Hotel charging will be frustrating for a while.

[Tinker71]

I just completed our annual pilgrimage to an unnamed lake in Idaho. 780 miles in one day in our Sienna with 250k miles. We normally do the return leg in 2 days but we are dropping our son off at college today. (last one)

So if I get my CT by 8/1/25 can I make the trip easily? This route goes over the continental divide a couple times and is 80 mph most of the way. I suspect I will be lucky to get 230 miles using 95% of the battery.

This plan would have to go perfectly. After work , drive to Idaho falls and supercharge while eating dinner to 80%. Drive another 190 miles to a hotel near Butte. So I am approximately half way at this point at 11 PM. I think this is were my plan might fall apart.

I assume hotel reservations will include a level 2 charging option by this time and I will have needed to schedule this months in advance, but I can do that.

Besides defective chargers which would really suck I think many hotels will utilize shared circuits. They will start with a 48 amp circuit or even a 30 amp which will get cut in half when 2 EV are plugged in. So if I leave by 7:00 AM. I won't have a full charge. I am guestimating 25 miles per hour of charging at this rate. So if I roll in with 10% remaining I might get to 85% capacity. So this is not much better than supercharging. Now if they make a 500 mile version right away you definitely won't be able to charge from 10-100% at the hotel. Very few will have dedicated 60 or 80 amp circuits. I guess the solution might be to pull into town and supercharge for 20 minutes before you plug in at the hotel, but more planning, timing and worrying.

So if and only if I manage to leave the hotel with a full charge I should be able to supercharge once at lunch and make it the rest of the way.

SO HOTELIERS. FIGURE THIS OUT. DIFFERENCIATE YOURSELVES. UPGRADE YOUR POWER SYSTEMS NOW. BE ABLE TO GUARRANTEE XX CHARGE RATES. MAYBE DO A CHARGING SERVICE WHERE YOU HAVE SOME DC CHARGING AND THEN MOVE THE CAR AT NIGHT TO TOP OFF ON A DEDICATED LEVEL 2 TO CHARGE TO 100%. WE NEED TO LEAVE YOUR JOINT WITH A FULL CHARGE AT A REASONABLE RATE.

As a side note, I am not sure if our Sienna will make it to 2025 , so if we replace it with something it will probably be a Plug in Hybrid like Highlander or something. Honestly I don't know if I can justify the Cybertruck with that in our driveway. My other car will be a model 3 or maybe even an Aptera so we will be 85% ICE free over the course of a year, but........maybe no Cybertruck for me.

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[cvalue13]

is 80 mph most of the way

that’s a maximum not minimum

hit cruise at 70 in slow lane, and enjoy a podcast

You’ll get there faster than if you do 80 and play lane Frogger

 

[Tinker71]

that’s a maximum not minimum

hit cruise at 70 in slow lane, and enjoy a podcast

You’ll get there faster than if you do 80 and play lane Frogger

You would have to show me the math on that one, but I get the milage penalty, which may add a extra charging stop at some point.

I refuse to go over 80 and get passed all the time. Sometimes dangerously. I would be fine going 70 myself but right now I would create a hazard.

I think they need to lower the speed limits on the steeper uphill grades as well as the corners. My Sienna struggles up the hills at 80 MPH. I usually back off to 60-70 but my kids and wife don't mind the redlining. Drives me nuts.

If the speed limits were reduced on the steep grades to 60 MPH, we wouldn't need the crazy horsepower that we demand, because we HAVE to pull the 3 mile section at 6% grade going 80 MPH with a 10,000 lb trailer shaped like a brick. Then we size everything accordingly and carry that around all the time.

That same load going 60 MPH would probably only use 60% of that energy and would only add a few minutes to a days drive. (just the short steep sections)


Top speed limits:
60 MPH over 5.5% grades
70 MPH from 3-5.5%

 

[cvalue13]

You would have to show me the math on that one

no time today to dig up, but long story short:

obviously a car going 80 gets there faster than one going 70, if there aren’t real world traffic patterns

mind you, even in ideal conditions, over a 300mile drive that ideal conditions delta amounts to only 30 minutes (3.75hr vs 4.25 hr)

but the way hwy traffic patterns work, that 30 minute delta is more often than not reduced to little or nothing. with traffic pattern punctuations of slow-downs that cause everyone to slow (and so eg someone going 70 real fast catches back up to someone who was doing 80), it over time in effect causes a considerable averaging of speeds of everyone on the hwy any material distance.

It’s not to say that someone going 80 and gets traffic-lucky won’t realize that 10mph delta sometimes, but that averaged over multiple drives there ends up being more like a 2mph delta.

even if it’s a 5mph delta, there also exists the unconscious delta of (let’s call it) stress costs between the sort of “active” driving someone doing 80 and working to ‘go fast’ changing lanes etc., vs someone who merely pegs at a speed in slow lane and takes what comes

and all the above is before we’re talking BEVs, which really flatten this curve.

doing 80 vs 70 results in considerable increase in range, meaning one need not stop to charge as often or for as long per charge
which brings me to:

I refuse to go [under] 80 and get passed all the time… I would create a hazard

FIFY?

I see this exclamation often, but it feels like an a cultural quip more than a data-supported view

I’d have to see persuasive data that the all-in risks of doing 80mph and navigating traffic with lane changes, etc., is remotely safer than 70mph and lane-squatting.

personally, and this is no slight because it was me too, from my armchair I think this “I refuse to get passed it’s unsafe” is more like an instinctual testosterone insult

when I learned to squat in right lane and really let the tide take me in, my hwy stress levels decreased materially, while my arrival times were effected not at all (on an all-in basis considering charging, etc)

even better, lame-squat at 70 behind a semi doing 70 and the semi is busting both air from the front and traffic from the back

 

[JBee]

Will you be towing with the CT as well on that trip?

