Tony Crocker wrote:Supercharging Tesla is a non-linear function, fast when battery is low and progressively slower if you try to fill it all the way. This data was posted into a downloadable spreadsheet on the Tesla Users Forum before I bought the car so I could work out the calculations myself for max efficiency. Charging from 30 rated miles up to 150 on a S85 takes 24 minutes. Charging from 150 - 270 (full) takes 62 minutes.
The spreadsheet calculations need to take speed, altitude/gain/loss and temperature into account, info also available from another post on the Tesla Users Forum. All power consumption results on the Mammoth trip and another one to Santa Barbara wine country were within 10% of sheet calculations and most within 5%. The elapsed time of of 5 hours 12 minutes home to Mammoth on April 10 is proof that the optimal efficiency calculations paid off.
With a full charge starting off our practical Tesla travel radius of AZ/Vegas/Reno/Tahoe/Northern CA can be achieved in marginally more travel time than in a gas car. It's also no big deal to full charge the car at your destination if it has a Supercharger like Mammoth does, or if you're in a hotel with an overnight 220 charger.
The Tahoe to SLC calculations can be done with not too much trouble. SoCal to SLC added 3.5 hours supercharge time to the 9.5 hour drive. That calculation would look better if you spent a night in Vegas and left there with a full charge. Nonetheless any CA - SLC drive is going to be lengthened appreciably vs. a gas car because you can drive 85+ past Vegas/Reno and Tesla power consumption increases 9% for every 5mph of average speed.
A stop in Reno/Tahoe with a full charge would have a similar effect on an Bay Area to SLC drive. Unless your Tahoe stop has an overnight 220 charger, the only superchargers in the Reno/Tahoe region so far are in Truckee (good for Don, not so good for tseeb).
The superchargers are spaced so there is no impediment to have the smaller/cheaper battery and be able to drive anywhere on the network. However, you have to charge the smaller battery closer to being full, which takes more time and adds up to 1/4 to 1/3 more time spent at the superchargers on a road trip. This is the key issue that informed our decision to go with the max rated range 290 mile 90D battery. There are some side benefits of the larger battery too, like 0-60 in 4.2 seconds.
The careful planning on road trips is offset by more convenience charging at home. I won't miss waiting in line for gas at Costco.
An interesting article here: http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/l ... story.html I've spent enough time in remote places in our far flung country to realize electric cars are more practical in some places than others. But in western Europe, with compact distances and sky-high gas prices, the German companies should get in the game seriously sooner rather than later.
ShiftyRider wrote:Speaking of simple, if you live in (I don't know) a house, it already has electricity...
MarcC wrote:It needs to be at least as simple as a gas powered vehicle.
SshiftyRider wrote:Speaking of simple, if you live in (I don't know) a house, it already has electricity...
ShiftyRider wrote:Lotsa folks not only enjoy detail like that, but the certainty to be gained is kinda a simple pleasure too. He's figuring out those 5% error margins now so he won't need as many contingencies later.
MarcC wrote:And I live in a state that has millions of acres without cell phone coverage, let alone charging stations.
MarcC wrote:Ideally the need for chargers entirely will disappear, whether it be from fuel-cell self-charge/regeneration
Tony Crocker wrote:MarcC wrote:And I live in a state that has millions of acres without cell phone coverage, let alone charging stations.
There are enough Superchargers along the major interstates to support Teslas nearly everywhere in the US, but I would probably not own one living in that kind of state either.
Tony Crocker wrote:MarcC wrote:Ideally the need for chargers entirely will disappear, whether it be from fuel-cell self-charge/regeneration
Fuel cells require hydrogen, which takes a lot of energy to isolate chemically. And who is going to build hydrogen refueling infrastructure?
MarcC wrote:West of Green River on I-70 the next services are about 125 miles away. Heading east there's a single gas station at about 20 miles, then the next is just outside Fruita, CO, about 70 miles further.
MarcC wrote:I was speaking very conceptually at the meta level when I mentioned fuel cells, not necessarily existing or widely available technology. Nuclear fuel cell anyone?
