Thanks for the writeup, Francis. Great detail.
Fogging: as Lloyd notes, A/C is critical to defrost. When the window fogs, I typically hit the "front defrost" button and it usually goes away almost right away. When it doesn't, I look at the climate settings, and the A/C is not on - which I find curious, isn't that typically an important part of a defrost setting? I have not checked to see if A/C is on when the defroster works; but I do know it's never on when the defroster fails. So I turn A/C on, and the fog goes away. I see patpeterson has had trouble even with A/C on; but to anybody else having trouble, make sure you try A/C - it makes a huge difference in my car.
Tires: for people taking note of efficiency or driving capability from other threads; Francis is driving on Tesla's 19" wheels with the default all-season Eagles.
Route: For some reason I had assumed Francis was going to take Hwy 2. However, it was closed at some point due to snowy trees falling on cars (there were fatalities). The I-90 route is longer, speeds are higher (although Francis didn't always make use of that) and it goes over TWO passes; it definitely uses more energy.
Elevation: Leavenworth is at about 1200'. Bellevue ranges anywhere from 0' to 500'. The elevation difference no doubt played a part in the different energy use there and back, especially given the weight of a fully-loaded Model S.
Reserve: on my first EV road trip, I ran the car down to the wire a lot like Francis did here. I don't do that anymore; I find it too stressful even though it has always worked so far - there are way too many things that can go wrong. Of course that's easy for me to say; I usually plan road trips to places where there are charging stations every 150 miles. It is a lot harder when you're relying on a 30A EVSE on a side route and the family is tired of waiting for a charge. And there were some EVSEs along the way home that Francis could have stopped at, so he wasn't taking a huge risk. He at least had access cards for them all. :smile:
