Trip planner - multi day trips

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I searched the forum but didn't find much on the topic I am intereted in, I apologize in advance if this has been hashed out before. I recently retired and will be taking my first long journey from the mid-Atlantic to Arizona. I am interested in how you long range, intrepid travelers plan multi day trips using the trip planner. Is it better to just enter the final destination in the in-vehicle trip planner and mash the go pedal, come what may or break it into day-ish trips until the final destination is reached?

I've had my beast since mid September, and this is my first foray into the Tesla ecosystem so this is all new to me. I must confess I am a planner (when my son and I go out for dinner I check the menu online well ahead of time) so not having the 'everything in between' pre-planned days/weeks in advance is new to me (maybe I need to learn to 'run with scissors' more often now). Any advice is much appreciated, thank you.
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No way to really tell it you want it to be multi-day. I am the same way and check the trips out a number of time before we head out. I just manual do the trips to make it show me the different days breakdown. For example I will play around with the destination for the first day to get me at my desired max daily travel time, normally around 10 hours. After that I just play with the trip planning to get the rest of the days in the same range. Often we don't follow the suggest stops exactly as restroom breaks can change that plan. We our best to always stop at a Supercharger even if it is not the one the had planned for so we can benefit from a little juice while we stop. There are some stops that we only charge for 4-6 minutes depending how how close the restrooms are but it all helps in the end. The wife is normally the one who request an extra stop so if she feels like one is needed she just starts looking for Superchargers and picks one that works for her. I also try to find hotels that have level 2 chargers so we can roll in there with a low SoC and get juice over night. It is still a good idea to plan that even if they say they have chargers they may be taken or not working so know where some DC fast chargers are close to your stop for the night as well. After a couple trips you will feel more comfortable with it all. We try to roll in to the Superchargers between 10-15% SoC when possible. That gives you the faster charge rates and often you can get out of there with as little as 60-70% SoC and make your next Supercharge stop without feeling like you should be going longer between stops. We have done a number of 5,000 + miles road trips in our X, the frequent stops help with fatigue and make 10-12 hours days not feel as bad as it did in our ICE rides. Add in Autosteer or FSD and it is even better.
 

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I searched the forum but didn't find much on the topic I am intereted in, I apologize in advance if this has been hashed out before. I recently retired and will be taking my first long journey from the mid-Atlantic to Arizona. I am interested in how you long range, intrepid travelers plan multi day trips using the trip planner. Is it better to just enter the final destination in the in-vehicle trip planner and mash the go pedal, come what may or break it into day-ish trips until the final destination is reached?

I've had my beast since mid September, and this is my first foray into the Tesla ecosystem so this is all new to me. I must confess I am a planner (when my son and I go out for dinner I check the menu online well ahead of time) so not having the 'everything in between' pre-planned days/weeks in advance is new to me (maybe I need to learn to 'run with scissors' more often now). Any advice is much appreciated, thank you.
I am right there with you in regard to planning (it is who I am).

I use ABRP (A Better Route Planner). It is probably not the only one, but it is the one I use. It has its quirks, but it really helps me decide where to stay, estimate butt time (we are older and have our daily limits and we can like to enjoy wherever we stay for the night rather than check into a hotel and leave at the break of dawn), and break up our drives into shorter segments with convenient charging.

I believe it is available for both Android and Apple products in addition to a website you can use. You can add your charging stops, set how long you wish to stay or the State of Charge (SOC) you want to leave with and the date/time you want to depart a specific location, and it will calculate everything for you. You can then tweak things until they are what you want and save that plan and pull it up in the app or on the website.

One downside is that, apparently, you cannot send a multi-stop trip from the app to the truck via the API, so I usually just add the trip in the truck first thing in the morning before we leave, or just add the next stop and repeat for the next stop. Not that big of a hassle as our "schedule" is always pretty loose and is more of a guideline.

Just used this for a trip to Colorado from Dallas and back for this past Christmas and it worked out very well.
 

