My family and I just finished quite the road trip in our 2021 MY LR and wanted to share the experience and provide some more data on the efficiency impacts of a large roof cargo box. I welcome any questions.
Tl;dr:Absolutely bulletproof over 2500 miles on a trip from Pittsburgh to Cape Cod to Acadia, to Burlington, and back. Loaded Thule Motion XT XL on factory rails impacted efficiency by ~14% vs rails only. You can drive anywhere with a Tesla, don’t worry. ABRP is worth it. FSD only for long trips. I dare you to find a better car for a road trip.
Background:
I purchased my MY7 “Storm” in March ’21 at the lowest price it’s ever been at ($52,990 w/ hitch). Given the savings I did load up with accessories including the roof rail and a Thule Motion XT XL cargo box (plus mats and other fun stuff like a S3XY hat for the wife). I did not get FSD but I did subscribe to it for this trip only (coupled with an early trip, I put on 3500 miles during my 30 days of FSD). Despite a few issues at delivery, I haven’t had any notable issues.
The Trip:
I planned a trip with my family to visit Cape Cod, Acadia NP, and Burlington VT over a 10 day period. We live in Pittsburgh so we made 1 stop on the way to Cape Cod but none between Burlington and Pittsburgh. I won’t go into detail on any of those specific destinations, but highly recommended for family trips.
There is one specific destination that will surely gather some attention: ascending and descending Mt Washington. This is a really fun experience in an EV and my kids learned a lot about physics! For those of you not aware, it is an ~6K high mountain in New Hampshire with a 7 mile road that goes up it. I went from 70-53% SoC on the way up, and then gained 53-61% SoC on the way down. I only had to use the brakes briefly when someone slammed theirs in front of me, beyond that it was 100% regen. I did get a few questions from people on the way up and down, and happily answered them.
Driving Stats and Experience:
AP+ FSD: Autopilot is the best overall feature, significantly reducing driving fatigue and IMO making it a much safer experience. I did not get FSD with the initial purchase but subscribed for 1 month only for this and another trip of 900 miles. In terms of features, Summon is neat but a bit scary, auto lane change and navigate are awesome, traffic light simply OK. Not worth it for my typical 15 miles a day or less of suburban/city driving. However it is great for a road trip and will certainly subscribe again before my next one!
Cargo Box considerations:
The Thule Motion XT XL fits perfectly and is probably the largest cargo box you can put on a Y. I was really concerned about efficiency and put in some dire numbers to ABRP for planning. I didn’t need to worry, the impact was minimal and likely barely affected any charging stops. I compared 2 drives, one with and one without the box (but with rails).
Drive-NoBox:
Charging Stats and Experience:
19 Superchargers, $187
58* Travel Charges (*highly inflated due to Sentry Mode induced overnight tipoffs). These were mostly free, but some charged parking fees. In one instance in P-Town, MA, the charging parking fee was significantly cheaper ($1.50/hr vs $3.50/hr) than general parking.
I had no issues with Superchargers, all worked flawlessly and were located by something useful. I did not face any waits and at least half the time I was the only one charging. I got up to 250 KW at the V3. It is super convenient to charge an EV compared to a gas car because while it is filling up you can go to the restroom, buy a snack, stretch, etc. By the time we were back to the car from whatever we were doing it was ready to go. To put it in perspective, starting the first day we began a 2 hour movie on Netflix to watch whenever we got bored while charging. We only got halfway through it during the entire trip.
I did not seek out properties with chargers except in Acadia NP as there is no supercharger nearby. Thankfully the Seawall Motel has 2 Tesla Chargers + 1 J772 and when I was there I only saw 2 other EV’s (a 3 and S). Other than the Seawall, almost all of my charging was at Superchargers, with occasional exceptions where I found a random Sema charger or similar.
Route Planning:
I never felt like I was range limited. A little bit of planning with ABRP (including a subscription) helps a lot for planning, specifically estimating the time and what charging stops would be needing on multiple waypoint days. Also, I reset their calibration at the onset and it quickly learned how much the box affected efficiency (it had it me ~309 Wh/Mile at 65MPH). That said, the Tesla nav is all I really used on the road (+Waze on in the background to scan for cops and other hazards, it helped a LOT). It is solid and never led us into any bad situations.
Side note: my rated range is still ~325 miles, in the top 1% of Teslafi. This makes me highly suspect I have the 82 kWh pack.
Overall, I have never had a better road trip or daily driver than the MY7. For anyone on the fence about purchasing, go for it, you will be happy. I'm sure I could have driven more efficiently, but in the end we were all extremely comfortable and made great overall time. This is the best road trip I've had in my life and 20% of the time I was behind the wheel of the ultimate road trip vehicle.
