Road Trip Planning

[megant113]

I'm planning a road trip for next week, from SoCal to Colorado, and I'm curious what assumptions other folks use while planning.

I'm using A Better Route Planner, and I have a Performance with the 20" wheels. I started with that version selected, but the default reference consumption seemed too high on our drive to NorCal and back earlier this month. What reference consumption are other Performance owners using?

Also, what charger arrival SoC do you all plan for? I feel like I want to leave a bit of buffer for unforseen circumstances, but what's the right amount?

Thanks!

 

[AxlxA]

I set it so abrp assumes I drive faster. 80mph in 70mph zone or 75 in 65 zone. That's about 115% above consumption.

Second, I set charger arrival at 8%. I can go even 5% without worrying

I always assume a headwind of 5mph. Dry condition (if it's gonna be raining, you change this)

When I'm actually driving, I try to hit up the v3 chargers at lowest SoC as possible. When your trip graph shows you're gonna arrive at 10-15%, I'd consider speeding up a bit near the end so burn off energy.

At the charger, I always end up charging slightly over the abrp suggestions, just because bathroom, watching TV, eating. I check the Tesla nav to next charger, if it states I have 10%, I'm happy to leave.

Plan your stops like where to eat lunch, otherwise you're stuck with fast food. Can just buy and eat it later at a supercharger.

For your final destination, make sure you either can charge there or have a supercharger close enough where when you arrive, you have enough energy to get back to that charger.

 

[XLR82XS]

FWIW I dislike ABRP and use the in-car trip planner. Direct connection to the car and knows the route and will even suggest speed reduction to ensure the next SC stop is reached.

 

[crackers8199]

i do some combination of both ABRP and letting the car tell me where to stop. ABRP is pretty damn accurate, though...

 

[phluppsen]

I registered my SR+ with the ABRP app and after a few trips it knows your consumption quite well. By default, the SR+ is calculated as 160 Wh/km (when driving 110 km/h). Calculating with my car data, it shows 140 Wh/km and that has been very accurate for me.

Last time I did a longer trip with multiple charging stops, the in car navigation showed that I would arrive with -4% at the first SC. After a couple of hours driving, I finally arrived with 7%, just as ABRP had predicted. I find that the ABRP is very accurate, once it is calibrated to your driving style. For me, the in car navigation is too conservative. You always end up with a much higher SOC than planned and it doesn't take the non-Tesla chargers into account (which probably isn't that big of a deal in America, since you don't have CCS on your M3s).

Personally, I like to stretch my charging stops as far apart as possible. With the smaller battery I find you can travel more quickly if you drive a little slower but charge less often. I know, that it would technically be faster to make more short stops, but that is way too stressful. I didn't buy an electric car to run to and from the bathrooms during every charging stop, just because the car is charging too fast..

In terms of arrival SOC, I prefer to use 5%. The charging network in Europe is quite reliable and we can charge at non-Tesla stations as well. You can always go a little slower, if you have heavy rain or too much headwind.

 

[bsk997]

We just did a road trip from Socal to OR and we only use ABRP as a "guide".
There's so many variables along the way that will alter your route. Best to let the onboard NAV route you.
ABRP was close but missed a couple stops.

 

[turok3000]

I run ABRP ahead of time with conservative settings - headwind, rain, actual battery degradation (7%), 110% speed limit with absolute max of 85. Then I export to csv and save in a (google docs) spreadsheet. This is my "offline" reference for worst case.

During a trip, I use the in-car system to navigate to the next charger (as determined previously by ABRP) for each leg.

Last month we did a 3500 mile road trip Seattle -> Utah national parks -> Seattle. There were several legs where if we'd gone with the in-car initial estimate (whilst waiting for a charge to finish) we would've either not have made it or had to significantly cap our speed. In all cases it was owing to headwind that the car was not taking into account.

Note, we didn't always charge all the way up to the ABRP recommendation - we would use judgement based on the weather at the time as to how far past the in-car estimate we should go.

 

[megant113]

Does the in-car estimate use rated range, or actual range based on your car's efficiency? With the Performance rated the same as the LR, I find rated range/efficiency laughably wrong.

 

[animorph]

We used 20% charge remaining at destination for the first year. Then 15% or whenever the nav says it's OK after that. We've only had a couple of small detours so far, but you never know. We have some hours-long traffic jams here where it would be nice to have A/C the entire time. Normal stop and go traffic usually saves charge, so no worries there. You can just slow down if the car thinks you won't make it. You can try various margins in ABRP and see how it affects your trip time.

We use ABRP to plan what stops we will make. We use the nav while charging and driving. ABRP is the strategist, nav is the tactician. Three years ago I trusted only EVTripPlanner, including charge timing. Now the nav is much better than it used to be. With MCU1 (now in for upgrade) I haven't used ABRP live in the car, but it should be good as well.

The nav takes most static conditions into account, including elevation changes. It knows the average speeds along the route. As far as I know it also uses the efficiency data from the last 15 or 30 miles. Tesla should have data about how many rated miles it normally takes to get from one Supercharger to the next. ABRP does as well. They do not just use rated miles, as you can see by using ABRP or any planner. That's just a unit of energy, like a gallon of gas.

Where you can get in trouble is if it starts raining or you hit a headwind after you take off from a charger. The nav didn't know about that when it said you had enough charge to make your next destination. You may be going quite a bit slower than planned if you didn't add significant extra charge to make up for the reduced efficiency.

 

[Big Ike]

i do some combination of both ABRP and letting the car tell me where to stop. ABRP is pretty damn accurate, though...

I'm with the "Crackers". I plan my route on ABRP to get a feel for the trip and then rely on the MCU for the actual trip.

