Road trip tips?
Road trip tips?
Hi all the family and I are going to be going on a road trip and renting a Tesla Model Y. We’re going to be going from Salt Lake City to Anaheim/Disneyland and just wanted to reach out and see if you have any tips for first time EV drivers.
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There's not really much to think about road tripping in a tesla. Just put in your destination in the nav and it will plan out where to stop to supercharge and for how long. For the most part it is very accurate aiming to get you to each stop with at least 10% charge for buffer. You don't have to worry about range at all. Charging stops are typically around 15-25 minutes which gives you enough time to use the restroom, grab a coffee, maybe get lunch. For that trip you're probably looking all day and 4-5 stops total.
With regards to superchargers, be mindful of the V2 and V3 superchargers. The V2 chargers are 150kW and have a thicker cable. These share load with adjacent stalls, so if you park in a stall to charge that says 1B and there's someone parked in 1A then both of you will be sharing the 150kW, which may or may not matter depending on how charged either car is (EVs charge slower as the batteries get more full, for the Y it starts dropping around 40% charge, and at 90% it slows to almost a trickle). V3 superchargers for the most part (thinner cable) all have dedicated circuits and charge at the full 250kW. Because of the charging curve, there is very little real world difference in charging at v2 and v3 speeds. It might save a minute or two, but you don't have to go out of your way to find a v3.
Superchargers can sometimes be a little hard to find, they're not like gas stations with signs everywhere advertising, but the pinpoint on your map should be pretty accurate. They can be on the back of a hotel, next to a gas station or restaurant, in a shopping center parking lot, etc. Sometimes they are massive supercharging centers with over 100 chargers and even have a cafe/lounge and their own bathrooms, like in Firebaugh and Kettleman City.
Check to see if your hotel offers EV charging or if they have a spot where you can plug in to a level 1 outlet. You might need to trickle charge the whole time you're parked there but your car will be 100% ready to go whenever you are ready to head back. Oh, and it will most likely be free.
Hopefully your car at least has autopilot enabled. Push down on the right stalk halfway 2 times to enable it. It will keep you in your lane and maintain distance from the car in front of you. You need to keep your hand on the wheel and apply torque to tell the car that you're still there but it makes a huge difference on long roadtrips. I can go 800+ miles solo in one day in my Y without even feeling tired, and I attribute most of that to Autopilot (or in my case FSD).
Since you're going to be doing a lot of driving in the middle of nowhere just keep in mind that your range/efficiency drops MASSIVELY with speed. At 65 mph the Y gets about 280Wh/mi. At 85 mph it can go all the way up around 600 Wh/mi which gives you only 120-150 miles of range. The trip planner certainly will account for this so you don't have to worry about it, but consider that It might actually make sense to slow down a little (maybe even GASP do the speed limit!) as long as you're not obstructing traffic. Or if you want mega-efficiency, just turn on autopilot and draft behind a truck. I can get close to 400 miles of range on the freeway that way in my car.
Also, air conditioning and going uphill might decrease range significantly. That's a lot of desert :) I don't know how good the prediction is with all that. Good thing is there are a lot more charging places than a few years ago.
Yeah I’ve been checking some of the trip planner apps and saw that we are dropping a lot of elevation going there but coming back we’re going to be climbing a lot. Checking on the charging network tho it looks like there are plenty of chargers that are available.
The trip planner takes into account elevation changes and your AC usage, etc. It will even account for a headwind if there is one. Having taken tons of long road trips in my Y I've found it to be extremely accurate, with 1-2% of arrival charge. If you use the charging app in on the car touchscreen it will show you projected battery charge over the length of the trip and its far from being a straight line.
You're probably going to go down into Los Angeles over I-5 through a pass we call "The Grapevine". You can be at the top of the pass (4400 ft) with 30% charge and get to the bottom with about 38%. I mean... You used an extra 8% to get up the other side so it evens out, its just fun to watch your car refuel itself.
Oh, that's neat. I just have an older leaf, and it's been pretty accurate, but not for a long and varied trip such as that as of course it is not connected to navigation.
Oh wow that’s good to know about the speed. Thanks!