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Strategy on Long Drive

How do you approach a long drive using your NAV system?

  • Destination to destination.

    Votes: 35 37.6%
  • Supercharger to supercharger

    Votes: 58 62.4%

  • Total voters
    93
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I would never have considered 7 close enough but I am eager to try it now. Got a 780 mile trip ahead of me, so there will be plenty of opportunity. I just took delivery in June but have has an opportunity to take a 300 mile drive. I was amazed at the energy used to go 70+ on I5.

I recommend selecting fairly boxy vehicles (but not semis) with mudflaps of some form, with ground clearance on the low side. Pickups and Jeeps are terrible - rarely have that protection in the form of mudflaps.

You can always get unlucky of course. Back off when people are changing lanes - tends to kick up debris from between the lanes.

Also avoid sports cars - they tend to have sticky tires that can throw rocks - under acceleration in particular.

Enjoy your trip!
 
I've been doing this for over 6.5 years, since before the Nav even had the ability to pick Superchargers. This "Beta Trip Planner" feature, which tries to pick your Superchargers for you has an awful fatal flaw that has bitten me and several other people, so don't blindly trust it.

The fatal flaw is two-fold:
First, whoever programmed it set the preference to be "fewest stops possible" and all else be damned!! So it will have ridiculously long charging times to go up near 100% full and then driving down into single digit % just to try to skip over Supercharger stops. It's insane and not a good way to travel.

And the second part is that when it has chosen the Superchargers it wants you to use, it HIDES the others along the way off the map! That can really catch people where they don't see any other fallback options in the middle because they are hidden, so they are gritting their teeth and white-knuckling to make a really long stretch happen that didn't need to be that way.

My car gave me the recommendation to charge up to 100% in Grand Junction, CO and drive non-stop to Silverthorne, CO, arriving with 7% left. That would already be crazy to begin with, but it was winter and below freezing and all uphill! So there was me, driving about 50 mph on I-70 with minimal heat to make this work because I didn't think I had any other choice. I only later found out there was a Supercharger halfway in the middle, in Glenwood Springs that the car had hidden from me that would have made it easy.

So I will sometimes plot a whole trip at the start, just to get a look at what the ballpark of the whole thing is going to look like, and sometimes here and there on the route, but if any of the stops look questionable or a charge time over about 40-50 minutes, it's probably doing something wrong, and I will cancel it and zoom out to look at where the Superchargers actually are to see if it's skipping something and making it unnecessarily difficult.

Not sure if anyone has mentioned it, but this app/website abetterrouteplanner.com worked great for me for a 1.650 mile trip. Shows all SC on route and sends the route directly to your Tesla.
 
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I found this thread very informative. My '17 MS has only a 230 mi. range and is my only :-( with the car, but of course, not so much I am willing to trade up $$$. I would say that the SC network is why Tesla will continue to dominate the sector, but until "range anxiety" is better assuaged EVs will be a hard sell. The suggestions regarding the ABRP and Teslawaze apps were much appreciated. Does anyone know of a concise "destination charger" reference? Given a choice, I would book lodging providing chargers, but few advertise availability on TripAdvisor, etc. and Tesla's list is not organized effectively.

Plugshare
 
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I found this thread very informative. My '17 MS has only a 230 mi. range and is my only :-( with the car, but of course, not so much I am willing to trade up $$$. I would say that the SC network is why Tesla will continue to dominate the sector, but until "range anxiety" is better assuaged EVs will be a hard sell. The suggestions regarding the ABRP and Teslawaze apps were much appreciated. Does anyone know of a concise "destination charger" reference? Given a choice, I would book lodging providing chargers, but few advertise availability on TripAdvisor, etc. and Tesla's list is not organized effectively.

If I am just stopping for the night I always book hotels with charging. Less of an issue if I am stopping for a few days at a destination.

I normally use both the destination charger search on the Tesla website AND plugshare. Regrettably neither of these tools allows you to filter by hotel or restaurant etc, but definitely can click around and find what you are looking for. I usually call and confirm that the hotel really does have it, and if it costs anything. Sometimes the desk person doesn't know they have charging, which I find a bit funny.


To the broader thread in my old Model S I tend to drive SC to SC as long as they are around 100 miles apart. I have seen it route me around SC's that were full when I arrived. The system knows how many cars are in transit to a SC at a given time, so it tries to balance the load across the stations to avoid lines forming. I will also say that if you are going off of memory it is always good to look ahead and make sure the SC isn't offline. The car knows when they are offline and if you don't check, it will get you someday.

