What I Learned from My First Road Trip

I took my first road trip yesterday through some wintery roads and here are some stats and what I learned.

Overview

Total Trip

255 miles round trip

Ready to Go!

Outbound (I-90 E and US-97 N, 129 miles)

• Bellevue to Hyak Sno Park - 45 miles
• Sno Park to Leavenworth - 84 miles

Return (US-97 S and I-90 W, 127 miles)

• Leavenworth to Bellevue

Timeline

• 12:45 pm: Departed with range charge of 303 miles
• 1:30 pm: Arrived at Hyak
• 4:10 pm: Arrived at Leavenworth
• 4:20 pm: Started charging at Leavenworth
• 7 pm: Finished charging
• 7:10 pm: Departed Leavenworth
• 9:50 pm: Arrived home

Key Findings

Cabin Heating and Defrosting

• Range Drive option where it limits the climate system does not work for winter conditions in terms of heating the cabin and defrosting
• Even with regular mode, my MS fogs up badly on driver side. Something is wrong here and I have seen other TMC reports of this. See pics below
• I could not figure out a way to get heat out the rear vents - tried all permutations of settings. Anyone getting heated air out the rear vents?

Maps

• Google Map and Nav worked well
• Losing 3G loses Google Maps but Nav still works

Cold Temperature Handling

• MS handles well in icy roads and temperatures - even on trip back where Blewett Pass had 18F temperatures; I was going at 45-50 MPH. However, roads were dry and bare.
• On this trip, I did not have to drive in snow

Key Power Stats

Arrived at Leavenworth

• Drove 128 miles
• Consumed 48.7 kWh
• Averaged 380 Wh/mile
• Rated range of 98 miles left
• Average projected range 156 miles left. Last 15 miles were largely downhill

Started Charging

Started charging with 30A Aerovironment charger; sad that a commercial charger is slower than my home. Switched to standard charge for faster charging

Finished Charging

Completed Charging. Charged from 98 to 151 miles in 2 hours 40 minutes. Charge rate was 20 miles per hour

Return Trip

• Got home with 4 miles rated range left. Power bar on speedometer turns yellow at 50 miles rated and then to red at 10 miles rated
• In last hour of driving, I was on cruise control set at 50 miles per hour and I was confident I get home because: triangulation between Nav showing distance left and both rated and projected numbers being higher. For example, a dozen or so miles after clearing the Snoqualmie summit - I had Nav showing 20 miles to home, 26 miles projected, 22 miles rated. in hindsight, I just had a lot of faith in these 3 numbers and it panned out as expected because I got home with 4 miles left!!

Total Trip Stats

• Drove 255 miles
• Consumed 91.2 kWh
• Averaged 358 Wh/mile. 380 Wh/mile outbound, 336 Wh/mile return. Difference is careful driving with return trip with 50 MPH cruise control
• Got home with both rated range and average projected range of 4 miles left. Regen down Blewett Pass and Snoqualmie Pass saved me!

My MS stallion drinking heartily!

You can send movie sound from iPad to Sound System

Family was watching Mission Impossible on the iPad with sound sent to MS sound system via Bluetooth - the sound surround worked well and added extra suspense to the drive home as the car power supply dwindled down!

Miscellaneous Tips

• Get all your charging network fobs and charge cards handy - Blink, Aerovironment and Chargepoint. Install their smart phone apps too. Have a co-pilot that knows how to use these apps. Some of the charging stations are not accessible to the public
• Don't forget to turn off your AC system when parked and have your doors and trunk opened. We were hanging out around the car drinking hot chocolate at the sledding hill with doors and trunk opened and I did not realize that the climate system was blaring away until I got back in the driver's seat. It a waste of precious energy.
• Creating an "easy to access" trip wiki page is extremely helpful. Know your route and where you can charge
  
  

Miscellaneous Pics

Fahrvergnügen


More Tesla Grins


Beautiful Leavenworth


A Hearty German Platter for Dinner


Hopefully this is helpful for folks and not the modern day equivalent of making your neighbors watch the slideshow of your vacation!

Lloyd said:

I noticed that you had the Climate set to a custom setting. Did you have the A/C turned off? This reduces the moisture in the cabin when turned on, or in the Auto mode. This would explain the increased fogging.

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In the beginning, I used the Range Driving mode that limits the climate control and it did not work in the cold weather at all. It really fogged up. Then, I switched to normal mode and then tried different climate settings. It was better in general but the driver side issue could not be resolved but I did not try to heat the cabin to over 70F since I wanted to conserve power. I will try on a different trip where I have more power to spare and post the results.

Lloyd said:

Where to you get an Aerovironment card? I looked all over their site and could not find a link.

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I filled in the form and created an account at the same link @efusco provided. However, I did not get the FOB in time and @ChadS was kind enough to loan me his. A BIG thanks to @ChadS as he loaned me all 3 system charge cards/fobs - Aerovironment, Blink and Chargepoint. I signed up on all 3 sites but did not get any in time.

- - - Updated - - -

Maybe stating the obvious but I took the trip with a full load - 4 adults and a tween. And extra winter clothing, 2 sleds, supply of water, hot chocolate and snacks. It seems like the weight did not affect range that much since I was able to meet the rated and projected range estimates on my way back. I felt that the 50 mph cruise control and when climbing mountains, keeping the power consumption low (< 40 wh/hr) while moving at a decent speed were the biggest power conservation factors.