Suggestions about Supercharges and range management after a 6,800 mile drive

[AEdennis]

I see a Model S or two nearly every time I make the trek around St. Louis (I live about 45 miles east); not quite the California experience, but we have our share. No exact figures, but we're figuring several hundred in the STL area...

Actually it turned into a de-facto Tesla Meetup at the St Charles Supercharger when we drove through on our SoCal to Maine Roadtrip 2015

Here, There, and EVerywhere Day 20 | My ActiveE made me Accidentally Environmental

 

[artsci]

Did you feel the need to draft because you left without a full range charge? Or is it because in those areas the distance from supercharger to supercharge is too far? Or weather conditions were bad?

Just trying to understand the idea of needing to draft. In CA, people are driving over 85 mph and I know that's bad for range, but I usually also take about a 30% overage, so my 260 rated range gives me a little less than 200 real miles.

We drafted only when we got the Nav yellow warning bar. We had a full charge (245 miles of range) when we got onto I-70 East in Independence and the warning appeared as soon as we got on the Interstate and reached 70mph. So our choice was either to slow way down or draft. We chose to draft.

 

[jaguar36]

View attachment 87993

Is that a NOS bottle in the frunk?

How frequently (if at all) did you encounter lines at the superchargers? Were they mostly deserted? I always worry about that when planning a roadtrip, but with there being one supercharger stall per ~35 Teslas it doesn't seem like it should really be a concern.

 

[yobigd20]

Did you feel the need to draft because you left without a full range charge? Or is it because in those areas the distance from supercharger to supercharge is too far?

there's a big hole in PA and NY where there's no superchargers at all and going up and down and around mountains. sometimes range charging just isn't enough and threes no superchargers within hundreds of miles so you're forced to draft or find a level 2 charger and wait forever to get enough charge to continue.

 

[ArtInCT]

Nice info artsci.... which inter SC gaps (there and back) gave you the most issues (if any) related to range?
I am very surprised the NAV system does not bring you turn by turn to the destination SC...
Is this Google's issue or TM's?

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there's a big hole in PA and NY where there's no superchargers at all and going up and down and around mountains. sometimes range charging just isn't enough and threes no superchargers within hundreds of miles so you're forced to draft or find a level 2 charger and wait forever to get enough charge to continue.

Like Northern PA along route 80?? A Supercharger desert...

 

[yobigd20]

Like Northern PA along route 80?? A Supercharger desert...

yep. i take various routes along here east and west poconos to/from nyc and north/south finger lakes to/from south jersey etc. trying to do some of these trips across the supercharger desert in one shot is difficult because from my start to destination is sometimes around 250-260 miles lol I just can't do it. a lot of times now i'll head up to the recently opened Newburgh NY one and then I can do it in one shot from there. well at least during the summer weather, it'll be interesting if I can do it during winter. although for me if they get some along I80 and also around allentown/scranton/binghamton that'll make my life a lot easier. supposedly these are coming soon as I keep bugging them especially about the binghamton one. "end of summer" is what they tell me.

 

[artsci]

Is that a NOS bottle in the frunk?

How frequently (if at all) did you encounter lines at the superchargers? Were they mostly deserted? I always worry about that when planning a roadtrip, but with there being one supercharger stall per ~35 Teslas it doesn't seem like it should really be a concern.

That's a plastic container for dog food

We encountered no lines at the more than 70 superchargers we visited. Some were empty, many had one or two cars, and even in LA and the rest of CA we had no problems.

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Nice info artsci.... which inter SC gaps (there and back) gave you the most issues (if any) related to range?
I am very surprised the NAV system does not bring you turn by turn to the destination SC...
Is this Google's issue or TM's?

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Like Northern PA along route 80?? A Supercharger desert...

The greatest concern was the distance between the Independence and St Charles MO SCs: 212 miles. Can't remember now which ones, but several were 160 - 180 miles and most were under 150. Mileage aside, an important factor was gradient, and there is no information about that on the nav pages. Out of that concern we went online a few times to get information about the altitude of various SC sites. For example, we discovered that St Charles was about 200 feet lower than Independence. The 2 or 3 other times we got a warning to slow down to preserve range we were climbing some very long uphills. Drafting helped a great deal in those situations.

The nav does give turn by turn to the SCs. But when you're chasing around parking lots turns have no context. That's why visual cues would be helpful.

 

[gnxs]

Like Northern PA along route 80?? A Supercharger desert...

Yea, they really need to fill that in to make my Chicago/NY trip much easier.