# 1000 mile weekend



## DendeNYC (Jun 29, 2018)

Just completed 1000 mile roadtrip to visit some family in Canada, the car performed like a champ but there were some things you gotta know. The car has the stock 18" wheels and wasn't wearing the areo caps (I forgot them in the garage like an idiot).

- *Autopilot: * A good portion of the trip was spent in autopilot. The system performed better than expected with no major surprises. I turned off AP when passing though construction zones but kept it on during a massive downpour that lasted a full hour. During the storm the system was able to see cars that I could not and made the proper adjustments. For stop and go traffic it was perfect. I did have a pucker moment when a segment of the i80 went from 2 lanes to 3 and the M3 had to make a choice which lane to re-join, it decided on the left lane but it did jerk the wheel at the last minute to get it in line.

*Supercharging:* There were some mmm moments with supercharging, maybe its just me not understanding the physics of it. I was able to change from 15% to about 80% in about 30min BUT then it told me it would take an additional 50min to get to 100%...weird? I figure it does some type of cell balancing during the last phase of charging but I wouldn't know because I never waited the additional 50min at any of the 6 supercharging stops this weekend. Also, not all supercharging stations are conveniently placed along roadways or popular destinations, on a 4am charge upstate there was nothing open...just me and the spiders, the guardians of the SC pump.

*Navigation:* The Nav leaves something to be desired. The biggest thing here is that I cant add a stopover at all so I make a trip that has stopovers you have to either put in your final destination or each stop to have maps calculate your SC schedule stops. Thats really annoying and I feel its dangerous, there were a few times that I went low on charge because I had to estimate the range of my stops. I think this is simple enough for them to update. There was also an occasion where the car had no LTE signal so of course the maps didn't load (the turn-by-turn navigation was not affected) this was expected however after I regained signal the maps didnt load again for another 10min.

*Performance:* I've made this same trip with Audi A4 and a Lexus IS350 and by a far margin the M3 performed better than both of them. The acceleration even at higher RPM was good, the build quality of the vehicle travelling at high speeds was good. There were no shimmy's, rattles or shakes in the cabin and the road noise was quieter than both my previous vehicles.

*Comfort:* There were 4 people in the car, 2 guys about 6' and 2 girls, we all took turns driving. In the driver seat I was very comfortable but after a few hours in the rear seat my legs needed a stretch. The girls mostly sat yoga and did not complain about the rear seats, but yea...they're cramped. The view out the roof in the year however is very relaxing to see on a clear day.

*Range Anxiety*: Zero! The lowest I ran the car was about 9% and I still had about 7miles of range. Its probably not good for the car but I had an unplanned stopover before I returned home. The car didnt complain but I did get a few notifications on my phone about the low charge.


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

DendeNYC said:


> *Supercharging:* There were some mmm moments with supercharging, maybe its just me not understanding the physics of it. I was able to change from 15% to about 80% in about 30min BUT then it told me it would take an additional 50min to get to 100%...weird?


Normal. You pretty much never want to use a supercharger to top off the battery. Just take it 70-80%.

As the battery gets more full, the amount of power it's able to accept goes down.
In the graph below, the car charges from 1% to 46% in 15 minutes.
To get from 46% to 80% takes an additional 25 minutes.
Topping off from 80% to 98% takes an additional 35 minutes.


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## Nikola (Apr 4, 2016)

DendeNYC said:


> on a 4am charge upstate there was nothing open...just me and the spiders, the guardians of the SC pump.


That sounds kind of fun: an all-night roadtrip ... lonely Supercharger stations ... 2 guys + 2 girls ...



DendeNYC said:


> The Nav leaves something to be desired. The biggest thing here is that I cant add a stopover at all so I make a trip that has stopovers you have to either put in your final destination or each stop to have maps calculate your SC schedule stops.


Agreed 100%. The software does say that the Trip Planning feature is in Beta, so hopefully they'll add the ability to have waypoints/stops along a route to get a more accurate calculation of total energy needed. This will probably show up in a future software update.



DendeNYC said:


> There was also an occasion where the car had no LTE signal so of course the maps didn't load (the turn-by-turn navigation was not affected) this was expected however after I regained signal the maps didnt load again for another 10min.


Yeah, that's super annoying. I've had extensive travel in upstate New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire, and the AT&T LTE service is unavailable 30-40% of the time if you aren't on the Interstate. There are other threads on this, but the bottom line is that Tesla needs to download or (preferably) preload more map data for offline use.

C'mon Tesla! Not everyone lives in California and travels in good AT&T coverage areas!



DendeNYC said:


> *Range Anxiety*: Zero! The lowest I ran the car was about 9% and I still had about 7miles of range. Its probably not good for the car but I had an unplanned stopover before I returned home.


That's weird. 9% should have been more like 27-28 miles of range.

In any case, Elon has said that you can run the Model 3 to zero% without harming the battery. @Ingineerex confirmed this, and revealed in one of his teardown videos or Reddit (can't remember which) that Tesla reserves some battery space below "0%" that you can't access. This prevents the battery from being run too low by the driver. So no worries there.


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