Tl;dr:Absolutely bulletproof over 2500 miles on a trip from Pittsburgh to Cape Cod to Acadia, to Burlington, and back. Loaded Thule Motion XT XL on factory rails impacted efficiency by ~14% vs rails only. You can drive anywhere with a Tesla, don’t worry. ABRP is worth it. FSD only for long trips. I dare you to find a better car for a road trip.
Background:
I purchased my MY7 “Storm” in March ’21 at the lowest price it’s ever been at ($52,990 w/ hitch). Given the savings I did load up with accessories including the roof rail and a Thule Motion XT XL cargo box (plus mats and other fun stuff like a S3XY hat for the wife). I did not get FSD but I did subscribe to it for this trip only (coupled with an early trip, I put on 3500 miles during my 30 days of FSD). Despite a few issues at delivery, I haven’t had any notable issues.
The Trip:
I planned a trip with my family to visit Cape Cod, Acadia NP, and Burlington VT over a 10 day period. We live in Pittsburgh so we made 1 stop on the way to Cape Cod but none between Burlington and Pittsburgh. I won’t go into detail on any of those specific destinations, but highly recommended for family trips.
There is one specific destination that will surely gather some attention: ascending and descending Mt Washington. This is a really fun experience in an EV and my kids learned a lot about physics! For those of you not aware, it is an ~6K high mountain in New Hampshire with a 7 mile road that goes up it. I went from 70-53% SoC on the way up, and then gained 53-61% SoC on the way down. I only had to use the brakes briefly when someone slammed theirs in front of me, beyond that it was 100% regen. I did get a few questions from people on the way up and down, and happily answered them.
Driving Stats and Experience:
- 2500 miles.
- 2 days and 3 hours of total driving time over the 10 day trip.
- Efficiency was 73.62% with 711.1 kWh total use
- 284 Wh/Mile
AP+ FSD: Autopilot is the best overall feature, significantly reducing driving fatigue and IMO making it a much safer experience. I did not get FSD with the initial purchase but subscribed for 1 month only for this and another trip of 900 miles. In terms of features, Summon is neat but a bit scary, auto lane change and navigate are awesome, traffic light simply OK. Not worth it for my typical 15 miles a day or less of suburban/city driving. However it is great for a road trip and will certainly subscribe again before my next one!
Cargo Box considerations:
The Thule Motion XT XL fits perfectly and is probably the largest cargo box you can put on a Y. I was really concerned about efficiency and put in some dire numbers to ABRP for planning. I didn’t need to worry, the impact was minimal and likely barely affected any charging stops. I compared 2 drives, one with and one without the box (but with rails).
Drive-NoBox:
- 178 miles, I-75+Ohio Turnpike, mostly flat some moderate hills.
- Average speed 71
- Outside temp 82
- Fan average 4.5
- 275 Wh/Mile
- 142 miles, NY Thru-Way I-90 mostly flat, some moderate hills.
- Average speed 76
- Outside temp of 74
- Fan average 4
- 313 Wh/Mile
Charging Stats and Experience:
19 Superchargers, $187
58* Travel Charges (*highly inflated due to Sentry Mode induced overnight tipoffs). These were mostly free, but some charged parking fees. In one instance in P-Town, MA, the charging parking fee was significantly cheaper ($1.50/hr vs $3.50/hr) than general parking.
I had no issues with Superchargers, all worked flawlessly and were located by something useful. I did not face any waits and at least half the time I was the only one charging. I got up to 250 KW at the V3. It is super convenient to charge an EV compared to a gas car because while it is filling up you can go to the restroom, buy a snack, stretch, etc. By the time we were back to the car from whatever we were doing it was ready to go. To put it in perspective, starting the first day we began a 2 hour movie on Netflix to watch whenever we got bored while charging. We only got halfway through it during the entire trip.
I did not seek out properties with chargers except in Acadia NP as there is no supercharger nearby. Thankfully the Seawall Motel has 2 Tesla Chargers + 1 J772 and when I was there I only saw 2 other EV’s (a 3 and S). Other than the Seawall, almost all of my charging was at Superchargers, with occasional exceptions where I found a random Sema charger or similar.
Route Planning:
I never felt like I was range limited. A little bit of planning with ABRP (including a subscription) helps a lot for planning, specifically estimating the time and what charging stops would be needing on multiple waypoint days. Also, I reset their calibration at the onset and it quickly learned how much the box affected efficiency (it had it me ~309 Wh/Mile at 65MPH). That said, the Tesla nav is all I really used on the road (+Waze on in the background to scan for cops and other hazards, it helped a LOT). It is solid and never led us into any bad situations.
Side note: my rated range is still ~325 miles, in the top 1% of Teslafi. This makes me highly suspect I have the 82 kWh pack.
Overall, I have never had a better road trip or daily driver than the MY7. For anyone on the fence about purchasing, go for it, you will be happy. I'm sure I could have driven more efficiently, but in the end we were all extremely comfortable and made great overall time. This is the best road trip I've had in my life and 20% of the time I was behind the wheel of the ultimate road trip vehicle.
