Postscript - 2,000 Mile (and Back) Road Trip with Two Kids

[Jim R]

This post on long trips (and a few others much like it) is most interesting to me, as I have not yet bought a Tesla and I do annual long trips from Nova Scotia to Orlando Florida (3300 kms or 2050 miles each way).

In my ICE car I would only make 2 stops for fuel and hotel stays, driving 10 hours each day for 3 days. Quite a difference from your many stops!

Another eye-opener for me was the cost of fuel. I've had a hard time calculating just what I would pay for electricity on a Tesla road trip. I turns out it is not much different, but only because my ICE car (Mercedes E250 diesel) gets very high mileage, similar to a Prius. My attraction to a Tesla is not based on fuel economy, however. I'm attracted the idea of fewer parts to replace as the vehicle ages and the lack of pollution to the environment.

Thanks for your interesting post.

 

[turns2stone]

This post on long trips (and a few others much like it) is most interesting to me, as I have not yet bought a Tesla and I do annual long trips from Nova Scotia to Orlando Florida (3300 kms or 2050 miles each way).

In my ICE car I would only make 2 stops for fuel and hotel stays, driving 10 hours each day for 3 days. Quite a difference from your many stops!

Another eye-opener for me was the cost of fuel. I've had a hard time calculating just what I would pay for electricity on a Tesla road trip. I turns out it is not much different, but only because my ICE car (Mercedes E250 diesel) gets very high mileage, similar to a Prius. My attraction to a Tesla is not based on fuel economy, however. I'm attracted the idea of fewer parts to replace as the vehicle ages and the lack of pollution to the environment.

Thanks for your interesting post.

Even with a fuel-efficient ICE car, the biggest shock to me is just how little the 'operating cost' of a Tesla is, due to charging with electricity. Sure, a road trip might be about the same cost, but daily driving should be 3-5X less expensive, depending on current electricity rates, current gas/diesel rates, etc. And yes, it may only be $50/month in savings. But those are real savings that are essentially permanent.

 

[M3BlueGeorgia]

Great write up! Thank you.

One thing I’m honestly surprised about are the 15 and 18 charging stops. Was that being conservative on consumption or genuinely necessary?

Assuming 315wh/mi x 2100 mi = 661,500 wh.

80% of the 75kWh battery is 60,000wh

So in theory, (661500/60000) = 11 charging stops if you’re onloading 80% of the battery capacity.

Very back of napkin math, but curious if the extra stops were so you could take a break, use the restrooms, let the kids out, etc - in other words, not strictly because of electrons.

How did you find the distance between stops? Too short, too long or just about right?

Thank you!! Genuinely curious - I haven’t taken a really long road trip yet and I really want to .... thinking about Chicago in April.

Having just put 3,500 miles on the car driving Atlanta -> Colorado -> Atlanta for Christmas and New Year...

Once you get away from places with high densities of Superchargers, your stops tend to be dictated by where they are located.
So it doesn't matter if you'd like to drive 160 miles between chargers when they aren't at 160 mile intervals.

One tends to drop in to the dictum of stopping more frequently than you'd like, but charging for less time. Barely enough time for bathroom trips on every other stop. We got into the cadence of a long stop with a meal followed by a quick top-up stop.

Also at Freeway speeds you lose 15% - 20% of EPA range, even in the summer. Then in the winter, you lose another 20% - 40% depending on outside temperature. For example, driving along I-70 in Kansas at 80mph in 30(F) temps, I was glad to get less than 340 w/ml, whereas driving on I-75 in GA at 78mph in the summer we can get around 260.

With 3 kids, stopping frequently is pretty much essential anyway, though for us it was just the two of us plus a cat.

 

[dmurphy]

Having just put 3,500 miles on the car driving Atlanta -> Colorado -> Atlanta for Christmas and New Year...

Once you get away from places with high densities of Superchargers, your stops tend to be dictated by where they are located.
So it doesn't matter if you'd like to drive 160 miles between chargers when they aren't at 160 mile intervals.

One tends to drop in to the dictum of stopping more frequently than you'd like, but charging for less time. Barely enough time for bathroom trips on every other stop. We got into the cadence of a long stop with a meal followed by a quick top-up stop.

Also at Freeway speeds you lose 15% - 20% of EPA range, even in the summer. Then in the winter, you lose another 20% - 40% depending on outside temperature. For example, driving along I-70 in Kansas at 80mph in 30(F) temps, I was glad to get less than 340 w/ml, whereas driving on I-75 in GA at 78mph in the summer we can get around 260.

With 3 kids, stopping frequently is pretty much essential anyway, though for us it was just the two of us plus a cat.

Thank you! This is awesome feedback and exactly what I was trying to get at. The cadence of alternating meal stops and bio-breaks every few hours seems perfect. For us, most of our road trips would be up and down the eastern seaboard. Supercharger density looks pretty good, at least from what I see.

But I really like the cadence; that seems ideal to me. A quick stop every couple hours works great for a leg stretch and bio break. Can't make the 8-hour run between rest stops like I used to

 

[Prairie]

Sorry, @dmurphy, I missed your initial post above. Yes - ABRP is, in my one trip experience, time optimized. Tesla Nav would do fewer stops with longer drives in my experience, while ABRP would optimize for fast (low charge state to mid-charge state) charges that reduce total charging time despite more stops. I did have Destination Charging at the Holiday Inn Express in Amarillo on the way out (replacing a Supercharge stop there); on the way back an asthma issue for my oldest (since resolved fine) led to a sub-optimal "Supercharge before parking car overnight with Tesla Destination charging" experience, so one unnecessary Supercharge on the return. That said, I tended to defer to ABRP, which definitely had more recommended stops than Tesla Nav. Hope that helps.

Is there a way to put ABRP results into the navigation system? Novice but love road trips

 

[Prairie]

Having just put 3,500 miles on the car driving Atlanta -> Colorado -> Atlanta for Christmas and New Year...

Once you get away from places with high densities of Superchargers, your stops tend to be dictated by where they are located.
So it doesn't matter if you'd like to drive 160 miles between chargers when they aren't at 160 mile intervals.

One tends to drop in to the dictum of stopping more frequently than you'd like, but charging for less time. Barely enough time for bathroom trips on every other stop. We got into the cadence of a long stop with a meal followed by a quick top-up stop.

Also at Freeway speeds you lose 15% - 20% of EPA range, even in the summer. Then in the winter, you lose another 20% - 40% depending on outside temperature. For example, driving along I-70 in Kansas at 80mph in 30(F) temps, I was glad to get less than 340 w/ml, whereas driving on I-75 in GA at 78mph in the summer we can get around 260.

With 3 kids, stopping frequently is pretty much essential anyway, though for us it was just the two of us plus a cat.

It was the cat…

 

[Zcd1]

Is there a way to put ABRP results into the navigation system? Novice but love road trips

Not the full route, but you could navigate to each ABRP-suggested charging stop and use ABRP’s charging times rather than the NAV’s.

To be fair, IMO the NAV’s suggestions have gotten closer to ABRP’s over the years, as the NAV’s underlying algorithms have been improved.

 

[Two-rocks]

Good writeup!

Having done our usual trips (300-600 miles) over the last two years at various times and all weather (New England) I've found the in car navigation much (much!) improved - but still need to manually change to suit the desired goal. It generally favors the long charge stops vs splash-n-dash, but the new data screen is super accurate.

That said, the splash-n-dash (ABRP) method is almost always way too fast for a splash stop (1 or 2 people and no kids) - add kids and its probably easier to just use the car nav - else you overcharge at a stop and need to re-route (repeatedly). As far as your consumption, Heat pump for the win.

Long, long gone are my days of being uncomfortable (sitting for more than 2-2.5 hours straight). College years, absolutely! - but with age comes wisdom ;-)

A boating analogy - power boats enjoy the destination, Sail boats enjoy the journey (former power boater, now a sail boat owner). Missed so many things on prior road trips...

 

[Prairie]

Not the full route, but you could navigate to each ABRP-suggested charging stop and use ABRP’s charging times rather than the NAV’s.

To be fair, IMO the NAV’s suggestions have gotten closer to ABRP’s over the years, as the NAV’s underlying algorithms have been improved.

I saw this morning that apparently ABRP has a way to link to Tesla navigation. It was early and I wasn’t awake enough to read through how to do this. Will have to check on it sometime when sitting in the car..

 

[Zcd1]

I saw this morning that apparently ABRP has a way to link to Tesla navigation. It was early and I wasn’t awake enough to read through how to do this. Will have to check on it sometime when sitting in the car..

I tried sending an ABRP route to my car by clicking “Share” and then choosing “Tesla”
from my iPhone’s sharing menu options, but it didn’t go through.

Unsure whether there’s another way to do it.