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We are still a long way from the convenience of gas stations

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gnuarm

Model X 100 with 72 amp chargers
Recently I had a long day of traveling in my model X. I had to drive 125 miles to visit with family then completing my trip driving to the airport where the car would be left for a week. I used ABRP to plan the trip, but while it is infinitely better than the car's planner which can't do anything past one destination, it doesn't predict the future and has no idea of the actual usage that will be encountered.

In the end, the problem I ran into was about time. On the way to my first destination I checked the airport delays and they were up to 3 hours for TSA. I've never seen TSA take more than 30 minutes at this airport even traveling every week. So I bumped up my arrival time by an hour which means I'm now pressed for time.

On leaving my family, the car route planner said to drive straight to the airport with less than 10% remaining on arrival. I knew I would need to charge and there was an SC some 10 miles from the airport. So I selected the charger as the destination. I can't figure out why the car sometimes insists I charge well before my arrival and other times it doesn't recommend charging at all!???

On reaching the 250 W charger I could only get 80 kW into the battery. I have to assume this is due to the battery being cold. But why would it not have warmed the battery? Because the arrival charge was below 20% I assume. So driving 2 and a half hours in the morning, a 2 hour break and another hour of driving in the afternoon was not enough to enable a reasonable charging rate. This is the sort of stuff that will not endear people to owning and driving EVs.

The issues of driving ICE are well known after more than 100 years of use. The issues of owning and driving EVs are not nearly as well known by the typical person. Maybe in another 20 or 40 years EVs won't have the same problems, but for sure now they are much less convenient than ICE. Heck, this could have easily been mitigated by the car understanding these issues and suggesting that I preheat the battery while eating and charge when leaving my family (about 1 mile from a supercharger) so I could get the benefit of a faster charge. But the car has no concept of anything other than getting me to the immediate destination and provides no means of helping me see the problem coming.

Oh, someone remind me, how exactly do I preheat the battery? What do I turn on and what do I turn off and what are all the various preconditions to it actually working?
 
I'm sorry, I'm not really understanding the complaint here. What actually went wrong? Did you miss your flight because the car took too long to charge?

FWIW: 80 kW should have been able to charge up that 125 mile leg in about 25 minutes. No, it's not 250, but it's hard imagining that in an environment with a +/- 3 hour TSA delay a single half hour is really the critical problem.

But to answer your question: you preheat the battery by setting the supercharger as a destination in the in-car navigation, either directly or as a displayed charging stop in a longer itinerary.
 
I'm sorry, I'm not really understanding the complaint here. What actually went wrong? Did you miss your flight because the car took too long to charge?

FWIW: 80 kW should have been able to charge up that 125 mile leg in about 25 minutes. No, it's not 250, but it's hard imagining that in an environment with a +/- 3 hour TSA delay a single half hour is really the critical problem.

But to answer your question: you preheat the battery by setting the supercharger as a destination in the in-car navigation, either directly or as a displayed charging stop in a longer itinerary.

I don't understand your comment about the TSA delay being long meaning there is plenty of time to spare for charging.

Yes, I got enough charge on the car that it won't crap out waiting for me to return. I was trying to get enough charge on the car so it wouldn't be any problem and I could forget about it. Instead I got a surprise!

Not sure what 125 miles has to do with it. I had enough time to bring the car up to about 55% which was the minimum I consider acceptable. Even that is not the point.

The point is EVs are full of surprises. Some we need to learn about and adapt to. Others need to be better hidden. We are a long way from EVs being acceptable to the main stream.

I'll also point out that we need a LOT more charging stops. I can gas up a car every mile in urban areas and every 10 miles anywhere other than the Texas panhandle sort of locations. The route between the restaurant and the airport had exactly two charging stations, one by the restaurant and one by the airport some 50-60 miles apart. Had I selected one a bit closer the car would have heated the battery. Yeah, they're working on more charging stations, but they are also opening them up to other vehicles. I saw a Prius at one the other day. It was parked in 1A and trying to connect to the hose for 1B as that was where the inlet was. He didn't even know he can't charge there even with an adapter as he only has a J1772 inlet (It was his daughter's car). But you see the issue, one car using two charging slots! Not good!
 
The point is EVs are full of surprises.
I guess I'm still missing what the surprise was. 80 kW is a very normal charging rate. You don't get 250 kW ever except when the battery is nice and warm and almost completely empty. The practical delta in minutes between pulling into a supercharger that gives up a 250 kW peak (and then rapidly drops) and one capped at 80 kW is like ten minutes, tops. And it doesn't even sound like you were topping up.
 
