Revealed: A Better Routeplanner vs Real Life EV Road Trips

[@oldebill1807]

ABRP is where I start my trip planning, I usually have PlugShare open as well to get an idea of the suitability of the chargers ABRP has suggested. After the first cut, I may impose my own choices of one (or more) chargers. This latter to either avoid a dodgy looking charger or to better align with when I want to stop/eat. I've never looked at charging costs in ABRP as it seems rates are unknown for just too many of the CCS/J1772 chargers I might use.

[@coke4274]

ABRP has an option to put your current Wh/mile statistic into it so it can more accurately predict. In the settings it says "Reference consumption @ 65 mph".

[@photogravity]

I find that helps some, but even using my average of 4.3mi/kw over 30,000 miles, it still consistently thinks I will use more energy than I actually do. It overestimates my usage pretty consistently by about 20-25%. I may further adjust my reference consumption to better compensate on the route planning.

[@coke4274]

@@photogravity Yeah it will never be perfect. I feel like Tesla is capable of doing more in their nav. Especially since they just added weather support, the car should be able to detect wind speeds, temperature, rain and all that to more accurately predict range. Would be nice if Tesla nav also had 250kw charging only option and 15% or lower SOC option on arrival

[@ManicMarkets]

^this… lots more highway miles and therefore less efficient than most daily driving. Should have adjusted the KWH estimate to reflect a more common efficiency for highway driving.

[@photogravity]

I've been using ABRP for a couple years now and have adjusted its inputs to more readily reflect my actual usage. Even then, I find that I will almost always arrive at my stops using less energy than it projects and also that my charging times are shorter than it estimates. Another interesting thing : I have an Ioniq 6 and find that the charging times between a 350kw charger and a 150kw charger are essentially the same. The 350 will run at a high rate and then taper sooner, but the 150 will overrun the indicated speed (usually about 170 instead of 150) and will hold the high charging rate longer. As I now live in Canada, and often travel through Quebec, as a matter of course I will use a 500v/100kw charger since the cost per kw is less expensive than using the higher powered 1000v chargers. The downside is that because the charger is limited to 500v the inverter on the car limits me to 90kw. Given that I am charging less because my efficiency is better than expected, it balances out well time-wise in those scenarios.

[@ab-tf5fl]

When I plan an EV road trip, ABRP is often a good starting point, but I'm looking at far more than simply minimizing total charge time. For instance, I will try to space the charging stops to align with my bathroom needs and schedule the longer charging stops around meal times to align with my food needs. I will also try to plan the trip so that the longer charging breaks occur after several hours of driving, when I know I will be more tired. Another thing to watch out for, ABRP naively assumes that every charger is perfectly 100% reliable. It does not take into account the charger's capacity or PlugShare reviews, nor does it think about what your backup options are if you arrive at the charger and find it full or non-working. When I plan trips, I try to allow for such contingencies and have backup options ready to go, just in case. Overall, the trip I actually take will typically end up deviating from what ABRP recommends in a number of places.

[@civwar64bob77]

I have a 2023 Tesla Y/LR. The feature I like best on ABRP is the ability to change its recommendations from more frequent stops to longer stops, as well as the fastest time option. I use it on my PC to plan ahead where I'll charge and what amenities are there. There is also the option I've used on my phone where you can have ABRP send the route plan directly to your Tesla (although when I did it, it only sent the next stop, not the whole plan).

[@marcconnery]

Just re-ran the numbers on my vacation earlier this year. Going from Wall SD to Baraboo WI my ABRP vs Actual was; Time - 10hr57min/11hr7min, Stops 3 /4, Kwh used 194 vs 204, cost 40 vs 57. So pretty close. Where I think the differences are 1. ABRP doesn't consider efficiency losses which added 5-7% extra cost to my trip. 2. did not use live weather

[@chrisbuczeksmith8289]

Fellow Tesla owner - not aware of a membership that will reduce the cost of a Tesla at a supercharger. Am aware of a membership that will reduce the cost of a non Tesla at a supercharger as the rates for non Teslas are higher. Tell me more about the Tesla discount membership! Additionally as a Tesla tripper I’ve found I stopped using ABRP for most things as I can just use the built in Tesla stuff and soldier on and it plans a decent trip and dynamically adjusts it for me based on real world conditions. Other EVs without the supercharger network I think I’d need ABRP but that’s closer to a high wire act without a supercharger net (at least so it seems to me).

