Road Trip coming up - question for the long distance experienced...

[StaceyS]

In a few weeks, my wife and I are undertaking a road trip from Oregon to Utah to visit family. Most of the drive we will have no issues with range as there are plenty of superchargers and RV park camping along the route. However, there is one small hurdle.

We live in Bend, Oregon, which is smack in the middle of Oregon. We are going to drive to Winnemucca, NV, which is either 351 miles or 376 miles, depending on the route. There are no charging stations along either route, but there are a few RV park opportunities. We are planning to leave work in the afternoon and drive to an RV park with a 50 amp plug and camp there overnight and get a full charge to make it to Winnemucca the next day. The preferred stopover is Summer Lake Hot Springs Resort. Its an easy drive from Bend, they got hot springs, they have 240v, 50amp plugs, theres hot springs, they have cabins, and hot springs, beautiful star gazing and hot springs. We like hot springs.

BUT... its 252 miles from Summer Lake Hot Springs to Winnemucca, NV, and once you past Lakeview, OR (about 50 miles away) there is pretty much nothing until you hit the supercharger on I-80.

This brings me to my question: Should I get into the mental frame of mind to hypermile our P85 252 miles through the desolate, remote region of SE Oregon and NW Nevada with no safety net in mid/late October, or should we forgo the hot springs and camp at a different RV park that leaves us with 176 miles to get to Winnemucca?

 

[jfranks]

I'd stay at Summer Lake and then get enough charge in Lakeview to comfortably make it to Winnemucca.

 

[bishoppeak]

There is a nice hot springs resort in Lakeview. They have a rustic motel for rooms and an RV resort that should have the charger you require.

 

[Half Dollar Bill]

I'm not a big fan of desolate remote regions with no safety net.
That said, we did 255 miles from Lusk to Sheridan WY by going slower.
I'm sure your route is doable as well but it just sounds like there's a lot of downside if things go bad. Not a great way to start a vacation.

 

[Evbwcaer]

I say do it. If you do the math ahead of time and stick to the plan you will be fine, plus hot springs are so great (5th Water in UT is my favorite so far). You could also get an early start, drive 50 miles to Lakeview, have breakfast and grab some charge, then head out. I see a few campgrounds in Lakeview. Regardless, you shouldn't need it. Also on google maps people say they used RV hookups at the fair grounds in Lakeview.

For my S85 I use this formula: (Rated Range That I Currently Display x 290) / Distance I Need To Travel = Max WH/Mile I Can Use. In the trips screen you can reset A or B to monitor yourself. Unless it is really cold, you can gain range by slowing down.

 

[StaceyS]

I like that idea best so far. Leave Summer Lake, breakfast in Lakeview while charging. I'll do some digging and see if I can come up with a suitable charging situation in Lakeview, that will tell us how much we have to hypermile it to make it. If I do, I'll add them to plugshare since there's nothing listed now.

Fortunately for this adventure, Oregon highways are limited to 55 mph, and this road isn't heavily travelled, so driving 50 won't be a problem for anyone except me.

Using your formula, I'm estimating a max WH/mile of 299. (260 x 290 / 252 = 299) That's doable with some careful driving. Our current lifetime is 306, but we haven't gone through a winter yet, so I'm unsure how much of a hit that is. I did a 320 mile trip last week from Bend to Hood River and averaged 324 wh/mile, but there's a lot of elevation change in that drive, and I wasn't really driving very slow...

 

[Ingineer]

Be sure to try the EV trip planner: EV Trip Planner

I've used it on all my trips, it's amazingly accurate!

 

[Tyl]

Post #2 +1. I've been on many a long trip and hyper miling is no fun at all. You always want to have the charge you need to make it to your next location with a few miles to spare. (keep a 30% cushion as you drive along) Driving along at 40 is no fun at all!

 

[MikeC]

Why not stay at Crystal Crane Hot Springs | Princeton, OR | Electric Car Charging Station | PlugShare overnight? That would leave you with 193 miles to get to Winnemuca on a full battery and it presumably also has hot springs. 252 might be pushing it if it's windy and it leaves you with not much room for error.

 

[StaceyS]

Crystal Crane is great, but they do not have 240v 50 amp plugs.

 

[bishoppeak]

You don't need 50 amps for overnight charging, any 240V will do.

 

[brec]

You don't need 50 amps for overnight charging, any 240V will do.

The PlugShare description (linked to a few posts up) says, "Tesla needs special adapter, 6 miles per hour."

