got the LFP battery on an SR+ if I ordered today? Or is it luck of the draw?

- Other than the obvious one of interior space, any other advantages to a Model Y? I've heard rumors that an SR+ with LFP battery is coming so I kinda want to wait a reasonable time to see if that's available and see what the range figures are before making a decision.

- I like the no-schmoozing, no-haggling model, but the actual purchase process still seems a little opaque and full of uncertainty. Any suggestions?

- What's a realistic charge rate off a standard 120V 15A outlet? This is only a concern on trips; I don't know if it'll be feasible to put a 240V outlet at our parents' houses. I already have a 15-50 in my garage that I added a few years ago to power a welder and other equipment and I can add another wherever needed, but that's harder to get away with on other peoples' houses. I can find some public non-SC chargers in the area if I needed it, but I'd still want to plug in overnight.

- Is there any practical advantage of an LR over the SR+(LFP) besides range and AWD that would justify the extra cost? I don't need even sportier acceleration or the AWD. I thought the range would be a concern but after playing on ABRP I don't think it'll matter too much, given how often and where we wind up stopping for bathroom breaks on our usual 220mi trip to visit family.

- Anyone have issues parking outside? We don't have space in the one-car garage and our winters are mild.

Any other advice and information ?

 

[Sophias_dad]

If you do frequent road trips DON'T consider an SR+. It sounds like you are already range-anxiety-riddled, and the best way to fix that is more range.

a 15A outlet will get you right around 4.5mi/hr, which will report on the screen as 4 or 5 due to voltage losses and other variables pushing it to 4.49 or 4.51 or whatever.

If your bathroom breaks are at superchargers, you should be fine. OTOH, 220mi is entirely doable with zero stops in an LR. What happens when the supercharger is broken or busy, like when everyone is driving to see family at thanksgiving?

 

[EVEnergy]

The more you travel (long distances) in it, the more comfortable you get going low. Below 20% doesn't scare me anymore and I'm OK with 10% (but I watch it like a hawk when I do).

Battery is a roll of the dice

If you need more room or like a higher point-of-view, Model Y has it covered. I have the 3 and it suits my needs just fine.

The price is very transparent. What it shows on the website is what you pay.

For the first year and a half, I used a 120V outlet. Depending on the weather (how cold), I could go from 40%ish to 70%ish overnight (plug in at 5 pm; drive at 7 am). Just "ABC" - always be charging. If there's a supercharger around, use the house to get a little juice then supercharge to fill the battery.

Always, always buy the biggest battery you can afford. You will never regret it. Also, the LR (I have one) has the better sound system, AWD (it snows so it's important to me), and if you ever worry about range, get the LR. I use ABRP and honestly, I don't find it the savior a lot of people say it is. I always compare to the in-car nav and about 95% of the time, in-car nav is spot on. I don't follow either charging time recommendations because I like a little extra buffer. I've come to learn to add 10% to the car's estimate of arrival SoC and that works out really well for me. Honestly, once I "tuned in" the car nav, I rarely use ABRP (even though I have subscription for it).

 

[MaskedRacerX]

I'm a semi-new owner, about 2-1/2 months, I'm a long time car enthusiast (so that's a factor with me), I've owned about 30 vehicles of various makes, models, I know a ton of Tesla owners, including a few very early adopters (one friend has only 2 Teslas, no ICE/PHEV "backup"). I'm a software dev/analyst/architect, so I tend to be a little overly analytic, but that can be a good thing in some cases - I also tend to YOLO on some stuff, the Tesla was somewhere in between

BTW, love Savannah BTW, we go every couple of years with some friends, usually stay a little off the main drag.

I'll respond to a few specific questions - skipped some of the stuff about LR vs. SR, and performance perspective, I'm sort of a nut for that so I have a M3 Performance.

- How (mentally) hard have you found it to get down to the 10-20% range before charging on a trip? I'm one of those people that doesn't like to let the gas gauge go below half full (we live in hurricane country) and I like to have at least an hour reserve when I'm flying. Our most frequent road trip doesn't have many chargers along the route and I'd get a little wary of running out of options.

You just have to plan a little more, one site I'd suggest to do a little more research is A Better Route Planner:

ABRP

ABetterRouteplanner is the world's most popular consumer EV routeplanner - both for beginner and experienced EV drivers. And of course for anyone curious about EVs.

abetterrouteplanner.com

I used that before I purchased, to do a lot of speculative trips: Savannah, The Keys, our usual Orlando/MCO/Universal trip, and it gave me a ton of confidence about owning one.

- Other than the obvious one of interior space, any other advantages to a Model Y? I've heard rumors that an SR+ with LFP battery is coming so I kinda want to wait a reasonable time to see if that's available and see what the range figures are before making a decision.