[@SpinnerEV]

It’s something that I’ve only heard about and will need to look into myself. The places I’ve heard about it were confident about it, but it appears I failed to do my due diligence before saying it. I apologize and will get better info.

[@chrisbuczeksmith8289]

@@SpinnerEVI may be misinformed - hence my ask for more info as I’d like to save a buck! Thank you and I love the Tesla related videos.

[@civwar64bob77]

The membership is for non-Teslas charging. With the membership, they pay the same kWh cost as a Tesla charging. Otherwise they can charge at the superchargers, but pay a slightly higher kWh/minute cost.

[@SpinnerEV]

@civwar64bob77 thank for clarifying

[@Morisus]

@@SpinnerEVI also thought this was a great deal if you use superchargers a lot. 😂 Then I read it one more time “for your other EV”. I bet many Tesla owners pay for it not realizing it has no benefit.

[@GNiessen]

Headwinds and higher speeds can have a big impact on energy requirements.

[@Qrail]

Sorry, Luke, this is the one place my PHEV will “win”. I can go 323 miles on a charge, and a tank of gas. I do it quite often in either of my cars. But that is only 1/3 of the trip. Also, I have mountains to climb, so YMMV. And I get free charging at one location, which keeps my costs down. I usually make the trip in 2 stops for 835 miles. On a recent trip from Boise Idaho to Sacramento, started with full charge, and full tank, 550 miles, one stop, 11.3 gallons, @ $3.85 ($43.51) 48.6 mpg, 5.4 miles per kWh, 158.4 miles in EV mode, and enough downhill regen 75.8 miles to go the distance on my 10.8 kw battery. Disclaimer: YMMV, I have no dog, and a large bladder, retired bus driver that can outdrive most gas tanks and EV ranges. Also, “a flatter route” shows the climb in elevation if you choose to miss some higher mountain ranges.

[@lawrencemaroun3310]

You can tell ABRP how much faster you will drive than the speed limit, and I suspect that if you did so the consumption numbers would have been far more accurate. You can also customize the overhead stop time, it sounds like the default was too high in this case. It adds something like 5 minutes to every stop by default but that's a lot more than enough for a Tesla charging stop since there's no app to mess with and you get charging really quickly.

[@SpinnerEV]

We were traveling at the speed limit on this trip

[@rocketrollsvlogs7625]

Very useful information.

[@philmarsh7723]

How accurate is ABRP to estimate arrival energy at the fast DC chargers? This is probably the most important piece of data of all since we need confidence that the car won't run out of energy before arriving at a charger.

[@civwar64bob77]

One thing I noticed with Plugshare was when I was parked at a Walmart waiting for the recent solar eclipse, there were non-Tesla chargers at the end of the lot, but they didn't show up on the app. I finally figured out there was an option checked to NOT show charging stops with no free chargers (yep, everyone was there charging while waiting). I'm not sure I this is the default, but I don't think I ever set it up that way.

[@Cakebattered]

For my Bolt, ABRP offers a beta program where you can connect the app to a OBD2 adapter so that ABRP adjusts route and charging stops to your vehicle's efficiency in real time.

[@SpinnerEV]

Nice

[@tonym4813]

@@SpinnerEVI recently just took a 1700 mile trip to SW Florida and back to NJ for a grand total of 3200 miles… ABRP with obd2 connected to my car gave me live % of my car and its estimates of % arrival (as it accounted for weather and elevation w/premium account) was within 3-6% of estimate at worse at each stop … but I always double checked with PlugShare unless ABRP had the charger with an A rating

[@bobwhit1544]

I think ABRP adds in a per stop overhead of a certain number of minutes. I think this might explain why your charging times are consistently lower than the estimate when kWh dispensed is higher.

[@SpinnerEV]

Don’t get me wrong, I was happy that it estimated less time charging.

[@timangie4538]

I have a few questions. 1 How was the ARRP configured? 2: Has your ABRP factored in your degradation? & 3: How was your driving? Meaning what was your driving style? Did you arrive at the projected percentage?

