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

Total trip time calculator depending on speed and charging

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
Hi guys,

I think I remember coming across a spreadsheet that was calculating the most efficient way to go from point a to point b taking into account the speed: is it faster to go from a to b at 130km/h and charge twice or at 90km/h and charge once.

I tried to search on my tapatalk app but I can never find anything good with it.

Do you guys recall what I am talking about?

Thanks
 
... is it faster to go from a to b at 130km/h and charge twice or at 90km/h and charge once.

I don't have a link to a site or spread sheet that does it automatically. I had the same question, though and did some calculations on my own based on Superchargers and normal chargers.

The ideal drive speed seems to be a little over the charge speed. Say you have a single charger (10 kW - 30 miles/h) then your ideal speed would be aprox 50 mph. If you drive slower you use less energy which speeds up charging but the drive itself takes longer. Running all kind of different speeds it turned out around 50 mph is the perfect speed to drive at.

With Superchargers it's different. They charge much much faster. The best overall driving speed is around 80-90 mph. It depends a little on your battery size and the distance between the Superchargers. The smaller your battery and the longer the distance between two Superchargers, the more you will end up having to charge into the higher levels of your battery where even a Superchargers gets slower. If you go 100 you will obviously save time driving, but you end up needing to charge to 90 or 100% and that takes a lot more time than say charging only to 70%. So you end up spending the time charging that you won by going 100.


Here is my little spread sheet. I used EVTripPlaner to get accurate energy consumption data. I assumed a distance of 100 miles between charging station.
1. column is the speed you are driving at
2. column tine (in Minutes) it takes to drive 100 miles
3. column is energy usage at this speed
4. column is how many minutes you have to charge to get the used energy back at 7 kW (average public charger)
5. column is how much total energy you use driving at the specific speed
6. column is the total time it took (driving and charging) at 7 kW
the rest of the columns are showing the numbers for 20 kW (dual charger) and Superchargers (at an average power of 90 kW)

Red marks the fastest overall time.

drive-charge.JPG
 
Last edited: