Tesla Model ≡ Thread

[robg]

Originally Posted by Alan

Actually yes only once in my life and I am embarrassed to say I was in my upper 40's when it happened ... you would think this would happen when you're a kid first starting to drive.



Both of these scenario's would give me major anxiety ... I remember being on a road trip where we were down to the last bar of gas and I was so stressed until we finally found a gas station plus what if the car/gauge is wrong.

Ha I’m the same way. I’m kind of ocd about filling up when the tank is half full whereas my wife lets it go down to almost zero.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ZBB]

Originally Posted by Alan

Actually yes only once in my life and I am embarrassed to say I was in my upper 40's when it happened ... you would think this would happen when you're a kid first starting to drive.



Both of these scenario's would give me major anxiety ... I remember being on a road trip where we were down to the last bar of gas and I was so stressed until we finally found a gas station plus what if the car/gauge is wrong.

Both of these were in the first year I owned the Model S -- the first was about 7 months in and the second was 9 months in. The first was really an attempt to fight my anxiety of driving after the yellow light comes on...

For the second, which was our first Tesla Road Trip, I did a lot of planning for that drive that is no longer necessary. We went from Scottsdale to the Grand Canyon for a long weekend (including a couple nights at the El Tovar hotel...). At the time, the Supercharger in Flagstaff was the closest one to us and the only one we'd use on the trip. From our house to the Supercharger was 129 miles, but it was uphill (going from ~2000 feet to ~7000 feet). We were also driving in Feb, so temps were cool (although not super cold that weekend). I had the small battery in the Model S, so it only had ~200 miles rated range -- and the combination of highway speeds and elevation climb meant that we were using close to the full range of the car. But we planned for it -- and this are things that you no longer need to worry about since there are just so many more Superchargers. My planning included identifying 3 locations along the drive to do mileage checks -- if I was below a rated miles threshold, we would need to divert and charge for a bit at either a public charger or RV park. But we didn't need to stop. As I mentioned, this was before the car did all the charge planning onboard -- now you can just put the destination in and it will route you through Superchargers to get where you need to go.

The other thing about driving an EV is that speed has a big impact on range (all cars have the similar impact from wind resistance, but its much more noticeable in and EV). Teslas will suggest slowing down below a certain speed in order to help reach a destination (if it calculates you do not have enough remaining range at the speed you are going). On that first trip, I actually drove the posted speed limit for about 75% of the trip. Only when we crested the last major climb did I speed up a little bit (at that point, I knew we would make it -- ~30ish miles remaining with over 40 miles of rated remaining...