Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Day trip part 2

I drove the trip from Northern Colorado to Colorado Springs and back. 60-65 degrees the whole time. I kept the car in Insane, and Range Mode. No A/C or heat on the way down, had it on at 68 degrees on the way back. As I left home, the car said I'd be at 40% when I got to my destination, but it was at 45% when I arrived. I assume that extra 5% was due either to me not using climate control or the car not being used to highway travel.  The estimate adjusts as you drive but I wasn't watching it.
With that extra charge, I decided to forgo charging in Springs or at Park Meadows and instead drove up to the Denver East Supercharger. No other Teslas there.  I had 18% charge when I pulled in. Grabbed lunch at UNOs Chicago Pizza, and the car was at 97% when I returned.
I arrived home at 73%, 288 watts per mile for the whole trip of 274 miles. I never see under 300 watts per mile in my normal urban driving (so far).  This bodes well for future trips.
I had range anxiety on the way down, but none on the way back to Denver. I regularly drive my ICE car with less than a quarter tank, but I think I'd be nervous about doing that with the Tesla. I think that's because a quarter of a 400 mile range car is 100 miles, while a quarter of 250 mile range Tesla is 62.5 miles. I assume the more types of driving I do, the more I'll begin to trust the computer GPS estimates on range. I'm driving to Las Vegas in late August, and wanted to get a 'long' trip under my belt before then.

One thing I think also kept the watts down was using the adaptive cruise control.  In my old car I'd set it for, say, 75mph.  If I wanted to keep it activated, I'd need to switch lanes to pass slower cars, and would still need to brake and resume when there was slow traffic in all the lanes.  With TACC (traffic adaptive cruise control), I would set it and it would automatically go at the speed i set or slow down if a car in front of me was going slower.  It allowed me to relax more while driving, and put me in a mood where I didn't need to be constantly jockeying for position.

Saturday, March 21, 2015

Day Trip pt1

Tomorrow I'm going on my first trip in the Tesla that's longer than the car's range.  A drive down to Colorado Springs is 127 miles.  EVTripPlanner.com says with hills and such, at legal speeds (no speeding), with my weight, on a 65 degree day, it will rated 137 miles of electricity.  I can't do a round trip with that, having a range of about 250 miles total.  The plan will be to drive down without stopping, a estimated 2 hours and 20 minutes.  Have lunch, have the meeting, and drive back to Denver, stopping at Park Meadows to recharge at the Tesla Supercharger there.  Go to the OTHER Denver Supercharger, meet a friend and grab dinner.  Drive home and plug back in.
That total distance before recharging is 181.3 miles, with a rated distance of 184 miles.  Should be no problem at all.  Now, if I set cruise control at speed limit + 5 mph, the rated miles goes up to 201 miles of electricity used.  Still shouldn't be a problem

If instead I drive back directly to the Denver East Supercharger, it's 199.3 miles, and a rated 193 miles.  I am going to do this as it's still easily done given the nice weather expected tomorrow.  If the weather had been cold, my mileage goes down, and I'd stop at the Park Meadows Supercharger.  If estimates are off and I'm using more power than expected I can stop at Park Meadows.

No idea why EV Trip Planner says my rated miles would be less than the distance as I end up at the Charger as it's 500 ft higher than where I start.

Update after the trip.