jgs
Active Member
I see. So you’re assuming more frequent stops with shallower charges. OK. There are at least two more elements in the overall trip time computation (and like I said, I’m not going to try to recapitulate all the figuring that’s been done elsewhere, I’m just pointing out that these are factors):You seem to be saying two directly conflicting statements back-to-back, so I'm confused at what you're trying to say here. First, you say you're questioning my conclusion of more but shorter stops.
But then you "support" your disagreement by pointing out that charging at the bottom of the battery pack is faster than charging at the top. However, that is exactly the point I was making. The onboard trip planner very frequently has you charging up well over 90% and for 50+ minutes, well into that slow, tapering point of the battery pack, which is quite a time waster.
- Driving speed. If you can skip a charging stop by driving at, say, 65 instead of 80, you might be better off doing it. (Simple example, an 80 mile leg. You can drive it in an hour at 80, or 1:14 at 65. If the extra charge time takes more than 14 minutes (including onramps and offramps, etc) you lose.
- Overhead — those onramps, offramps, feeder roads, Supercharger not directly by the highway, local traffic, stoplights, etc. All of that eats into your trip time without contributing anything positive.
And on this we agree. I just think the nav system may not be as stupid as you do.But yes, there is a human factor to "feels better", too. The tendency toward people feeling bored is not linear with time. People can find a few things to do easily for 10-15 minutes without really noticing, so with shorter stops, you can almost always avoid that annoyed feeling like you're having to wait for the car. But with 50 or 60 minutes of charging time, it's highly likely to achieve boredom.
Edited to add: I think the cognitive dissonance in my earlier reply came because I assumed you’d be driving in the top of the pack, charging to 80% or whatever. If you really do manage things to drive in the bottom of the pack, then yeah, you can charge much faster. I don’t like doing that because I like seeing a large range reported when I start out from my charging stop, and I don’t love arriving at the Supercharger with < 10% in the pack. More “feels better”, I don’t claim it’s completely rational.