Roadtrips Chicago to California to Chicago (data galore)

[Dre78]

Due to COVID, we chose to drive to California to care for FIL for medical reasons. Starting with our first half-country road trip: July, 2020. From this first time journey we took away a few lessons; mainly splash-and-go and timing the departure for the kids. We also took it slowly, stopping for the night twice. We stopped at Superchargers 20 times. We averaged 303 Wh/Mile. I did horribly in predicting usage, and did not yet know of sites like ABRP and EVTripPlanner; arriving at Supercharger with an average battery of 40%. We were packed to the gills (two kids under 12, computers, monitors, and equipment to work remotely, clothes, etc). We had a couple extended stops: 37 minutes for food, and 1h 3m to take an important call.

depart

depart

cost

TZ

arrive

arrive

miles

used

used

efficiency

drive time

travel time

totals

6h 35m

$136.67

3h 41m

2,064

2,504

8.73

30h 45m

40h 46m

averages

79%

226.7

$7.19

0h 12m

40%

116.0

82.4%

Route:
Chicago, IL
Peru, IL
Davenport, IA
Coralville, IA
West Des Moines, IA
Shelby, IA
Council Bluffs, IA
Grand Island, NE (stopped at hotel overnight)
Gothenburg, NE
Ogallala, NE
Brush, CO
Idaho Springs, CO
Glenwood Springs, CO
Grand Junction, CO (stopped at hotel overnight)
Green River, UT
Richfield, UT
Beaver, UT
St. George, UT
Primm, NV
Baker, CA
Barstow, CA
Wildomar, CA

Detailed numbers pulled from TeslaFi are here.

 

[Dre78]

For our return trip in September, 2020, we booked a hotel the first night but then would play the second night by ear, eventually deciding to drive through the night. Significantly improved arrival battery, averaging 26%. Tried driving longer legs, charging past 85% several times, and reducing our stops to 17. We averaged 322 Wh/Mile. We had one extended stop, 1h 28m, for food and delicious ice cream at The Creamery in Beaver, Utah.

depart

depart

cost

arrive

arrive

miles

used

used

efficiency

drive time

travel time

totals & averages

$125.01

5h 55m

3h 01m

2,060

2,650

9.02

29h 24m

38h 20m

averages

77%

224.9

$7.81

0h 20m

0h 11m

26%

77.7

77.7%

1h 38m

Route:
Wildomar
Baker, CA
Jean, NV
St. George, UT
Beaver, UT
Richfield, UT
Green River, UT
Grand Junction, CO
Glenwood Springs
Golden, CO
Brush, CO
Ogallala, NE
Gothenburg, NE
Grand Island, NE
Lincoln, NE
Des Moines, IA
Coralville, IA
Peru, IL
Chicago, IL

Detailed numbers pulled from TeslaFi here.

 

[Dre78]

As cases reduced we decided to spend the holidays in California in December, 2020; again getting COVID tests numerous times (before, during, after). Knowing the trip would take appx. 40 hours, we decided to leave at night; maximizing sleep time for kids/ minimizing time awake. We drove without staying at a hotel. I used an online trip planner to aim arrival close to 20% battery, eventually averaging 24%. Because it was the start of winter, we chose to avoid the mountains, driving south to Texas then west. We had an extended stop of 51m in Amarillo, TX to eat and to take an important call. Other than that, we kept stop time to a minimal, but still adding up to 2h 44m; just no getting around the lines at drive-thrus. We stopped to charge 19 times; averaged 371 Wh/Mile running the heater quite a bit.

	depart	depart		cost						arrive	arrive	.	miles	used	used	efficiency	drive time	travel time
totals			8h 42m	$195.53	2h 44m							.	2,147	3,185	11.1	67.4%	30h 19m	41h 45m
averages	81%	232.0	0h 27m	$10.29	0h 08m					25%	71.1		107.3	159.3	0.56	67.9%	1h 30m	2h 05m

Route:
Chicago, IL
Normal, IL
Springfield, IL
Mehlville, MO
Rolla, MO
Springfield, MO
Joplin, MO
Catoosa, OK
Oklahoma City, OK
Weatherford, OK
Shamrock, TX
Amarillo, TX
Santa Rosa, NM
Albuquerque, NM
Gallup, NM
Holbrook, AZ
Flagstaff, AZ
Kingman, AZ
Needles, CA
Barstow, CA
Wildomar, CA

Detailed numbers pulled from TeslaFi here.