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I solo travel a lot and have done it professionally for the DoD. here is my short but non-comprehensive list:

Quick Tips:
  • Purchase a subscription to FSD for your trip if you don't already have it. You will not regret it.
  • Plan ahead how long you want to drive each day and try to stick to it. If you are fairly new to EVs, add 10-20% to what google maps tells you to account for charging stops. But otherwise, the trip planner should be accurate to within 10% SoC and timeframe.
  • Pick at least 1 sightseeing thing to do each day. The entire point of traveling is to experience different things
  • Set your arrival charge to at least 20% for each overnight stop to cover anything unexpected; especially in winter. Try to keep your overnight stops to within a 15-20 minute drive to a supercharger (preferably closer). If you chose stops with level 2 charging, check the PlugShare app to see the rating; some hotels advertise it on their website, but I don't trust most of them. I've ruled out plenty of stops before by reading recent reviews that said the chargers are all busted or turned off. That's something you could check before handing a hotel your credit card too.
  • Better yet, if you are the adventurous type, pick RV camps by, or in, state parks and save a ton of money while exploring on an evening and morning walk. Makes the multi-day trip so much better.
  • Use the "street view" feature in Google Maps to scout out every single area you plan to visit. It will save you a ton of disappointment haha
  • Did you know you can open a place in Google Maps and "share" it to your Tesla app for quick nav?

Tools:
Google Maps (most accurate and up-to-date platform in the world for mapping)
A Better Route Planner (more config options available than Tesla has)
Tesla Go Anywhere
Plug Share (I don't travel without learning where all the free level 2 charging is for my planned stops)

Interesting in cutting down charge time as much as possible? Wear more clothing layers and set your cabin heat as low as you can. Heating your seat is much more efficient than the cabin air.

Follow up questions:
  • Is this your first long trip with an EV, or at all?
  • You guys wanting to make the best time A to B, or do you want to make core memories?
  • Any hobbies or special interests?
  • I can make specific routing suggestions if you give us a general start and endpoint.
 
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I am right there with you in regard to planning (it is who I am).

I use ABRP (A Better Route Planner). It is probably not the only one, but it is the one I use. It has its quirks, but it really helps me decide where to stay, estimate butt time (we are older and have our daily limits and we can like to enjoy wherever we stay for the night rather than check into a hotel and leave at the break of dawn), and break up our drives into shorter segments with convenient charging.

I believe it is available for both Android and Apple products in addition to a website you can use. You can add your charging stops, set how long you wish to stay or the State of Charge (SOC) you want to leave with and the date/time you want to depart a specific location, and it will calculate everything for you. You can then tweak things until they are what you want and save that plan and pull it up in the app or on the website.

One downside is that, apparently, you cannot send a multi-stop trip from the app to the truck via the API, so I usually just add the trip in the truck first thing in the morning before we leave, or just add the next stop and repeat for the next stop. Not that big of a hassle as our "schedule" is always pretty loose and is more of a guideline.

Just used this for a trip to Colorado from Dallas and back for this past Christmas and it worked out very well.
This is great advice, thank you. Arrival SOC is something I think I would want to tweak. Since this would be my first long distance trip I would rather start cautios and relax it as I get comfortable with the route. For me it's the journey (not just the destination) so I am willing to make the journey an enjoyable part of the trip.
 


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I solo travel a lot and have done it professionally for the DoD. here is my short but non-comprehensive list:

