Too Cautious with Charging?

[blert]

As you were approaching Keale what was the prediction then for Hilton Park, in general for me it's increased from the prediction. If it was still 3% I would be with you, but if it had reforecast to over 10% then I would have pushed on, Keale Southbound is somewhere I generally try to avoid.

That would have been interesting to keep an eye on - didn't think of it at all though on that occasion and just put Keele in as the destination instead.

 

[blert]

Thanks for the replies everyone! I'm taking the opinion away that it was probably the right call until I'm at least more familiar with the car and how conditions may affect the range

 

[WannabeOwner]

It started preconditioning as soon as I left

That's probably part of the problem. Recently there have been reports of pre-conditioning starting very early (but occurring in steps, rather than being on flat-out) This can result in so much being used for preconditioning that SatNav then has to route to a closer Supercharger (if there is one).

Unless / until this changes you might want to navigate to "near" the Supercharger, so that preconditioning doesn't come on, and then change TO the Supercharger when, say, 30 minutes away

I work on the basis of arriving at Supercharger with somewhere between 10% and 20% . As I get closer I get more comfortable with 10%, or lower. If predicted arrival is falling to 10%-ish and I'm a long way out I slow down, if I'm getting close and I have more then I speed up. (At Supercharger the car will charge faster than the extra juice you used from driving faster [up to at least 90 MPH], so journey is quicker, over all). If I'm only 10 or 20 miles away I'm happy with predicted arrival being < 5%.

Charge at the Supercharger (which you can reach!) nearest to your destination. The Supercharger furthest away is the shortest distance to destination, and least contingency needed for that final/later "leg". Also, if you are held up in slow traffic / roadworks your consumption will be lower, and you will need less top-up. If you stop at an earlier Supercharger you are more likely to over-fill for contingency. If you get badly held up, and drive a significant portion at slow speed, you will only need a splash-and-dash, or may even be able to skip for a more distant Supercharger ... or even reach your destination without charging.

If predicted arrival SoC looks tight then:

Slow down! 50MPH uses significantly less juice than 70MPH.

Get behind a big truck. You don't have to be close, a safe follow distance is fine. Driving behind a truck will also prevent you from "just nudging the accelerator a bit" .... well "In my experience" it does ...

I think there are two out-of-range-journey scenarios:

#1 You need one re-charge stop. You cannot reach destination, but there is charging available on arrival. You only need to top-up just enough to get there. If that is a 50-mile top-up then you will only be stopped for 5 minutes or so. You don't need to fill-the-tank, like with ICE Assuming your destination electricity is overnight / cheap then you presumably don't want to pay for "extra contingency" at Supercharger prices.

When at Supercharger put destination into SatNav (if not already there) and use "Continue journey", then check the CONSUMPTION screen and the TRIP TAB. That will probably be showing predicted arrival "negative". As it goes up you can depart when it reaches, say, 10% predicted arrival (whatever you are comfortable with).

However, I have had legs where I have done that and arrived with far more than that (even without slow traffic / roadworks). On that particular trip ABetterRoutePlanner did have the right prediction, so I factor that in now - just in case the Car is over cautious. (Actually, thinking about that, the only time that has happened was at Calais, and I wonder if the car thought it had to drive through the tunnel!! ... anyway, I find having ABetterRoutePlanner's data helpful)

#2 You need to Supercharge twice, or multiple times, to get to your destination - a longer drive-charge-drive-charge journey.

ABetterRoutePlanner plans such that I arrive at next Supercharger at 10%. This is best for charging, as car charges fastest around 10%, but contingency is low. I prefer to charge to 70% (more only if the next leg requires it). I reckon, up to 70%, any inefficiency (i.e. best would be "charge less here, and more at next stop") is tiny, and I would prefer to have the contingency. A bit more here, a bit less at the next one.

Ideally I charge to 100% before departure, and then charge to 70-80% at each stop. That gives me a maximum motorway first leg of 3h and subsequent legs of 2h30m. In practice the Superchargers are not perfectly spaced, so each leg is 1h30m upwards, and very rarely the ideal 2h30m maximum.

