# My 5,000km road trip in a P3D....



## Steve C (Sep 28, 2016)

Tesla Model 3 Performance 5,000km road trip - new Tesla driver. Family of 4 traveling from Toronto to Disney with luggage. 

We rented the vehicle from Turo. Also a great experience renting! 

The car - hard to say anything other than.... wow! Most amazing vehicle I have ever driven let alone road tripped in. 

Storage - I took out the shelf in the trunk in order to put luggage below which came level with the rest of the trunk. Should have used duffle bags instead but used 3 hard luggage cases. 1 huge, 1 med and one small. Duffel bag went in the frunk. Odds and ends fit in the trunk with the 3 hard suitcases. Still lots of room on the inside for road trip snacks and pillows etc. 
Driving - The Tesla was a P3D so it had plenty of spunk. Apparently it’s a good idea to warn your passengers before punching it lol. When driving around town it was always fun for spirited driving as there was no concern about using too much range. Spirited driving can have a huge impact on range. For the long legs of the trip, we used Autopilot 99% of the time which also made the range estimate more accurate. 

Mapping/Charging - we put in our final destination into the computer and it worked out all the supercharger stops along the way. I had the battery set to 100% so found that the stops were further apart but longer in duration. There was a time or two when one of the kids needed a bathroom break in between the 3.5hr trek between supercharger stops. In these cases I would just look up a close supercharger on the route we were on. This also allowed me to do a quick 5-10 min top up of the battery and allow me a higher batt % remaining at the next charger and thus less time required to charge. Most of the time, the car was done charging before we were ready to continue on our trek. We stayed at the hotels that had supercharger locations at night. That was really convenient. We met lots of friendly Tesla owners along the way and always had some great chats. We cut it close once with 1% charge remaining. I found that once I knew we could make it to the location, I could up the speed a little and still arrive at the destination with no issues. This is something that you will have to play with. I always kept an eye on the range graph that shows your average kw usage and expected range. 

Autopilot - this is truly a game changer. It is far from perfect, but once you understand it’s limits, it the best thing to happen to road trips! It made the drive so much more relaxed and comfortable. Talk about a smooth drive when using autopilot. The family preferred it over my driving (I may be a little aggressive with a P3D at my toe tip ). I found it doesn’t like it if the driver unbuckles the seat belt or if you momentarily exceed the 90mph limit on Autopilot. The later puts you in autopilot jail and requires the car to be put in park before allowing you to use autopilot again. We used that as an opportunity to grab a coffee at Starbucks. In the mountains of West Virginia, in the hard corners at 70mph, the Tesla seemed to like to hug the outside line of the lane but managed with no issues. 
Media - I found that other than streaming from my phone, the media centre is far from perfect. When I would search for an artist or album, it would show the correct results but when trying to play said results, something completely different would play. It got a bit frustrating and I stopped trying to figure it out. 

Wipers - this does need an update and I understand that one is coming. There were a few times on a clear day that the wipers decided that it would be a good time to start wiping the windscreen. There were also times I thought it could use a wipe (with light rain) but it didn’t think so. Other times it worked perfectly. 

Long story short, this is the best car I could ever imagine for road tripping and we will be doing much more of it in the future. 

If anyone has any questions about the trip, let me know. I’d be happy to clarify anything or expand on anything.


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## Frully (Aug 30, 2018)

Fantastic Journey! 

I did a similar (yet smaller) trip when we first got The Orville. Calgary >> Seattle. 2300km round trip
Winding mountain roads have nothing on autopilot. 
Performance, can't be beat. Our phrase is "punch it chewie" to warn cel phone users of impending whiplash. Obligatory waiting til after the 'it' syllable. Even more fun when the passenger yells 'punch it chewie' at random intervals...The driver has to garglegrowlyell and comply.
Convenience, is a wash imo (longer charge stops = more resting and relaxed at destination).
Charging 'free' at hotels is a huge plus.
autoWipers agree are bleh. I have them on manual/off almost always and only use the stalk button for individual swishes unless it's raining hard enough.
Media is hit or miss. I wonder if having a full slacker account gives better control over the ai curated selections. Sometimes I just want to listen to a specific album, not one song then 36 like it. Bluetooth suffices for those times though.


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

It's a lot of fun. I've taken my P3D on a road trip to Montreal, and I co-piloted @Mad Hungarian's P3D from Florida to Pennsylvania.



Steve C said:


> Mapping/Charging - we put in our final destination into the computer and it worked out all the supercharger stops along the way.