[@Longsnowsm]

Thanks for the data roundup and comparison to what you actually saw. This is great stuff. In ABRP did you make any adjustments to the settings for travel speeds, state of charge or anything like that? I am wondering if the deviations could be attributed to that. I didn't see in ABRP where you could enter in that you have the membership. I guess I need to poke around. I will be using ABRP because the routes I take I have to stop at some CCS chargers. I see the Chargepont announcement for chargers with what looks like some sort of magic dock setup. I hope we are going to start to see some of these locations with NACS start to be included in Tesla's navigation.

[@chrisbuczeksmith8289]

Believe you can display them now in the nav but now I need to go look.

[@SpinnerEV]

My battery health report says 95%, so put 5% battery deg into the ABRP settings

[@Longsnowsm]

@@SpinnerEV Also since you made the drive and know what your consumption rate was for the wh/mi if you go into ABRP and adjust that reference consumption setting does it come closer to what you actually saw? I am wondering if the ABRP ref consumption figure is off.

[@SpinnerEV]

@Longsnowsm I’ll try that on next month’s trip and report back

[@Longsnowsm]

@@SpinnerEV I think there is some definite tuning to do in the ABRP settings. I know I have played around setting the max speed to see how it affected the travel time and the number of stops. I have questioned that reference consumption figure it provides. It says that figure is based on the speed of 65mph. However when I looked at fueleconomy.gov number for 2024 vs the 2022-2023 M3's the refreshed car actually is listed as less efficient than the pre-refresh car on the hwy. But the reference consumption rate is much lower on the 2024 in ABRP. That got me stewing on this, but haven't had the M3 until just recently to start baselining the car efficiency. Looking forward to seeing what you find. I have a few more road trips planned this year and would love to have ABRP dialed in for those trips.

[@EV-Darryl]

Very good video, appreciate the content. I’m researching this Tesla membership charging as we speak. Stay safe.

[@duffman9]

I have used ABRP for a few years and find its default settings to be pessimistic with it taking less battery % and less charging time. This is on an ev6 and Niro Ev. I have done a long road trip with the premium service linked to the car using a odb and a service. It was good when it worked but it was bugged 2 years ago. I found that its navigation is awful. It thinks single track roads can be driven at the speed limit. Planning a la to Florida trip next year using ABRP. Tried plug share and Tesla’s planner and neither can’t handle as many stops.

[@pistolgrip70x]

So explain the benefit of electic as 85 dollars seems very high and sure a gas car getting 30 mpg would be cheaper?

[@SpinnerEV]

Fast charging on road trips is similar in cost to gas, maybe a little cheaper. The big cost savings comes during the other 90% of the year when I charge at my house for my daily driving. It’s about 25% of the cost of gas or less.

[@jasanmiguel]

You were averaging between 0.36 and 0.38 kwh charge rate at the Tesla pumps. How much cheaper is it with the plan?

[@ToddHolter]

With Tesla EV you don't need a membership for their supercharger. The membership is for non Tesla EV's for the lower price at Tesla superchargers.

[@TimTaricco]

I'm fairly positive that the membership is not for Tesla owners.

[@Trillville43]

If you have a non Tesla, then definitely use better route planner because Kia and other software isnt as good but its getting better.

[@dr.markevers8331]

I think we all have then same question, “how did you only spend 3 minutes at Bucees?” 😂

[@SpinnerEV]

We spent 3 minutes at the charger. Then we unplugged and did Bucee’s stuff.

[@georgepelton5645]

@@SpinnerEV Why did you unplug? For science, just to see how ABRP's plan compared to real life? I always stay plugged in, might as well charge until I am ready to leave. That is less charging to do down the road.

[@SpinnerEV]

@georgepelton5645 I see your point. The next stop after that was a grocery store where we did what you said

[@garyclack3807]

Up to what state of charge did you go to

[@SpinnerEV]

It would vary, but we would unplug as soon as the car gave us the message that we had enough energy to continue the trip. I honestly paid more attention to what it said our remaking SOC would be at the next charger than what percentage we charged to. We were trying to prove to ourselves that we could stay on schedule, so we didn’t overcharge while on the trip. My best guess would be between 50-65% depending on how far the next supercharger was.

