Trip Planning

[O-G]

Since after 3+ years I'm finally getting close to having my MX, I've been trying to plan some road trips. I understand that the car has some internal route planning ability, calculates range to next supercharger, etc. but even when I have the car, I would like to be able to look at potential trips, check routes, times, points of interest before jumping in the car. Is there any ability to use the tesla trip planning software from an app or desktop computer? I've looked at evtripplanner.com, it seems okay but not great. What does anyone else use for planning while not sitting in the car?

 

[Discoducky]

evtripplanner is the best I've found. I'm assuming you find it lacking? Could you be more specific as it takes into account the major environmental range reducers.

Would be cool if you could access it the same thing via the mytelsa web page or phone app and then transfer that to the car easily, but maybe in the future...

 

[Phil Seastrand]

If you have Microsoft Streets & Trips, it is possible to create "pushpins" for each of the superchargers. You have to go to supercharge.info and download the data, then import it into Streets & Trips. It's a little tedious, but it works. Once you have the pushpins, you can create your route and include the necessary superchargers in the route. Note that you'll have to verify the range by hand, so it might not be that useful. I've started creating our "around the USA" trip using this technique.

 

[ptsagcy]

Initially there were reports of horrendous bugs in the Supercharger planning algorithms in the nav system. It was taking folks hundreds of miles off course or looping them back to the SC they just left. Does anyone know if those bugs have been fixed and whether the software is more reliable and useable?

 

[O-G]

evtripplanner is the best I've found. I'm assuming you find it lacking? Could you be more specific as it takes into account the major environmental range reducers....

I have discovered after working with this a bit more that part of the problem is that I almost always work on an iPad. I pulled up the evtripplanner on my desktop computer and found it to work better, found some functions that don't work at all on the iPad. Even on the desktop though, some issues. I add and delete charging points but the details don't change. Is there a way to do a refresh? Also, it would be really nice to be able to print things off in the detail level selected. If I download, I get all the details.

 

[ohmman]

I use a pretty rudimentary method. Google Maps will pin your waypoints if you search for "Tesla Supercharger _______" where you fill in the blank with the city. It knows most of the ones that are operational, but not the ones in permit or construction stage. Still, this doesn't account for elevation and range, so evtripplanner is better. Google works fine for me, though, and it's fast and flexible.

Maybe run down to your local AAA office and ask if they can make you some range maps. Remember the days where you got maps and a guy traced them with a highlighter, then added turn-by-turn detail maps? Amazing how much more we have now.

 

[Trnsl8r]

You can also use supercharge.info to plan routes. It includes future supercharger sites, in categories "build permit" and "under construction" to give you a vague idea of when they may be operational, and with some trickery you can add the sites as waypoints.

 

[madodel]

The biggest problem for me is that there is a huge gap in Pennsylvania where there are no SCs. They have a couple permitted in the eastern part of the state, but none until Somerset which is in Western PA. I'd have to either go South through Maryland or North through NY and Canada to go west beyond PA. When are they going to build a SC in central PA or at least in Harrisburg? Granted there isn't much of anything out there, but as of now there is no way to cross the state.

 

[gfb107]

This is a worthwhile discussion, but it isn't specific to the Model X. Can the thread be moved to a more appropriate sub-forum?

 

[Mark Z]

The best part of using supercharge.info are the accurate miles displayed after you click a red dot and select "add to route" for each Supercharger location on your route. The list of locations that Tesla Motors lists on the vertical touch screen indicate miles "as the crow flies" (geodesic distance) and not as the Model S or X drives.

For accurate road miles in Model S or X, you must start the navigation process to see the results, and it only works from your current location. For road trip planning, using supercharge.info has made the difference in knowing the exact miles between Superchargers before driving one mile in Model S or X.

 

[Ugliest1]

Since a spreadsheet is the answer to everything, that's how I plan trips. It's a little more work but I view that as having fun anticipating the trip. It also gives me the opportunity to look around and figure out if we want to take side trips while in an area, and roughly plan lunch breaks and overall timing. I use EVTripPlanner to get the estimated rated range, and once we are under way we have our general step-by-step plan that can easily be modified off the cuff. The other advantage is it gives us an idea which days are going to be heavy distance days, since we now like about 500-700km (300-400mi) travel day, not a lot more. With the spreadsheet, I didn't even notice the buggy 6.2 Nav choices since we were only plugging in the "next" supercharger or destination point. As Nav improves and superchargers multiply this approach may become more effort than its worth -- for now, it feels useful to me.