That's pretty much it, 3 vs. Y. The 3 is a little quicker, a little more "sporty" (including the looks), vs. the Y having a good bit more storage space (you can look up the capacities). They're probably have more in common than not (if that makes sense).

- I like the no-schmoozing, no-haggling model, but the actual purchase process still seems a little opaque and full of uncertainty. Any suggestions?

I thought it was glorious. I hate engaging with dealers, we did everything online, ordered car, made order payment, uploaded all required docs, made final payment, scheduled pickup. The only time I had any direct communication with a person was our SA for the 20 minutes we were at the service center.

- What's a realistic charge rate off a standard 120V 15A outlet? This is only a concern on trips; I don't know if it'll be feasible to put a 240V outlet at our parents' houses. I already have a 15-50 in my garage that I added a few years ago to power a welder and other equipment and I can add another wherever needed, but that's harder to get away with on other peoples' houses. I can find some public non-SC chargers in the area if I needed it, but I'd still want to plug in overnight.

Answered above by @Sophias_dad but yeah, ~4 miles/hour. I had an N6-50 installed with a 50a circuit, so we charge at 40a at the house (well, on the Tesla, our Jeep is a PHEV, uses the same charger at 32a). 240v/40a is good for ~36 mi/hr.

So the Tesla comes with a very portable EVSE (aka, the Mobile Connector, these aren't really "chargers"), it handles up to 32a, and here's the really slick thing: it had modular plugs (each one runs $35-45), for all the common 120/240v NEMA spec receptacles. You connect the adapter for the proper outlet spec, and the adapter sets the Mobile Connector v/amps to the proper matching spec.

So you could get an N10-30, or an N14-30 which are the older/newer 30a dryer outlet specs, and maybe use that at your folks house (that's good for ~22 miles/hour).

- Anyone have issues parking outside? We don't have space in the one-car garage and our winters are mild.

We park inside, but I wouldn't think so, especially in Savannah, get a charger that's weather friendly (we have a Grizzl-E that's designed to handle Canadian winters, but it's installed in the garage). You could also install inside the garage and run it to the outside I would think (don't quote me on that, not sure if there's any other implications to doing that).

Any other advice and information ?

They're very fun vehicles, the whole EV experience is pretty fantastic, and the Tesla has exceeded my expectations. My last few cars (not including the wife's/family car) were back to back Mustang GT convertibles, an S2000, and a Corvette Z06, some of those highly modified, and for me, this car has just as much satisfaction.

You really have to change the way you think about "fueling", it's not like an ICE, you don't drive-drive-drive, gas, it's more like drive-charge-drive-charge, my M3P is literally always at 80-85%, unless we're doing a road trip, then I go to 100% and do a little pre-planning.

The other thing to keep in mind is the cost and convenience, even with the other car being a PHEV, I haven't been to a gas station in 2 months. With the Tesla, it's like having a 94-95MPG ICE vehicle in terms of gas cost equivalence, but without any of ICE inconvenience (gas, oil ...)

 

[RayK]

Second the advice for going with the LR as your long range trip appears to (currently) be without much Superchargers to stop at. If that's the case, I'd look into the availability of CHAdeMO stations along the route, although that may be a dead-end source in a few years. Maybe by that time more SC stations will be installed in your area. $400 CHAdeMO adapter from the Tesla Store, when it's in stock. It provides charging speeds up to 50kW; roughly 100 miles of range in 30 minutes.

My own ordering of LR RWD, back in mid-2018, was uneventful. I was contacted to say that it was my turn to spec my car. Placed the order, was contacted by the sales agent a couple of times via email and picked up my car at the Fremont Delivery Center. Painless. It may have helped that my previous car was ordered over the internet (2000 BMW 323i) from one of the car ordering dotcom companies that soon went belly-up.

I was intending to wait for an AWD but a combination of factors led me to buy the car several weeks before the AWD was offered. I don't miss it. Really the only reason why I wanted the AWD was that I was planning to drive up to Tahoe for skiing each winter. West Coast droughts and COVID have severely cut down on the number of times I've been up skiing in the last 3 years. And besides, I'm a "fair weather" skier anyway.

A standard 5-15 (120V 15A) outlet will get you about 4MPH. A 240V 40A (continuous) outlet will provide 37MPH. I don't charge at home. For the first year I had free ChargePoint L2 J1772 charging at work. ~22 miles per hour and a four hour time limit per session was plenty enough to keep the miles on the car. Since leaving work two years ago (this week), I've charged at local Supercharger and CHAdeMO stations. I might be stressing my battery by doing this but I charge when the car gets a bit below 50% and only go up to 90%. I do still have a HPWC in a box in my garage and most likely will eventually install it.

 

[Tam]

...down to the 10-20% range before charging on a trip?...

That's why you need to learn how your car reacts to your driving style first and add a buffer number on top of your next trip distance.

