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1750kms in a weekend from Tilburg to Madrid

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We (my wife, 3 teenage kids and I) are about to embark on this trip. Tomorrow we fly to Rotterdam, then taxi to Tilburg, and then we pick up and drive the Model S South to its new home near Madrid, Spain.

Should be a breeze if the charge points work and the driving is good. Could be a nightmare if any one of the charge points fails to work, or the adapters and cables I have fail. Ah the joys of being an EV pioneer :) !

I wanted to document our trip for you all here so that anyone else planning to go South to Spain, or the South West of France, could follow our tracks and benefit from our experience.

I have written a few blog posts in driveandream.wordpress.com, but this is a summary so far...

d&d route.png

This is a high level route plan that we (Drive and dream electric car tour experience) prepare for our trips. It gives a general feeling for the journey and some of the key highlights such as overnight stops, lunch stops, and things to see along the way.

Our trip is broken into 5 stages:
  1. Tilburg to Novotel Terminal CDG Paris (394km). Recharge with their blue single-phase 32A socket. I hope it and the single to three phase adapter that I built works!
  2. CDG to Tours (264km). Recharge over lunch at IKEA. I hope the charge point is not occupied and actually works (again).
  3. Tours to Pullman Bordeaux Aquitania Hotel (353km). They are preparing a red 32A socket but I can't get them to confirm that it has actually been done! More worries...
  4. Bordeaux to the Parador at Argomaniz, Spain (343km). I have spoken to the maintenance guy and am confident they will have a red 32A socket ready for us to charge during lunch.
  5. Argomaniz to Villanueva del Pardillo (389km). Back home and ready for work and school the next day!

We will be documenting everything in the aforementioned blog (driveandream.wordpress.com) but when internet coverage and time allow we will write special entries here for the TMC.
 
Agreed.

And France is not Tesla Model S (or even any EV) friendly in the question of recharge points.
Drive slowly, use cruise control, keep margin in range.

My offer of free, secured and closed garage, with 250V/10A (you would have to limit it at 8A...) plug, downtown Senlis, is still valid in case you need it. That may be useful if it appears you can't make it to CDG.
Won't be able to provide accomodation however, but you should check "Hostellerie de la Porte-Bellon" nearby. Had a talk with the landlord this morning, and he seems to be EV friendly... and they have 3-phase in their laundry room, though I'm not sure their plug is compatible with the UMC.
 
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Good luck, and most of all, have fun!

I see that you are planning in using the Tesla supplied cable (with adapter) most of the time.
You are not going to use type 2 (mennekes) charging stations? (except the one at Ikea, which has a cable attached)

Tesla does not sell these cables, but i think it's a good idea to bring one with you during your journey.
If you are in urgent need for a such a cable, PM LuckyLuke at this forum, he sells them, and he's located in the Netherlands.
 
If you want a Typ2 cable, ask for at least 6m (8m is even better) the car is 5m, therfore you have to back into the place or your cable will be too short to reach for the socket.
I am a very unhappy owern of a 5m Typ2 cable and a very happy owern of a Model S P85+

best

Eberhard
 
Actually one other problem I had. The Tesla supplied cable did not work with French sockets (Type E, CEE7/5). The LED was red and indicated that I should plug in the other way. But you can't do that with CEE7/5 sockets. You should build yourself a little adaptor with a CEE7/7 plug and a CEE7/4 socket. This way you can switch the plug from the Tesla cable.
 
@mgemmell,

A journey for the journal. I have done this type of drive twice. Similar situations. A few unsolicited bits of advice

(1) I agree with the other posts - graceful driving. Rengen on low. Cruise control. Range Mode. Charge all your peripherals before you leave the hotel/restaurant/etc. Try to keep draw from the car minimal.
(2) Personalities. These will play a much larger part than you think. Not all five of you will have the same mindset when it comes to this trip. Zero chance. Attitudes will be there. Trust me. Deal calmly.
(3) Tyre pressure at factory - check it each morning.
(4) You will be laden. This is going to factor heavily in your wh/mi consumption. With all that weight, I would be happy to be below 305.

Please journal this. Video, audio, photo, written ... whatever your choice is.

You will look back upon this with favor - and so will your grandkids.

Best wishes,
WJ - Texas - Leaving for a 1000km trip in fifteen minutes with a supercharger that may or may not be finished (Waco)
<stress>
 
Thanks for the advice guys.

We are here in CDG after the 400km drive. We arrived with 35kms to spare and I drove super carefully all the way... virtually always below 100km/h and more than 50% of the time at 90km/h slipstreaming trucks. I was surprised how little that really helped with range though, compared to the Roadster where I can see the difference in estimated range very quickly. We started with 499kms of ideal range but I jsut couldn't get the energy consumption below about 155Wh/km. Its just a bigger car, and with a lot more load and weight. Also, ours is a P+ with big wheels :)

The issue right now is that here at the Novotel CDG Terminal we have a 32A Blue single-phase socket. This would be great if I had the Roadster here, but I have mentioned in other posts earlier, Tesla were supposed to give me a blue UMC adapter until I learned last Friday that it was all photoshop and that the plug doesn't exist.

