Supercharge Stats from CA to FL Drive, + Compare Other EV's

[Tony8489]

From May 29 - June 9 I drove from Glendale, CA to Belleaire Bluffs, FL. I visited friends 4 days in Colorado, 2 days in Kansas, 2 days in Missouri plus one night in a hotel in Alabama.

So here are the summary stats for the drive days on the recent trip:
May 29: Home to Las Vegas 273 miles. This required a 10 minute charge stop in Baker in March but this time it was 111F in Baker, so the chargers were temperamental and it took 20 minutes.

May 30: Las Vegas to Eagle CO 653 miles. The first leg with a full charge was 237 miles to Beaver with 4,000 foot elevation gain. This day required 92 minutes in charge stops, of which 48 were at a lunch stop in Richfield, Utah. Total elapsed time was 9 hours 45 minutes with average speed while driving of 79mph.

On June 1 I skied Arapahoe Basin.
On June 2 I drove a scenic loop through Leadville, over Independence Pass, then back to Eagle via Aspen and Glenwood Springs.

June 4: Eagle, CO to Wichita, KS 654 miles. The first leg was 325 miles to Goodland, KS where I had a 51 minute lunch stop. I was then able to drive 237 miles to Salina, stopping half an hour there before continuing to Wichita. Total elapsed time was 10 hours 15 minutes with average speed while driving of 74mph.

June 6: Wichita, KS to Osage Beach, MO 290 miles. This was all on the secondary route Hwy 54 and I needed to stick to the 65mph speed limit in order to make it with no chargers on that route. If I had a lower range Tesla I would have needed to divert south to I-44 which has superchargers in Joplin and Springfield.

June 8: Osage Beach, MO to Auburn, AL 740 miles. The first leg was 260 miles to Miner, MO, about half on secondary roads. This day required 4 stops totaling 87 minutes and I ate just snacks and drinks I brought with me. Total elapsed time was 12 hours 20 minutes with average speed while driving of 68mph, excluding a 1+ hour stop at the museum in New Madrid, MO. Auburn was my only hotel stop, a Quality Inn walking distance to the supercharger so I could leave with a full charge the next day.

June 9: Auburn, AL to Belleaire Bluffs, FL, 484 miles. The first leg was 180 miles of mostly secondary roads to visit the Andersonville Historic Site for about 1.5 hours. I had 3 charge stops totaling 37 minutes. Total elapsed time minus the Andersonville stop was 8 hours with average speed while driving of 65mph.

 

[Tony8489]

The v3 charges were all in Clearwater, FL after I arrived in Florida. There were no v3's on the cross country drive but I had been to Lone Pine in February and Las Vegas LINQ in March. Max charge ate was 158kW in Lone Pine and 165kW in Las Vegas. I wonder if Raven Model S was not allowed its max 200kW charge rate until sometime this spring. I'll also be interested to see if that rate gets bumped to 225kW by a more recent software update.

As for the v2's I have a few observations:
1) A handful of chargers are still limited to 120kW max. Those were Las Vegas South, Grand Junction and Glenwood Springs.
2) When trying to make time on the road it's wise to monitor the charge rate from your phone. Heat can crash the charge ate after 10 minutes or so. This occurred in Richfield, UT, Grand Junction, Goodland KS, Miner, MO and twice in Salina, KS where it was 99F.
3) Note also that dot at 30KW and 40+SoC. That was in Baker where it was 111F, windy and the charging stopped completely while I was cleaning the windshield and didn't notice until I got in the car.

What really defines road trips is the rated miles added per minute. This is shown here by rated mile reading.

In both charts there is a plot in gray of charging my last road trip in the 2016 S90D to Death Valley and Las Vegas. In the first graph by state of charge it looks like the new car at high SoC. But the reality is that when a full charge is 275, it's going to be much slower past 150 rated miles than a newer car with longer range.

More on the trip, with comments from skeptical non-EV drivers:
Liftlines Skiing and Snowboarding Forums • View topic - Cross Country Drive with Admin Sighting, June 4-9, 2020

 

[Tony8489]

Finally, I added my experiences to the charging time/distance tables created by Bjorn Nyland in Europe. I converted his km to miles.

Model 3 v3 is Bjorn data from fast charging sites in Europe that can accommodate Model 3's 250kW max rate.

Model X100 is Bjorn data, probably pre-Raven.

Model S LR is my data, for both v3 and v2, from June 2020.

S90D is my data from Beatty/Las Vegas in May 2019. This was after Tesla modified supercharging rates to protect the 90 battery. While this capped the max charge rate at 100kW, the taper kicked in more gradually so charge sessions of 150 rated miles or more were actually improved.

S85 is from a table I downloaded from this forum in 2015 before I ordered my first Tesla, based upon lots of data from an early Model S owner. I realize that many S85's have had their charge rates slowed down since May 2019.

 

[cookie99]

thank you for the quality post, i've enjoyed reading it

 

[DBV1]

Very interesting post. Thanks. I am curious how the newer 250kwh charging on the Model S will help with the times/mileage in the above tables.

 

[Tony8489]

Very interesting post. Thanks. I am curious how the newer 250kwh charging on the Model S will help with the times/mileage in the above tables.

It won't be dramatic. Model 3's are at 250kW from 5%-20% SoC. My Raven S charges faster than 150kW on a v3 only from 15%-40% SoC. Maybe a 2020 Model S is over 200kW from 15-30%? I may get an idea if I get bumped to 225kW by software update.

The reality is that most supercharging is on older chargers at a max rate of 150kW and will be that way for awhile. I had no v3 supercharging whatsoever on the cross country trip. The v3 stats are all from Clearwater, about 12 miles from where I'm staying in Florida.

Most of the interstate network was built out with v2 supercharging before v3's existed. The long stretches of v3's are on the most recent routes added, I-94 and the Trans-Canada Highway. Upgrading/conversion of existing v2 to v3 is relatively rare. Lone Pine (most important to me), Kettleman City and Quartzsite are the only ones I've noticed on supercharge.info. New chargers added to existing routes like Modesto, Beaumont, Ehrenberg and soon Paso Robles are likely to be v3.

So the experience of my June trip, driving 8-10 hours in a day with around 1.5 hours in rest/bathroom/lunch stops, is the way it will be for Raven Model S for awhile.

Cars that are more efficient in terms of Wh/mi will do better. Model S has had 100kW batteries since Feb. 2017. Just as my 2019 gets 370/335 (rated range ratio) x as many miles out of each kW added vs. 2017-2018 cars, the newest Model S should get 402/370 x as many miles out of each kW added as my car. And Model 3's get something like 10/8 x as many miles out of each kW added due to being a lighter and more efficient car up to around 200 rated miles. Above 200 RM Model 3 will be farther into its taper and not charge any faster than my Model S.

My lifetime Wh/mi on the 2016 car was 342 and on the current car it's 308.

 

[OrbiterTI4]

For clarification, what was your payload? Just you as a driver and <50 lbs of suitcase/travel gear? As I plan, I not only try to factor the chargegate capping (start at 80 kW, down to 40 kW at 70%), but a family outing would be 4 ppl and if traveling, 4 suitcases, so a 10% payload increase isn't unreasonable.

 

[Tony8489]

It was just me as driver, but I brought a lot of extra stuff my wife requested. Frunk and lower rear compartment were full of those, including some books and all of her scuba gear. Inside was my medium+ sized suitcase, 9 bottles of wine (viable with Dog Mode on daytime stops), other smaller pieces. So overall similar to when the two of us travel with ski gear.