For my very first road trip to Montreal, I used abetterrouteplanner and Tesla's online trip planner ahead of time to map out where I was going to stop. Turns out, it was completely unnecessary. The car's built-in trip planner is really, really good. I gained so much confidence with it on the way up, that I didn't bother looking at those tools for the drive home. I just allowed the car to choose where to stop.


> In the mountains of West Virginia, in the hard corners at 70mph, the Tesla seemed to like to hug the outside line of the lane but managed with no issues.


I've noticed the same thing. It doesn't handle high-speed sharper corners very well. I hope Tesla fixes this issue soon.


> When I would search for an artist or album, it would show the correct results but when trying to play said results, something completely different would play.


When you name a particular song in Slacker, it creates a song list based on that song. If you haven't listened to that particular song in a while, it will often play that song first. But otherwise, it will not. For example, if you say " play stressed out by twenty one pilots", you'll see on the display that it's playing a channel called "stressed out radio".


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## Steve C (Sep 28, 2016)

garsh said:


> For my very first road trip to Montreal, I used abetterrouteplanner and Tesla's online trip planner ahead of time to map out where I was going to stop. Turns out, it was completely unnecessary. The car's built-in trip planner is really, really good. I gained so much confidence with it on the way up, that I didn't bother looking at those tools for the drive home. I just allowed the car to choose where to stop.


I actually spent a couple hours planning the trip with the online Tesla planner. And like you, found it completely unnecessary. It did help me figure out where to stay overnight though....


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## Steve C (Sep 28, 2016)

This is not spirited driving... just the mountains of West Virginia.


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## shareef777 (Mar 10, 2019)

Hmm, I usually make an annual trip from Chicago to NC (~800mi) and we always use my wife’s car as it’s the larger vehicle in the household. Maybe a trip in the Tesla wouldn’t be so bad. I usually hit the road around 6p CT and drive straight though arriving around 7am ET (two stops for fuel/bathrooms only). Got used to doing it in 12hours. Wondering if I could run it in 13hours in the Tesla.


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## garsh (Apr 4, 2016)

shareef777 said:


> (two stops for fuel/bathrooms only). Got used to doing it in 12hours. Wondering if I could run it in 13hours in the Tesla.


Add 3 hours for charging. Closer to 15 hours.
Road-tripping an EV is a compromise. You'll need to accept the fact that you're going to be taking a break every ~4 hours for the car to charge, whether or not you feel like you need a break. It's not bad - it just requires a different mindset.

Here's (roughly) what your trip will look like: Tesla trip planner


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## shareef777 (Mar 10, 2019)

garsh said:


> Add 3 hours for charging. Closer to 15 hours.
> Road-tripping an EV is a compromise. You'll need to accept the fact that you're going to be taking a break every ~4 hours for the car to charge, whether or not you feel like you need a break. It's not bad - it just requires a different mindset.
> 
> Here's (roughly) what your trip will look like: Tesla trip planner


Guess not gonna happen with three kids in the back lol. Maybe I'll wait till V3 is more widely available.


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## FRC (Aug 4, 2018)

shareef777 said:


> Guess not gonna happen with three kids in the back lol. Maybe I'll wait till V3 is more widely available.


Garsh is about right...15 hours. However, that 15 hours will feel like 9 if you're using TACC and lane keep. I'm not sure that the trip would be less stressful for the kids, but I KNOW it's less stressful for the driver.


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## DennisP (Jan 5, 2019)

Steve C said:


> I actually spent a couple hours planning the trip with the online Tesla planner. And like you, found it completely unnecessary. It did help me figure out where to stay overnight though....


I'm planning for several trips this summer and have been playing with betterrouzteplanner and the Tesla trip planner but I have a couple of questions - do you charge to 100% before you leave or just 90% or so? And when you stop at the chargers does your car tell you when to stop charging apparently?


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## Dr. J (Sep 1, 2017)

DennisP said:


> I'm planning for several trips this summer and have been playing with betterrouzteplanner and the Tesla trip planner but I have a couple of questions - do you charge to 100% before you leave or just 90% or so? And when you stop at the chargers does your car tell you when to stop charging apparently?


The car charges until it hits your pre-set limit, unless you interrupt it sooner.

Starting from 90 or 100% depends on your needs and preferences....and anxieties.


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## DennisP (Jan 5, 2019)

Got it. I just wasn’t sure where the planner came up with the “20 minutes” here, “40 minutes” here notes when figuring the route. Guess that’s based on how much charge you’ll use to that point.


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