But to answer your question: you preheat the battery by setting the supercharger as a destination in the in-car navigation, either directly or as a displayed charging stop in a longer itinerary.

Yes, that is a step. However, that was a fail because the estimated destination state of charge was too low.

I was actually asking about before you start your trip. I thought there was a way to turn on the heaters that would also heat the battery for the trip. Is that old news and they no longer do that???
 
I guess I'm still missing what the surprise was. 80 kW is a very normal charging rate. You don't get 250 kW ever except when the battery is nice and warm and almost completely empty. The practical delta in minutes between pulling into a supercharger that gives up a 250 kW peak (and then rapidly drops) and one capped at 80 kW is like ten minutes, tops. And it doesn't even sound like you were topping up.

Sorry, 80 kW is NOT a normal charging rate on a battery below about 60% in my experience. At 20% it charges at max rate of 140 kW or so. That is MUCH faster than 80kW. Well, I do see a universal 75 kW charge rate on urban chargers... ;)

The times you cite might be true for charging to a high state where the time is dominated by the lower charge rates at higher states of charge. In this case I needed to reach 60-65% which should have been done mostly at higher charge rates, or MUCH higher rates. I planned to leave with 80%, but that was not possible when the first 35% I put on was charging well below expected rates and continued to drop as it charged. I think it finally started rising slowly as it reached 45% state of charge.

If the airport had even level 1 charging available it would be a no brainer since the car would be charged by the time I returned. In fact, I could turn on the heat and have a warm car to climb into. :)
 
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I still don't understand what the complaint here is. You had to leave three hours early to catch a flight and are freaking out that you had to spend ten minutes longer at a charger than you expected. That just doesn't seem like a rational assessment of your problems.

Yes, you don't understand the issue. So why do you feel the need to minimize and insult? I suggest if you can't be a useful part of the conversation, you should not post.
 
Yes, you don't understand the issue. So why do you feel the need to minimize and insult? I suggest if you can't be a useful part of the conversation, you should not post.
I quipped only after the third reply. Let me apologize. But the confusion is genuine. I really don't understand what had you so upset. Can you maybe condense this down to 2-3 sentences and explain how other vehicles don't experience whatever unreliability you saw? Because I don't see it. Random, unpredictable delays are a fact of live with travel of all forms, and there's nothing different about EVs except the nouns used.
 
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I don't understand your comment about the TSA delay being long meaning there is plenty of time to spare for charging.

Yes, I got enough charge on the car that it won't crap out waiting for me to return. I was trying to get enough charge on the car so it wouldn't be any problem and I could forget about it. Instead I got a surprise!

Not sure what 125 miles has to do with it. I had enough time to bring the car up to about 55% which was the minimum I consider acceptable. Even that is not the point.

The point is EVs are full of surprises. Some we need to learn about and adapt to. Others need to be better hidden. We are a long way from EVs being acceptable to the main stream.

I'll also point out that we need a LOT more charging stops. I can gas up a car every mile in urban areas and every 10 miles anywhere other than the Texas panhandle sort of locations. The route between the restaurant and the airport had exactly two charging stations, one by the restaurant and one by the airport some 50-60 miles apart. Had I selected one a bit closer the car would have heated the battery. Yeah, they're working on more charging stations, but they are also opening them up to other vehicles. I saw a Prius at one the other day. It was parked in 1A and trying to connect to the hose for 1B as that was where the inlet was. He didn't even know he can't charge there even with an adapter as he only has a J1772 inlet (It was his daughter's car). But you see the issue, one car using two charging slots! Not good!
Agree, both more range and charging stops are needed.

Can't get my wife into an EV until 400+ mile range. She regularly makes solo 400 mile drive to see the kids who live in another town and does not feel safe at night at supercharger stations.

We also often stay in a Minnesota town that has no charging (not even level 2). Hard to take my Model S without a lot of planning and extra charging.

Also, I regularly (although infrequently) make a 900 mile round trip in a day (or two). The hours of charging on such a short trip don't make much sense, so I have to take one of the ICE cars, which is a real bummer.

Alas, its a temporary problem, the solutions are in the works !
 
The issues of owning and driving EVs are not nearly as well known by the typical person.
Agree, we are still at the ‘cutting edge’ of EV ownership, you need to plan ahead more than with an ICE vehicle. In fact you often need a Plan A and a Plan B if you a heading to areas without much Supercharging.

I imagine this is far worse if you own a non-Tesla EV.