Tony Crocker wrote:Length of storage area behind front seats is longer in Tesla than Cayenne. The floor of folded down second row is not quite level with the back. Hatchback vs. higher roof in SUV means less space if you need to stack luggage. So having a 3rd person is doable in Tesla but easier with Cayenne. But with 2 people there's ton of space in Tesla. We had 4 skis due to nebulous weather forecast just in case, but only used daily driver Blizzards as it didn't snow.
Supercharging Tesla is a non-linear function, fast when battery is low and progressively slower if you try to fill it all the way. This data was posted into a downloadable spreadsheet on the Tesla Users Forum before I bought the car so I could work out the calculations myself for max efficiency. Charging from 30 rated miles up to 150 on a S85 takes 24 minutes. Charging from 150 - 270 (full) takes 62 minutes.
Thus it makes more sense to drive fast and hit every Supercharger than to drive 60-65 for 230 miles to skip a stop. The supercharge rate does not fall below 80mph until you're about 90% full. It also makes sense to run the battery to a low level, with a secure cushion of 25-30 miles projected for the next supercharger stop, then charge to some upper mid-level range for the one after that rather than try to fill up. Thus we made the 13 minute stop in Inyokern rather than try to drive the 218 miles home to Lone Pine at slower speed. And the stop at Lone Pine where you need to put 200+ rated miles on the battery was measured so we didn't get into that slow-charging top-off range.
The spreadsheet calculations need to take speed, altitude/gain/loss and temperature into account, info also available from another post on the Tesla Users Forum. All power consumption results on the Mammoth trip and another one to Santa Barbara wine country were within 10% of sheet calculations and most within 5%. The elapsed time of of 5 hours 12 minutes home to Mammoth on April 10 is proof that the optimal efficiency calculations paid off.
With a full charge starting off our practical Tesla travel radius of AZ/Vegas/Reno/Tahoe/Northern CA can be achieved in marginally more travel time than in a gas car. It's also no big deal to full charge the car at your destination if it has a Supercharger like Mammoth does, or if you're in a hotel with an overnight 220 charger.
The Tahoe to SLC calculations can be done with not too much trouble. SoCal to SLC added 3.5 hours supercharge time to the 9.5 hour drive. That calculation would look better if you spent a night in Vegas and left there with a full charge. Nonetheless any CA - SLC drive is going to be lengthened appreciably vs. a gas car because you can drive 85+ past Vegas/Reno and Tesla power consumption increases 9% for every 5mph of average speed.
A stop in Reno/Tahoe with a full charge would have a similar effect on an Bay Area to SLC drive. Unless your Tahoe stop has an overnight 220 charger, the only superchargers in the Reno/Tahoe region so far are in Truckee (good for Don, not so good for tseeb).
The superchargers are spaced so there is no impediment to have the smaller/cheaper battery and be able to drive anywhere on the network. However, you have to charge the smaller battery closer to being full, which takes more time and adds up to 1/4 to 1/3 more time spent at the superchargers on a road trip. This is the key issue that informed our decision to go with the max rated range 290 mile 90D battery. There are some side benefits of the larger battery too, like 0-60 in 4.2 seconds.
The careful planning on road trips is offset by more convenience charging at home. I won't miss waiting in line for gas at Costco.
An interesting article here: http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/l ... story.html I've spent enough time in remote places in our far flung country to realize electric cars are more practical in some places than others. But in western Europe, with compact distances and sky-high gas prices, the German companies should get in the game seriously sooner rather than later.
Admin wrote:Tony Crocker wrote:Length of storage area behind front seats is longer in Tesla than Cayenne. The floor of folded down second row is not quite level with the back. Hatchback vs. higher roof in SUV means less space if you need to stack luggage. So having a 3rd person is doable in Tesla but easier with Cayenne. But with 2 people there's ton of space in Tesla. We had 4 skis due to nebulous weather forecast just in case, but only used daily driver Blizzards as it didn't snow.
Supercharging Tesla is a non-linear function, fast when battery is low and progressively slower if you try to fill it all the way. This data was posted into a downloadable spreadsheet on the Tesla Users Forum before I bought the car so I could work out the calculations myself for max efficiency. Charging from 30 rated miles up to 150 on a S85 takes 24 minutes. Charging from 150 - 270 (full) takes 62 minutes.