I think for most people, a buffer of 100 miles should do it: If my next trip is 200 miles, I would not stop charging until I got a minimum of 300 miles (200 actual distance + 100 buffer = 300 miles.)

It works like a charm since 2012 for me and I have never been stranded or worried.

I agree with @Sophias_dad said. I would choose the longest range I can pay and don't pay attention to those who play down on "range" that you won't need it (Elon Musk doesn't think anyone needs more than 400 miles, but I do because EV miles are not the same as actual miles).

- Is it possible to specify/ensure I got the LFP battery on an SR+ if I ordered today? Or is it luck of the draw?

We know about it because Tesla sent an e-mail asking if SR+ owners want it then get it from "inventory".

Since you asked about range anxiety, SR+ is a very poor choice.

...other advantages to a Model Y?...

Bigger, more space, hatchback, towing...

...wait...

Lots of waiting.

 

[gtae07]

I don't see this as being the primary road trip car--we have a 2014 Odyssey that fills that role for now and it's not going away before whatever I get is paid off. It's more "if we take it on a trip, what will we face?" Also, the "visit parents" trip is about 85% interstate. I can't imagine that's good for total range... though there are superchargers at all the exits we usually stop anyway (Metter, Macon, and soon in Dublin too).

For longer trips with just two of us, well, that's why I'm building an airplane...

Playing with ABRP even an LR needs a charging stop to make it on that trip with 15% remaining. But I'm also being conservative with weather etc--like a headwind (I've seen some nasty ones on this trip) and typical summertime 90+ outside temperature.

Cold weather isn't a concern here--snow is a "once every decade or two" event. We might get below freezing overnight for a few days in a row.

 

[Rtmpaul]

Here is a data point for comparison: We have now taken two long day trips in our LR model 3, both about 175 miles each way. In both cases, on the homeward trip we told the car nav to 'navigate to home' and were presented with a good supercharger choice along the way that took 10-15 minutes and then got home with 60-75 miles of range left which actually was much more than we needed. The supercharger locations were relatively nice, and we didn't spend any more time than we would have getting gas.

It is up to you whether an LR is 'worth it', but I would say definitely yes if you care at all about range and/or the sound system.

The no-haggling model is great (our last experience at our local Honda dealer was pretty horrible) but you should understand that you will pay more than what they show on the order page because there is a delivery fee, taxes, etc. We ended up paying about 54k including everything for our LR. Fwiw, our delivery experience was also great. The hardest part was waiting almost two months for the car once I ordered it.

 

[KenC]

- How (mentally) hard have you found it to get down to the 10-20% range before charging on a trip? I'm one of those people that doesn't like to let the gas gauge go below half full (we live in hurricane country) and I like to have at least an hour reserve when I'm flying. Our most frequent road trip doesn't have many chargers along the route and I'd get a little wary of running out of options.

Easy for me, but I usually let my ICE get down to 2 gals or about 50miles of range before refueling. In my Tesla, I set my goal to recharge on a trip at 15% SOC, or about 50miles of range. Exactly the same. If you don't like to go below half in your ICE, you're going to have trouble with an EV if you don't change your perspective.

- Is it possible to specify/ensure I got the LFP battery on an SR+ if I ordered today? Or is it luck of the draw?

You're going to have trouble if you order an SR+, do trips, and want to recharge at half-full

- Is there any practical advantage of an LR over the SR+(LFP) besides range and AWD that would justify the extra cost? I don't need even sportier acceleration or the AWD. I thought the range would be a concern but after playing on ABRP I don't think it'll matter too much, given how often and where we wind up stopping for bathroom breaks on our usual 220mi trip to visit family.

As long as your inputs in ABRP are good, you'll get realistic answers. Make sure you put in accurate speed, % over speed limit, and temps. The only other big factor affecting range that you miss is wind, but you get that if you sign up for premium.

- Anyone have issues parking outside? We don't have space in the one-car garage and our winters are mild.

No, I park outside in Maine, and never an issue.

 

[Centauri2]

I bought mine new about 2 months ago. Can't speak much to anxiety as I don't leave my 50 mile radius, though I'll worried more about running out of gas than I do now about low battery, and am REALLY looking forward to driving right past the gas station when it's 0 degrees and snowing out. But I can speak to the buying process.

I made the initial purchase from my couch on a Saturday afternoon. No muss, no fuss. Once the expected wait went from 4 weeks to 4 months, I started surfing the various new inventory crawlers and rather quickly found one in inventory so I bought that. Except I had second thoughts later that day so I un-bought it (losing my $100 deposit). A few days later I found one in inventory I really did like, ordered that one, and it was delivered in about a week. Note - through all this process I never spoke to anyone, and did it all on my iPhone. The purchase process was an absolute dream.

As for the LR question - well, it was never a question for me. I wanted the biggest battery so that was that.

