Tesla almost left me stranded - again.

[sleepydoc]

We left for our cabin in northern Wisconsin yesterday - 150 miles, about 2:45 minutes, 80% SOC. In the summertime I can make the trip using almost exactly 50% battery.

After entering the destination in the nav system it suggested I stop and charge for 20 minutes on the way. A bit odd - the weather wasn’t that cold or windy to cut the efficiency that much, but ok. We had decided to stop for dinner on the way so I entered the restaurant as a stop on the trip. The nav system recalculated and took out the charging stop. The restaurant is only a few blocks off of the route, so it was odd that the charging stop would have changed but I wasn’t necessarily expecting to charge so I wan’t too concerned.

I looked at the estimated battery remaining and it said 24%. The restaurant is only 20 miles/30 minutes from our cabin, so 24% should have been fine. As we turn off of I35 and head east into Wisconsin I see the battery estimate slowly start to decrease and it gets down to 18%, estimating 3% when we get to our cabin. Northern Wisconsin is a EV charging desert so now I’m starting to get worried.

After checking Plugshare we made the decision to turn around and head to the nearest supercharger, arriving with 4% charge. Disaster averted, but it added 1.5 hours to our trip and could have ended much worse.

This is the second time Tesla’s nav system has nearly left me stranded by overestimating the range and I’m getting to the point that I don’t trust it. Despite what Elon and many people here say, Range anxiety is a thing and until charging options become as common as gas stations you need to be cognizant of your battery level. Without accurate data from the car, it’s impossible, meaning I can’t trust my car outside of the city.

Have others had this problem? The only thing I can figure in this case is that Tesla was assuming I would charge at the restaurant - a pretty stupid assumption given the paucity of chargers. The nav system also doesn’t bother to ask, meaning adding a stop on your trip is a potentially dangerous proposition.

 

[jcanoe]

Have you tried A Better Route Planner (ABRP)? ABRP is free to download on your phone as an app and on the internet.

Knowing that the Tesla Navigation system is not well calibrated for winter driving you can charge to 90% + next time before leaving.

Use the built-in range reserve present in every Tesla Model Y; lowering your highway speed by 5 MPH will improve your range and efficiency by almost 10%.

 

[GSP]

Smart move to stop and charge, too bad you had to go way out of your way.

@sleepydoc - It is good pratice to plan for a reasonable amount of “reserve” energy to cover contingencies. Similar to pilots always taking on a specified amount of reserve fuel for their flight plans. I like to plan to arrive at chargers with a minimum of 20%. If the car starts predicting 15% or less, then I slow down or make an extra charging stop. I don’t want to have to call a tow truck, so I figure that if pilots can have the discipline to plan for a reserve, so can I.

GSP

 

[Y_tho]

I use ABRP for all non-local driving. Some great features:

• You get to set preference for starting SOC (or default to whatever SOC your car is at), max SOC at a charger, min SOC for needing to stop and charge, min SOC for destination arrival - it then builds a route plan based on these settings, your car model, etc
• You can easily override the chosen charger selection along a trip route
• The app can link to your car for live updates regarding your battery status

Tesla's in-car charger planning (to me) seems lacking, especially since it gives no hint at what its plans are for you. For instance: it tells you "charge for 10 minutes" and then good to go. Ok, so... if I charge for 10 minutes, what SOC will I have at arrival? 25%? 10%? To me, this doesn't seem like an optimum way to go.

 

[OxBrew]

The winter trip planning has been horrible this winter. Last winter, after 2 legs of a longer trip from Spokane to Portland, it recalibrated itself and was within 5% the rest of the winter.

This winter I've had the same experience as you. It over estimates by 10-20%. Another thing that it stopped doing is updating SOC estimates for subsequent stops on multi leg trips. I have to cancel nav all the time on the trip from Seattle to Spokane to get it to re-calculate the whole trip. Then it often drops charging stops, so I just set it to navigate to the stop I know I need, usually one before what it tells me. Then while charging I navigate again to my final destination. I have to do this 2x, at beginning and end of charging, to get updated final SOC. If I don't like the result, I keep redoing it, and kind of get a rough sense of what reality will be.

ABRP is OK, but I find it can be pretty far off too, especially with mountain passes, headwinds, and winter tires.

Right now, I think my laziness about putting the aero covers back on the winter wheels might be skewing the calibration too (although last winter I ran without them too, so IDK).

Another thing it does now it never did before is happily tell you to arrive with under 5% SOC, driving by 2 empty super chargers. Within a couple miles, or before I start, I realize that the 10-20% error is going to bite me, so I re-do the trip.

Something's really different in the algorithm this winter. There are also about 4 new charging stations on the route, so maybe it doesn't have enough data to use them optimally?

Last trip it told me to stop at the older 150kw chargers in Ellensburg, which were over half full, instead of the new 250kw a block away, with only 1 person there. Something is really borked.

 

[CaseyL]

I looked at the estimated battery remaining and it said 24%. The restaurant is only 20 miles/30 minutes from our cabin, so 24% should have been fine. As we turn off of I35 and head east into Wisconsin I see the battery estimate slowly start to decrease and it gets down to 18%, estimating 3% when we get to our cabin. Northern Wisconsin is a EV charging desert so now I’m starting to get worried.

After checking Plugshare we made the decision to turn around and head to the nearest supercharger, arriving with 4% charge. Disaster averted, but it added 1.5 hours to our trip and could have ended much worse.
:
Have others had this problem?

I find this odd too. 24% with 20 miles to go should have been a safe bet.

I've never encountered that much of a deviation as you experienced, but I have noticed that my estimated SOC at at arrival seems to always decrease instead of increasing.

 

[240vPlug]

Another vote for ABRP. I always double check with ABRP. You can even open it on the Tesla browser. Tesla always aims for a 10% buffer.

I have found the range predictions are pretty good but they can get a little more sketchy if your at low SOC

 

[israndy]

Yet another vote for leaving a higher reserve in the winter, diminished range may not be common knowledge, but when you drive thru any desert it is smart to have extra resources, be they water, food, warm clothing, gas, or electric charge.

 

[sleepydoc]

Have you tried A Better Route Planner (ABRP)? ABRP is free to download on your phone as an app and on the internet.

Knowing that the Tesla Navigation system is not well calibrated for winter driving you can charge to 90% + next time before leaving.

Use the built-in range reserve present in every Tesla Model Y; lowering your highway speed by 5 MPH will improve your range and efficiency by almost 10%.

I've used it in the past but I don't take road trips terribly often so I don't have a ton of experience comparing it to Tesla's nav software. I charged to 90% the night before but had to drive to work and back, taking about 10%. Next time I'll charge to 100%. I lowered my highway speed and had problems despite doing this.

This is another reason CarPlay would be really nice to have - it would make using apps like ABRP simple.

Smart move to stop and charge, too bad you had to go way out of your way.

@sleepydoc - It is good pratice to plan for a reasonable amount of “reserve” energy to cover contingencies. Similar to pilots always taking on a specified amount of reserve fuel for their flight plans. I like to plan to arrive at chargers with a minimum of 20%. If the car starts predicting 15% or less, then I slow down or make an extra charging stop. I don’t want to have to call a tow truck, so I figure that if pilots can have the discipline to plan for a reserve, so can I.

GSP

Yeah, I thought I was based on Tesla's estimate, but the estimate dropped significantly during my trip. That's the problem.

I find this odd too. 24% with 20 miles to go should have been a safe bet.

I've never encountered that much of a deviation as you experienced, but I have noticed that my estimated SOC at at arrival seems to always decrease instead of increasing.

Even 18% would probably have been OK; the problem was it was continuing to drop and I was an hour away from the restaurant an 1 ½ hours away from my destination. The really annoying part was the range didn't start to drop until 30 minutes after I passed the last supercharger. Had it started dropping earlier I probably would have stopped to charge.

