Ugh. 36 minutes to charge 110mi at a Supercharger (1.5 hours including drive of 24 miles roundtrip)

[Silicon Desert]

Nearest SC is about 12mi away. Not a big deal. First charger charged fine for about 5min. Being new, I sat there thinking it'll get better. Unplug, plug. Unplug, plug. Went to a different station. No green light of joy. Actually, no light at all except for the red "Tesla" which should mean that station has juice. Moved to another. Ditto.

Finally after moving to a fourth one, I got a lovely green blinking T. And then it took me 36min to charge.

1.5hrs. door-to-door to charge.

2 more weeks until wall charger arrives. Ugh.

If I understand correctly about what you said as compared to the thread title, then the title is misleading. It is making me thin it took you 90 minutes of charging to gain 110 mile, but actually you say that is door to door travel, so I have no idea how much charge time it really did take to get that 110 miles. Do I understand that correctly?

 

[dhiltonp]

If I understand correctly about what you said as compared to the thread title, then the title is misleading. It is making me thin it took you 90 minutes of charging to gain 110 mile, but actually you say that is door to door travel, so I have no idea how much charge time it really did take to get that 110 miles. Do I understand that correctly?

It took 36 minutes at the charger, it's in the OP.

 

[tccartier]

But by your miles logic, if you start a 90 mile trip with 100 miles remaining, you will get there. Not so fast my friend. Only if you drive according to EPA. If you are over 60mph with any wind or terrain you will not get there. You will need to use “fuzzy logic” to determine how far you can actually go. If you only get 70 miles before you hit zero, yes it will show 0 but that doesn’t help you when an hour ago it said 100 and you are in the middle of nowhere with no chargers around. Either way you need to understand that what is indicated is not how far you will actually go. Whether you let the car mislead you with x miles or you use your own brain to convert % to how far you normally drive it ends up being the same. The reason most people use % is so they don’t get stuck on “I can make it x miles because the car says so” and then find out they can’t make it. Again.

Well the same thing applies to your guesstimation in your head when you look at X percentage on your screen and you say ah that's no problem I can drive 100 miles on that you may well come up short also? Not sure what you're trying to say.

It's not strictly limited to an EPA fixed algorithm If you have a destination plugged into the navigation. It will continue to update and tell you what percentage you will arrive with be it in miles or whatever and the information is available in the energy screen as well if you use it. Not sure why you don't think that the car isn't capable of updating this information on the fly, it absolutely is. And if you're not going to make it the car will give you a message and tell you so. Or that you need to slow down need additional charging or whatever to reach your destination.

 

[tccartier]

The fuzzy logic I use is to put it in the Nav and see what % I'll have left when I get to the destination. And then when driving see whether that percent goes up or down. All I ever think about is time and % charge. I never even check how many miles I'm going to be driving just the % charge estimate and the time estimate, so seeing miles displayed in the car means nothing to me.

Exactly! then that means you are using the same fuzzy logic as those who have their display in miles because when you put the destination into the navigation system you are not simply just looking at x percentage remaining and guessing in your brain that your car can go that far. You are entering it into the navigation so at that point it doesn't matter whether you're display is set to miles or percentage the feedback you get from the car will tell you what percentage and or miles you will arrive at your destination with.

 

[SYLotusElise]

But by your miles logic, if you start a 90 mile trip with 100 miles remaining, you will get there. Not so fast my friend. Only if you drive according to EPA. If you are over 60mph with any wind or terrain you will not get there. You will need to use “fuzzy logic” to determine how far you can actually go. If you only get 70 miles before you hit zero, yes it will show 0 but that doesn’t help you when an hour ago it said 100 and you are in the middle of nowhere with no chargers around. Either way you need to understand that what is indicated is not how far you will actually go. Whether you let the car mislead you with x miles or you use your own brain to convert % to how far you normally drive it ends up being the same. The reason most people use % is so they don’t get stuck on “I can make it x miles because the car says so” and then find out they can’t make it. Again.

So, the mileage is a serving suggestion, and the %-age is a list of ingredients. In any case, guests try my souffle at their peril!

Oh, and I just went for a charge at the same station. Charging took substantially less time, and all stalls were open. So perhaps the short charge time was because of recently-maintained equipment. I think it took me about 20min to get from 130mi to 293mi. The last two miles took 2minutes-ish.

