What is your plan B?

[MrTuna]

Going on my first > 1k mile trip in a week. Will have my entire family and luggage along. I am using ABRP and have each days trips mapped out. Charge to 60, travel to 10%, repeat.

So , what happens when I arrive an an out of the way charger and it is out of service. For some reason NAV doesn’t tell me it’s down. No range to get to another supercharger.

What is plan B?

I have plugshare. I have my mobile charger. I know around me the non-Tesla charging options are pretty crap. A few level 2s. Maybe 1 hotel in town with destination charging.

 

[pilotSteve]

why not charge to 80% or 90% and enjoy fewer stops?

 

[MrTuna]

why not charge to 80% or 90% and enjoy fewer stops?

Spend some time with ABRP. This would add over an hour of charging time per day my trip. Look into the model 3 charge rate vs SoC graphs.

also, two kids under 6. We need to stretch anyway.

 

[Trailblazer]

It's extremely unlikely that you will arrive at a supercharger to find all stalls down. So the plans you have made should be just fine. If you are worried, you can use a 20% buffer instead of 10%.

 

[Ostrichsak]

ABRP + PlugShare = drive just about anywhere carefree with minimal planning.

 

[MrTuna]

It's extremely unlikely that you will arrive at a supercharger to find all stalls down. So the plans you have made should be just fine. If you are worried, you can use a 20% buffer instead of 10%.

nah, I don’t think 20% changes the broken down on side of road cases. Can almost never get to the next super chargers with 20%.

I realize it likely won’t happen, but what if it does? Hence this thread

 

[theothertom]

My wife asked me the same question on our first 1K mile trip. I looked at plugshare and saw that there were plenty of L2 chargers within driving range of each supercharger along our route. If you arrive with 10%, you still have at least 25 miles left. Twenty five miles might not seem like a lot, but just think about how far 25 miles is from your house. I bet you there are several L2 chargers within that range. Be sure to take your J1772 adapter that came with your car. By the way, the most efficient (time wise) way to travel is to drive as fast as you dare to as low a % battery as you dare. Then charge just enough to get you to the next charger, with your 10% comfort level remaining.

 

[outdoors]

I would also go with the extremely unlikely. I run the same #s as you on arrive % with a sleeping family. Has never happened in over 200k. Ran into some crappy ones. Played football with my kids and talked to police officers while waiting for the only one working. Met a real cool guy with a dog @Bighorn.

I do check plugshare, and the corresponding page on supercharger.info that leads me to the tmc page before going to my next one. Hey life is an adventure. My wife and kids would agree.

Power outages happen. Hey on Christmas day I had to find the St Augustine charger hidden behind gates in a closed mall. Only one of seven entrances was open.

 

[Bighorn]

Thanks @outdoors. In several thousand charges, I've been skunked by a power outage once and it had the whole town out including gas pumps. Slept there overnight with one other Tesla. Power up in the morning. Most people don't drive through the night. I also had a power outage in Mexico right after I'd charged, so used it as an excuse to be sleeping there. No other examples of not being able to charge in 375k miles.

 

[Dre78]

... Now you have me feeling foolish for not having a Plan B.

Did Chicago-Los Angeles and back using rudimentary calculations, and had one butt-clenching leg when we dared to use Tesla estimation; reduced speed to be safe and arrived with 7% on a 200 mile leg. ...found ABRP after the trip, plugged in the numbers, and it was damn close to the real numbers! Don't forget to adjust settings for temperature if you're going north!

Have a great, fun, and safe adventure on your trip!

 

[wws]

Bring your J1772 adapter and UMC kit. As for the UMC kit, I'd recommend adding the 5-20 and 14-50 adapters. The 14-50 opens up RV parks. And oftentimes you can find 5-20s in hotel/motel parking lots which will give a couple more MPH over a 5-15 when charging overnight.

 

[Bighorn]

Leaving a SC with only 10% arrival SOC is a mistake. Risky and you’ll arrive power limited every time. 20 is fine. 30 is sometimes necessary. Leaving at 60 is great if you can since it makes stops quick, but you’re doing splash and dash every 100 miles which is how I can do 1000-1200 miles a day.

 

[TechVP]

Bring your J1772 adapter and UMC kit. As for the UMC kit, I'd recommend adding the 5-20 and 14-50 adapters. The 14-50 opens up RV parks. And oftentimes you can find 5-20s in hotel/motel parking lots which will give a couple more MPH over a 5-15 when charging overnight.

I completely agree with @wws. As for experience, I'm at 78k miles -- with 2500 of those miles in late Spring pulling a trailer 1/2 way across the US over the Continental Divide to the West Coast. RV parks were definitely an option, (which I fortunately didn't need) and was my Plan C.
For my Plan B I used the Hotel plug standard outlet that @wws described overnight I think 2 times. I added about 10% that way on my MX 100D.
Try that, as it at least opens you up to more charging options in the morning. You'll have added a percentage charge to help with the drive.

Planned well, you'll do just fine.

Other tips people suggest, is turning on Range Mode if you're in the least concerned about making a long leg of the trip.
And I have been told that driving with Chill Mode ON can also help. Tested that theory a couple times... for me, jury is still out.

