Road Trip Tips/Advice

• Plan your trip and charging with evtripplanner.com. This tool is invaluable and probably the most important tip I can think of.
• Pack your mobile connector and adapters. I don't have the mobile connector in my car all the time since I use it in my garage, so I have to make sure to bring it with me when going on a road trip. Having an extra one would be nice. Having a CHAdeMO adapter might be good too; they can be expensive but you might find someone near you willing to loan you one for a road trip.
• Pack tire repair kit. Since we don't have a spare, this could come in handy. I must admit, not having a spare is probably one of the things that worries me the most about a road trip.
• Check tire tread and pressure. Tire maintenance is always important but I find it even more important with the Tesla since I'm more aware of range and I don't have a spare.
• Sign up for charging networks. I mainly do this for the free options at least. If they have an RFID, I keep it in the car. Sometimes it's just good to have an account created in case you need to use it. Some examples are ChargePoint, Blink, EVgo, etc.
• Research what restaurants, restrooms, etc. are near your charging stops. My bladder capacity is usually less than my battery capacity so charging stops work out well for me and allow me to stretch my legs. I also like to know what eating options there are ahead of time.
• Don't underestimate destination charging at your hotel. I almost exclusively narrow the hotels I stay at to those with HPWCs or J1772 level 2 chargers. I enjoy letting the car charge overnight and having a full battery in the morning. I've always had good luck with HPWCs because they seem to be located away from the front entrance and are clearly marked, but the opposite seems to be true of other charging options and they can often be ICE'd.
• Have backup charging plans. PlugShare has a website (plugshare.com) and an app that are great resources for this.
• Monitor traffic conditions. This isn't specific to Tesla, but still worth mentioning. Waze is a great app to monitor real-time traffic and road information.

AMPd said:

Excellent advice!

I would just like to add
Monitor Weather: weather conditions may have a significant impact on range, a simple glance at a weather app that has a live radar can save your day!

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taurusking said:

Make sure check your phone when charging ...this is very important step.

I parked my car at a supercharger location in Florida and 10 minutes or so..error message popped up and long story short ...car had to be towed to nearest service center.

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AEdennis said:

That's a good list...

I have a few that I compiled from our start of summer trip in May. That I featured on our thread - Here, There, and EVerywhere... Posting our trip SoCal to East Coast and back...

Here is the link to my list - Lessons Learned from our first Cross Country EV Trip | My ActiveE made me Accidentally Environmental

I also propose a few things not on your list.

1) carry multiple phone company networks (i.e. A Verizon or Sprint or T-Mobile if you carry AT&T.) if you can tether even better. I lost the car's signal in St Louis and had to run tethered to my T-Mobile phone for a while.

2) carry an EV card or hang-tag for when you have to leave your car plugged in, in case someone needs to contact you to move so they can charge.

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Brit4864 said:

All of the above are good tips. The weather thing is quite important, especially if you're operating at near the maximum range. Rain will decrease the range quite a bit because of aquaplaning. I'm in the middle of a big road trip right now and ran into a lot of rain here in MO today. One thing I wish they would add is a real time weather radar overlay on the Google map along with real time wind information. Having AWD helps in heavy rain however :smile:

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cpa said:

Two other items to consider: Use the trip tab feature on the energy screen, particularly for longer distances or when the weather is poor. Before you unplug, dial in the destination to your next charging stop. The navigation screen will select the route, and then you can view the estimated battery state of charge upon arrival. After departure I always glance at the trip graph every 10-20 miles to verify that my consumption is close to the estimate generated by the software. This is really important because the initial calculation only considers the road and any elevation gain or loss. Contemporaneous factors like wind, rain, or temperature are not factored in until you start driving and the battery consumption increases because of wet roads, cold temperatures or high winds. This way, you can slow down enough early on in your journey in order to arrive with a reasonable amount of charge. You can always speed up 30 minutes later if the projection appears to be satisfactory.

Second, EVTripplanner gives an estimated wh/mile for the leg selected. I would record these estimates and keep them handy to compare to the display on the odometer to see if you are in the ballpark.

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