[@garyclack3807]

@@SpinnerEV Thank for the response have a great day

[@mikecarter2737]

Why so many stops? Seems you are only using a small part of your car's battery?

[@SpinnerEV]

The road trip showed us that it was faster, at least with this car, to stop more frequently and charge for less time than to make fewer stops and charge more. I think it was at our stop in OKC on the way home that I showed it on camera that by adding an extra stop that we were able to shave 7 minutes from our estimated arrival time. Remember, an EV is not like an ICE car. It takes less time to charge from 10%-80% than it does to go from 80-100%. With this car specifically, and others in its trim level, it gets its best charging speeds from about 10-30ish% and starts to slow down. It seems counterintuitive but it is faster to only get enough power to make it to the next charger when on a road trip. For normal daily use, that’s a completely different story. I plug in when I’m home for the day regardless of whether I’ve used 95% of the battery or only 15% just so that I have that “full tank” the next day. The car we used for the trip I’m referring to is a 2022 Tesla Model 3 Base with an LFP battery that can handle it.

[@dennislyon5412]

@@SpinnerEV- if your car can charge at 100 kw when the battery is at 50%, that’s still putting energy into your car at 700-800 miles per hour rate - really fast. I agree that short stops to charge from 10% to 35% or so will be the “fastest” way, but is it best for a road trip? Teslas charge pretty quickly anyway, so charging into the 60-70% area would make the trip flow better for you (less stops, charger spacing permitting), but with short charging intervals, there’s time lost in finding the chargers, parking the car, plugging and unplugging the car, etc.

[@Aircam73]

@@SpinnerEV I have been driving EVs for the last decade and have done this route a couple times as we love to head to Branson and have used multiple routes to break up the driving. As Mike said ABRP is a bit conservative causing unnecessary stops. You are absolutely right about arriving at low states of charge and using the high charging rates to keep the times down. But that is not what ABRP did for you on this route. For example there is no earthly reason to stop at the Bucees. If you could you should have made it all the way to OKC and if there was any doubt a quick stop in Ardmore would to get enough to get to OKC would be all you need. It showed you spent 17 minutes there and if you would have just driven direct you would have spent maybe 10 more minutes but saved the time at the first two because we all know it takes more than 5 minutes to get off the highway and get hooked up to the charger. Your LFP battery also has a great charging curve and that should be utilized. The fastest way to get to a destination with your pack and most Teslas is to arrive with as low of a state of charge as you are comfortable with. Stay long enough until it starts to taper into the low 100 kWh and then see if you can skip the next charger by doing that. I know the route you took doesn't have a lot of options as they still need more superchargers along that route but skipping the first two and Joplin would have saved you more time along the trip.

[@RandomFace]

The way the data was presented here showed a distinct lack of consideration to the meaning of the data. For example: at every stop you state what amount of charge ABRP estimates you'll need and how long you'll be there, but you don't state what ABRP think you state of charge should be upon arrival nor what the target state of charge at the end of charging should be. You also don't list what the cost of charging per kwh so when we see that there was a discrepancy between the estimated cost and actual cost we don't know if its because ABRP had incorrect information about cost or if all of the price discrepancy came from the difference in energy delivered vs expected. I felt like the way you presented your data throughout the video made it feel like you were dogging on ABRP but then in the end you come out and utter a few paltry defenses revolving around simulated vs. IRL are different and then you say you still like the product. No comparison to other tool that might be more or less accurate, No statement of features that make ABRP superior in you opinion. Just your bald opinion.

[@SpinnerEV]

You make good points. If I do another comparison like this, I’ll take your points into account.

[@stevendunn264]

I was wondering if you and your wife would like to come to Dallas to speak at our group. NTEAA

[@SpinnerEV]

Sure! You can contact me directly in Facebook Messenger through the Spinner EV page if you’d like

[@30smsuperstrat]

Do teslas really need route planning when there are as many superchargers as fuel stations?!?

[@SpinnerEV]

It may seem that way, I guess, but they are nowhere near as plentiful as gas stations. They are spaced out on highways nicely for road trips, though. The advantage is the battery preconditioning and getting directions to the supercharger in an unfamiliar area.