The charging situation should improve drastically over the next 10 years.
 
Did you leave your house with a full charge? How far was it from your family's house to the airport? Were there no charging options at the airport - not even a standard wall outlet?

I just did a 160 mile one-way trip through an EV charging desert to a location that only had 15A charging. I was there for a few days and was able to charge the car more than enough to return home. Many (most?) airport parking garages or parking lots have plugs these days. I think a little more research before departing would have helped you.
 
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Poorly titled thread.
My question is when is fueling a gas car going to catch up with the convenience of charging an EV.

For me, that is a 100% true statement. For you, it appears not. Neither your title, nor mine, is true for everyone.

Changing the type of fuel your car uses comes with a learning curve. This curve can be a very steep one, or simple depending upon many factors.

As you get more comfortable with your car, many of these things will become less of an issue.
As for changes to the TSA schedule, you really can’t blame that on the car😉
 
I quipped only after the third reply. Let me apologize. But the confusion is genuine. I really don't understand what had you so upset. Can you maybe condense this down to 2-3 sentences and explain how other vehicles don't experience whatever unreliability you saw? Because I don't see it. Random, unpredictable delays are a fact of live with travel of all forms, and there's nothing different about EVs except the nouns used.

Yes, it is true that there are random events in one's life. That's why I don't need my car adding extraneous random events on top of the others.

I want to drive my car. I don't want to spend my days dealing with the unpredictable (without great effort) needs of it. In this case the car 1) made no suggestion of charging even though the estimated state of charge at the destination was below 10%. 2) failed to give any indication that it would not preheat the battery at the only charger between my location and the airport. 3) subsequently charged at a slow rate mucking my schedule.

As it turned out the timing was not as tight as I expected and I made my flight with time to spare. But at the time I was driving the second leg of the trip I had already suffered some delay using all the margin I built into the schedule (random delays) and had concern about making my flight.

In an ICE I would have had no concerns about the car what-so-ever. That's my point! This car has been full of disappointment from the original fit and finish issues to the poor service (you can't complain about service, they don't have any!) and the many, many issues of driving the car from the range issues to the poorly working software of which nearly everything is BETA and is never fixed!
 
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Agree, both more range and charging stops are needed.

Can't get my wife into an EV until 400+ mile range. She regularly makes solo 400 mile drive to see the kids who live in another town and does not feel safe at night at supercharger stations.

We also often stay in a Minnesota town that has no charging (not even level 2). Hard to take my Model S without a lot of planning and extra charging.

Also, I regularly (although infrequently) make a 900 mile round trip in a day (or two). The hours of charging on such a short trip don't make much sense, so I have to take one of the ICE cars, which is a real bummer.

Alas, its a temporary problem, the solutions are in the works !

For longer values of "temporary" I think. EV level 3 charging needs to be much more widely available, every 20 miles might do it. I used to drive Rt 81 through VA a lot and some chargers were 125 miles apart. If you couldn't reach that next one you had to stop 125 miles after charging. I don't need to eat that often!

The idle fees make it very hard to combine charging with any meals other than fast food which I don't eat. Yeah, EV charging has a long way to go still. I'm just glad I'm not driving between Phoenix and California.
 
In response to the title of this thread, you forget that most charging is done at home, which is a lot more convenient than using a gas station.

That might be true for you, but I hardly charge at home at all as it buys me little. I charge 30 miles from my house while I order a meal. If I'm pressed for range the next day I put on the cable and have 90% the next morning rather than 80%. Otherwise I charge on the road for nearly every mile.

The car seems to always be 20 or 30 miles short of the range I need. I wish they could update the model X for improved range like they've done with the 3. But Tesla doesn't really care about the S or X these days other than to promote the Plaid speed record. The models 3 and Y are the company's bread and butter... and carbon credits. If the carbon credits run out the company will be bleeding red ink.
 
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Agree, we are still at the ‘cutting edge’ of EV ownership, you need to plan ahead more than with an ICE vehicle. In fact you often need a Plan A and a Plan B if you a heading to areas without much Supercharging.

I imagine this is far worse if you own a non-Tesla EV.

The charging situation should improve drastically over the next 10 years.

Unfortunately Musk spends so much time in California that he doesn't understand the need to plan trips in the car rather than just a single destination. I read that he finally relented and has said they will introduce waypoints sometime in the future. We'll see if they are done more usefully than the scheduled/TOU charging. What a mess that is! I have to pull up a Youtube video every time I want to use it. With the browser in the car being complete crap I do that on my phone.
 
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