My typical check before I head out is to confirm the stations on my route are all online. Even if I don't plan to use it, as it will put more load on the other stations.
 
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I normally use both the destination charger search on the Tesla website AND plugshare. Regrettably neither of these tools allows you to filter by hotel or restaurant etc, but definitely can click around and find what you are looking for. I usually call and confirm that the hotel really does have it, and if it costs anything. Sometimes the desk person doesn't know they have charging, which I find a bit funny...

Plugshare allows filtering by "Amenities". Selections include "Lodging" and "Dining", among others.

Often times there are 120V receptacles around the parking lot. (And often times they are 20 amp versions - so carry a 5-20 adapter to get a few extra MPH of charging over your 5-15.) If the desk person doesn't know of any, ask for the maintenance guy.
 
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I've been doing this for over 6.5 years, since before the Nav even had the ability to pick Superchargers. This "Beta Trip Planner" feature, which tries to pick your Superchargers for you has an awful fatal flaw that has bitten me and several other people, so don't blindly trust it.

The fatal flaw is two-fold:
First, whoever programmed it set the preference to be "fewest stops possible" and all else be damned!! So it will have ridiculously long charging times to go up near 100% full and then driving down into single digit % just to try to skip over Supercharger stops. It's insane and not a good way to travel.

And the second part is that when it has chosen the Superchargers it wants you to use, it HIDES the others along the way off the map! That can really catch people where they don't see any other fallback options in the middle because they are hidden, so they are gritting their teeth and white-knuckling to make a really long stretch happen that didn't need to be that way.

My car gave me the recommendation to charge up to 100% in Grand Junction, CO and drive non-stop to Silverthorne, CO, arriving with 7% left. That would already be crazy to begin with, but it was winter and below freezing and all uphill! So there was me, driving about 50 mph on I-70 with minimal heat to make this work because I didn't think I had any other choice. I only later found out there was a Supercharger halfway in the middle, in Glenwood Springs that the car had hidden from me that would have made it easy.

So I will sometimes plot a whole trip at the start, just to get a look at what the ballpark of the whole thing is going to look like, and sometimes here and there on the route, but if any of the stops look questionable or a charge time over about 40-50 minutes, it's probably doing something wrong, and I will cancel it and zoom out to look at where the Superchargers actually are to see if it's skipping something and making it unnecessarily difficult.
Have been using EV Trip Planner for years. Much better detail than Tesla's. Combine this with Roadtrippers app (although no longer free) to find interesting places to stop along the way.
 
We’ve only had my Tesla for a couple of months and with COVID, we haven't been on many long trips. I’m kind of old school with planning trips. Usually, I plan my route based on time, distance, and whatever alternate stops we want to make. Then just look at the Supercharger map and make decisions about where we’d like to stop...including what amenities are close to the Supercharger in case we need Food/Snacks on the way. Sightseeing is also important for us. The best Supercharger location to charge would include various amenities.

Although I do plan to experiment with letting software to so the planning, just to see what it recommends. For us, the main goal is rarely to use absolute fastest that could be made. Perhaps the software planners could include whether your goal is fastest (by routing you through Superchargers that have the highest KW charging) or the most interesting (with an interest in seeing some scenic vistas Like beaches, mountains or even National, State, and local parks.)
 
I was told by a Tesla employee that it does take this into account.
Mmm, hmm. I would say that counts for just barely more than zero. Tesla employees have said a lot of unfortunately wrong things--some of them just ridiculous. For instance, I remember someone who was arguing with me because a Tesla employee had told him that ALL Superchargers, every single one, were run off their own solar power canopy and none of them had ANY connection to the electric grid. We should restart that thread that was going of crazy things Tesla employees have said.

I'm pretty suspect of this one. It's something fans here have been saying, "Wouldn't it be cool if..." for a while now, but there has been no evidence that is happening that I have seen.
 
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I've been doing this for over 6.5 years, since before the Nav even had the ability to pick Superchargers. This "Beta Trip Planner" feature, which tries to pick your Superchargers for you has an awful fatal flaw that has bitten me and several other people, so don't blindly trust it.

The fatal flaw is two-fold:
First, whoever programmed it set the preference to be "fewest stops possible" and all else be damned!! So it will have ridiculously long charging times to go up near 100% full and then driving down into single digit % just to try to skip over Supercharger stops. It's insane and not a good way to travel.