If I have a stop for a meal I make sure to arrive at 10%, or less, and to charge to 95+%. That takes an hour and gives me time for a meal - and probably means I skip one stop during the overall trip.

Wet roads are evil. They use a lot of energy, and slowing down only fixes the Aero aspect. When we have Rapid Charging at every Services I may choose to go for minimum-charging, but until then I use a contingency-charging level that avoids squeaky-bum syndrome

 

[Adopado]

Wet roads are evil. They use a lot of energy, and slowing down only fixes the Aero aspect. When we have Rapid Charging at every Services I may choose to go for minimum-charging, but until then I use a contingency-charging level that avoids squeaky-bum syndrome

Good point for the uninitiated. It's bound to be pouring down when 42 hits the road and all bets are off with respect to the predicted range!

 

[UkNorthampton]

Good point for the uninitiated. It's bound to be pouring down when 42 hits the road and all bets are off with respect to the predicted range!

Cold wet air is dense and has more mass from the water, presumably water / tyres interact as well. People sometimes blame the cold/batteries, but Bjorn Nyland explains it well. I've forgotten a lot, it's just instinctive for me now to regard rain as range-reducing and act accordingly.

 

[Adopado]

Cold wet air is dense and has more mass from the water, presumably water / tyres interact as well. People sometimes blame the cold/batteries, but Bjorn Nyland explains it well. I've forgotten a lot, it's just instinctive for me now to regard rain as range-reducing and act accordingly.

Indeed, the increased drag on a really wet motorway with lying water must be horrendous!

 

[WannabeOwner]

Cold wet air is dense and has more mass from the water, presumably water / tyres interact as well.

Its pushing the water out of the way, mile after mile that takes the effort. Same thing with ICE too of course, just less noticeable when the tank range is 600 miles. Slowing down doesn't help - in the sense that its the same x-miles of water to be pushed out of the way.

Only time I nearly ran out was a lovely, warm, summer's day when I had over 100 miles of torrential thunderstorms / wet roads. Set off with a bit over 10% arrival prediction, slowed to 50 MPH when it looked a bit tricky ... no charging available on my route (back in 2016) ... got home on 1% and was doing 20 MPH by then !!

 

[WannabeOwner]

I will put the cahrge on 100% and presume that will put 370 miles on the clock (M3LR) but after two weeks of local driving I know that I am not getting anywhere near what's on the clock,; I reckon that for every 100 miles of charge the wheels are doing about 70 miles; that's all short local trips with lots of time parked up.

Help was provided about that journey in your earlier thread

Top up charging on route

I'm planning my first ever trip (in my (soon to be collected) M3 LR)) to visit family. This will be 200 miles south, then 100 miles east, then 200 miles north (home) over 3 days / 2 night. I will need to get 200 miles on the clock somewhere near Reading or somewhere along the M3 / M40 . . ...

teslamotorsclub.com

I am concerned you still appear to be planning to rely on WLTP Rated Miles for the journey.

Have you used ABetterRoutePlanner (details in that thread) to see what recommendations it makes for your route?

 

[Forty_Two]

I am concerned you still appear to be planning to rely on WLTP Rated Miles for the journey.

I am aslo 'concerned' . . . . when I buy something that is advertised and sold as delivering 374 mile I expect to get 374 miles in perfect conditions and I also expect that if poor conditions affected that number significantly (in excess of 20%) that this would be in large print alongsaide the 374 miles.

I expect this car to get me 200 miles to my destination without needing a charge . . . I will know the answer to that sometime on Thursday

 

[blert]

That's probably part of the problem. Recently there have been reports of pre-conditioning starting very early (but occurring in steps, rather than being on flat-out) This can result in so much being used for preconditioning that SatNav then has to route to a closer Supercharger (if there is one).

Whole post is very useful thank you

For that journey I put in my home address and it started the preconditioning as soon as the route was calculated with the SuC stop in it. Would be a pain to have to edit the journey to remove the SuC and add a 'near SuC' but will keep it in mind for the future - definitely easier to edit the route than end up a few % short

 

[UkNorthampton]

I am aslo 'concerned' . . . . when I buy something that is advertised and sold as delivering 374 mile I expect to get 374 miles in perfect conditions and I also expect that if poor conditions affected that number significantly (in excess of 20%) that this would be in large print alongsaide the 374 miles.

