Hi to cmc5dc and others towing with a Model X, we are leaving for Utah tomorrow. The trip will be Orange County, CA to Barstow supercharger (SC), then to Primm, NV SC, top off again at the Las Vegas SC, finally to St. George, Utah. Our destination is Zion National Park the next day, where we will stay several days and then return (the Moab trip will be in the future).
Since my last post, we took a trip from OC to El Capitan State Beach north of Santa Barbara, and after a short stay then up to the Buellton SC before driving back. Using the hill climbs on the 101 to Camarillo and from Gaviota up to the Santa Ynez valley and back, we calculated power consumption (KWh/mi) versus climb rate (ft/mile) at 55 mi/hr speed. Power consumption climbing, pulling our 3300 lb Trailmanor 3023 ranged from a high of 1.83 KWh/mi going over the hill by Camarillo, to a low of 1.08 Kwh/mi from Buellton over the hill to Gaviota. (I wrote 2500 lb weight for the Trailmanor on the last post, but research tells me it is more like 3300-3500. Our Model X has 90KWh battery.) I plotted these points, and they formed a straight line that intersects the Y axis (zero climb, level driving) at power consumption of .582 KWh/mi, which was what we calculated to be the overall average for the entire round trip. Using this graph of power consumption per mile versus climb rate, I measured distance between points along the I-15 freeway from Barstow to St. George and changes in elevation, and then calculated estimated power consumption between the points. I used an estimate of .35 KWh/mi on the downhill segments, and .582 KWh/mi on the flatter segments. This chart of estimated power consumption shows me that after I leave Barstow, I will need to stop at Primm and not try to make it to the Las Vegas SC, because the power needed from Barstow to LV SC would be a bit over 90 KWh. It also tells me I will need to top off the battery again at the Las Vegas SC to make it with a comfortable amount of charge left to St. George.
We found it quite easy, with my son helping me, to unhook our trailer from the Model X and pull into the supercharger spots. Not that we won't look forward to supercharger stations with pull-through spots, see this link
First look at Tesla’s new Supercharger layout concept
We will be reporting along the way using Twitter and Periscope. The topic of our posts on Twitter and videos on Periscope will be ModelX-Trailmanor.
Wish us luck!