 

[benfrank3]

I would get closer. 252 miles on a charge is a significant stretch unless you drive slow. What's fun about 60 MPH? At 72 MPH I can drive maybe 210/215 MAX.
I made myself some notes for long distance travel. Maybe you will find something useful. Good luck!
Leave at 100% full charge. It's a good idea to plan the longest leg first. This way, you will get a good feel for the car's range performance at the current weather/wind.Leave charge level set at 100% for entire trip. The superchargers taper down when the charge level gets close to your set level, hence if you have it set to less than 100%, you will probably unnecessarily delay your charging time at your stops.
You will use more than rated-range if you travel above 65 mph. You will use significantly more at or above 75 mph. I found 72 mph to be the most bang for the buck. Plus you won't get a ticket!
The nav system will tell you what charge % you will have at the destination (Trip Tab). Monitor this; if it's going down, you're using more energy than expected. Slow down until you stabilize or reverse this unless you know you're going to have enough. I left with 240 miles (100%) - drove 180 miles - and had 38 miles range left (16%). The car's projection was pretty accurate. If you encounter any unknowns there won't be much range to play with.
The nav system will be conservative and will almost always add charging stops when you may not want one. You can edit your trip and remove intermediate stops if you like. It will recalculate but it will still probably be "Bitchin' Betty" when you get low.

 

[David99]

The superchargers taper down when the charge level gets close to your set level, hence if you have it set to less than 100%, you will probably unnecessarily delay your charging time at your stops.

That's not correct. The Supercharger tapers down depending on state of charge (and battery temperature). It will not charge slower because you set the max to anything lower than 100%.

 

[Panoz]

Depending on anticipated weather, I think your "long and desolate" trip of 250 miles is too long. All it will take is a headwind or some heavy rain/slush and you've eaten up your cushion. I have almost the exact same trip distance - Albuquerque to Farmington, NM through Route 550 - that came up 240 nautical miles, 260 EV Planner miles given a winter temperature. I decided to not cut it that close given my inexperience so I'll be doing the trip in my ICE.

 

[cpa]

I think the Lake County fairgrounds have 50A plugs available.

:: LakeCounty ::

I want to drive our S from Central California to Pendleton via US395, and after much research concluded that it is easier for me to spend the night at a campground in Alturas and skip Lakeview before charging in Burns at the Harney County C of C. The Chamber has a 70A 208V plug, and our S has dual chargers.

I recall checking into RV Parks in Lakeview (this was last fall), and none had 50A hookups. They were all 30A.

If you can purchase or borrow the 6-30 adapter before your trip, then the suggestion above to go to Crystal Crane makes the most sense. Otherwise, spend the night at a motel in Burns and use the 70A plug behind the Chamber of Commerce. I believe it is 220 miles from Burns to Winnemucca via Oregon 78 and US95.

If you only have a single charger in your car, the 70A plug will give you about 25 miles of range per hour (208V). You might even dial down the amps going into the car and charge all night to have a full battery come morning.

When you start that long leg, dial into the Supercharger at Winnemucca. Start off slowly (55MPH Oregon limit is good in this regard) and monitor your reserve on the trip meter. Maybe by the time you turn onto US95 your reserve will be adequate to enable you to ramp up your speed to your liking and still have enough juice to reach Winnemucca.

 

[StaceyS]

Just to clarify:
If you go to an RV Park and you see offerings for 50amp service and 30amp service, here's what you get: a "50 amp service" is 240v, 50a delivered through a standard NEMA 14-50 socket, "30 amp service" is 120v, 30a delivered through a NEMA TT-30 socket. A NEMA 10-20 plug will fit in this, and you can easily find a "30amp to 50amp Dogbone" adapter at Walmart or any camping supply place, but the Tesla UMC won't work with it because its only 120v (its expecting 240 with the 14-50 plug on it), and it is not grounded. (This happened to us. We camped at an Oregon State Campground the first week we had our car. Didn't work. Fortunately, we weren't in a situation where we needed a full charge overnight!)

If you find yourself at a campground with only 30amp service, don't worry too much: nearly all 30amp service pedestals have standard 120v sockets right next to them and their rated at 20amps. If you have Tesla's 5-20 plug, you can get 5-6 mph of charge out of that, otherwise you're stuck with 3-4.

I'm going to make some calls this week to a few places in Lakeview. If I can be reasonably sure we can find a 50amp plug there, we'll have breakfast there while the car charges. There is one other place after Lakeview with a gas station (Denio), and we might be able to plug into 120v there, and if we luck out, they may have something stronger in an emergency.

We might try going through Crystal Crane on our way back. Charge at the supercharger in Winnemucca, drive to Crystal Crane, spend the night charging at 6 miles per hour (with the Tesla 5-20 adapter), then drive to Burns and charge at the Harney County Chamber while eating breakfast. (Our car has dual chargers.)

 

[Super_Popular]

Its an easy drive from Bend, they got hot springs, they have 240v, 50amp plugs, theres hot springs, they have cabins, and hot springs, beautiful star gazing and hot springs. We like hot springs.

Clearly you are excited about hot springs :tongue: