# Road trip Chicago to South Dakota



## IamEmptySea (Jun 28, 2020)

We've been cooped up too long. Got my Model 3 on Feb 1, drove to work for about a month and then the lockdowns happened and besides a couple of small rides, nothing really so I have planned a relatively care free trip from the Chicago suburbs out to western South Dakota for my wife and I to really get comfortable with an EV on a longer trip, use the supercharger miles (since mine expire in September) and focus on the outdoors via the National Parks.

I am using A Better Route Planner to figure out the drives and so far so good. Using Plugshare to review secondary chargers and note backup options. We will be going out and visiting the Badlands, Wall Drug, Sturgis, Deadwood, Devils Tower, Custer State Park, Mt Rushmore, Crazy horse and drive Needles Highway and Iron Mountain Road for their views and twists and turns. We will then run down to the Boulder Colorado area, visit our son and then make the trip across the great plains back to home.

I didnt see an area on the forum to talk about roadtrip tips and tricks or to post longer drives. 









Used https://abetterrouteplanner.com/ for general planning (thinking about pro) and struggling a bit with small adjustments (like going through the badlands) and multiple day segments.
Checked out the reviews of most of the Tesla Superchargers on the route via https://www.nowyouknowchannel.com/supercharger-reviews and those that dont, maybe the wife and I will review
Looking at locations and reviews with https://www.plugshare.com/ to sort out my backup plans and options as well as see what the photos from others offer and we can expect
Staying lightweight and using https://www.hoteltonight.com/ to keep an eye out for deals vs lock in rooms in advance. Its just the two of us and the way the world is, we dont think the room situation in the Dakotas will be bad so we'll find a place or use this to find same night deals depending on where we end up.
If you have any experience in the are OR good things to keep in mind road tripping in a Tesla, then please feel free to share.


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

Have fun with it! I too like to use abetterrouteplanner to plan things out in advance. For those who don't want to, it's perfectly fine to just start driving and rely on the car's navigation to tell you where you need to stop to supercharge. 

And keep in mind that if you're ever worried that you might not have enough power to make it to the next supercharger, all you have to do is slow down. EVs use a lot less power at lower speeds (at least when you get above about 20 mph).

Have fun!


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## shareef777 (Mar 10, 2019)

I did a 1600mi (round trip) to NC last year and tried to do all the planning and detailing you’re doing. Now, I’d just head out and enjoy the trip. Don’t worry about the 3. Just put the address of your destination and it’ll tell you where and when to stop to charge. Doesn’t seem like you have a specific schedule you need to keep to, so just head out, stop whenever the 3 says to, enjoy the local area for ~30-60min, then move onto the next stop.

It really is no different than an ICE vehicle except it does take longer.


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## IamEmptySea (Jun 28, 2020)

On these long drives... anyone have any strong feelings about the Aero covers or not?


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

IamEmptySea said:


> On these long drives... anyone have any strong feelings about the Aero covers or not?


It's up to you. Mad Hungarian has done some testing of the Aeros with covers on and off when he was comparing to the EV01s.
You can read the results here.
TLDR: the covers improve efficiency by 5% at 75mph.


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## Tchris (Nov 22, 2017)

Stop and visit the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs while in the Black Hills. It’s just south of Rapid City, and on your route to Colorado.


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## shareef777 (Mar 10, 2019)

IamEmptySea said:


> On these long drives... anyone have any strong feelings about the Aero covers or not?


On my drive I started with ~300mi of range and generally stopped every 200mi. I had the 20" perf wheels and don't think it'd of made a difference if I had aero wheels due to the spacing of the SC stations.


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## FRC (Aug 4, 2018)

I just completed a 6000 mile road trip. Almost all of my road trip miles(about 40k so far), are traveled on secondary roads rather than interstates. However, the final day of this road trip was all interstate travel from Peru, Illinois to Athens, Ga. I chose to do a little experiment on this 800 mile single day trip. The car's nav system routed me home with a recommended 3 supercharger stops and estimated my arrival home at 10:22 pm. I used the recommended route but stopped at all 6 superchargers on my route. At each supercharger, I charged until the car said I would arrive at the next supercharger with 11% charge. Twice I left perhaps 10 minutes past the 11% level because I tend to talk to other owners too much. Otherwise, I left when the car said 11%. I travel at 11mph over the speed limit and mostly on NOA. The reason for the 11% limit is twofold...1) This is a comfortable buffer for me, and 2) Arriving at 11% SOC allows for maximum charging speeds. At every Supercharger stop I arrived at an SOC within 2% of the predicted 11%.

Rather than arrive home at the predicted 10:22 pm, I arrived 8 minutes EARLY! The time saved by charging only enough to reach the next supercharger(at faster rates), more than offset the time used to reach three additional superchargers. In addition, stopping twice as often made the trip feel much quicker, and the ride much more enjoyable. I highly recommend this method for anyone contemplating a lengthy interstate road trip.


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

@FRC, that's a good strategy as long as the superchargers aren't too far out of the way. You can tweak abetterrouteplanner to adjust how much extra time to allot for charging stops.


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## FRC (Aug 4, 2018)

garsh said:


> @FRC, that's a good strategy as long as the superchargers aren't too far out of the way. You can tweak abetterrouteplanner to adjust how much extra time to allot for charging stops.


You're right @garsh, all the chargers I used were within a mile of my route, which is generally true along more rural interstate routes. BTW, I never use a better route planner. The car's system has always met my needs.


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## IamEmptySea (Jun 28, 2020)

For the most part we are on the majors and superchargers seem to be well placed, only watching things like going into the Badlands in August and knowing we have enough to get through but there is a campground with a 14-50 so keeping an eye out for backup plans as much as possible. I am looking forward to it, our first real long drive without gasoline so its quite an adventure but we are excited and will likely take videos at the superchargers and post some now you know stuff.


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

FRC said:


> BTW, I never use a better route planner. The car's system has always met my needs.


The car's system works very well. It is pretty conservative though, making sure you never arrive at a supercharger with less than 5% or 10% battery (I forget which it tries for).


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## FRC (Aug 4, 2018)

garsh said:


> The car's system works very well. It is pretty conservative though, making sure you never arrive at a supercharger with less than 5% or 10% battery (I forget which it tries for).


That's why I never charge for the time the car says. Instead I charge to a projected % at arrival(11% for me). You could charge to a projected 1% at arrival if that made you comfortable, but even if it were enough, it wouldn't save you any time except on your final stop of the trip. If you could always charge at the maximum rate, it would be fine to charge to 95% at each stop. But since the rate of charge slows so drastically in the top half of the battery, the goal is to achieve enough charge at a fast rate to get to the next charger where you can charge at a fast rate again. This is known as "riding the bottom of the battery".


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## IamEmptySea (Jun 28, 2020)

Hey everyone, just posting an update. The Model 3 performed amazingly well, estimates from the computer are within a couple of percentage points, the supercharger spacing was easy to work with... only a few notes after going through 8 states in 8 days:


Phantom breaking can be disconcerting but once you figure out its angle and mostly overpasses... at least you understand where it is coming from
Still having some issues where AP is oddly pulling the car to the right white line and even the display is showing that the line is wanting to be in the middle of the lane, its rough on its own but when it moves to the right and the trucks are there, I just kept bailing out of AP. Anyone else getting that?
MOST of the trip I used traffic aware cruise control so I could just steer and relax while not managing speed issues with local Police Departments. Excellent in stop/go
Tesla's are so freaky quiet that more than a few Sturgis Harley Davidson riders got snuck up on during wildlife stops.. They were good about it and we ended up discussing EVs, Teslas and even the Harley LiveWire potential
48 in the standard 18s are the recommended and the service tech that came out topped them up but I might consider softening them up in a longer haul. While we were VERY comfortable in the long distance with the seats, some of the roads kind of suck especially regular buckling that starts to feel like your teeth are loosening.
TezLab is a great little app for a new item. Checked in and rated the superchargers, left comments etc
Got used to it but I wish that the in car system would do what A Better Route Planner does in letting you dictate the min SOC. Had a couple of times where the car wanted to run down south of 5% SOC at arrival when there was another supercharger before it (or just hang out a few more minutes at the one before which we did to feel more comfortable)
Ceramic coat is awesome dealing with all the damn bugs, a little speed detailer in the frunk and I could use the supercharger time to clear a few thousand of them. Need to find some good glass cleaner recommendations btw!

So, 8 states, 8 days and 8 items called out.

Amazing trip, highly recommended and we now have a new found confidence in driving at the lower end of the battery percentage.


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## IamEmptySea (Jun 28, 2020)




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## 68shooter (Apr 3, 2020)

I'm currently planning a trip from NE Arkansas to Central Wisconsin. On the Tesla Route planner site, it lists my Model 3 (dual motor AWD LR) range as 373 miles. When I purchased the car, the listed range was 322 miles. Has Tesla done something to increase the car's range? I'm still a bit of a newbie at all of this so any help appreciated. Thanks for this thread...the advice here will help me tremendously.


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

68shooter said:


> I'm currently planning a trip from NE Arkansas to Central Wisconsin. On the Tesla Route planner site, it lists my Model 3 (dual motor AWD LR) range as 373 miles. When I purchased the car, the listed range was 322 miles. Has Tesla done something to increase the car's range? I'm still a bit of a newbie at all of this so any help appreciated. Thanks for this thread...the advice here will help me tremendously.


You picked the "Model* S* Long Range" by mistake.


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## 68shooter (Apr 3, 2020)

Derrrr....right. Since I was logged in, I just naturally assumed the trip finder would pick my car. I'll run it again. Thanks.


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