 

[mmonk3]

I’m considering taking a long road trip in my LR AWD from Phoenix to the Orlando area but the 31hr drive turning into a 39 hour drive because of charges just doesn’t really seem too practical for me. I feel like anything over the 1200 mile mark just doesn’t seem worth it in these cars right now.

ABRP has me stopping every hour to hour and a half to charge which doesn’t seem right.

 

[Gasaraki]

Does the in-car estimate use rated range, or actual range based on your car's efficiency? With the Performance rated the same as the LR, I find rated range/efficiency laughably wrong.

Actual with elevation changes taken in to account.

 

[Gasaraki]

I'm with the "Crackers". I plan my route on ABRP to get a feel for the trip and then rely on the MCU for the actual trip.

Yes, that's how I do it also. I have the MCU plan to the next charging point.

 

[AxlxA]

I’m considering taking a long road trip in my LR AWD from Phoenix to the Orlando area but the 31hr drive turning into a 39 hour drive because of charges just doesn’t really seem too practical for me. I feel like anything over the 1200 mile mark just doesn’t seem worth it in these cars right now.

ABRP has me stopping every hour to hour and a half to charge which doesn’t seem right.

We all love our Tesla's and we want to take the baby out everywhere we go. It does have autopilot which will make most of the drive painless. Also my butt hurts after 2.5hrs of sitting at max. I do like stretching my legs out during these trips. As long as you time out the lunches and dinners as supercharger stops, it's not that much more than an ICE trip.

 

[GTIceman]

I just did a trip from Tampa to Asheville and back. Used ABRP to get options and looked at the car's suggestion. I didn't want to stop in Macon so I followed the ABRP until the car adjusted. I did not link ABRP to my Tesla account. I also generally don't go above the speed limit, so the estimates are very close.

 

[jvmoore1]

I'm with the "Crackers". I plan my route on ABRP to get a feel for the trip and then rely on the MCU for the actual trip.

this is my technique as well

 

[megant113]

We just got back yesterday, and I figured I'd post how it went down for posterity.

We stuck to the ABRP plan on the way to Colorado, and we used the in-car nav on the way back home. I think the in-car nav is better for our family because it tends to prefer fewer, longer stops. I think that works better for us, even if it is a few minutes slower over the course of the trip. There's a certain inertia to doing anything with kids, and all transitions take way longer than necessary. So once they're in the car, it's better to stay there, and same for making stops. While trying to follow the ABRP plan, we regularly stayed at a stop longer than required just to get everyone moving back towards the car.

As for the accuracy of the estimates:
I haven't given ABRP access to my Tesla account, because I'm just a little too paranoid about cybersecurity to do that. As such, the ABRP estimates were regularly too pessimistic with my actual car model selected. I switched to planning for aero wheels (263 Wh/mi reference consumption), and that seemed roughly correct.

The in-car nav was overly optimistic. By my guesstimate, we used 1% more than expected for every 10 minutes. So if we were doing a 2 hour leg, we needed an extra 12% charge, compared to what the car thought it needed to get to the next stop. I was regularly driving 10 over the speed limit, so I'm sure that was a contributing factor. I really wish I could tell the car to plan towards that.

All in all, the trip went well. Thanks to all who answered my initial questions!

 

[AxlxA]

We just got back yesterday, and I figured I'd post how it went down for posterity.

We stuck to the ABRP plan on the way to Colorado, and we used the in-car nav on the way back home. I think the in-car nav is better for our family because it tends to prefer fewer, longer stops. I think that works better for us, even if it is a few minutes slower over the course of the trip. There's a certain inertia to doing anything with kids, and all transitions take way longer than necessary. So once they're in the car, it's better to stay there, and same for making stops. While trying to follow the ABRP plan, we regularly stayed at a stop longer than required just to get everyone moving back towards the car.

As for the accuracy of the estimates:
I haven't given ABRP access to my Tesla account, because I'm just a little too paranoid about cybersecurity to do that. As such, the ABRP estimates were regularly too pessimistic with my actual car model selected. I switched to planning for aero wheels (263 Wh/mi reference consumption), and that seemed roughly correct.

The in-car nav was overly optimistic. By my guesstimate, we used 1% more than expected for every 10 minutes. So if we were doing a 2 hour leg, we needed an extra 12% charge, compared to what the car thought it needed to get to the next stop. I was regularly driving 10 over the speed limit, so I'm sure that was a contributing factor. I really wish I could tell the car to plan towards that.

All in all, the trip went well. Thanks to all who answered my initial questions!

How fast were you going and what was the rated limit? I find that 1% extra for 10min is a lot! When I drive, I watch the estimated remaining to next charger and I only aim for 15-20% that way as I cruise at +5mph above, then near the last 30mins, start driving faster to burn that excess energy.

It is kind fun having to plan and make sure theres enough charge but at the same time, for people who aren't into Tesla or over preparing, their transition from ICE will be hard.

 

[megant113]

@AxlxA what do you mean when you say rated limit? The speed limit was variable, from 55 mph in the curvy mountain parts, to 80 mph across most of Utah. When you say it sounds like 1% every 10 minutes is a lot, it makes me wonder if the car is using rated range with aero wheels, not my actual range with my actual wheels.

I had fun nerding out over the planning too. I do look forward to a day when fast chargers are more ubiquitous, so I can better choose when to stop, rather than having to stop before I want to just because otherwise I won't make it.

I also thought it was really cool to watch the SoC climb by 3% on the way down the big mountain passes in Colorado.

 

[AxlxA]

@megant113 rated limit = speed limit

Sorry morning fogged brain. But I tend to stay +5 over the speed limit. Your 1% every 10min seems a lot to me though. I'm wondering if you were going 75mph + and against wind or up a hill. All of these will factor consumption. The Tesla nav only knows altitude change. It won't know wind condition and speed. The nav I'd say estimates +5mph over speed limit.