 

[Art84]

I think if make a habit to plan arrival SOC minimum 15-20% when you plan your route, then you would not have this issue. Having 24% and understanding that it's winter, mountains and you need another 20 min to drive, you were taking a risk and as result didn't play well. Also, deep discharge is not healthy for the battery.

 

[CaseyL]

I think if make a habit to plan arrival SOC minimum 15-20% when you plan your route, then you would not have this issue. Having 24% and understanding that it's winter, mountains and you need another 20 min to drive, you were taking a risk and as result didn't play well. Also, deep discharge is not healthy for the battery.

If the car says I have 24% with 20 miles to go, I'd feel really comfortable. I'd expect to have at least 14% on arrival at the worst.

 

[rrolsbe]

I think if make a habit to plan arrival SOC minimum 15-20% when you plan your route, then you would not have this issue. Having 24% and understanding that it's winter, mountains and you need another 20 min to drive, you were taking a risk and as result didn't play well. Also, deep discharge is not healthy for the battery.

I posted the following on Jun 15 of 2022. From memory, after drafting three different semi's (which keep me from being stranded on the side of the road) I arrived at nearly 20% state of charge. It is my understanding the NAV now takes into account wind speed/direction along the route.

I agree in general you should not need to draft but I had an instance where it was required. I had no idea the headwinds on a final 120 mile leg were probably 40+ (guess). The trucks were going slow but above 50 MPH and the tumbleweeds were flying directly towards the front of the car gang busters. I left the SC with an estimated SOC arrival of 30%. I started to slow down before the NAV system suggested I do so. At about 90 miles out, I had slowed down to 50 MPH and the estimated SOC arrival was still below 0%. The ICE cars were flying by me at 80+ MPH which is not the safest (in my opinion) . I have no idea how much lower the speed to arrive above 0% would have been. After this experience, I started using TeslaWaze which gives you wind speed and direction. I am hopeful the new Tesla firmware, that takes into account wind speed/direction etc, helps determine how much I should charge at a SC.

 

[sleepydoc]

I think if make a habit to plan arrival SOC minimum 15-20% when you plan your route, then you would not have this issue. Having 24% and understanding that it's winter, mountains and you need another 20 min to drive, you were taking a risk and as result didn't play well. Also, deep discharge is not healthy for the battery.

Except that’s what I was doing. That’s my complaint - the system said I would have plenty of charge left and I drove slower than normal on top of that. Despite this it started dropping my estimated charge ⅔’s of the way into the trip. Like I said, part of the problem was Tesla changed and said I didn’t need to charge - why?

When we drove the last 29 miles today it took 9%, about what I would expect. We might have been fine without going back to charge. Maybe.

 

[airpor41]

Tesla's in-car charger planning (to me) seems lacking, especially since it gives no hint at what its plans are for you. For instance: it tells you "charge for 10 minutes" and then good to go. Ok, so... if I charge for 10 minutes, what SOC will I have at arrival? 25%? 10%? To me, this doesn't seem like an optimum way to go.

I dial in my next destination when I arrive at the Supercharger. As I charge, the nav system tells me what my arrival SOC% will be and continuously updates as I charge. I run the charge until arrival reaches 20%, unplug and leave.

Isn't that what you want?

 

[gr2020]

I ran into a strange one yesterday; I was going north on I-25, and stopped in Trinidad, CO for a quick splash - I figured I would only need 10% or so. Plugged in, saw 251 kW, and went inside to the bathroom. When I came back out, it had already added around 20% (so I was now around 40% SOC), and my estimated SOC arriving to Pueblo, CO would be about 18%. I left with that - and on the road, the estimate quickly changed. Around the time the estimate reached about 8%, I slowed down from 80 to around 70 (in a 75 zone), and the estimate hovered around 7% for the rest of the leg, arriving at about 6% after a few minutes of pre-conditioning (guess the car was pretty confident by then - haha!).

I've driven Teslas since 2017, so not my first rodeo - but it's always strange when the estimate is _so_ far off of reality, barring severe conditions.

Not sure why it was initially estimating so optimistically. There was some wind, but it was coming from the side, and the energy app showed only around +/- 2% impact from wind (it varied throughout the trip).

