I signed up to drive someone to Moab thinking it would be a low risk dry run of driving West via Farmington, NM supercharger. From Taos, it’s easy to go South, East or North to Santa Fe, Las Vegas, NM, or Trinidad superchargers, but I was curious how doable Farmington would be. Thankfully, Taos Mesa Brewing has a destination charger ~15 miles on the way which makes the trip between charges <200 miles. I charged to 100% the day before and made sure the trip computer routed me to Moab with only one stop in Farmington. A few extra joules at the brewery will be plenty of extra buffer.
A few disclaimers: My Model X is 75D without cold weather package, and we ended up leaving with maybe 97% since destination charging is slow. I’m sure I could have spent more time researching and planning, but not doing so was part of my experiment. I didn’t take any pics or write anything down, so I’ll try to err on the vague side instead of misremembering. I usually have Range Mode on all the time, but now that I think of it, I don’t remember seeing the indicator on the climate control.
With an expected 14% SOC arrival at Farmington, it seemed like time to go. I was more worried about driving after dark due to increased drain for heat. Had I checked the weather instead of just noting that it was sunny on my side of the continental divide, I may have taken a little more charge. What I really should have checked is that Hwy 64 was closed over Brazos. NMDot sometimes closes it all winter if storms are consistent enough. I have become too used to relying on the nav, even though I know it’s “for planning purposes only.” OK, the nav can’t possibly know about every closure, but then how do I tell it? Sometimes there are multiple route options, but not this time, and certainly not after starting to drive. It seems very important to be able to program an intermediate destination without charging and estimate consumption to get to a programmed charging location.
Looking at the map and CODot site, we decide to dip North into CO for the next pass, La Manga, which is open. Immediately after taking the turn, the nav rerouted, estimating an extra 16 miles, but only adjusting destination SOC to 12%. Then the snow started. Climbing the pass and turning on heat started dropping the estimated arrival SOC fast. Due to conditions, I was keeping under 50mph anyway, and the regen on the way down made the estimate more optimistic. Back on Hwy 64 once it flattened out, I kept varying between 40-50mph even on dry roads as the the estimated arrival SOC kept creeping down.
To gloss over the details, we made it with single digit miles remaining and charged to 99% three times in a row. Farmington, Moab, then destination charging in Durango on the way back. Spending the night in Moab, I read about wheels locking up with snow and noticed my wheel wells were totally packed in. I cleared out what I could, but as it was still snowing, it was packing back in fast. I also couldn’t convince the nav to return the same way, so I had to go old school mapping destination chargers in PlugShare. Turns out the same mileage going up 3000 miles in elevation takes much more energy than going down, and the car was already spending 450-550 kWh/mi. It made sense since even coasting down hills in N was slowing me down.
I bought a crowbar to maximize my snow extraction and left Durango with 99% (228 miles) to make the 193 mile trip. Of course, it was routing over the closed road. Adding the same 16 mile detour should mean I’ll make it, but I planned to stop at Incredible Pagosa to charge since the estimates were so erratic. With 134 miles on the nav, I only charged to 180 (not sure of %) figuring to arrive with 30 miles left. But the estimates kept getting more grim. By the top of La Manga pass, I was supposed to arrive with -3%! Yes, NEGATIVE 3%. I had passed a car that looked stuck, but said they were just turning around since an F150 just came down saying they couldn’t make it due to whiteout. I knew there was no charger go back to, so I considered using the rest of my power to keep the heat on if I got stuck, but the handling and visibility were actually great. Coming down, the estimated arrival SOC got as high as 3%. I varied speed and heat (had to turn on defogging) to arrive at 0% (5 miles). Phew!
Is there a way to improve the accuracy of power estimates, or am I correct that snow in the tires was throwing everything off? The car has 9k miles from the past 7.5 months. The strangest thing is that the total used energy never got above 65 kWh. Is there really 10 kWh of reserve?
A few disclaimers: My Model X is 75D without cold weather package, and we ended up leaving with maybe 97% since destination charging is slow. I’m sure I could have spent more time researching and planning, but not doing so was part of my experiment. I didn’t take any pics or write anything down, so I’ll try to err on the vague side instead of misremembering. I usually have Range Mode on all the time, but now that I think of it, I don’t remember seeing the indicator on the climate control.
With an expected 14% SOC arrival at Farmington, it seemed like time to go. I was more worried about driving after dark due to increased drain for heat. Had I checked the weather instead of just noting that it was sunny on my side of the continental divide, I may have taken a little more charge. What I really should have checked is that Hwy 64 was closed over Brazos. NMDot sometimes closes it all winter if storms are consistent enough. I have become too used to relying on the nav, even though I know it’s “for planning purposes only.” OK, the nav can’t possibly know about every closure, but then how do I tell it? Sometimes there are multiple route options, but not this time, and certainly not after starting to drive. It seems very important to be able to program an intermediate destination without charging and estimate consumption to get to a programmed charging location.
Looking at the map and CODot site, we decide to dip North into CO for the next pass, La Manga, which is open. Immediately after taking the turn, the nav rerouted, estimating an extra 16 miles, but only adjusting destination SOC to 12%. Then the snow started. Climbing the pass and turning on heat started dropping the estimated arrival SOC fast. Due to conditions, I was keeping under 50mph anyway, and the regen on the way down made the estimate more optimistic. Back on Hwy 64 once it flattened out, I kept varying between 40-50mph even on dry roads as the the estimated arrival SOC kept creeping down.
To gloss over the details, we made it with single digit miles remaining and charged to 99% three times in a row. Farmington, Moab, then destination charging in Durango on the way back. Spending the night in Moab, I read about wheels locking up with snow and noticed my wheel wells were totally packed in. I cleared out what I could, but as it was still snowing, it was packing back in fast. I also couldn’t convince the nav to return the same way, so I had to go old school mapping destination chargers in PlugShare. Turns out the same mileage going up 3000 miles in elevation takes much more energy than going down, and the car was already spending 450-550 kWh/mi. It made sense since even coasting down hills in N was slowing me down.
I bought a crowbar to maximize my snow extraction and left Durango with 99% (228 miles) to make the 193 mile trip. Of course, it was routing over the closed road. Adding the same 16 mile detour should mean I’ll make it, but I planned to stop at Incredible Pagosa to charge since the estimates were so erratic. With 134 miles on the nav, I only charged to 180 (not sure of %) figuring to arrive with 30 miles left. But the estimates kept getting more grim. By the top of La Manga pass, I was supposed to arrive with -3%! Yes, NEGATIVE 3%. I had passed a car that looked stuck, but said they were just turning around since an F150 just came down saying they couldn’t make it due to whiteout. I knew there was no charger go back to, so I considered using the rest of my power to keep the heat on if I got stuck, but the handling and visibility were actually great. Coming down, the estimated arrival SOC got as high as 3%. I varied speed and heat (had to turn on defogging) to arrive at 0% (5 miles). Phew!
Is there a way to improve the accuracy of power estimates, or am I correct that snow in the tires was throwing everything off? The car has 9k miles from the past 7.5 months. The strangest thing is that the total used energy never got above 65 kWh. Is there really 10 kWh of reserve?