And as an added bonus in our nutty nutty world, someone had left a (presumably used) condom on the ground in the charging stall. I suppose one must find diversions during the wait, eh? I wonder if we can inject the "leave no trace" ethos to urban areas? I mean, I'm happy for the folks getting some, but I'd rather it be none of my business.

 

[PatinCT]

Both % and miles are garbage and are more misleading than they are useful. My daughter lives 234 miles r/t from my house and there's no way in the world my 1 year old MY makes it at 65mph when charged to 100%.

 

[SYLotusElise]

I've always taken ICE fuel gauges as suggestions rather than exact, so I'm pretty forgiving about the MY's mileage and capacity gauges as well.

My question is are the predictors linear or do they follow some kind of curve? For example, on every car I've ever owned, the first quarter tank was probably 1/3 of the tank. The next 1/2 tank was probably accurate, but the last 1/4 went by real fast. Does anyone have an opinion as to the MY or Tesla generally?

 

[bo3bdar]

If you want a graph that is far more accurate than % or miles display, bring up the trip consumption graph. Bottom nav bar, in the 'extras' up arrow section.

If you set a destination, it will show you what it thinks it will use over the entire trip, in a predicted battery graph. It updates based on SOC, so it takes into account variables like how fast you are going, uphill/downhill, a headwind, and temperature. When I was doing some longer distance travel the estimates were spot on +/- 1% from the original prediction when I arrived. I'm fairly certain that it uses data from other people who have driven that same path.


Random example from web:

 

[kavyboy]

If you want a graph that is far more accurate than % or miles display, bring up the trip consumption graph. Bottom nav bar, in the 'extras' up arrow section.

If you set a destination, it will show you what it thinks it will use over the entire trip, in a predicted battery graph. It updates based on SOC, so it takes into account variables like how fast you are going, uphill/downhill, a headwind, and temperature. When I was doing some longer distance travel the estimates were spot on +/- 1% from the original prediction when I arrived. I'm fairly certain that it uses data from other people who have driven that same path.


Random example from web:

Yes, this is absolutely the best way to do road trips. If that colored line starts dropping below the grey one, slow down!

 

[roblab]

WHICH ONE?!?! Seriously, dude! If you have encountered a Supercharger location that is having that much trouble, you are being really annoying not letting people know which place this is.

It might also be nice to take out your sharpie and make a quick note on the charger that it's not working. I mean, let's help each other out, right?

 

[roblab]

Exactly! then that means you are using the same fuzzy logic as those who have their display in miles because when you put the destination into the navigation system you are not simply just looking at x percentage remaining and guessing in your brain that your car can go that far. You are entering it into the navigation so at that point it doesn't matter whether you're display is set to miles or percentage the feedback you get from the car will tell you what percentage and or miles you will arrive at your destination with.

YES! Any newbie driver needs to practice with the displayed miles vs. reality of his own driving and his local terrain before making wild guesses as to how far a charge will take him. Many many people have run out of charge just up the road from a supercharger and had to get a flatbed called because they were only a block or so away from the chargers.

 

[bo3bdar]

It might also be nice to take out your sharpie and make a quick note on the charger that it's not working. I mean, let's help each other out, right?

Looks like the informal protocol in my area is to throw the cable on the ground instead of putting it back on the hook. If you see one where the cable is down, this is why.

Better than a sharpie- call the Tesla phone number that is on the station and report it broken. They are pretty good about sending people out to fix.

 

[Mrbrock]

I think I’ve read that Tesla needs the cables plugged in to the holster to do remote analysis on what’s wrong so leave them unplugged or looped over the top is not helpful.

 

[Mrbrock]

Both % and miles are garbage and are more misleading than they are useful. My daughter lives 234 miles r/t from my house and there's no way in the world my 1 year old MY makes it at 65mph when charged to 100%.

What is your indicated average wh/mi? You’d need to be over 333 to deplete 78kwh over less than 234 miles. EPA rating is based on 280wh/mi and I believe that includes charging losses so it is the amount of electricity as metered coming from source, not what is stored in the battery. So the car should report a bit less than the EPA rating so your car would be operating at least 20% less efficient than it was rated. Is the trip flat?

