Running out of lightning

[rubberfish]

I’m sure this has been asked already. But what happens if you get somewhere without enough range to get it to a charger? Or a public charger that is out of order, or just run out entirely. Is there free roadside assistance from Tesla? Or need AA/similar?

thanks

 

[Keeper]

I’m sure this has been asked already. But what happens if you get somewhere without enough range to get it to a charger? Or a public charger that is out of order, or just run out entirely. Is there free roadside assistance from Tesla? Or need AA/similar?

thanks

Knock on someone's door holding the 3 pin adaptor and plead insanity!

 

[curmudgeon]

I’m sure this has been asked already. But what happens if you get somewhere without enough range to get it to a charger? Or a public charger that is out of order, or just run out entirely. Is there free roadside assistance from Tesla? Or need AA/similar?

thanks

LV insurance includes flay battery recovery. I think it is more fear than reality. For me at least as I rarely do more than 100 miles a day.

 

[DJP31]

Semi officially Tesla will send a recovery truck on the first occasion that you run out of charge. Given their resources are limited and contact via the phone is less than prompt IMO you’d be mad to rely on it.

If breakdown cover isn’t included in your motor policy than buy an AA/RAC type policy, and they will flat bed you to the nearest charger.

The thing to remember, obviously apart from not doing it, is that once the main pack dies the 12v battery doesn’t last long, maybe an hour if you are lucky. It’s this that powers all the cars internal electrics so it’s important to get the car into tow mode and release the frunk latch so the 12v can be jump started.

Suggest having a look at the manual in case the instructions differ slightly, I’m not familiar with the Model 3 (assuming this is what you have).

Speaking of the manual, worth downloading that on to a mobile device as if the car conks out you won’t be able to access it.

 

[Artiste]

I’m sure this has been asked already. But what happens if you get somewhere without enough range to get it to a charger? Or a public charger that is out of order, or just run out entirely. Is there free roadside assistance from Tesla? Or need AA/similar?

thanks

I got down to 6% yesterday on a day trip to Snowdonia. Is there any safety margin built in, in that there’s still a few miles left when the display reaches 0%?

 

[Fullerene]

If breakdown cover isn’t included in your motor policy than buy an AA/RAC type policy, and they will flat bed you to the nearest charger.

On Collection one of the Tesla people mentioned they had no affiliation with any of the roadside recovery people but mentioned that either AA or RAC would soon have a top you up service.

Not sure if any of the V2G enabled cars can do car to car charging yet.

I was thinking I could get a few power walls and a TWC stick it on my trailer and patrol the roads...

 

[DJP31]

I got down to 6% yesterday on a day trip to Snowdonia. Is there any safety margin built in, in that there’s still a few miles left when the display reaches 0%?

No. Sometimes you can be lucky and go a few miles further, but very defo not something to rely on.

Something else to be very aware of as winter approaches is leaving the car with a low State of Charge (SoC) and not plugged in. As the battery cools the energy available drops, and takes your range with it. You could conceivably park with 5% showing after a long drive. Leave the car for a couple of hours and come back to 2% (or worse).

I remember a year or so ago reading a chap reporting he’d parked with 8 miles range and only had 5 to go to get home. Came back a couple of hours later to a dead car.

 

[ewoodrick]

It's pretty much the same answer as every other vehicle out there. You stop.

The Tesla does have the advantage that as long as you can find AC, which is pretty common, you can charge. All you need is enough to get to the next faster charger.

 

[navt]

Power bank?

 

[WannabeOwner]

what happens if you get somewhere without enough range to get it to a charger?

Flatbed. I don't know how often it happens, but I don't read about it much (but that said, even with a one gallon can in the boot, I never ran out of petrol - except one time when the gauge was faulty ...)

its quite hard to do. If you set a SatNav destination then "Energy : Trip" shows you a graph of predicted consumption to destination (with arrival Percentage), and as you drive it adds an Actual line and updates the Arrival Prediction. Easy enough to slow down, or draft a big truck (even at a safe distance that helps, and removed the temptation to speed up ) if the graph turns ugly (but you would have to be hammering it, or in diabolical weather for that to happen)

a public charger that is out of order

That's more of a problem. Never heard of a Supercharger being "bust" - occasionally a stall running slow, and even more occasionally a stall that is bust, but not the whole shebang. Could happen of course ... If there is a powercut in that vicinity the petrol pumps won't be working either ...

I plan longer journeys with A Better Route Planner to figure where I will stop, and how much charge I need. Car SatNav doesn't do waypoints (other than to provide a return percentage if you are specifically doing an out-and-back). so I find that knowing how much charge I need at a Supercharger to then "go up the motorway a bit, turn off into the countryside, and then return back to same Supercharger" is important (assuming no charging at destination)

Some other points:

With home-charging you leave home every morning with a full tank of fuel. So the only time this needs thought is "out of range days"

I find that motorway traffic and roadworks means that predicted consumption is almost invariably bettered

3rd party public charging has been universally dreadful for me. Do you level best to only charge at Supercharger (or if not possibly try to stick to newer companies that are offering better solutions - e.g. Ionity). Plugshare and ZapMap have crowd-sources data of recent user experiences, so can be useful to see if pumps have been working recently / people had to wait / that sort of thing

 

[Fly.guy]

In addition to the excellent advice above to use the energy graph is to “‘panic early’.

There’s no point driving like a loony until your down to 5% and then limping along at 20mph in the hope of getting to the next charger. If it looks like things are going to go bad slow right down and draft lorries while you still have energy to eek out.

You’ve got a chance of getting 70miles with 60miles indicated, but your stuffed if you need to get 10 miles with 2 in the tank....

 

[rubberfish]

thanks for the tips!