Navigation routes

[Woody5575]

I was planning a trip to my son's house in a very small Wyoming town. Normally, it's about a 5.5 hour drive without charging stops. There are primarily 2 ways to get there from here. One gets me off the interstate earlier (at a scheduled charge point) and is a little shorter. It involves a lot of 2 lane state highways, passing, lower speed limits, small town LEOs, etc. It's just a little less comfortable drive. The other has much more interstate and less traffic when I do have to exit the interstate. This is the route I prefer. I believe the actual travel time is literally 3 minutes longer and 12 miles further my way, according to Apple Maps (which offers both routes). When I put in his address (destination), the Tesla nav gives me only the first option, and I can't seem to force it to the second option. I tried adding multiple waypoints, but it routes me the same way with a long side trip to the new waypoints, then doubles back to the same route it used to begin with. It actually adds 90 minutes! I tried more waypoints on the way to where I would normally get off the interstate, but I keep getting the same results. I simply can't seem to force it to go the way I prefer. I don't know, but I'm guessing that if I was actually on the trip and stopped at the first charge point (where the route deviates to the wrong option), it might reroute and give my preferred route as an option. If not, it seems like it will just keep rerouting me to the wrong option. Am I missing something?

 

[804son]

you could check www.abetterrouteplanner.com to check out the route you prefer and see if it's possible. You can also check www.plugshare.com to see what chargers are available via your preferred route. Wyoming is tough, because chargers are few and far between. No idea what the Tesla nav will do when it doesn't think you can make the next supercharger, it would probably want to reroute you to an available supercharger that could be well out of your way. If you can assure yourself that you can access a level 2 charger, you could possibly extend yourself to your destination. However you may be waiting a long time for enough charge to make it.

 

[Woody5575]

you could check www.abetterrouteplanner.com to check out the route you prefer and see if it's possible. You can also check www.plugshare.com to see what chargers are available via your preferred route. Wyoming is tough, because chargers are few and far between. No idea what the Tesla nav will do when it doesn't think you can make the next supercharger, it would probably want to reroute you to an available supercharger that could be well out of your way. If you can assure yourself that you can access a level 2 charger, you could possibly extend yourself to your destination. However you may be waiting a long time for enough charge to make it.

You're right!!

ABRP offers both options. It also has different charge points. That actually contributes to a bit of my range anxiety. I really don't want to have to use 2 separate apps and decide which route is better. That's a "me" issue, I guess. Although I'm willing to bet it's not what the programmers at Tesla envisioned.

Thank you for reminding me to check ABRP!

 

[Mr. Nuke]

You're right!!

ABRP offers both options. It also has different charge points. That actually contributes to a bit of my range anxiety. I really don't want to have to use 2 separate apps and decide which route is better. That's a "me" issue, I guess. Although I'm willing to bet it's not what the programmers at Tesla envisioned.

Thank you for reminding me to check ABRP!

You already seemingly decided which route is better for you. Like @804son said the only relevant questions are 1) whether the other route is possible? and 2) is it as easy as an ICE car given you've mentioned it involves different charging stops? If ABRP thinks it is, take it and don't worry about it. I am a little curious to what the city pair in question is here though based on the description if you are willing to share, because it should absolutely be possible to force your desired route via waypoints in the car. Depending on the route you probably won't need to use two different apps or any app at all on the actual trip itself.

 

[Tinkerin]

I was planning a trip to my son's house in a very small Wyoming town. Normally, it's about a 5.5 hour drive without charging stops. There are primarily 2 ways to get there from here. One gets me off the interstate earlier (at a scheduled charge point) and is a little shorter. It involves a lot of 2 lane state highways, passing, lower speed limits, small town LEOs, etc. It's just a little less comfortable drive. The other has much more interstate and less traffic when I do have to exit the interstate. This is the route I prefer. I believe the actual travel time is literally 3 minutes longer and 12 miles further my way, according to Apple Maps (which offers both routes). When I put in his address (destination), the Tesla nav gives me only the first option, and I can't seem to force it to the second option. I tried adding multiple waypoints, but it routes me the same way with a long side trip to the new waypoints, then doubles back to the same route it used to begin with. It actually adds 90 minutes! I tried more waypoints on the way to where I would normally get off the interstate, but I keep getting the same results. I simply can't seem to force it to go the way I prefer. I don't know, but I'm guessing that if I was actually on the trip and stopped at the first charge point (where the route deviates to the wrong option), it might reroute and give my preferred route as an option. If not, it seems like it will just keep rerouting me to the wrong option. Am I missing something?

I had a similar issue last year in Washington State. ABRP had shown that I could easily get to my destination over a mountain pass that is closed often due to snow. The car navigation appeared to believe that same pass was closed when it had been open for a week and would not navigate or estimate charge level no matter what I tried. I stuck to the ABRP route and had no issues other than the car warning me of running out of charge - at least until I cleared the pass after which the car just smiled as if nothing happened...

Lesson to me for trips was to plan on ABRP and monitor the car software as you go - I arrived with a higher SOC (29%) than ABRP estimated.

 

[fholbert]

I don't understand the love affair with ABRP.

I find ABRP difficult to use and it keeps stopping for 8 and 12 minute charges. If I tell ABRP to skip a couple charging stations it will route me 50 miles out of my way instead of letting get a couple hours of non-stop driving. ABRP has no idea how many stalls are available and it will take you to a 150kW charger when a 250kW charger is across the freeway.

If I wrote the software I'd call it A Best Route Planner. I would have the capability of telling the software:

• I'll leave home with a 100% charge, take me as low as 7% on that charge.
• When I stop, I plan to have a meal. Let's charge 7% to 95% while I eat.
• Hit the road again, I want the last possible charge before I go into an area for 3 days where there are no chargers.

I find the only useful item ABRP, and Tesla's Go Anywhere gives me is where the Tesla chargers the located. I have to do the math on range and where to stop.

 

[Mr. Nuke]

I don't understand the love affair with ABRP.

Partially because it allows you to do most of the things you mention in this post once you learn it's interface.

I find ABRP difficult to use and it keeps stopping for 8 and 12 minute charges. If I tell ABRP to skip a couple charging stations it will route me 50 miles out of my way instead of letting get a couple hours of non-stop driving.

I get people's difficult to use comments at times, but from a computer especially it literally takes me minutes to customize a trip to my needs. Regarding this quote, it has an option to tell it that you want fewer, but longer stops. It It obviously is defaulting to the "quickest" arrival time, and often that is going to be quick stops at superchargers that are closest to the road/highway/interstate. And then see below, you can also manually tell it if you want to stay at a supercharger longer than what it is offering.

If I wrote the software I'd call it A Best Route Planner. I would have the capability of telling the software:

• I'll leave home with a 100% charge, take me as low as 7% on that charge.
• When I stop, I plan to have a meal. Let's charge 7% to 95% while I eat.
• Hit the road again, I want the last possible charge before I go into an area for 3 days where there are no chargers

And again here, All three of these things can be accomplished with ABRP. You can set the minimum charge level you are willing to a arrive at a supercharger at. It defaults to 10%, but you are willing to arrive at 7%? No problem change it in the settings.

You can tell it you want to stay at a charger longer either by time or charging to a specific battery percentage i.e. for a meal.

And lastly, by setting the destination arrival percentage to whatever you need, you would effectively accomplish that last bullet point.