It's a car. It's my car. It's my daily use vehicle regardless of weather (OK, in warm weather I might ride a motorcycle or bicycle to work). I say this as the most asked question I'm asked about it is: "did you drive it today?"
As far as the vehicle itself: it's a car. That is, I'm not using it any differently than any other car I've owned. I don't expect it to be any different unless I plan on driving more than 200 miles before getting home.
As anything new, it has features that are new to me, and features missing from old vehicles I had.
I use two features more than any of the others, so far.
1- remote preconditioning. I can turn on the climate control for the car remotely from my iPhone. With a software update, I've activated smart preconditioning which is designed to learn my work schedule and automatically do the heat and cooling without me needing to anything. I wonder if my schedule, not being a single set of hours for the whole week (M, TU, TH 12-9; WE 12-5; FR, SA 12-10; SU 12-6), will confuse the system making it fail to work correctly.
2- bluetooth media streaming. It doesn't work as seamlessly as hooking my iPod up to my Dodge, but I don't need to constantly hook the iPod to a PC to download new podcasts or delete listened to podcasts. I'm carrying a iPhone charge cable in the car in case a long trip saps the phone's power, and there's 2 USB ports in the car.
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Monday, January 05, 2015
Tesla trip planning, the new normal?
100 years ago, you needed to seriously plan a car trip, both because roads weren't in existence, and because the infrastructure of gas stations was sparse. Today, you follow the superslab interstate and there are gas stations every exit. With the Tesla, you still have the roads but need to seriously plan your trip based on chargers, and mainly, Tesla's Superchargers. These are placed so that travel is possible long distance, but because they're designed to handle the S60, they need to be placed closer together than needed for the S85.
Google says a car trip from Colorado to Vegas is 11:15 hrs, 800 miles.
EV Trip Planner says the same trip is 12 hrs 30 minutes.
This can't be right. 6 half hour stops vs 2 ten minute stops. I seem to remember doing it in 11hrs without the time change. If we assume both gas stops are 30 minutes (which they aren't, but it makes math easier), the Tesla should take 2 hours longer to make the trip. That would be 11hrs vs 13 hrs. If we assume 20 minute charging stops, that's an hour less time.
The lower half of the Tesla battery charges three times faster than the upper half.
The Tesla should stop 6 times, only skipping one charger (Glenwood Springs). It could stop less times, but because its batteries charge fastest when empty and slow down as they fill, it's actually faster to fill more times for less charge. However, if I'm stopping for lunch or any other longer break, I'll let it charge and take advantage of the longer range.
The ICE car will stop twice minimum, as range is not 400 miles. It will use 80 gallons of gas round trip, which will cost (at $3/gallon) $240.
It will be a few years until electrics are on par with gas cars in range and recharging rate, but until then this is the new normal for electric car owners.
Google says a car trip from Colorado to Vegas is 11:15 hrs, 800 miles.
EV Trip Planner says the same trip is 12 hrs 30 minutes.
This can't be right. 6 half hour stops vs 2 ten minute stops. I seem to remember doing it in 11hrs without the time change. If we assume both gas stops are 30 minutes (which they aren't, but it makes math easier), the Tesla should take 2 hours longer to make the trip. That would be 11hrs vs 13 hrs. If we assume 20 minute charging stops, that's an hour less time.
The lower half of the Tesla battery charges three times faster than the upper half.
The Tesla should stop 6 times, only skipping one charger (Glenwood Springs). It could stop less times, but because its batteries charge fastest when empty and slow down as they fill, it's actually faster to fill more times for less charge. However, if I'm stopping for lunch or any other longer break, I'll let it charge and take advantage of the longer range.
The ICE car will stop twice minimum, as range is not 400 miles. It will use 80 gallons of gas round trip, which will cost (at $3/gallon) $240.
It will be a few years until electrics are on par with gas cars in range and recharging rate, but until then this is the new normal for electric car owners.
Progress x2
Progress on two fronts today:
Had the electrical charger installed in the garage. Painless, only took about 2-3 hours. They showed up promptly at 9am and were about done at 11 when I left. I gave them a garage remote and a padded box and told them to hit the remote and toss it into the box placed inside the garage. For what I'm paying, I expected this to take longer, but I haven't used an electrician recently, so I don't know pricing.
Received a call from Ben, my delivery specialist, and my car came into Denver on Saturday. Made a Thursday morning appointment to pick it up. It would have been nice to get on Wednesday so I could drive some friends to a hockey game Wednesday night, but I didn't want to schedule it that soon not knowing if I could get someone to drive me down. It looks like I might have, but I didn't want to take the chance.
Had the electrical charger installed in the garage. Painless, only took about 2-3 hours. They showed up promptly at 9am and were about done at 11 when I left. I gave them a garage remote and a padded box and told them to hit the remote and toss it into the box placed inside the garage. For what I'm paying, I expected this to take longer, but I haven't used an electrician recently, so I don't know pricing.
Received a call from Ben, my delivery specialist, and my car came into Denver on Saturday. Made a Thursday morning appointment to pick it up. It would have been nice to get on Wednesday so I could drive some friends to a hockey game Wednesday night, but I didn't want to schedule it that soon not knowing if I could get someone to drive me down. It looks like I might have, but I didn't want to take the chance.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)