And the second part is that when it has chosen the Superchargers it wants you to use, it HIDES the others along the way off the map! That can really catch people where they don't see any other fallback options in the middle because they are hidden, so they are gritting their teeth and white-knuckling to make a really long stretch happen that didn't need to be that way.

My car gave me the recommendation to charge up to 100% in Grand Junction, CO and drive non-stop to Silverthorne, CO, arriving with 7% left. That would already be crazy to begin with, but it was winter and below freezing and all uphill! So there was me, driving about 50 mph on I-70 with minimal heat to make this work because I didn't think I had any other choice. I only later found out there was a Supercharger halfway in the middle, in Glenwood Springs that the car had hidden from me that would have made it easy.

So I will sometimes plot a whole trip at the start, just to get a look at what the ballpark of the whole thing is going to look like, and sometimes here and there on the route, but if any of the stops look questionable or a charge time over about 40-50 minutes, it's probably doing something wrong, and I will cancel it and zoom out to look at where the Superchargers actually are to see if it's skipping something and making it unnecessarily difficult.
 
I was told by a Tesla employee that it does take this into account.
I agree that following the route it suggests is not the best option, but all you have to do is tap the supercharger display option and you’ll see all superchargers on the route, from there you pick one and navigate there. I’m not sure what you mean by the car hiding the superchargers, is that they are not displayed because you did not select the option to display them?

I regularly navigate to superchargers not to my destination, meaning that I pick the ones I want to use knowing the distance I can safely cover given weather and elevation.
 
I’m not sure what you mean by the car hiding the superchargers, is that they are not displayed because you did not select the option to display them?
They are displayed on the map normally by default when you are just driving around, and plotting a route makes them disappear, without the driver selecting to turn them off. That's what "hiding them" means. But that is very unintuitive that as you look at the map, and you DO see some Superchargers still there along your route, so you don't have any indication that the car decided to turn off visibility for only some selected ones. It is possible, of course, to touch the screen to bring up that icon, and touch the lightning bolt to make them visible again, but how is anyone supposed to know that the car just hid some of them? That is the problem.
 
And the second part is that when it has chosen the Superchargers it wants you to use, it HIDES the others along the way off the map! That can really catch people where they don't see any other fallback options in the middle because they are hidden, so they are gritting their teeth and white-knuckling to make a really long stretch happen that didn't need to be that way.
I seem to recall that if you tap the screen and select the chargers icon after you set a route you can see the Superchargers along the route. Makes sense - why clutter up the display with stuff you don't need? Especially when it's only two taps away.

It's really only an issue for your first trip. I've driven from SF to Portland so many times now that I know exactly where I want to stop along the way. Start in SF/East Bay -> Red Bluff -> Mt. Shasta -> Grants Pass -> Springfield -> Woodburn -> Arrive in Portland with 75% battery. And I know Grants Pass can be nightmare, so I've got a CHAdeMO adapter.
 
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I seem to recall that if you tap the screen and select the chargers icon after you set a route you can see the Superchargers along the route. Makes sense - why clutter up the display with stuff you don't need? Especially when it's only two taps away.
This is getting repetitive. This was already mentioned here:
but all you have to do is tap the supercharger display option and you’ll see all superchargers on the route,
And I already explained why that is not helpful here:
but how is anyone supposed to know that the car just hid some of them?
Your chiding that "you can just do this and this" is not helpful, because the problem is with how are people supposed to know that they have been hidden? Of course it is possible to take steps to do something about this on subsequent trips after you have been bitten by this bit of user-antagonistic programming. The problem is how this is unintuitive, and you won't know it until you get burned and discover what happened.
 
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This is getting repetitive. This was already mentioned here:

And I already explained why that is not helpful here:

Your chiding that "you can just do this and this" is not helpful, because the problem is with how are people supposed to know that they have been hidden? Of course it is possible to take steps to do something about this on subsequent trips after you have been bitten by this bit of user-antagonistic programming. The problem is how this is unintuitive, and you won't know it until you get burned and discover what happened.
How is a button that shows a charging icon unintuitive?

Screen Shot 2020-09-22 at 6.18.37 AM.png
 
We’re going to try to go from Austin to Nashville next month. My plan is to map out on ABRP and then do supercharger to supercharger
I just left Nashville picked up my car in Brentwood. And stayed the weekend.. not sure if you’ve booked your hotel yet but the Fairfield Marriott was pretty nice .. had destination chargers 6 if I recall. It being right in the gulch there is a lot to do and see. The hotel also has a nice rooftop bar.