I had to make a run across Florida and back today. I towed my Honda Africa Twin on a single motorcycle trailer. It started at about 73F and no AC to pretty hot and in the 80's an hour into my trip. I was on a lot of 2 lane roads running 65 mph and some highways where I was 70-75 mph.
My overall impressions are the MY is an amazing tow vehicle. Even when down to 20%, it still had excellent acceleration. The range impact was bad but not as bad as I thought it would be. The bike stuck up quite a bit higher than the car based on all the flying love bugs that impacted the windscreen. Most painful part of the trip was the damn superchargers and too short cables. They clearly weren't designed for towing. Not a single one was long enough so I could nose in. Fortunately I picked ones were I could pull really close and get the side of the car close enough to charge.
Too much tonque weight for me to unload the trailer from the hitch by myself. Fortunately I was able to work around it as shown in the picture below. I would have moved if more people showed up but I was able to get in and out with about 15-20 min charges and keep moving.
The absolute worst part of the trip was the cursed phantom braking. Out of nowhere, TACC slams on the brakes and someone almost rear ended me on a two lane road. If I hadn't got on the gas quickly it would have been an accident. A minute later the guy passes me yelling and honking at me. I gave up counting after 30 phantom braking events. It probably was close to 50 by the end. It got to the point I barely trusted it.
It clearly has issues where there is light to dark with shadows across the road. One one 5 mile stretch it braked 10 times! I had phantom braking on other cars, but never like this. Even on the interstate going over an overpass at 75 mph it braked with a semi behind me. WTH? How the hell could I ever trust autopilot if it can't even get braking right. Instead of making my trip easier, it was a constant source of stress. I would have been much happier with dumb cruise control than this piece of garbage.
The rest of the car was amazing. Efficiency was pretty good. I average 400 wh/mi for about 310 miles. AC was on 73F for about 80% of the trip with a fan speed average of 4.5. The car drove straight and true and I hardly ever noticed the trailer behind me other than charging. I wouldn't mind about a 30% bigger battery pack for towing. On one leg I was getting a bit anxious about charge level. I was hitting a lot of hills and seemed to have a headwin on top of.
I can say a better route planner really helped a lot. So much better than the default dumb Tesla charger/trip routing. It was my first time using it for a longer trip and it was really useful once I figured out how to use it effectively for my route. After I tweaked a few parameters, it was almost dead on for my expected charge level at each stop. It might have been a touch pessimistic by about 1% but that is better than the other. It is definitely worth the subcription fee.
My overall impressions are the MY is an amazing tow vehicle. Even when down to 20%, it still had excellent acceleration. The range impact was bad but not as bad as I thought it would be. The bike stuck up quite a bit higher than the car based on all the flying love bugs that impacted the windscreen. Most painful part of the trip was the damn superchargers and too short cables. They clearly weren't designed for towing. Not a single one was long enough so I could nose in. Fortunately I picked ones were I could pull really close and get the side of the car close enough to charge.
Too much tonque weight for me to unload the trailer from the hitch by myself. Fortunately I was able to work around it as shown in the picture below. I would have moved if more people showed up but I was able to get in and out with about 15-20 min charges and keep moving.
The absolute worst part of the trip was the cursed phantom braking. Out of nowhere, TACC slams on the brakes and someone almost rear ended me on a two lane road. If I hadn't got on the gas quickly it would have been an accident. A minute later the guy passes me yelling and honking at me. I gave up counting after 30 phantom braking events. It probably was close to 50 by the end. It got to the point I barely trusted it.
It clearly has issues where there is light to dark with shadows across the road. One one 5 mile stretch it braked 10 times! I had phantom braking on other cars, but never like this. Even on the interstate going over an overpass at 75 mph it braked with a semi behind me. WTH? How the hell could I ever trust autopilot if it can't even get braking right. Instead of making my trip easier, it was a constant source of stress. I would have been much happier with dumb cruise control than this piece of garbage.
The rest of the car was amazing. Efficiency was pretty good. I average 400 wh/mi for about 310 miles. AC was on 73F for about 80% of the trip with a fan speed average of 4.5. The car drove straight and true and I hardly ever noticed the trailer behind me other than charging. I wouldn't mind about a 30% bigger battery pack for towing. On one leg I was getting a bit anxious about charge level. I was hitting a lot of hills and seemed to have a headwin on top of.
I can say a better route planner really helped a lot. So much better than the default dumb Tesla charger/trip routing. It was my first time using it for a longer trip and it was really useful once I figured out how to use it effectively for my route. After I tweaked a few parameters, it was almost dead on for my expected charge level at each stop. It might have been a touch pessimistic by about 1% but that is better than the other. It is definitely worth the subcription fee.
| 7 Drives |
| Total Miles Driven | 307.98 |
| Rated Miles Used | 575.71 |
| Efficiency | 53.5 % |
| Time Driven | 8 Hours 25 Minutes |
| kWh Used | 121.84 kWh |
| Wh/Mile | 396 Wh |
| Total Cost | $ 12.8 |
| Total Gas Savings | $ 30.09 |
| Average Temp | 84.7 F |