Quick Tips:
  • Purchase a subscription to FSD for your trip if you don't already have it. You will not regret it.
  • Plan ahead how long you want to drive each day and try to stick to it. If you are fairly new to EVs, add 10-20% to what google maps tells you to account for charging stops. But otherwise, the trip planner should be accurate to within 10% SoC and timeframe.
  • Pick at least 1 sightseeing thing to do each day. The entire point of traveling is to experience different things
  • Set your arrival charge to at least 20% for each overnight stop to cover anything unexpected; especially in winter. Try to keep your overnight stops to within a 15-20 minute drive to a supercharger (preferably closer). If you chose stops with level 2 charging, check the PlugShare app to see the rating; some hotels advertise it on their website, but I don't trust most of them. I've ruled out plenty of stops before by reading recent reviews that said the chargers are all busted or turned off. That's something you could check before handing a hotel your credit card too.
  • Better yet, if you are the adventurous type, pick RV camps by or in state parks and save a ton of money while exploring on an evening and morning walk. Makes the multi-day trip so much better.
  • Use the "street view" feature in Google Maps to scout out every single area you plan to visit. It will save you a ton of disappointment haha
  • Did you know you can open a place in Google Maps and "share" it to your Tesla app for quick nav?

Tools:
Google Maps (most accurate and up-to-date platform in the world for mapping)
A Better Route Planner (more config options available than Tesla has)
Tesla Go Anywhere
Plug Share (I don't travel without learning where all the free level 2 charging is for my planned stops)

Interesting in cutting down charge time as much as possible? Wear more clothing layers and set your cabin heat as low as you can. Heating your seat is much more efficient than the cabin air.

Follow up questions:
  • Is this your first long trip with an EV, or at all?
  • You guys wanting to make the best time A to B, or do you want to make core memories?
  • Any hobbies or special interests?
  • I can make specific routing suggestions if you give us a general start and endpoint.
First, apprecaiate your response, thank you.

I do have FSD as part of the foundation series (didn't like v12, warming up to v13)

I've looked into destination charging as an option but as you have stated it can be unreliable or the single charging station may already be occupied, so definitely agree Supercharging close by will be a must until I get more comforatble with the experience.

I'll definitely keep the 20% SOC arrival plan until I am more confortable with the experience.

To answer some of your questions:
This will be my first long trip in an EV, however I have done long trips in ICE vehicles. North Dakota (where I grew up) to Washington, North Dakota to California, mid-Atlantic to Minnesota (multiple times).

This trip is more or less 'get there'. It's just one cranky old guy making the best of the journey. It's not the best time of the year to be doing this (who knew New Orleans would get 10" of snow) so I'll make the best of it and take whatever time it takes to get there.

Hobbies.. special interests... food, wine (I have a 240 bottle cellar shipping to my summer home in MN), music, my 'boys' and I enjoy playing music, I have six guitars that'll be making the trip with me.

The general starting location is Maryland, destination is Phoenix. I've seen acouple of routes one of which goes across western MD, WV, OH, IN, IL, MO.... not really thrilled with that route since I've travelled some ofit before, the other takes a bit of a southern route, VA, TN, AK, OK, TX, NM... all of which would be new to me.
 
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PlugShare is amazing for finding hidden or harder to spot charging locations. Like REM said it is great for gaining knowledge on chargers from the community. I do my best to add notes when I use a charger that is not a Supercharger.

I use to have an ABRP subscription but with the updates to the trip planner I let that subscription go. The built in trip planner is amazing now and I find it more accurate that ABRP.

What I was trying to say in my first post is I use the trip planner and plan each day with it. You can set the date/time you want to leave for example. I start by putting the entire route in, see how far I want to go that first day. After that I set the starting and final destinations for the next day and so on.

Tesla Cybertruck Trip planner - multi day trips IMG_0980

Tesla Cybertruck Trip planner - multi day trips IMG_0981

Tesla Cybertruck Trip planner - multi day trips IMG_0982

Tesla Cybertruck Trip planner - multi day trips IMG_0983

Tesla Cybertruck Trip planner - multi day trips IMG_0984

Tesla Cybertruck Trip planner - multi day trips IMG_0985
 
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PlugShare is amazing for finding hidden or harder to spot charging locations. Like REM said it is great for gaining knowledge on chargers from the community. I do my best to add notes when I use a charger that is not a Supercharger.

I use to have an ABRP subscription but with the updates to the trip planner I let that subscription go. The built in trip planner is amazing now and I find it more accurate that ABRP.

What I was trying to say in my first post is I use the trip planner and plan each day with it. You can set the date/time you want to leave for example. I start by putting the entire route in, see how far I want to go that first day. After that I set the starting and final destinations for the next day and so on.

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Thank you, your daily plan makes a lot of sense. I also notice it looks like you start at 90% SOC, do you do that just for longer trips or is this your daily practice? I grabbed the PlugShare app and I have used the web based app before. This trip will be a one-shot deal, I don't plan on coming back here, however I will be travelling back and forth between Arizona and north/central Minnesota where there is a dearth of high speed charging locations.
 
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I use ABRP for planning purposes just to get a general idea of about where I need to stop and charge up. But for the real deal, I just use Tesla’s navigator.

How accurate do y’all feel ABRP is? Is it fairly good calculating in weather (headwinds and temp) as assuming your speed is average, etc? Do they have a plugin for the Tesla or use the API to get realtime info so it can make changes due to driving habits and changes in weather?

I haven’t used it in unison with Tesla Nav yet. But I’m interested in what others have experienced.
 

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I use "EV Trip Optimizer for Tesla"

Tesla Cybertruck Trip planner - multi day trips 1737644205390-ta
 


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I searched the forum but didn't find much on the topic I am intereted in, I apologize in advance if this has been hashed out before. I recently retired and will be taking my first long journey from the mid-Atlantic to Arizona. I am interested in how you long range, intrepid travelers plan multi day trips using the trip planner. Is it better to just enter the final destination in the in-vehicle trip planner and mash the go pedal, come what may or break it into day-ish trips until the final destination is reached?

I've had my beast since mid September, and this is my first foray into the Tesla ecosystem so this is all new to me. I must confess I am a planner (when my son and I go out for dinner I check the menu online well ahead of time) so not having the 'everything in between' pre-planned days/weeks in advance is new to me (maybe I need to learn to 'run with scissors' more often now). Any advice is much appreciated, thank you.
You're better off ending the day charging than starting the day charging due to favorable pack temperatures.
I'd start out with the overall route to see where things line up. Then when traveling, add charging before reaching the day's destination. Ideally, you can overnight somewhere with free charging so you can start the day with a full pack and climate adjusted interior.

The in truck planner is much better than the phone app, especially if planning round trip routes
 
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Look, the worry is real but manageable.

We went to Canada, (2,400 miles), Wyoming (5,000 miles) and just got back from Florida (1,800 miles) and the first two trips were towing a camper.

I do two things. ABRP is helpful but honestly, the other chargers out there are unreliable and only for emergency as far as my experience.

Do the Tesla Planner to get familiar with the charger locations. Then know your range. Towing the camper, we felt comfortable with 150 max range. That allowed us to not go much below 20% and not have to charge more than 80%.

Stopping every two hours is sort of our max, and coming back from Florida last Saturday, we stopped 7 times in the 800 miles trip but sometimes it was only for 10-15 minutes. IF the chargers are easy access, this works good but makes the trip different. I got home and was still fresh between all the pee stops and FSD ... 800 miles ... easy.

Generally, I try to start each travel day with 90% or more. And during the trip, seldom supercharge beyond 70%.

Take your mobile charger with you and a long 12 gauge extension cord and adapters. We have often found a 110 plug at a hotel to plug in overnight or at our destination. You can add 10% overnight from a 110 outlet. About 1% per hour.

We also found that IF we have the mobile charger with us, you CAN stop at most campgrounds for a level 2 charge on 30 or 50 amp if you have the right adapters for your charger. A 30 to 50 amp adapter MUST be for an EV NOT an RV. They are different wiring path on the inside.
 
