Summer trip

[drschwartz]

My wife, sister and I always head to Winthrop WA from Seattle for a blues festival in July. After each festival, we travel someplace interesting. This year, the plan is to travel to White Rock BC to visit my son and grandkids.


This is the first year that our Tesla MYLR is available for the trip and I'd really like to take it for the ride. I figure we'd go I-90 to charge at 150 mi (Tesla Supercharger · 14579 US-97 ALT, Entiat, WA 98822). So my question is whether experienced Tesla drivers think I'd make from there to near Burlington, WA (Tesla Supercharger · 9384 Old Hwy 99 N, Burlington, WA 98233) via HWY 20 through the Cascades 211 miles away given the intervening mountain passes. I figure that my MYLR would get 280 miles on relatively flat terrain.


Any thoughts?

Thanks so much!
David

 

[Empiro]

What does a better route planner say? I would use that first and foremost. Getting 210 miles shouldn't be a problem, but you'll want to be at our close to 100% charge, and that might take a while. Mountains can also be a problem if you encounter them late in the leg of the trip. You won't have enough battery to make it to the top.

 

[drschwartz]

What does a better route planner say? I would use that first and foremost. Getting 210 miles shouldn't be a problem, but you'll want to be at our close to 100% charge, and that might take a while. Mountains can also be a problem if you encounter them late in the leg of the trip. You won't have enough battery to make it to the top.

is there a route planner you'd recommend?

 

[DanDi58]

is there a route planner you'd recommend?

A Better Route Planner - phone app.

 

[drschwartz]

A Better Route Planner - phone app.

Thanks. Both it and Tesla would have me go south to HWY 2 which would add considerable time. There's destination charging in Winthrop as it turns out that should, getting an extra 30-60 miles, make the difference to get to Burlington.

 

[Dennisis]

Thanks. Both it and Tesla would have me go south to HWY 2 which would add considerable time. There's destination charging in Winthrop as it turns out that should, getting an extra 30-60 miles, make the difference to get to Burlington.

It's always best to confirm destination chargers are actually available and functional. I'm guessing it's at a hotel and if so I'd call in advance to be safe. Sign up and get familiar with PlugShare too. I use it most when planning to travel to areas with little or no supercharging nearby. Often people who use the charging sites post reviews indicating if they're operational, charging speeds, etc... so an excellent resource for gathering intel. Checking out the options in advance will go a long ways towards minimizing the "range anxiety" of your first trip. Once you've done one or two you'll see how easy it is and relax. One last note, always put your destination(s) in the MY Nav so it can monitor your consumption in realtime so you charge at the optimal times/places. Enjoy!

 

[DanDi58]

Thanks. Both it and Tesla would have me go south to HWY 2 which would add considerable time. There's destination charging in Winthrop as it turns out that should, getting an extra 30-60 miles, make the difference to get to Burlington.

In addition to @Dennisis comments, I believe you can add destination chargers into the ABRP parameters. Don't think you can do that with Tesla nav. But I would never want to depend on any sort of L2 charging to get where I need to go. They are more for use when you've arrived at your 'destination'....

 

[boulder.dude]

Plan on your first SC stop after 200 miles and subsequent SC stops every 120 miles. More stops will get you there sooner. Trust the car nav.

 

[drschwartz]

It's always best to confirm destination chargers are actually available and functional. I'm guessing it's at a hotel and if so I'd call in advance to be safe. Sign up and get familiar with PlugShare too. I use it most when planning to travel to areas with little or no supercharging nearby. Often people who use the charging sites post reviews indicating if they're operational, charging speeds, etc... so an excellent resource for gathering intel. Checking out the options in advance will go a long ways towards minimizing the "range anxiety" of your first trip. Once you've done one or two you'll see how easy it is and relax. One last note, always put your destination(s) in the MY Nav so it can monitor your consumption in realtime so you charge at the optimal times/places. Enjoy!

A buddy of mine with a Model 3 says that I'll recover most of the energy spent going up the hills as I go down. Is that true?

 

[DanDi58]

A buddy of mine with a Model 3 says that I'll recover most of the energy spent going up the hills as I go down. Is that true?

I've only taken one road trip with significant elevation changes, to Pittsburgh from Central NJ through the Appalachians in western PA. I didn't find that I regained everything I used going up. Partially because if you're using cruise, the car almost always seems to be using some energy to maintain speed, even going downhill. If anything, it seemed like it might stay on a percentage for a longer period of time. I only recall one or two times where the percentage went up, and only by 1%. Might be different on a very large mountain, like Mt Washington in NH. So i don't think I'd count on a lot of extra energy coming back.

 

[Dennisis]

Yes, normally if you have regen on of course. I drive in the mountains quite often and enjoy seeing the “percent” go back up or and least not go down as fast. Watch the top left of your screen and try to get the bar green or neutral or as little black as possible to extend your range.

 

[Dennisis]

I've only taken one road trip with significant elevation changes, to Pittsburgh from Central NJ through the Appalachians in western PA. I didn't find that I regained everything I used going up. Partially because if you're using cruise, the car almost always seems to be using some energy to maintain speed, even going downhill. If anything, it seemed like it might stay on a percentage for a longer period of time. I only recall one or two times where the percentage went up, and only by 1%. Might be different on a very large mountain, like Mt Washington in NH. So i don't think I'd count on a lot of extra energy coming back.

Yes but on the big mountains out west it’s much more noticeable and you can learn to maximize the regen. I’m from the Catskills, was just back visiting, and those mountains won’t do too much for you but everything helps!

 

[Rocky_H]

A buddy of mine with a Model 3 says that I'll recover most of the energy spent going up the hills as I go down. Is that true?

Yes, that is true, based on the keyword "most". It is generally more than half.

I didn't find that I regained everything I used going up.

Well right, you can't recover everything. That would be a perpetual motion machine. I think it's generally been found that you can recover around 60% in the energy's round trip of being converted into elevation gain going up and then converted into recharging when coming back down.

it seemed like it might stay on a percentage for a longer period of time. I only recall one or two times where the percentage went up, and only by 1%.

Yes, there's a little user interface thing of what it is keeping track of internally in the computer, versus what it displays on the screen. It's a little more visible when displaying rated miles because it's a more fine grained unit than a whole %. I have an old 2014 S85, and when going down a long hill on regen, it will hold on that same number for quite a while, and then suddenly jump up by 3 rated miles. And then it will usually hold on that number until it accumulates another 3 rated miles to add. I think it's internally keeping track of it, but won't move the display number until it has a whole 1% to show because it won't display fractions or decimals. And the whole % kind of corresponds to about 3 rated miles.

But if you use one of those trip planners like www.abetterrouteplanner.com or www.evtripplanner.com they figure the elevation changes into the calculated energy consumption on the route, so the total energy usage will take into account the uphill and downhill involved that is spending and recovering energy. The car's nav does it too in its projections once you put it in Navigation and look at the energy projection graph.