Thus it makes more sense to drive fast and hit every Supercharger than to drive 60-65 for 230 miles to skip a stop. The supercharge rate does not fall below 80mph until you're about 90% full. It also makes sense to run the battery to a low level, with a secure cushion of 25-30 miles projected for the next supercharger stop, then charge to some upper mid-level range for the one after that rather than try to fill up. Thus we made the 13 minute stop in Inyokern rather than try to drive the 218 miles home to Lone Pine at slower speed. And the stop at Lone Pine where you need to put 200+ rated miles on the battery was measured so we didn't get into that slow-charging top-off range.
The spreadsheet calculations need to take speed, altitude/gain/loss and temperature into account, info also available from another post on the Tesla Users Forum. All power consumption results on the Mammoth trip and another one to Santa Barbara wine country were within 10% of sheet calculations and most within 5%. The elapsed time of of 5 hours 12 minutes home to Mammoth on April 10 is proof that the optimal efficiency calculations paid off.
With a full charge starting off our practical Tesla travel radius of AZ/Vegas/Reno/Tahoe/Northern CA can be achieved in marginally more travel time than in a gas car. It's also no big deal to full charge the car at your destination if it has a Supercharger like Mammoth does, or if you're in a hotel with an overnight 220 charger.
The Tahoe to SLC calculations can be done with not too much trouble. SoCal to SLC added 3.5 hours supercharge time to the 9.5 hour drive. That calculation would look better if you spent a night in Vegas and left there with a full charge. Nonetheless any CA - SLC drive is going to be lengthened appreciably vs. a gas car because you can drive 85+ past Vegas/Reno and Tesla power consumption increases 9% for every 5mph of average speed.
A stop in Reno/Tahoe with a full charge would have a similar effect on an Bay Area to SLC drive. Unless your Tahoe stop has an overnight 220 charger, the only superchargers in the Reno/Tahoe region so far are in Truckee (good for Don, not so good for tseeb).
The superchargers are spaced so there is no impediment to have the smaller/cheaper battery and be able to drive anywhere on the network. However, you have to charge the smaller battery closer to being full, which takes more time and adds up to 1/4 to 1/3 more time spent at the superchargers on a road trip. This is the key issue that informed our decision to go with the max rated range 290 mile 90D battery. There are some side benefits of the larger battery too, like 0-60 in 4.2 seconds.
The careful planning on road trips is offset by more convenience charging at home. I won't miss waiting in line for gas at Costco.
An interesting article here: http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/l ... story.html I've spent enough time in remote places in our far flung country to realize electric cars are more practical in some places than others. But in western Europe, with compact distances and sky-high gas prices, the German companies should get in the game seriously sooner rather than later.
This kind of crap is why I love dead dinosaurs. Pull up to the nearest filing station, slide my debit card and be on my way in 5 minutes or less. No muss, no fuss.
Tony Crocker wrote:I would be interested to know what kind of road trips berkshireskier does that would be significantly slowed down by electric charging stops. Generally drive distances in the Northeast are shorter than in the West and speeds are slower. These factors lengthen range a little bit though colder winters will be a partial offset. And the supercharger network in upper New England is not as dense as in California.
With regard to road trips it depends upon what each individual's most common trips are. The L.A.-Mammoth run adds about 45 minutes going up for charging. Coming home with a typical after skiing departure hour it really adds nothing because you're going to stop for dinner anyway most of the time.
The real test will be to see the acceptance of Model 3/Chevy Bolt etc. a few years from now. Many people should be just fine with a mid-priced electric car with 200 mile range if there is a second car for road trips. I'm not making predictions here because the fear of inconvenience may override the reality.
The economic gain is modest at the moment with current gas prices. So it's no surprise that sales of the more utilitarian plug-in hybrids and short range electrics have slowed recently. Tesla's marketing/design strategy of making the cars desirable on their merits as cars vs. just being an economy or ecology play is looking smarter. Thus there's not as much sensitivity to the lower gas prices, as evidenced by the 180,000 deposits made for Model 3 on the March 31 day of its announcement.
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