What is your ABRP workflow for long trips?

[LionelHutz]

I'm planning a ~400 mile drive soon. Obviously a multi-charge trip, and the second half of it covers some roads with big elevation changes and limited Superchargers. Given that, I'd prefer to use ABRP for accuracy rather than the Tesla Nav. But I do want Nav running to precondition the batteries and simply because it is much easier to follow than phone-based directions.

What's the best way to handle routing for the trip? I'm not aware of a way to program a multi-stop trip in to Nav. So are people just inputting ABRP's stops into Nav one at a time, and keeping the app running on a phone in the background?

 

[Meros]

The built-in Nav does consider elevation changes. Honestly, I've found that the built-in Nav works just fine. I've done about 3000 miles of road tripping on a 2016 Model S and a 2018 Model 3, through Colorado, Utah, Nevada, California, Arizona, Kansas, and Missouri. The only time the built-in NAV was too optimistic was driving across Kansas at sub-freezing temps. I think using ABRP during the actual trip is more trouble than its worth (I use it for general planning while not in the car). Just try to get the built in Nav to say you'll arrive with ~20% charge remaining. Anything lower is risky.

 

[garrett5688]

400 miles is child’s play for a Tesla road trip! I can’t imagine ABRP and the car nav being much different for that short of trip.

 

[LionelHutz]

The built-in Nav does consider elevation changes. Honestly, I've found that the built-in Nav works just fine. I've done about 3000 miles of road tripping on a 2016 Model S and a 2018 Model 3, through Colorado, Utah, Nevada, California, Arizona, Kansas, and Missouri. The only time the built-in NAV was too optimistic was driving across Kansas at sub-freezing temps. I think using ABRP during the actual trip is more trouble than its worth (I use it for general planning while not in the car). Just try to get the built in Nav to say you'll arrive with ~20% charge remaining. Anything lower is risky.

I did test the elevation bit this weekend on a 45 mile drive with ~5,000 ft gain at mostly highway speed. The Nav actually overcalculated consumption by almost 8% at the start (it corrected during the course of the drive), but wound up being about 3% too optimistic for the round trip. Not bad but I am a bit worried about extrapolating that error over a longer drive where there is 100+ miles between chargers.

Also, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised but that elevation gain was brutal on range. 40% of total battery for 45 miles of driving.

 

[what-mmc-recal]

The built-in Nav does consider elevation changes. Honestly, I've found that the built-in Nav works just fine.

Coming from Tahoe to San Francisco (Daly City actually), even though the 8 Gbyte eMMC problem was wreaking havoc and caused the touch screen to crash twice, I was impressed by this.

It took the NAV 20 minutes to conclude that I would NOT need to charge enroute due to regenerative braking and the drop in elevation. I mentally calculated the difference between distance to destination and the range left on the battery. I started from Lake Tahoe in the hole and then slowly the two numbers converged and then finally range in the battery exceeded the remaining distance. Despite all the hills in Daly City, dropped off our passenger just fine and had a 20 mile cushion to get to the nearest super charger less than 5 miles away.

With MCU2 this would have been less traumatic but I appreciated not having to spend a half hour extra to charge.

 

[Spuzzz]

I used to overplan road trips until I got comfortable with the built in nav. For long trips thru unfamiliar routes I might look at abrp/plugshare to see spacing between superchargers or hotels with destination chargers. Or to check to make sure superchargers are not slow urban chargers. But now I’m pretty comfortable just charging up to a 20% buffer and keeping my eye on the estimated SOC at next charger. If it drops down to 10% (usually because I’m driving too fast) then I start slowing down incrementally until it stops dropping. Give yourself even more of a buffer in freezing temps.

The nav computer is also pretty good w elevation changes. On one uphill trip I had seemingly plenty of miles to get skip a supercharger, but the moment I passed it, I was sternly warned that I couldn’t make it to the next SC AND I needed to uturn and charge up. Was grateful.

 

[Spuzzz]

Also I could have saved a lot of typing time by just agreeing with Meros who basically said the same thing I did

 

[Spuzzz]

Also, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised but that elevation gain was brutal on range. 40% of total battery for 45 miles of driving.

Wow that is a lot of loss. The nice thing is you usually end up driving down that same hill at some point and probably drive the same 45 miles downhill using only 10%

 

[GtiMart]

The Tesla nav will not properly handle the temperature, wind and the additional weight in the car, if you have any. Those are things that ABRP can do, provided you configure it properly. I've seen it be overly optimistic in many cases, especially in the colder and/or more windy periods.
I personally do a general trip planning with ABRP before I leave home, so I have a sense of what's going to happen. I then use the TEsla nav to go to my next destination, which is normally a supercharger. Once I'm charging, if I changed my plan while driving, I might launch ABRP again and do a quick plan of the remaining segment. OTherwise, I use the Tesla nav to the next stop. I just make sure I leave the buffer around 15-20% before I unplug since I know it's overly optimistic.

 

[Needsdecaf]

So are people just inputting ABRP's stops into Nav one at a time, and keeping the app running on a phone in the background?

No. I program my final destination in, and let Tesla automatically select the chargers. Usually it lines up with the suggestions from ABRP.

 

[yhofmasp]

ABRP? Sorry,...new.

 

[yhofmasp]

Never mind,...found it.

 

[LionelHutz]

So I tested the Tesla Nav route for the trip. It has me going as low as 6% battery for some stops--way lower than I'm comfortable with. Any way to configure minimum battery level like in ABRP?

 

[Big Earl]

So I tested the Tesla Nav route for the trip. It has me going as low as 6% battery for some stops--way lower than I'm comfortable with. Any way to configure minimum battery level like in ABRP?

No way to adjust it. Just manually set the next closest supercharger as your destination or slow down a little.

 

[MorrisonHiker]

So I tested the Tesla Nav route for the trip. It has me going as low as 6% battery for some stops--way lower than I'm comfortable with. Any way to configure minimum battery level like in ABRP?

When Tesla Nav tells you that you have enough, you can just continue to charge. If it has you arriving with only 6%, just stay longer and it will show you arriving with 7%, 8%, 9%, etc. As long as you continue to charge, it will update the expected arrival SoC.