 

[Dre78]

Return trip was uneventful. We stopped at The Big Texan again because the food is just that good (or we were just really hungry again...), spending 54m to eat. Average arrive battery is skewed because I included this stop; taking that anomaly out we get an average of 24%. We stopped for groceries in Darien, IL, also lengthening our stop time. Even still, kept stop time to below 4h. We charged 19 times; averaged 356 Wh/Mile.

depart

depart

cost

arrive

arrive

.

miles

used

used

efficiency

drive time

travel time

totals

$187.23

8h 34m

3h 50m

.

2,153

3,070

10.45

29h 58m

42h 22m

averages

74%

216.1

$10.40

0h 27m

0h 10m

22%

63.6

97.9

70.1%

1h 21m

Route:
Wildomar
Barstow, CA
Needles, CA
Kingman, AZ
Flagstaff, AZ
Holbrook, AZ
Gallup, NM
Albuquerque, NM
Santa Rosa, NM
Tucumcari, NM
Amarillo, TX
The Big Texan
Weatherford, OK
Oklahoma City, OK
Catoosa, OK
Joplin, MO
Springfield, MO
Rolla, MO
Mehlville, MO
Springfield, IL
Normal, IL
Darien, IL
Chicago, IL

Detailed numbers pulled from TeslaFi here.

 

[Dre78]

With the adults fully vaccinated, we cautiously made our way to the Bay Area to spend a bit of summer with family. California being a wide state that reaches out to the Pacific, it was a longer trip: but similar in distance to the southern route we had taken in the winter. We tried to be more cognizant of stop time, keeping it sub-3 hours, but sometimes you gotta go pee and there's nowhere around for the kids to safely do so. Using a route planning tool we managed to average battery arrival at 25%. Most times we arrived around 25%. A few anomalies are there for unexpected stops to charge for a bathroom break. We stopped to charge 20 times; averaged 304 Wh/Mile. Much improved efficiency given average temperatures were above freezing!

	depart	depart		cost						arrive	arrive	.	drive time	miles	wh/mi	efficiency	used	used	travel time
totals	-	-	5h 23m	$145.47	2h 25m					-	-	.	30h 56m	2,166.21	-	-	2,632.5	9.18	38h 44m
averages	68%	196.6	0h 16m	$7.27	0h 07m					25%	71.20	.	1h 28m	103.15	306	82%	125.4	0.44	1h 50m

Route:
Chicago, IL
Coralville, IA
Altoona, IA
Council Bluffs
Lincoln, NE
Grand Island, NE
Gothenburg, NE
Ogallala, NE
Sidney, NE
Cheyenne, WY
Rawlins, WY
Rock Springs, WY
Tooele, UT
W Wendover, NV
Wells, NV
Elko, NV
Winnemucca, NV
Lovelock, NV
Reno, NV
Roseville, CA
Vacaville, CA
USS Hornet

Detailed numbers pulled from TeslaFi here.

 

[Dre78]

And finally our trip home. Hit a nerve-racking, range-anxiety-induced leg when I decided to skip a Supercharger 5-minutes out of the way, arriving with 14.54 miles of range, 5% battery. The good news is that we hit near 250 Wh/Mile efficiency! For the return trip I threw out route planners; using a mileage table indicating distance to the next Supercharger and calculations for various efficiencies, combined with Tesla's onboard route planner. We definitely hit an all-time low for average arrival battery at 22%, even with a couple anomalies. Most of the trip home was free because in-laws had used our referral code. We all but mirrored the trip over, stopping 20 times; improving to an average 290 Wh/Mile.

	+kWh	charge rate		depart	depart	cost						arrive	arrive	-	drive time	miles	wh/mi	efficiency	used	used	travel time
totals	578.66 kWh	-	5h 20m	-	-	$48.02	2h 52m					-	-	.	30h 52m	2,192.15	-	-	2,542.7	8.86	39h 04m
averages	28.93 kWh	464 MPH	0h 16m	64%	184.7	$2.40	0:08:36					22%	63.64		1h 28m	104.39	287	86%	121.1	0.43	1h 51m

Route:
Fremont, CA
Vacaville, CA
Truckee, CA
Lovelock, NV
Winnemucca, NV
Elko, NV
Wendover, NV
Tooele, UT
Evanston, WY
Rock Springs, WY
Rawlins, WY
Laramie, WY
Cheyenne, WY
Sidney, NE
Gothenburg, NE
Grand island, NE
Lincoln, NE
Shelby, IA
Altoona, IA
Davenport, IA
Peru, IL
Chicago, IL

Detailed numbers pulled from TeslaFi here.

 

[narasara]

Thanks for the details. What is your model? I have a model X with 215 range and planning similar trip

 

[c00sebookpro]

This was super helpful. Thank you for posting.