One last tip, inductive fan heating of the cabin eats up range. Being from Indiana, I don't need to tell you guys to bring some jackets... but the point is if you can lower the cabin temp just a little bit, it will also help on a long trip leg. Seat heaters help here.
That changes, of course, if you are lucky enough to have one of the new OctoBottle Heatpump Model 3/Y's. So wishing that was available at the time I bought my X. Heatpump is the way to go.

Have a fun & safe drive!
-TechVP

 

[hgmichna]

What I sometimes do is to devise a plan B for each charging stop. I can even do it along the way, while somebody else drives, so it wastes no time. If I drive alone, I can do it while charging.

I use an app that shows all chargers. In Germany that is Der Ladetarifrechner für dein Elektroauto, but ABRP can also be used, when set up to show all chargers.

Then I work on plan B for the way from the next charger to the second-next. I check the nearest chargers beyond and shortly before the originally intended charger. Then I charge enough to be able to reach that plan B charger, in case the originally intended one is down.

I admit though, that Tesla Superchargers are only very rarely down, particularly if you check them out shortly before you go there, and they show stalls available.

To be honest, I don't usually spend much time on this exercise, and I set ABRP to arrive with 5% at the next Supercharger. Almost always there are forced slowdowns along the way, so I either arrive with more than 10% or I intentionally drive faster to arrive with about 5%. If the energy screen shows that I won't make it with 5%, I slow down or even draft behind a bus or truck. Had to do that only once in rain, when I hadn't learned yet how much wet roads increase power consumption. It worked fine and didn't take too much extra time.

Then there is plan C, begging for a little charge wherever that is possible, like car workshops, gas stations, or just anywhere. If somebody rang my doorbell and asked for a little charge, I would grant that too, and most likely not even ask for money.

Very important: Have all possibly required cables and adapters with you when you travel long-distance.

 

[MrTuna]

I completely agree with @wws. As for experience, I'm at 78k miles -- with 2500 of those miles in late Spring pulling a trailer 1/2 way across the US over the Continental Divide to the West Coast. RV parks were definitely an option, (which I fortunately didn't need) and was my Plan C.
For my Plan B I used the Hotel plug standard outlet that @wws described overnight I think 2 times. I added about 10% that way on my MX 100D.
Try that, as it at least opens you up to more charging options in the morning. You'll have added a percentage charge to help with the drive.

Planned well, you'll do just fine.

Other tips people suggest, is turning on Range Mode if you're in the least concerned about making a long leg of the trip.
And I have been told that driving with Chill Mode ON can also help. Tested that theory a couple times... for me, jury is still out.

One last tip, inductive fan heating of the cabin eats up range. Being from Indiana, I don't need to tell you guys to bring some jackets... but the point is if you can lower the cabin temp just a little bit, it will also help on a long trip leg. Seat heaters help here.
That changes, of course, if you are lucky enough to have one of the new OctoBottle Heatpump Model 3/Y's. So wishing that was available at the time I bought my X. Heatpump is the way to go.

Have a fun & safe drive!
-TechVP

yah this is in a Y with a heat pump

 

[MrTuna]

Leaving a SC with only 10% arrival SOC is a mistake. Risky and you’ll arrive power limited every time. 20 is fine. 30 is sometimes necessary. Leaving at 60 is great if you can since it makes stops quick, but you’re doing splash and dash every 100 miles which is how I can do 1000-1200 miles a day.

this is 10% arrival SoC on ABRP not nav. I have ABRP dialed in to be within 2%. Can land at 10% without needing to slow down. Spend some time in ABRP, it’s fun.

 

[outdoors]

this is 10% arrival SoC on ABRP not nav. I have ABRP dialed in to be within 2%. Can land at 10% without needing to slow down. Spend some time in ABRP, it’s fun.

We do as @Bighorn suggested as splash and dash. It works every time. I still pull 1000-1200 mile days like him. So trust me he gets it, and uses ABRP along with a great wind app. Notice in his title (Top Supercharger). If you go too low the ramp speed takes a bit to get up to speed. Maybe not as much on a new Y. After 100k I noticed that my ramp needs to be a little higher SoC to get to the higher speed before taper. I see this more on my S than 3. Many will never experience this as they likely will never put the mileage annually to see the difference. When you hit 10-15 charge points in a day you learn real quick the idiosyncrasies of charging.

 

[Owner]

Going on my first > 1k mile trip in a week. Will have my entire family and luggage along.

What is plan B?
.

Hey we are in a raging pandemic. Stay home.

 

[MXLRplus]

J1772 adapter, CHAdeMO adapter, and assortment of 14-50 / 6-50 / etc pigtails for the UMC.
CHAdeMO will be anywhere EA has a station, Nissan dealers, and some other EV recharging networks.
Last resort is RV parks, casinos or other RV stops. These will have 240v power for your UMC pigtails.

 

[MXLRplus]

Hey we are in a raging pandemic. Stay home.

Stay in a crowded city to stay safe. Lovely concept. How did that work out?