I expect this car to get me 200 miles to my destination without needing a charge . . . I will know the answer to that sometime on Thursday

"when I buy something that has a range measured by government standards, knowing that the manufacturer has to use those standards in the UK and has absolutely no choice (and I've been repeatedly told that the standard is nonsense for EVs and ICE) as delivering 374 mile I would be mad to expect to get 374 miles in perfect conditions or just obstinate and thinking government fiat beats physics"

Just be sensible and use ABRP. If your ICE car had a WLTP range of 400 miles but really only did 300 on motorways would you be thinking the same? No, you'd look at the fuel gauge. Well, the car does this for you and plans a series of stops - conservatively.

Once you've done a few journeys, you'll appreciate that Teslas and EVs in general are overall a superior experience and stopping every 3(?) hours isn't a big deal. The car will route you. You'll be fine if you adhere to its plan or to ABRP. It'll take a few minutes to do ABRP, go to your car and plan the route and compare. Once someone has levelled up and got a few journeys under their belt, they can push the envelope. It's entirely sensible to overplan a first long journey with new tech. Doing 600 miles a day in a Tesla on the continent is very easy. UK, I've had enough after about 300 miles, but can go further. The car certainly can.

When I was at high altitude, going down to the coast, 50% charge would have got me 5+ hours driving and hundreds of miles. When I go to the seaside I get above EPA range as roads so slow. When I'm on autobahn's unrestricted speed roads and flashing high end Mercs to make way for the future, I/family still have to stop for a pee more often than the car needs to charge. WLTP not realistic though.

The charging pains for me are:

1. Not enough chargers in some less populated areas of UK - this will improve and Gridserve (replacing unreliable kit) / Instavolt (slow but reliable) help
2. UK's congestion, perma-roadworks mean that a Supercharger just slightly off my route takes time to get to
3. Car charges too fast at times (meals, whole family processed)
4. Sometimes a pain to find chargers located in hotels/services' one-way systems, once missed have to be inventive to get back
5. Normal UK stuff - parking trickery, not best locations. I've found superchargers in Europe a lot better (except Italy, better now). Free coffee and even cake once, very friendly and helpful.

Everything else is wonderful, charged car every day, preheated/cooled. Effortless one-pedal driving.

I've changed a few settings, the TACC speed one I've changed to be the speed I'm going rather than the GPS speeds - again roadworks and inaccuracies in mapping mess it up and it can unexpectedly speed up or slow down - I prefer manually setting it.

I wish you many wonderful and low-effort journeys.

 

[WannabeOwner]

Would be a pain to have to edit the journey to remove the SuC and add a 'near SuC'

Agreed, but I have a method that I find "acceptable"

Click on the Supercharger PIN. SatNav calculates the route.

Cancel that route.

Now Zoom right in on the Supercharger "pin" area. Click-and-hold somewhere nearby (ie within the service centre - that will in effect be navigate "To" the Supercharger location, just not specifically to it such that Pre-conditioning is triggered). A "Navigate there" option / button will appear. Click that.

That is now your current destination. However, both that, and the previous route to the Supercharger, are in the Recent History. So its easy to change between them (when you are driving) by clicking on NAVIGATE and then instead of typing the destination name in, or trying to pan / zoom to a Supercharger PIN, you can just click on the appropriate entry in the History.

You could also navigate to some other possible alternative superchargers, i.e. before you set off, so that they too are in Recent History.

 

[Forty_Two]

If you type your destination into the navigation at the start of your journey and then look at the Energy Graph it will give you a pretty accurate idea of how you can expect the consumption to work for that particular trip.

Thanks - Where do I find the 'energy graph' ?

 

[Adopado]

Thanks - Where do I find the 'energy graph' ?

