A few weeks ago I posted this thread and got some helpful replies (Road Trip Advice - Inexperienced Driver) so some folks may recognize my questions as clarifications from that thread.
Anyway - the situation is simple - I live in Nashville and my wife wants to drive the Tesla to South Carolina. Most of this is fairly straightforward but there is a long stretch between Nashville and the Knoxville SpC. My title of the post is because the car is essentially telling me that it can't make it. (I'm sure people drive between Nashville and Knoxville all the time so I must be screwing something up.)
I figured since I am worried about my wife having issues that I would try to do a bit of the drive myself and see what the Nav and Energy App trip tab told me. So here are the conditions and results:
Results:
So I'm confused!
A) Assuming the car is right and going 117 miles to Crossville would use 63% of the battery that calculates out to a range of around 186 miles at full charge - so I can get to Knoxville but only damn near empty
B) If the 30-mile average Projected Range is correct I would have about 31 miles to spare - so I can get to Knoxville with a little room to spare
Net/net: I have never done a road trip in the car so I don't know how to process all this information. Neither my wife nor I is going to drive 60 mph in a 70 zone just to drive the Tesla so maybe we are this issue.
Questions:
Another concern is that if this trip is on the razor edge (if even possible) starting out at 100%, preheated, etc. the drive BACK is going to be double extra super dicey and/or require a very long SpC stop in Knoxville.
Help!
Anyway - the situation is simple - I live in Nashville and my wife wants to drive the Tesla to South Carolina. Most of this is fairly straightforward but there is a long stretch between Nashville and the Knoxville SpC. My title of the post is because the car is essentially telling me that it can't make it. (I'm sure people drive between Nashville and Knoxville all the time so I must be screwing something up.)
I figured since I am worried about my wife having issues that I would try to do a bit of the drive myself and see what the Nav and Energy App trip tab told me. So here are the conditions and results:
- Ambient temp = 31 degrees. Weather = snowing lightly (so probably reasonable approximations for her drive in late January)
- Car charged to 100%
- Preheated for about 30 mins using Visible Tesla
- I FORGOT TO SET RANGE MODE (maybe this is huge, I have no experience so I don't know)
- Distance from my garage to the Knoxville SpC (all highway) is 171 miles per Google Maps/EVTrip Planner
- I set out driving what I consider normally - if not conservatively - HVAC off until things fogged up then set to 68, AP engaged/TACC set at 75 mph (5 mph over the posted limit)
Results:
- Nav would not route me to Knoxville SpC rather it tried to find (endless spinning circle) SpC's in-between and there are none. I guess this means the car thought it couldn't make it. Note: this was before I left my garage
- I started driving to see if it would get comfortable routing me to Knoxville but it never did
- I set the Nav to a city (Crossville) that is on the highway on the way to the SpC. It is 117 miles from my house. The trip tab showed that I would arrive with 37% battery capacity
- I drove on this route for 34.9 miles in 33 minutes, used 13.5 kWh and averaged 388 Wh/mi and then gave up and went home to post this
- The Projected Range at the end of my test (on the 30-mile avg per the Energy App) was 167 miles at 81% battery capacity
- At the end of my test I was 122 miles from the Knoxville SpC per the Nav (this is odd because 35+122 doesn't equal 171)
- I believe the Nav is wrong and I was actually 136 miles from the SpC - this lines up to the mile markers and also totals out to 171 as it should
So I'm confused!
A) Assuming the car is right and going 117 miles to Crossville would use 63% of the battery that calculates out to a range of around 186 miles at full charge - so I can get to Knoxville but only damn near empty
B) If the 30-mile average Projected Range is correct I would have about 31 miles to spare - so I can get to Knoxville with a little room to spare
Net/net: I have never done a road trip in the car so I don't know how to process all this information. Neither my wife nor I is going to drive 60 mph in a 70 zone just to drive the Tesla so maybe we are this issue.
Questions:
- Would Range Mode have solved my problem?
- If the ambient temp was say 50-55 degrees would that have solved my problem?
- Did I misinterpret the data and not have a problem at all?
Another concern is that if this trip is on the razor edge (if even possible) starting out at 100%, preheated, etc. the drive BACK is going to be double extra super dicey and/or require a very long SpC stop in Knoxville.
Help!