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Thank you, your daily plan makes a lot of sense. I also notice it looks like you start at 90% SOC, do you do that just for longer trips or is this your daily practice? I grabbed the PlugShare app and I have used the web based app before. This trip will be a one-shot deal, I don't plan on coming back here, however I will be travelling back and forth between Arizona and north/central Minnesota where there is a dearth of high speed charging locations.
I only charge past 70% for longer trips and even then I stay around 80% unless we really need it between stops which is rare if you stay on main freeways/highways do to the number of Superchargers. Daily I set it to 50% max SoC because I work from home so don’t need anything past that to run around town.

Normally I have it set to charge on solar with the lower limit set at 30% and charge up to 50% if solar sufficient solar is available. We have everything we would need in an emergency (hospital, groceries, airport, etc) is in range if we are at 50% and we also have new V4 Superchargers near us now so if we really needed it we can stop there for 10 minutes.
Tesla Cybertruck Trip planner - multi day trips IMG_0987
 

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Oh remember reading at some point that it helps the BMS figure out battery pack health if you charger up to or past 90% and drive it down to 20% or lower at least once a year. I don’t know if that is still true or was ever true but it seems to help our Model X be better at estimating after doing it.

Anyone know if this is true?
 

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This trip is more or less 'get there'. It's just one cranky old guy making the best of the journey. It's not the best time of the year to be doing this (who knew New Orleans would get 10" of snow) so I'll make the best of it and take whatever time it takes to get there.

Hobbies.. special interests... food, wine (I have a 240 bottle cellar shipping to my summer home in MN), music, my 'boys' and I enjoy playing music, I have six guitars that'll be making the trip with me.

The general starting location is Maryland, destination is Phoenix. I've seen acouple of routes one of which goes across western MD, WV, OH, IN, IL, MO.... not really thrilled with that route since I've travelled some ofit before, the other takes a bit of a southern route, VA, TN, AK, OK, TX, NM... all of which would be new to me.
That's awesome! I have been slowly chipping away at a cellar of my own in TN. Make sure you plan some stops at vineyards for lunch along the way! The southern route through TN is probably your best bet this time of year to try and avoid winter weather delays. I would give yourself 4 days at least to make this trip.

If you leave early in the morning, you could make the first day to the Knoxville area. If you are into fine dining, I've had one of the best meals in my life at Oliver Royale. Depending on your lodging preferences, I would generally recommend staying outside of large cities if you are looking to save money; otherwise a ton of hotels have level 2 chargers now.

2nd day will put you around Little Rock. On the way, you will traverse Memphis (you will not want to spend any time there; very rundown). There are only 2 old bridges that cross the Mississippi River, so I highly recommend you try to hit that area outside of rush hour times. I drove through there during the solar eclipse, and traffic was insane haha.

3rd day should put you somewhere near Santa Rosa, where the Route 66 Auto Museum is. Cool stuff in there. That town also a supercharger at the Holiday Inn Express.

4th day has you arriving after about 9 hours on the road. If this is your first time in Phoenix, I know some cool spots there too. Good luck out there! Route planning ahead of time is definitely the way to go. Don't forget to reward yourself at each destination overnight stay.

tip: I would charge up to 75-80% when you stop for the night and plug in if you have level 2 charging, then schedule charge up to 90 (or 95%) for when you plan to leave in the morning. You don't want your battery to sit full for long at all. Not good for it. I generally recommend to never charge to 100% unless you absolutely need it.

tip: it's polite to only take up a charging space as long as you actually need it; so try to avoid just sitting idle in a spot.

tip: bring a heavy gauge 25ft extension cord (preferably rated for 20 amps) and something like this; as you want to prevent a tripping hazard. I don't think I have ever been turned away when asking a hotel if I could plug into one of their outside outlets.

If your nightly stop is at a supercharger, go ahead and charge to 65-70% before settling down for the night, then plug back in when morning comes to preheat and top off a little bit while loading the truck back up. I assume you won't have a lot of stuff to move back into the truck, but he primary purpose would be preheating your battery for the long travel. You will decrease your amount of supercharging stops by doing this.
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