Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

Supercharger - Port Macquarie NSW

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
For those with range worries about Syd PM I did a trip involving 2 legs of travelling between two country properties we own. Ist leg 200ks adding 5% charge with Honda Cyclo gen set I took with me, no power there. Next day 225ks to Richmond SC arriving with 36% remaining. This means I did 425 ks on 64% used plus 5% added so 69% really used.
Range is thus to 5% remaining 585ks. Conditions 85S with 100% charge 30 degC 50 psi tyres 60 kgs luggage. Driving style minor roads 50-60 kphr freeways 80-90 kphr. Neutral down hills except where speeds became XS used regen. St Leonards to PM is 376 ks. This could be easily done with faster driving style.
 
The Tesla guys are smart.. I'd wager you're actually worsening your range by doing that.
I dont think so. This EV has the lowest resistance to motion Ive seen. If you use Neutral (you should know about this you come from Neutral Bay) you dont have electrical & mechanical losses. Try an experiment. Find a safe length of road with some hills. Expt 1 travel at 60 ks on cruise. Expt2 maintain an av of 60ks but use neutral down hills and slowing to 0kphr. Which used the least energy? You can use your on board instrumentation.
 
I dont think so. This EV has the lowest resistance to motion Ive seen. If you use Neutral (you should know about this you come from Neutral Bay) you dont have electrical & mechanical losses. Try an experiment. Find a safe length of road with some hills. Expt 1 travel at 60 ks on cruise. Expt2 maintain an av of 60ks but use neutral down hills and slowing to 0kphr. Which used the least energy? You can use your on board instrumentation.

I'd be willing to bet the difference is minimal and vastly outweighed by the hassle factor unless it's a matter of life and death, for me at least. Pretty sure I've read of people doing this exact sort of test in the US too and finding they came out worse on average than using cruise.
 
Unlike an ICE. moving the Model S into neutral does not disengage the drivetrain. The electric motor still spins exactly the same, the reduction gears are engaged etc the mechanical losses stay largely the same. The only gain might be that change in potential energy (height) is converted kinetic energy (speed) instead of the car holding the speed steady and converting the potential energy into stored electrical energy. The conversion from PE to stored charge has some inherent losses however allowing the car to gain speed in neutral by coasting also increases the loss due to aerodynamic drag as the speed increases. I would doubt there is much advantage eitherway and would prefer the safer optio which is leaving the drivetrain "engaged".

I dont think so. This EV has the lowest resistance to motion Ive seen. If you use Neutral (you should know about this you come from Neutral Bay) you dont have electrical & mechanical losses. Try an experiment. Find a safe length of road with some hills. Expt 1 travel at 60 ks on cruise. Expt2 maintain an av of 60ks but use neutral down hills and slowing to 0kphr. Which used the least energy? You can use your on board instrumentation.
 
I dont think so. This EV has the lowest resistance to motion Ive seen. If you use Neutral (you should know about this you come from Neutral Bay) you dont have electrical & mechanical losses. Try an experiment. Find a safe length of road with some hills. Expt 1 travel at 60 ks on cruise. Expt2 maintain an av of 60ks but use neutral down hills and slowing to 0kphr. Which used the least energy? You can use your on board instrumentation.

mm exactly the experiment I was going to suggest you do ;) I guess you'd have to find a hill that keeps your speed at the speed limit for a long time. Any hill too steep and you have to break - a waste of energy. any hill too gentle and you'd need to accelerate, negating the test.
When in TACC and going down hill, there's a point where the energy bar things goes into the green - you're recharging the battery. The question here is at what angle of decline of the road and what speed does your car need to be for the energy bar go from "break even" into the green? I'm ignoring storing the energy in your momentum - that would require speeding and is illegal, so should probably be discounted.
 
Will advise myself on a suitable trip. Wattup -the induction motors are not energised in neutral * impose little losses on neutral running. Ill try to do the test over about 100ks. My last trip away yielded 150Whrs/km average giving 567 ks range. Id like to see if I can get it to 10kWhrs per 100k which I think is a better way to dscribe it.
Possibly time for a new thread. This is about PM SC.
 
image.jpeg
 
Potentially way more dangerous than gliding in neutral and I definitely do not recommend it but drafting or slipstreaming behind a truck will increase efficiency way more. During my recent return trip from Queensland, the console repeatedly advised me to ’Slow to 95 km/h to reach destination’, then ‘…to 90 km/h…’ and finally ‘…to 85 km/h…’. I more or less obeyed the first direction but beyond that I thought was ridiculous in a P90DL. What was the cause? A 30-40 km/h headwind.


My only option was either to slow to a relative crawl or draft a truck. I chose to draft a truck at around 95 km/h on TACC setting 7. It was immediately obvious from the Trip screen that this was making a big difference. Range was trending upwards. I decided to get a bit closer and set it to 4 or 5 from memory. This felt too close and shortly after I could see the truck driver shifting over in his lane to see what I was doing behind him. I could see the range really trending up fast now and after a few minutes the Slow to reach destination warnings disappeared. I resumed normal driving, passing the truck with the driver staring at me as I went past.


I thought to myself that I could do with some Superchargers…not that the Port Macquarie SC would’ve helped - I was north of PM en route to The Observatory. Bring on the Coffs Harbour SC. And Newcastle.
 
  • Helpful
Reactions: championi