Tesla Trip App vs EV Trip Planner

[willw64]

I’ve read most of the older threads and watched David’s great video about road trip planning. We travel with dogs so destination charging is more problematic, but in looking at an upcoming trip it makes sense to drive from the Boulder, CO area and overnight near the Topeka, KS SC which is very close to a pet friendly hotel.

First question : it seems to make more sense to put only the route segment if you plan to overnight as opposed to the entire route since you can get a leisurely full charge overnight. Putting in the entire route seems to muck things up since I haven’t seen one that takes into account an overnight destination charge.

In EV trip planner , the Goodland, KS SC isn’t showing up and it seems to add several unnecessary stops. I have a new MS Performance so my rated range is 345 miles. So being pretty conservative and already having learned that it is challenging to hit the wh/mile to get that rated range it still seems to make sense to modify the Tesla route.

Home to Goodland 215 miles stop to charge

Goodland to Hays 143 miles ( thinking about skipping)

Hays to Salinas 94 miles

Salinas to Topeka 104 miles

If I ignore both route planners I have a 215 mile leg to Goodland and a 237 mile leg to Salinas and then a quick charge to get the 104 miles to Topeka.

The other question is with the larger batteries, assuming no wild weather impacts, is there merit in going faster, getting
more into the sweet spot of the charging curve and make the more frequent stops. Especially, if the SC’s are easy
off and back on’s the interstate?

 

[maximizese]

If I'm understanding your post correctly, it does make sense to split your trip up based on where you will stay overnight. So in your case I calculate a trip from your home to Topeka, KS, then from Topeka to the final destination before turning in for the night. Higher speeds uses quite a bit more energy than moderate speed. From my experience I need to travel at an average 58mph to achieve the rated mile range; traveling at 80mph will reduce my actual range by ~28% compared to the rated range. EV Trip Planner allows for the speed, wind, and payload factors, but Tesla's on-board trip planner does not. I generally use EV Trip Planner to pick my Supercharging stops and estimate the charging times necessary (or Rated Miles in and Rated Miles out) based on a 8% reserve buffer.

While driving, I use the Tesla on-board trip planner to keep an eye on where SuC are under 50% utilized. If those are V2 Superchargers, stopping to get the full potential of a cabinet can save you some time if you can charge above 90kWh. While charging, I keep an eye on the distance to the next SuC and the rated miles I need to get there (I overestimate 28% to account for my faster driving speed). If I'm less than 40 miles from my SuC destination and I have more than enough energy I will pick up the pace to get there 3-5 minutes sooner. If the SuC is busy, I just take my time.

I prefer SuC that are no more than 2 miles from the highway and I make sure there's something to do whether it's a food/beverage break, bathroom break, shopping, sightsee, or just check emails. As for destination chargers, you might want to call the owner ahead of time to request using their charger. Many have valets who will shuttle the cars around to charge multiple Teslas overnight and giving a heads up and the estimated time of your arrival can help them schedule a charging session.

 

[ewoodrick]

Putting in the entire route to begin with is a first sanity check that the route is doable. It also means that your destination will be in the Recent list, so easier to select the next day.

But during a trip, there are a number of options that can be helpful. In your case, since you are thinking about skipping a charger, just route to the next charger, if the default route takes you to the not preferred one. That gives you the sanity check that you can indeed make it to the further charger.

For me, the secret in travelling with EVs, plan your trip so that you don't have to stop for charging. I've done a number of 500 mile trips that way. How can I do that? I plan the trip for meals and breaks and try to line them up with charging opportunities. The worse thing that you can do is to stop and let the dogs stretch without being on a charger.

Depending on the trip, it can also save a LOT of time if you slow down a little. If you've got a 300 mile range and a 300 mile trip, you can save time by going at probably 65 or below, since you can make the entire trip without charging.

 

[animorph]

Yes, you want to avoid charging at the top of the battery since it can be very slow. For my X 100D it looked like charging all the way to 80% was 5 minutes slower than adding that last 10%-20% at the next charger. Given that you can get there with 60% to 70% charge. Above 80% it gets much worse. That doesn't seem to faze the Tesla nav. It's happy to have you charging for an hour. The online trip planners will give you the lowest total travel time. I manually enter those supercharger stops as necessary. If you can skip a charger without charging past 80%, go ahead.

There's just been a few times when I had to charge to 100% and limit my speed to get to a Supercharger. There's been a few other times I had to reduce speed due to unexpected weather. In general the fastest way to travel is pretty close to as fast as you want to go, given you can do that without charging past 80%. You can experiment by telling ABetterRoutePlanner to limit your speed to something lower than normal and see what that does to your total trip time (maybe with an extra charge at the end so starting and ending charge levels are equal).

I use ABetterRoutePlanner to select my Supercharger stops. I then use the car's nav to monitor charging and the charge remaining at destination. That's been great so far.

 

[Rocky_H]

I'll also use EVTripplanner.com to do a little checking to sanity check an overall route, but when actually driving, I just play it by ear. I really don't like how the in-car trip planner selects stops, so I also just do that on my own. I'll just zoom out on the map a little and select the next Supercharger one or two places ahead to see about how far of a distance I want to go and shoot for maybe 150-ish miles apart or so, to make sure the charging stays in that lower really fast portion of the battery.

 

[RoadTripRon]

If I'm understanding your post correctly, it does make sense to split your trip up based on where you will stay overnight. So in your case I calculate a trip from your home to Topeka, KS, then from Topeka to the final destination before turning in for the night. Higher speeds uses quite a bit more energy than moderate speed. From my experience I need to travel at an average 58mph to achieve the rated mile range; traveling at 80mph will reduce my actual range by ~28% compared to the rated range. EV Trip Planner allows for the speed, wind, and payload factors, but Tesla's on-board trip planner does not. I generally use EV Trip Planner to pick my Supercharging stops and estimate the charging times necessary (or Rated Miles in and Rated Miles out) based on a 8% reserve buffer.

While driving, I use the Tesla on-board trip planner to keep an eye on where SuC are under 50% utilized. If those are V2 Superchargers, stopping to get the full potential of a cabinet can save you some time if you can charge above 90kWh. While charging, I keep an eye on the distance to the next SuC and the rated miles I need to get there (I overestimate 28% to account for my faster driving speed). If I'm less than 40 miles from my SuC destination and I have more than enough energy I will pick up the pace to get there 3-5 minutes sooner. If the SuC is busy, I just take my time.

I prefer SuC that are no more than 2 miles from the highway and I make sure there's something to do whether it's a food/beverage break, bathroom break, shopping, sightsee, or just check emails. As for destination chargers, you might want to call the owner ahead of time to request using their charger. Many have valets who will shuttle the cars around to charge multiple Teslas overnight and giving a heads up and the estimated time of your arrival can help them schedule a charging session.

thanks.