Overall I think you'd be better off with a ICE rental for that once a year trip. Don't buy a CT for that trip though, buy it for EVERYTHING else!

Besides who will mess with a CT only going 50mph?

 

[JBee]

Exactly.. follow fastest truck with the biggest fattest rear, preferably one with full width mud flaps to the ground. You can feel being sucked along at times.

We did this all the time with the M3/MY in the US. Theres always a truck in a hurry somewhere, but a slower one works too.

 

[CyberGus]

I refuse to go over 80 and get passed all the time. Sometimes dangerously.

FIFY?

Tinker's statement made me double-take for a second, but I took it to mean "even at my maximum speed of 80, I am being passed by much faster drivers"

 

[CyberGus]

The real hazard of driving conservatively is angering the occasional narcissist that blames you for denying them the Right To Drive Recklessly On Their Personal Road.

 

[CyberGus]

In my travels, I found "EV-Friendly" hotels that hosted a half-dozen destination chargers for tree, while others that had one fee-based Chargepoint that was persistently defunct.

i.e., YMMV

 

[fhteagle]

I have stayed in a lot of hotels in my day, mostly midgrade through full service Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, etc. Granted, I've been traveling far less recently. I've never seen one to have any kind of EVSE reservation, priority, or valet service where the hotel didn't already have a full time valet for combustion cars too. Most treat the EVSEs as first come first served, and aren't likely to have the desk staff with the knowledge, skill, or desire to offer the service you are recommending. About half of the hotels I've stayed in with a charger, the desk staff didn't even know it existed, let alone where it was on the property, what type it was, whether it was functional, etc. One time, I took a desk staff person out to show them the broken Tesla L2 handle in their parking lot, and I might as well have been showing him a nuclear fusion device, he was so deer in the headlights about it.

For now, look at L2 charging at the hotel as a nice convenience if you can get it, but have other plans made for the somewhat likely event that is not available for some reason.

Not saying the services you are talking about couldn't or shouldn't exist, just that there's not been enough demand for long enough for EV services to expect that, yet.

 

[Tinker71]

Will you be towing with the CT as well on that trip?

Overall I think you'd be better off with a ICE rental for that once a year trip. Don't buy a CT for that trip though, buy it for EVERYTHING else!

Besides who will mess with a CT only going 50mph?

A rental for a week and 1800 miles is probably $1200. That starts to add up.

Trailering over about 250 miles a day will really suck.

 

[Bluechip506]

I've never seen a reservable charging slot at any hotel I've stayed at. In fact they are usually filled up by other ICE guests. The hotels do not keep track of license plates anymore and have no way to ask anyone to move. The " for EV charging use only" is really more of a suggestion than a firm rule. But superchargers are plentiful and we've done several much longer trips in our Model S 75D (230 mile range) with no issues other than the aforementioned hotels.

 

[Tinker71]

no time today to dig up, but long story short:

obviously a car going 80 gets there faster than one going 70, if there aren’t real world traffic patterns

mind you, even in ideal conditions, over a 300mile drive that ideal conditions delta amounts to only 30 minutes (3.75hr vs 4.25 hr)

but the way hwy traffic patterns work, that 30 minute delta is more often than not reduced to little or nothing. with traffic pattern punctuations of slow-downs that cause everyone to slow (and so eg someone going 70 real fast catches back up to someone who was doing 80), it over time in effect causes a considerable averaging of speeds of everyone on the hwy any material distance.

It’s not to say that someone going 80 and gets traffic-lucky won’t realize that 10mph delta sometimes, but that averaged over multiple drives there ends up being more like a 2mph delta.

even if it’s a 5mph delta, there also exists the unconscious delta of (let’s call it) stress costs between the sort of “active” driving someone doing 80 and working to ‘go fast’ changing lanes etc., vs someone who merely pegs at a speed in slow lane and takes what comes

and all the above is before we’re talking BEVs, which really flatten this curve.

doing 80 vs 70 results in considerable increase in range, meaning one need not stop to charge as often or for as long per charge
which brings me to:




FIFY?

I see this exclamation often, but it feels like an a cultural quip more than a data-supported view

I’d have to see persuasive data that the all-in risks of doing 80mph and navigating traffic with lane changes, etc., is remotely safer than 70mph and lane-squatting.

personally, and this is no slight because it was me too, from my armchair I think this “I refuse to get passed it’s unsafe” is more like an instinctual testosterone insult

when I learned to squat in right lane and really let the tide take me in, my hwy stress levels decreased materially, while my arrival times were effected not at all (on an all-in basis considering charging, etc)

even better, lame-squat at 70 behind a semi doing 70 and the semi is busting both air from the front and traffic from the back

Lane squatting is fine until there are miles of cars backed up. 10 mph delta is a lot. People get frustrated and make bad passes etc. 80 mph is too fast IMHO. 70 or 75 is fast enough.

 

[ldjessee]

So, you assume to get the Cybertruck by 2025... 1.5 to 2 years from now...

There might be a dozen charging locations along your route by then, or possibly a few... 2 years from now? Shoot, who knows what crazy changes might have happened in that time frame?

I would just assume if it is someplace people want to go, there will be infrastructure built to handle that travel.

And once kids are out of the house, it seems like I have so much more time...

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