EVTripPlanner vs Model S planning and range assurance

I mostly do long trips and have found the car more accurate than EVTrip Planner

doctorwho said:

I mostly do long trips and have found the car more accurate than EVTrip Planner

Click to expand...

Interesting. I haven't used the car planner on enough trips. Which was more optimistic?

I've used EV Trip Planner whenever we go on a trip (probably time for me to make another donation to the education fund of the student who wrote it ).

I haven't bothered to record how much "out" it might be; I can only say that we haven't had any problems whatsoever. I set up EVTP with my model, tires, weight (2 people plus luggage), and usually the 1.05 speed multiplier. I generally drive at slightly over whatever the speed limit is (5-8km/hr). Oops did I just say that? I mean, officer, right AT the speed limit. Yeah, that's it.

So in trip planning I note the RM that EVTP predicts for any particular leg, then when charging pre-leg I just add 30-50 km (or miles if travelling US) as a comfort buffer. Of course, often with superchargers the car is ready before we are with our fiddling around so I can end up with more charge than I actually need. For the last several trips, the lowest I've ended up with, pulling into the charging station, has been about 20km. And while I check RM against distance to destination throughout the drive (and now use the new trip % estimator), there's no anxiety. And I'm not afraid to boot it if the traffic situation warrants (to avoid getting bunched, to get out of the way of a speeder while I'm cruise-control-passing someone, etc).

Btw, the primary reason I still leg plan is for us (the humans), ensuring our total daily planned mileage and overall driving day isn't more than we physically want to handle (600-700km per day).

lennier said:

Thanks Michael. In which direction did you tend to see EVTP err? Because from what I can find written by others they tend to say it is conservative and they actually use less than it predicts, but still pretty close on actual kWh usage. My experience was the opposite, with it significantly underestimating usage.

Click to expand...

I have used EVTP a few times when temps were warmer and it was pretty accurate. I have noted somewhat higher usage since the cold weather arrived, particularly if you don't use range mode. I'm going up to the Southern Highlands on Friday, Ill do an EVTP estimate and compare to my actual and post it.

EVTripplanner's estimations are much more accurate in severe cold (-10C or lower).

Unless a software update has adjusted the car's algorithm in the last three months.

lennier said:

Thanks Michael. In which direction did you tend to see EVTP err? Because from what I can find written by others they tend to say it is conservative and they actually use less than it predicts, but still pretty close on actual kWh usage. My experience was the opposite, with it significantly underestimating usage.

Click to expand...

In my experience, EVTrip Planner also underestimates usage

I have used both and have found the biggest difference to be real time consumption updates available in the Model S trip planner. On one particular trip between Superchargers, I drove faster than had been originally planned in the EV Trip planner. The MS showed rated range remaining at the next SC to be lower of course. I adjusted my speed and sure enough the rated remaining range adjusted accordingly after some time. It is handy to show if I am on track with energy consumption or not.

One of the problems might be that if you drive late in the day as it cools down the car may need to put more energy into battery heating. I may leave Melbourne late afternoon when its 16 degrees and arrive in NE Victoria when its 2 degrees after sunset. EV Trip Planner allows me to enter only one temperature value so that will always limit calculation accuracy.

Have just driven from Sydney to Southern Highlands. It was 15 deg C when we left and 5 when we arrived.
I drove very close to the speed limits all the way with Range Mode turned on.
Trip view calculated 210Wh/Km and the car told me it had used 207Wh/Km.
The settings I used was 10 deg C, 150kg payload (2 people) and speed factor 1.

The calculation from the Model S was quite good on a 6000 mi road trip that I just completed. The biggest problem is the navigation would often try to route me back to Superchargers already visited and many miles behind.

I haven't used the onboard energy calc for any reasonable distance trip - but on short trips I'm confused as to which line represents the predicted vs actual usage. Is the prediction the green or the grey line? On a short trip the two are so close together that you can't easily distinguish which is which..

I've found the car's energy planning to be very accurate. EVTP appears to have an issue with hills in that it overestimates how much you'll use going up and underestimates how much you'll get coming down.

Mark E said:

I haven't used the onboard energy calc for any reasonable distance trip - but on short trips I'm confused as to which line represents the predicted vs actual usage. Is the prediction the green or the grey line? On a short trip the two are so close together that you can't easily distinguish which is which..

Click to expand...

The green line is what you are achieving. The grey line is the original projection. The confusing part is that when you start your trip, only the green line shows.

Both underestimate on my trips in Wyoming, they don't account for the extreme winds in south part of Wyoming. It can eat a 30% or more in range on a 5 hour trip to colorado for me. EV Trip planner kind of has a chart. It would be cool if it could check the road conditions, wind, weather and speed limit from the state websites like Wyoming Travel Information Map and facter that in.

- - - Updated - - -

jerry33 said:

The green line is what you are achieving. The grey line is the original projection. The confusing part is that when you start your trip, only the green line shows.

Click to expand...

Thanks mate