With the apps ... its icon is a little graph. It can either be used with a "trip" with a specific destination that you have previously added in the navigation or if you don't have a specific trip in the navigation you can look at the general consumption over the past few miles and it gives some predictions about your remaining range. It's well worth becoming familiar with this feature as it gives you a good idea of how energy is used and how that affects range.

 

[UkNorthampton]

Thanks - Where do I find the 'energy graph' ?

57:53 minutes -

(at timestamp)

Probably worth watching whole video (for most people) at some point.

He's pinned it to the bottom row (he shows how to do this towards start of video) - normally I think it's on the apps tab / (...) but can't find a picture/video - in the manual it's described as an APP (application)- Model Y Owner's Manual | Tesla

When navigating generally/looking for superchargers.... on mine, I have to touch the map to see map orientation symbol next to navigation input text box (defaults to North rather than my preference for "direction of travel" for me) or to see the supercharger/navigation icons on the left of the map. In the past (I may have misremembered), navigation/orientation icons were always shown

 

[Adopado]

With the apps ... its icon is a little graph. It can either be used with a "trip" with a specific destination that you have previously added in the navigation or if you don't have a specific trip in the navigation you can look at the general consumption over the past few miles and it gives some predictions about your remaining range. It's well worth becoming familiar with this feature as it gives you a good idea of how energy is used and how that affects range.

... or you can press the right side steering wheel button and say "show energy graph" or "hide energy graph"

 

[HenryT]

Going back to the OP's point about potentially arriving with 3% based on predicted energy use, it surprises me that the pre-conditioning should still kick in straight away. I would have expected the pre-conditioning should be a lower priority than arriving at the destination with a safe enough margin for error.

It may be that that issue is something the latest software update has addressed, as I think pre-conditioning was mentioned in the notes? Either way, I think there ought to be a minimum level of charge 'protected' (say 5% or so), with pre-conditioning being secondary to that.

 

[Peteski]

My first Tesla/EV (MY) which I've now had for only a little over a month so still learning!

I was driving from Liverpool to Gloucester recently and the nav suggested that I charge at Hilton Park. It started preconditioning as soon as I left and predicted arriving with 3% SoC. This was at about 10pm and outside temp was 6 degrees. I decided to stop at Keele instead arriving with about 18% SoC and topped up enough there to get home.

Curious as to whether more experienced people would say I was too cautious by chickening out of following the satnav's plan or if you would have done the same?

You did the right thing for sure. As a general rule I try to keep 20% in reserve if feasible and try not to arrive at stops below 10%. I certainly wouldn't plan a stop at 3% if easily avoidable.

In the odd situation where I have been forced to run close to the wire (only a handful of times over 4 years and all with a much shorter range MX 75D) I slow down a fair bit and closely monitor the real time energy graph to make sure I am on target to make it to the stop.

 

[Adopado]

Going back to the OP's point about potentially arriving with 3% based on predicted energy use, it surprises me that the pre-conditioning should still kick in straight away. I would have expected the pre-conditioning should be a lower priority than arriving at the destination with a safe enough margin for error.

It may be that that issue is something the latest software update has addressed, as I think pre-conditioning was mentioned in the notes? Either way, I think there ought to be a minimum level of charge 'protected' (say 5% or so), with pre-conditioning being secondary to that.

In theory the car shouldn't precondition when lower than 20% ... so these situations should be avoided ... I suspect the problem potentially arises if the car starts preconditioning way too early in your journey (when still above 20%) but uses enough to scupper reaching the intended Supercharger!

 

[blert]

Going back to the OP's point about potentially arriving with 3% based on predicted energy use, it surprises me that the pre-conditioning should still kick in straight away. I would have expected the pre-conditioning should be a lower priority than arriving at the destination with a safe enough margin for error.

It may be that that issue is something the latest software update has addressed, as I think pre-conditioning was mentioned in the notes? Either way, I think there ought to be a minimum level of charge 'protected' (say 5% or so), with pre-conditioning being secondary to that.

Preconditioning always seems to start as soon as I have a route with SuC stop in the satnav even when that's an hour or more away. I've no idea whether it's actively doing anything for all of that time as opposed to just being an acknowledgement that it will try to make sure the battery is up to temperature though.