So I put together an adapter by bridging the three phases from one, but it didn't work. Somehow the UMC is realizing it only has one actual phase and won't go above 16A single phase :(

So we are getting about 20km for every hour which means that tomorrow morning we will have maybe 220kms of range. That might be enough to get us to IKEA in Tours (our next planned stop), but more likely we will go to the nearby IKEA here and get a boost first. And if the Pullman Hotel In Bordeaux doesn't deliver the goods as promised there's an IKEA there too! This could end up being the IKEA tour of France! If those fine Swedish folks save our asses here I'm going to have to seriously consider getting more flatpack furniture to thank them :) .

Another weird thing... I can't tell if the car is charging when I lock it because when I unlock it the charge port is not flashing green anymore (should start flashing green again). I had Simon Wittock, my Tesla technician for the Roadster, on the phone (which is just fantastic service... Friday night at 11.30pm and he was right there helping me out) and he checked it was still charging when locked.

What I don't understand is why I didn't get the app installed and configured as part of the delivery process in Tilburg. After getting used to having OVMS for the Roadster it is a nightmare charging without any remote monitoring. Did you other EU Model S owners get the app at delivery?

Anyway, we made it on this, the longest leg of the trip, but I'm worried because in addition to all the charge concerns in France I seriously doubt I am going to make the final leg to Madrid... if the hills between Tilburg and Paris had an impact on range what is going to happen when I hit Spain and go through the mountains there?. Look at this trip profile!!!....
TIlburg to Madrid Profile.png
 
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Glad to read that you made it !

Given that the Model S is 265mi (= 426 km) rated by EPA and that :

(4) You will be laden. This is going to factor heavily in your wh/mi consumption. With all that weight, I would be happy to be below 305.

305 wh/mi = 190 wh/km. And the P85 isn't as efficient as the S85, or S60...

One Opel Ampera owner, who is renowned for its records regarding drive efficiency (check this thread, 9,8 kWh/100km), recently reported in TMC, after drive-testing the Model S :

J'ai tout de même consommé 1,9 kWh pour faire 6,6 kilomètres, soit 284 Wh/km. C'est énorme, pour une conduite "tranquile".

... so 155 wh/km ? In a brand new car you don't know yet ? you did extremely well ! Congratulations. But at these speeds, trucks must have been slipstreaming you ! ;)

I would definitely drive these 5 km from the Novotel to fastcharge 2hrs at Ikea before leaving to Tours. Give your family a fun ride today ! You purchased a P85+ or what ?! Hard times are still to come (checking your route profile)...
And you could always use these two hours building the nikwest adapter if you feel like. Castorama, located right next to Ikea, is the place where you'll find all you need...

And yes, this may well end up being the IKEA tour de France. I know no other places in this country where you can have Mennekes type 2 (It's a shame).
 
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We started with 499kms of ideal range but I jsut couldn't get the energy consumption below about 155Wh/km. Its just a bigger car, and with a lot more load and weight. Also, ours is a P+ with big wheels :)

Whaou! Men, you didn't do it well, YOU DO IT PERFECTLY!!! CONGRATULATIONS !!! :cool:

I was driving the "demo" car for about 70km and I do something like 245wh/km (Driving normally, with smile facing accelerations) and was thinking I could never do better than 200wh/km (about 430km of Range)!

But you do 155wh/km that is awesome as the range in that case would be 550km!
I never dreamed that the car will be able to do more than 400km, but you do it... BRAVO!
 
I hope you can make it, but I'm afraid this trip was planned too optimistic. Distances between main charges of 350 km or more is asking for trouble if you are driving a heavily loaded P85+. And it's a car you still have to get to know. Taking such a trip on the first day of ownership is courageous but maybe also a bit foolish (no offence intended).
 
I hope you can make it, but I'm afraid this trip was planned too optimistic. Distances between main charges of 350 km or more is asking for trouble if you are driving a heavily loaded P85+. And it's a car you still have to get to know. Taking such a trip on the first day of ownership is courageous but maybe also a bit foolish (no offence intended).
I guess I agree with that. Case in point. My first 500 miles with the S60 I averaged 345Wh/mile. The last 1000 miles I averaged 294Wh/mile. It takes a bit of getting used to. And the temptation to enjoy the amazing joy of acceleration is still hard to overcome at times :)
 
About to start off toward Spain.

Today is going to be hard as we have to do two full charges and maybe some boosts to get over the mountain pass towards Madrid. Still, with care I think we can make it :)

Foolish? Probably, but that's something that could be said of a lot of things in this world of Tesla Motors isn't it? We're having a blast anyway!

Thanks for the support everyone...
 
The impact of elevation changes is really interesting.
I tried to calculate how many Wh you need to "lift" the car 100m in elevation. Just the pure potential energy you add to the car. I think I failed as my result is 600 Wh for 100m. So that would only be 3 to 4 km range loss for a 100m rise.
Anyone out there that ever calculated this?