I got the 6.2 firmware yesterday, and started fooling around a bit with the trip planner feature. The timing couldn't be better, because I'm heading up to Gainesville for the Orange & Blue Debut on Friday. I live in SW Davie (practically Weston, I'm just west of I-75), and I plotted the course to Payne's Prairie. Payne's Prairie is the campsite where we'll be staying, which is about 10 miles south of campus.
Right off the bat, I could see that there is room for improvement. It seems as though it plots a course to the nearest Supercharger along the way rather than the most optimal, which is a bit disappointing. It routed me to Port St. Lucie first and then to the Turnpike through Turkey Lake. The Port St. Lucie Supercharger is 111 miles from home and it's another 120 miles to Turkey Lake. The trip planner put the recommended charging time at Port St. Lucie at 50 minutes (I have a 60 kWh battery pack).
The optimal route would be to go to Ft. Drum as the first stop, rather than Port St. Lucie. It's 143 miles from home to Ft. Drum, and only 79 miles to Turkey Lake. Even in my 60, I can easily make it to Ft. Drum without any issue. In addition, with the second leg being 32 miles closer, the charge time at the first stop should be a good bit less than 50 minutes. The navigation estimated the total trip time at around 6h 50m. I figure I should be able to shave off 30m of that with the more optimal route going through Ft. Drum instead of Port St. Lucie.
There's also room for improvement when navigating out of range of the Supercharger network. For grins, I put in Key West as a destination (Marathon is not up and running at the time of this post), and the navigation had no idea what to do. To drive to Key West from my home, a normal person would essentially drive due south from I-75, to the Turnpike, to US 1.
However, the navigation routed me to Fort Meyers, which is the nearest Supercharger to my home, 118 miles WNW. Then from Fort Meyers it navigated to Key West, which would have me backtrack the 118 miles I drove to get there, then take I-75 S, Turnpike, and US 1 to Key West. The navigation also informed me that I wouldn't have sufficient charge to arrive at my destination. Ummm.... yeah...
The new trip planner does provide a decent rough estimate. However, since Florida has a number of Superchargers within close proximity (Fort Drum/Port St. Lucie/West Palm Beach (coming soon) and St. Augustine/Port Orange), it's rather likely there are more optimal routes (vs. the 6.2 trip planner's route) when travelling through those clusters.
I'm curious as to what sort of results would come from plotting routes through those clusters in a car with an 85 kWh pack. On one hand, the 85 kWh charges faster, which would help to offset the problem I'm experiencing with less optimal routes. However, the longer range does provide more alternatives to decide between shorter and longer legs. If anyone with an 85 kWh has gotten the 6.2 update, I'd love to hear their observations on plotting different routes through Florida.
All-in-all, the trip planner is certainly a welcome feature (one I had had requested myself some time ago). I'm fairly confident that future releases will have more optimal routing, especially for those of us with 60 kWh packs.
Right off the bat, I could see that there is room for improvement. It seems as though it plots a course to the nearest Supercharger along the way rather than the most optimal, which is a bit disappointing. It routed me to Port St. Lucie first and then to the Turnpike through Turkey Lake. The Port St. Lucie Supercharger is 111 miles from home and it's another 120 miles to Turkey Lake. The trip planner put the recommended charging time at Port St. Lucie at 50 minutes (I have a 60 kWh battery pack).
The optimal route would be to go to Ft. Drum as the first stop, rather than Port St. Lucie. It's 143 miles from home to Ft. Drum, and only 79 miles to Turkey Lake. Even in my 60, I can easily make it to Ft. Drum without any issue. In addition, with the second leg being 32 miles closer, the charge time at the first stop should be a good bit less than 50 minutes. The navigation estimated the total trip time at around 6h 50m. I figure I should be able to shave off 30m of that with the more optimal route going through Ft. Drum instead of Port St. Lucie.
There's also room for improvement when navigating out of range of the Supercharger network. For grins, I put in Key West as a destination (Marathon is not up and running at the time of this post), and the navigation had no idea what to do. To drive to Key West from my home, a normal person would essentially drive due south from I-75, to the Turnpike, to US 1.
However, the navigation routed me to Fort Meyers, which is the nearest Supercharger to my home, 118 miles WNW. Then from Fort Meyers it navigated to Key West, which would have me backtrack the 118 miles I drove to get there, then take I-75 S, Turnpike, and US 1 to Key West. The navigation also informed me that I wouldn't have sufficient charge to arrive at my destination. Ummm.... yeah...
The new trip planner does provide a decent rough estimate. However, since Florida has a number of Superchargers within close proximity (Fort Drum/Port St. Lucie/West Palm Beach (coming soon) and St. Augustine/Port Orange), it's rather likely there are more optimal routes (vs. the 6.2 trip planner's route) when travelling through those clusters.
I'm curious as to what sort of results would come from plotting routes through those clusters in a car with an 85 kWh pack. On one hand, the 85 kWh charges faster, which would help to offset the problem I'm experiencing with less optimal routes. However, the longer range does provide more alternatives to decide between shorter and longer legs. If anyone with an 85 kWh has gotten the 6.2 update, I'd love to hear their observations on plotting different routes through Florida.
All-in-all, the trip planner is certainly a welcome feature (one I had had requested myself some time ago). I'm fairly confident that future releases will have more optimal routing, especially for those of us with 60 kWh packs.
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