 

[tccartier]

Both % and miles are garbage and are more misleading than they are useful. My daughter lives 234 miles r/t from my house and there's no way in the world my 1 year old MY makes it at 65mph when charged to 100%.

When you enter your daughter's house as your destination does your car navigation tell you that it can't make it?

 

[Rocky_H]

The fuzzy logic I use is to put it in the Nav and see what % I'll have left when I get to the destination.

That is for road tripping. The point of the normal everyday use around town is when you have three or four places to go, and don't usually use navigation around town most of the time. Let us know when Tesla decides to implement multi-stop waypoints into their navigation. If you have to go a few places and have a general idea about how far that is, then you can look at the rated miles and see about how far that is, and get an idea right off.

But by your miles logic, if you start a 90 mile trip with 100 miles remaining, you will get there.

Bull$%&^. I'm going to give people a little credit for not being that completely stupid and reckless.
Rated miles is something that's a little more immediately understandable than %, but planning for everything to be perfect all the time and go with absolutely no margin for error is just someone's moronic mistake and has nothing to do with the choice of either rated miles per percentage. If I do have 90 miles of driving around, I'd better have at least 120-130 or so for that to be reasonable.

 

[Tman317]

The problem today is just having to go through the effort of determining if the vehicle can make it from point A to point B. In an ICE vehicle you just go knowing there is always a place to get gas. Also knowing the size of your gas tank and mpg you can come pretty close to knowing ahead of time about how far the car will go. We are years away from that as superchargers need to be everywhere. My MY doesn't get anywhere near the 300+ miles as advertised. I charged to 95% and took a round trip 260 miles and could not do that w/o charging. I charged to 180 miles and got home 120 miles with only 20 miles left and 8% charge.

 

[tonyb99]

What most fail to see is that the percent remaining indication is a false indication of the distance you can travel also. it only tells you how much fuel is in the tank it does not tell you how fast you're going to use it. If you drive 55 mph you're going to go farther on a half a tank of gas then you're going to go if you're driving 120 miles per hour or if you're in a headwind or if you're facing extremely cold weather or rain or anything, point is it's no different. The fuel in the tank is the fuel in the tank that does not change no matter what metric you use to look at it. And the rate of consumption is the variable.

The miles indicated on the miles to empty display is the same. That is based on how those miles are driven if you're going 90 mph the distance to empty number indicated will not be accurate at the end of the day. But it will adjust as you're driving. Meaning it will count those remaining miles down faster at 100 mph then it would if you were driving 55 mph. So when you actually run out of gas your miles to empty indication will be zero.

So the miles to empty or remaining range indication in an electric vehicle for all intents and purposes is as accurate as the miles to empty indication in any vehicle. They account for as many variables as feasible and display the amount of miles that will likely be able to be achieved.

I would argue that that is more accurate than any fuzzy logic one could have in their head looking at 50% and thinking okay that will get me from A to b

Exactly. Miles remaining is in fact, for me, more useful than % remaining. It is directly calculated from the % remaining using the EPA estimate. You then just need to recognize that you will obtain a different range from the EPA, taking into account your driving style, the route (uphill/downhill), the climate etc. There are two camps and they just continue to argue their case. Pick one and live with it.

 

[Mrbrock]

Exactly. Miles remaining is in fact, for me, more useful than % remaining. It is directly calculated from the % remaining using the EPA estimate. You then just need to recognize that you will obtain a different range from the EPA, taking into account your driving style, the route (uphill/downhill), the climate etc. There are two camps and they just continue to argue their case. Pick one and live with it.

So you are converting percent to miles by an EPA constant and the using your knowledge of how you drive and what consumption is to calculate how far you can actually go. Why involve miles and EPA at all, it a wasted extra step. You can just as easily determine that 50% will get you 120 miles as you know that converting 50% to 163 miles to your driving style is 120 miles.

I know my round trip for work is about 30%. If I went off miles it would never be the same because it is uphill to work. So much easier to know that I need at least 30% plus whatever buffer to get home. Using miles would be a constantly changing target if it is based on recent driving style.

 

[dhiltonp]

... Using miles would be a constantly changing target if it is based on recent driving style.

It would be, but it's not. The mile estimate that replaces battery percentage takes the remaining battery kWh and multiplies it by the EPA rated miles/kWh.