To qualify myself, I’ve had my M3LR for 3 months now. Although I have “planned” several trips, I have made no trips outside of the local area. I am retired, and honestly don’t drive all that much. My drives are typically shorter distance, primarily on surface streets, and I’ve never had to charge anywhere but at home on a new 50 amp circuiting a Mobile Charger. We originally planned to use our other car for longer rides outside of our comfort zone, so I never even thought about the intricacies of battery usage, charging stats, or route planning. It turns out that that I need to reconsider that decision because I enjoy driving the Tesla much more than I expected.
What I think I’ve learned after trying to understand range, battery use, and charging rates is that there are a ton of variables in every trip (speed, weather, temperature, terrain, etc), and not all planners account for these variables on their own. This puts some of the planning in my court, which is OK with me if I can figure out how to use all of the stats that are available, and how each of these are impacted by the variables I mentioned above. I’m not yet comfortable that I understand these stats and variables, let alone how to apply them. As a result, I have almost zero confidence to start an extended trip. The definition of range anxiety, right?
Please understand that I’m not complaining about the inconvenience of driving an electric car! I expected a steep learning curve, and I haven't been disappointed. I just didn’t understand how hard it was going to be to learn this stuff. I’m trying to alleviate my range anxiety with knowledge, but I can’t seem to find out how/where to get a good feel for this. I've been in Tech Support for a very long time and I'm not afraid to learn new things as long as I can find the information. At. this point, even a round trip to my favorite restaurant in the mountains 90 miles away is a concern due to the huge elevation change (plus 5000 on the way up, and again on the way down), potentially cold weather, and higher speeds. Which reminds me! Does the native route planner account for 2 factors in the plan? I think ABRP does, but it’s not clear to me how or if the 2 apps can work together
Am I overthinking the whole thing?
What I think I’ve learned after trying to understand range, battery use, and charging rates is that there are a ton of variables in every trip (speed, weather, temperature, terrain, etc), and not all planners account for these variables on their own. This puts some of the planning in my court, which is OK with me if I can figure out how to use all of the stats that are available, and how each of these are impacted by the variables I mentioned above. I’m not yet comfortable that I understand these stats and variables, let alone how to apply them. As a result, I have almost zero confidence to start an extended trip. The definition of range anxiety, right?
Please understand that I’m not complaining about the inconvenience of driving an electric car! I expected a steep learning curve, and I haven't been disappointed. I just didn’t understand how hard it was going to be to learn this stuff. I’m trying to alleviate my range anxiety with knowledge, but I can’t seem to find out how/where to get a good feel for this. I've been in Tech Support for a very long time and I'm not afraid to learn new things as long as I can find the information. At. this point, even a round trip to my favorite restaurant in the mountains 90 miles away is a concern due to the huge elevation change (plus 5000 on the way up, and again on the way down), potentially cold weather, and higher speeds. Which reminds me! Does the native route planner account for 2 factors in the plan? I think ABRP does, but it’s not clear to me how or if the 2 apps can work together
Am I overthinking the whole thing?