Montreal to Toronto Trip

Doug_G said:

It's fine - I would go directly to Kingston; 280 km is quite doable at these temperatures. The trip planner is very conservative (except when it massively screws up and tries to take you on an impossible route... but that's another story).

Do a full range charge just to be safe, delete the Cornwall Supercharger from the route (so the trip planner displays correctly), and keep an eye on the range using the trip planner graph. If it looks like it's dropping too too much slow down a little.

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Plus.... remember that charging from lower battery levels is faster. Not that you want to push it too far, but constantly trying to charge, say, 50% to 90%, takes roughly twice as long as 20% to 60%. Thus it actually makes sense to skip the first Supercharger as long as you have adequate buffer to make the next one. Personally, I consider a projection of 20% adequate.

280km should be a breeze. I will attempt 330km from Buffalo to Cranberry PA this Thursday on my way to North Carolina. Did it a month ago but now with cooler temperatures it gets dicey.

mrElbe said:

280km should be a breeze. I will attempt 330km from Buffalo to Cranberry PA this Thursday on my way to North Carolina. Did it a month ago but now with cooler temperatures it gets dicey.

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This a a bad gap. Erie sc needs to be built.

Doug_G said:

The trip planner is very conservative (except when it massively screws up and tries to take you on an impossible route... but that's another story).

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Not in my experience. Not sure why, but it is always way overly optimistic for me even under the most ideal conditions. In winter, it is a joke. I'd recommend trying it out on a few local trips to see how it works for you before counting on it.

280km to you guys should be nothing. I arrived at Toronto SC yesterday midnight from Kingston after driving 260km with my S60 at 120km/h, and it was 5-6˚C so the heater was ON at 23˚C.

Off topic points:
* I checked Port Hope, but I couldn't find a sign of a supercharger construction, yet.
* The Toronto SC was almost fully occupied except for one spot that I took, and another one that was out of service. This is worrying. I can't wait for the Hope SC to be live so I can skip Toronto SC altogether
* Tesla must have done something to the heater. Last winter, I used to set it at 20˚C on road trips, but now even 21˚C feels really cold!

One piece of Tesla software that works well is the Trip estimator in the energy app. It is really good at projecting how much battery you will have left at the end of the trip. Unlike the range number that you get on the dash, this app takes into account the terrain you will cover and the temperature. I have just completed an awesome cross-continent drive (TO to San Diego, to Victoria, and back to TO), the Trip estimator worked really well - in the mountains and in the cold weather.

As most of us know, the Tesla Nav apps are really messed up. Since you already know your route (401 East), I suggest that you just plug in Kingston as your destination and the turn off the Super Charger routing. This will alleviate those annoying re-routes that the app does. But turn on the Trip estimator.

BTW, in general I found it faster to not skip SC stops since the first 20 minutes charges so much faster. It also means that you don't have to throttle your speed to make it to the next SC. But since you can load up your battery for the first leg of your trip, for sure skip Cornwall on the way to TO.

Have a great drive.

iKhalid said:

280km to you guys should be nothing. I arrived at Toronto SC yesterday midnight from Kingston after driving 260km with my S60 at 120km/h, and it was 5-6˚C so the heater was ON at 23˚C.

Off topic points:
* I checked Port Hope, but I couldn't find a sign of a supercharger construction, yet.
* The Toronto SC was almost fully occupied except for one spot that I took, and another one that was out of service. This is worrying. I can't wait for the Hope SC to be live so I can skip Toronto SC altogether
* Tesla must have done something to the heater. Last winter, I used to set it at 20˚C on road trips, but now even 21˚C feels really cold!

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What did you have left when you got there? Kingston SC to Lawrence SC at 120km/hr is tight for me in the best of conditions. I usually roll in with 15-25km left (in summer).

Sorry to hijack but do you guys think the same trip would be possible skipping Cornwall on December 11th? I'm starting from the South Shore of Montreal. I have a classic 85.

hingisfan said:

What did you have left when you got there? Kingston SC to Lawrence SC at 120km/hr is tight for me in the best of conditions. I usually roll in with 15-25km left (in summer).

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I think it was around 10km. This low number used to scare me a bit when the car was new. Now it doesn't. If I'm approaching the SC and there is say 15km left and it's 10km far, that's more than 50% more range available. And I tend to speed up a little bit at the end of the journey if I know that I have more than needed .

A few months back, I left Ottawa with exactly 200km range available and it was exactly what I needed, I made sure the curve was at the rated line and adjusted the speed/AC accordingly and I was able to make it. I was too lazy to find a charger and spend the time waiting for the car to charge. It was a risk but I didn't mind it .

Biker said:

One piece of Tesla software that works well is the Trip estimator in the energy app. It is really good at projecting how much battery you will have left at the end of the trip.

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Not for me. I can never seem to get it to work.

I'll have to give you a lesson. It really is good.

Biker said:

I'll have to give you a lesson. It really is good.

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Did you read through the thread I linked to above? Any tips would surely be appreciated!

I have now. I have to say that on many legs of my trip I ended up above the line even when I was going 75 or 80 MPH. Sometimes the original Trip prediction was telling me that I would have a really low charge left at the end (b/w 3 and 5%), but it would often go up over the course of that leg. I think that some of the reason might have been that I was starting off with a cold battery. Or course, if I was travelling through slow traffic or construction, then my range would also go up.

Maybe the energy calculator gets better over time - and since I was on a long trip, it could better estimate what my usage might in fact be.

There was a leg where I was driving north in Northern California. I can't remember the exact numbers, but it went something like this: I had about 180 miles of range in the 'tank' and I had about 130 miles to the next SC. The Trip calculator suddenly was telling me that I was going to arrive with about 2% battery. At the time it didn't make sense to me. But slowly as I progressed through the trip I could see that the Range was dropping faster than the miles were clicking off. I modified my speed slightly - going at the speed limit or sometimes 5 MPH less when we were in 70 MPH speed zones - and the Trip % started climbing up above 5 %.

In hind sight, the answer was simple. The SC stop that I was travelling to was Mt. Shasta - and my trip was a gradual 2000 meter climb over those 130 miles.

There was another time going through Colorado where the Trip prediction graph actually went up as you scanned rightward on the graph line. This was where we came over a pass that then descended into the Dillon SC. At the top of the pass I had 40 Miles of Range left. At the bottom of the pass I had 48 Miles of range - and this was when I was driving 70 to 80 MPH.

I'm not sure if this really answers your question directly. But during the trip I never had an issue where the trip calculator predicted that I would be OK and reality showed that I would be cutting it close. By the last week of the trip, when charging I would enter the next SC stop in the Nav, turn OFF 'Route Me Through SCs', and then display the Trip app. When it got above 3% predicted battery at destination, then I felt good to go. Without modifying my driving style, I always ended up at the next SC with more than predicted (unless I really got heavy on the accelerator in the last half of the leg).

Biker said:

I have now. I have to say that on many legs of my trip I ended up above the line even when I was going 75 or 80 MPH.

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You probably noted that based on the comments in the thread, I seem to be an outlier. Not sure why. One other poster mentioned he sees the same poor results that I do. I have used it on my Toronto to Chicago trips where I am driving very conservatively to minimize consumption, and my actual line is always well below the predicted. I don't bother relying on it and calculate my range and charging stops "the old fashioned way".

Doug_G said:

I usually come in a bit below predicted (5% is not uncommon), but the real time graph is super useful for monitoring charge usage and predicting en route whether you'll have enogh range to complete the trip.

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Yep, that's what I meant by the "old fashioned" way. I have followed the advice in your blog post and would encourage anyone contemplating a cold weather road trip to check it out.