Incidentally, looking at ABRP now, after the fact, it estimates arriving with 9%, so it's much closer to what ended up being reality than what the Tesla system estimated.

 

[Seminole]

I ran into a strange one yesterday; I was going north on I-25, and stopped in Trinidad, CO for a quick splash - I figured I would only need 10% or so. Plugged in, saw 251 kW, and went inside to the bathroom. When I came back out, it had already added around 20% (so I was now around 40% SOC), and my estimated SOC arriving to Pueblo, CO would be about 18%. I left with that - and on the road, the estimate quickly changed. Around the time the estimate reached about 8%, I slowed down from 80 to around 70 (in a 75 zone), and the estimate hovered around 7% for the rest of the leg, arriving at about 6% after a few minutes of pre-conditioning (guess the car was pretty confident by then - haha!).

I've driven Teslas since 2017, so not my first rodeo - but it's always strange when the estimate is _so_ far off of reality, barring severe conditions.

Not sure why it was initially estimating so optimistically. There was some wind, but it was coming from the side, and the energy app showed only around +/- 2% impact from wind (it varied throughout the trip).

Incidentally, looking at ABRP now, after the fact, it estimates arriving with 9%, so it's much closer to what ended up being reality than what the Tesla system estimated.

Does the navigation take into account that you were going to go 80mph with that initial estimate. That is a range killer.

 

[Woggon]

We left for our cabin in northern Wisconsin yesterday - 150 miles, about 2:45 minutes, 80% SOC. In the summertime I can make the trip using almost exactly 50% battery.

After entering the destination in the nav system it suggested I stop and charge for 20 minutes on the way. A bit odd - the weather wasn’t that cold or windy to cut the efficiency that much, but ok. We had decided to stop for dinner on the way so I entered the restaurant as a stop on the trip. The nav system recalculated and took out the charging stop. The restaurant is only a few blocks off of the route, so it was odd that the charging stop would have changed but I wasn’t necessarily expecting to charge so I wan’t too concerned.

I looked at the estimated battery remaining and it said 24%. The restaurant is only 20 miles/30 minutes from our cabin, so 24% should have been fine. As we turn off of I35 and head east into Wisconsin I see the battery estimate slowly start to decrease and it gets down to 18%, estimating 3% when we get to our cabin. Northern Wisconsin is a EV charging desert so now I’m starting to get worried.

After checking Plugshare we made the decision to turn around and head to the nearest supercharger, arriving with 4% charge. Disaster averted, but it added 1.5 hours to our trip and could have ended much worse.

This is the second time Tesla’s nav system has nearly left me stranded by overestimating the range and I’m getting to the point that I don’t trust it. Despite what Elon and many people here say, Range anxiety is a thing and until charging options become as common as gas stations you need to be cognizant of your battery level. Without accurate data from the car, it’s impossible, meaning I can’t trust my car outside of the city.

Have others had this problem? The only thing I can figure in this case is that Tesla was assuming I would charge at the restaurant - a pretty stupid assumption given the paucity of chargers. The nav system also doesn’t bother to ask, meaning adding a stop on your trip is a potentially dangerous proposition.

Where’s your cabin? Ours is in Danbury, and you are correct, it is a charging desert. I haven’t been stranded, but I have been VERY concerned on a drive that started at -30F on New Year’s Day in 2022.

 

[jcanoe]

Does the navigation take into account that you were going to go 80mph with that initial estimate. That is a range killer.

Yes, once you start driving the route to the destination. The Energy Screen will display your current and projected consumption, remaining battery SOC at the next charging stop or final route destination. The Tesla Model Y's Navigation system/Energy functions will alert you if you will not be able to make it to the planned destination unless you A - stop and charge for Xx minutes or B - Slow down by at least Xx miles per hour.

 

[Dennisis]

This is another reason CarPlay would be really nice to have - it would make using apps like ABRP simple.

I have a charging phone mount attached top left on the MY screen where I always have my phone, easy to use the ABRP app. or keep another nav app in view.
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