 

[cougar1968]

It really depends on your specific lifestyle, where are you live, your commute, your access to charging, your desires in a car. Road trips mean different mileage to different people, I know some people that consider 100 miles a road trip where as others consider that a commute. Whenever I ask somebody if they’re going to take a road trips they always say yes but then when I asked them how many they took in the past year they say zero. I was guilty of that as well when asked how many road trips a year I took I said none but I might want to but knew I probably wouldn’t. However, my wife still has a gas vehicle and even when she gets a new one I think we will still get a hybrid so that would be a road trip vehicle. If this is going to be your only vehicle then of course I would recommend the long range M3 if you plan on taking road trips.

Obviously where you live plays a big factor, I live in Southern California where it doesn’t get very hot or very cold most of the year. If I lived somewhere where it was cold I would definitely get a long range as I would probably want all wheel drive for the winter.

Range anxiety usually only last the first couple drives in a Tesla in my opinion. After about a week you kind you understand how far your car can go based on your driving. Of courseyoy should always take into account the fact that you should only charge the current battery to a maximum of 90% unless you’re taking a road trip. That cuts off a couple miles and could greatly affect which model you purchase.

In my opinion if you drive less than 100 miles per day and don’t take road trips more than 150 miles you’d be fine with the standard range. Unless of course you want all wheel drive and a better sound system. I will say that 99% of the people I talk to you about Tesla’s and have Tesla’s that bought a long range version didn’t even know that the sound system was better and only drive about 10 miles per day. (Not people from this forum obviously)

I agree with the above comments, you should buy the biggest battery you can afford. For me, that was the standard range model and it suits all my needs.

 

[gtae07]

I guess I should have clarified... the "don''t go below 50%" rule is part of living in hurricane country, and it's there because if a hurricane pops up and you need to evacuate, you want to be able to get some reasonable distance inland on what you have in the tank. As was said above, an ICE doesn't start off full every day so you need reserve. On road trips I've gotten down to 1/4 or even a little below. I'd imagine an EV changes the equation because you start every day off full(ish) and that 50% rule won't be as stringent. I think that one's going to be more just breaking the habit than actual range anxiety as such.

Mostly I see myself going around town (within 10-20 mile radius) or going to the airport to go fly (~80mi RT). Commute right now is ~27mi RT. Road trips as such, 1-3 per year and none over 300mi one way. I think road trips with it would be like little airplane trips ("if you have time to spare, go by air")--we'd do it for the fun, not the necessity.


Were an LR not almost $55k all in, it wouldn't be a question; I'm cringing enough over SR+ pricing (and really new cars in general). My first new car was a 2003 Focus that I got for $16k and which finally died on me this summer. It's just been so long since I've bought a new car and the prices are shocking me a bit.


But in any case, a decision is still months away. Need to pay off the van and pay for the upcoming roof replacement first...

 

[Unclepaul]

Since ownership of an EV is something new to you, your questions and concerns are normal and reasonable.

Just as someone that is considering building their own airplane will temper their expectations by the reality of budget and capabilities. Flyers that are used to going commercial from NY to Paris will often be disappointed that they cannot do the same in their home built

That said, most owners quickly learn the capabilites of their new EVs. They begin by building in lots of buffers to asuage their anxiety, but later feel more comfortable using smaller reserves.

With Superchargers popping up all over the place, long distance is more becoming starting out with a full tank, getting a quick splash charge while taking a snack or bio break, then back on the road. This usually handles most of the trips, but the very long distance, multi day trips often require more clever planning.

It is all doable, and most people quickly get the hang of it.

Advice. IF you have range anxiety, get the longest range package you can afford. You will get most of that back in resale value.

 

[RLEE]

If most of your typical or road trip routes follow major highways with superchargers, an sr+ should be fine. Unless you like to drive more than 3 hours without stopping. In my area I preferred my sr over my ice for road trips, drive 2.5 to 3 hours and charge for 20 min or so for a bio break and repeat. Within those 2.5 to 3 hours I often pass 1 to 3 superchargers that I skip anyway so there's no fear of running out of juice. If you do wander far away from areas with superchargers, an lr might be better. I did that with my sr... my new sr+ has even more range.

 

[Fernand]

FWIW, getting a 50ft fat 12 gauge extension cord for 120v charging is important. I reliably get 5miles/hr charging that way. If you have range anxiety, always carry the extension cord in the frunk. I've topped up out of a motel window a couple times . If you have 240v socket, great. If you don't, you're OK, just plug in when you get home, and use superchargers when you need them. In an urban environment, IMHO a nominal 240 mile capacity is just fine. To get the LR battery you have to also buy the extra motor you don't really need. Everybody has different priorities, but for me, the full automation package is more important. E.g. in said urban environment weaseling bumper to bumper on the freeway in manual, when the car can do it, is no longer acceptable.