Hitting the open road in my Tesla Model Y, my first EV road trip taught me a few valuable lessons about charging on the road and running on empty.
After picking up my Tesla Model Y 2023 RWD last February, this has been my first full Australian summer driving an electric car. The Model Y’s battery has a range of 430 kilometres, which I’ve found is enough for around three and a half hours of highway driving between charges.
Despite the fearmongering, driving an electric car hasn’t “ruined the weekend” or ruined the family holiday, but it does force you to think ahead or risk running into trouble.
How I charge my EV at home
Until this summer, we’ve never had to charge the car away from home. I have a single-phase Tesla Gen 3 wall charger installed in the driveway, combined with a great home electricity plan that offers unlimited free green power between 11 am and 2 pm every day.
I also have the benefit of solar panels on the roof, but they only produce a maximum of 5 kW and the car draws 7.7 kW when charging at home at the maximum rate.
This means, even on a sunny summer’s day, my solar output isn’t enough to slake the car’s thirst and it still draws on the grid. That’s why it’s so handy to have that amazing free “Three Hours of Power” – during which we also run our power-hungry home appliances.
Using Charge HQ to schedule a three-hour charging window, I can top up the Tesla’s battery by about 30 per cent each day for free. Of course, that’s assuming that it’s parked in the driveway in the middle of the day.
Because I work from home and my family doesn’t do a lot of driving, most weeks this free charging window is enough to keep the car happy, so it costs me nothing to run. Driving my old diesel-powered Holden Captiva, I tended to wait until the tank was three-quarters empty and then fill it right up. It’s a different story with my first EV, which gets regular small charges that see the battery level float between 20% and 80% during the week.
Occasionally, I need to top up the battery at home outside the free charging window, which costs me 34.21c per kWh – generally cheaper than using a public charger. An extra top-up is usually necessary in order to fully charge the battery the night before a big trip.
This summer was the first time my Tesla Model Y left Melbourne’s city limits since it rolled off the boat from Shanghai. My summer long-haul driving included a day trip to Bendigo (90 minutes each way), a few nights in Torquay on the surf coast (90 minutes each way) and a few nights in McLaren Vale just south of Adelaide (eight hours plus stops each way).
I’ll spare you the blow-by-blow description of each trip, but here’s what I learned that will make next year’s summer EV road trips much easier:
Don’t take Tesla’s in-route charging recommendations as gospel
If you don’t have enough juice when setting a destination in the car or using the Tesla app, it automatically adds charging stops to the schedule. This ensures you’ll get from A to B, but don’t assume it’s always the best schedule to meet your needs.
For starters, Tesla wants to get you to your destination as quickly as possible, while reducing how long you tie up each supercharger. To this end, it tends to schedule many short charging stops rather than a few long stops.
If you arrive at a busy Tesla supercharger it recommends only charging to 80%. If you’re heading towards a busy charger, it might even suggest that you consider charging elsewhere.
That’s understandable considering that charging any EV slows once you get above 80%, so it takes a while to get to a full charge when you could be back on the road.
For example, my Tesla Model Y wanted to charge four times on the eight-hour drive from Melbourne to Adelaide – sometimes for less than 10 minutes – even though I knew we could make it in two stops.
Because we were happy to stop and eat in Horsham VIC and again at Keith SA, I let the car charge back to 100% in each location. Keep in mind, the chargers weren’t busy, or else I would have done the courteous thing and moved on at 80%. If we weren’t ready to leave when the car was fully charged, I went and moved it to free up the charger and avoid overstay fees.
Since I was charging for longer than scheduled, I overrode the car’s plan to also charge in Stawell (before Horsham) and Tailem Bend (after Keith). This meant that I tended to re-enter each leg of the journey rather than stick with the original multi-stop destination.
As a result, it took a bit longer to get to Adelaide’s McLaren Vale than if we’d stuck with the car’s plan, but the two longer stops suited us better than four short stops. If you were trying to travel further each day, you’d perhaps favour the quick-charge-and-run strategy.
I also felt comfortable charging in Horsham and Keith because I could see there were both Tesla and Chargefox superchargers nearby, as a fallback in case one was out of action.
To be fair, on the way back to Melbourne I only charged to 95% at Horsham, after which the car was convinced we couldn’t make it home. It insisted that we needed to stay under 95 km/h per hour (in a 110 km/h zone) to conserve power. I didn’t want to risk running flat with the family in the back, including a nervous mother-in-law (whose nerves weren’t helped by the fact that my young daughter did a lot of the driving to rack up hours on her L plates).
To keep the car happy, not to mention nervous passengers, we stopped for a quick extra charge at Stawell. It was interesting to discover a lot more superchargers lined up in Stawell than we saw in Horsham, perhaps because Tesla decided that Melbourne to Stawell is a better battery target for the first leg to Adelaide.
On future trips to Adelaide, we’ve decided it’s easier to find a new favourite cafe in Stawell and then drive past Horsham heading to Keith. Stopping for a burger at Keith’s Henry & Rose cafe on the way back from Adelaide is non-negotiable, even though the car would rather stop at Bordertown.
Know thy battery
By default, the Tesla tends to be conservative when it comes to battery estimates. As you’re driving, you often discover that the trip won’t chew through as much power as you expected.
When planning a trip, the car and app tell you your estimated arrival time and remaining battery. This battery arrival estimate constantly updates as you drive, which is very handy but not always that accurate.
For example, before I set out for Bendigo for the day with a full battery, the car insisted I’d need to charge on my way home. The night before it said I’d arrive with 53% battery left, but when I set off in the morning it estimated I’d arrive with 63%.
Enabling cruise control certainly helps conserve power, and the estimated arrival level crept as high as 68% during the drive north up the Calder Highway. In the end, I arrived in Bendigo with 60% left in the tank, so I knew I could make it back home again.
The big exception to the battery estimate rule is if you’ve got gear packed on the roof. I have Tesla’s roof rails installed, which on their own don’t seem to make a big difference to the energy consumption, but that changes once I attach the cargo tray and strap on some luggage (the design of Tesla’s roof rails is a major pain, but that’s another story).
On the way to and from Torquay, with gear packed on the roof, the battery arrival level slowly ticked down rather than up. On the way home the situation looked dire, dropping under 10% and continuing to fall, so we stopped for an unscheduled top-up at Corio on the outskirts of Geelong.
In the end, I think the car was being overly cautious and we would have just made it home running on fumes, but I once again didn’t want to risk it with the family in the back.
A few unscheduled charge stops on our journeys might worry those concerned about EV range anxiety. It can be a little stressful on your first few EV road trips, but we were never in danger of actually running flat and we’ve learned a lot for next time.
Look beyond Tesla’s superchargers
Keep in mind that Tesla’s in-route planning only considers Tesla’s own charging network, even though there are probably plenty of others along the way from the likes of Chargefox.
This is where PlugShare really comes in handy, for finding all the charging options along your route. Plus it’s a good idea to download the apps and create accounts in advance for Chargefox and perhaps other charging networks like Evie.
Chargefox is Australia’s largest EV charging network and is owned by the Autoclub roadside assist providers, so you get a discount if you’re with the NRMA, RACV, RACQ, RAA, RAC or RACT.
If you’re making a long charge stop with plans to eat, Tesla’s chargers aren’t always in the most convenient location. For example, Chargefox’s chargers were a much shorter walk from our favourite Horsham cafe than Tesla’s chargers.
One downside is that the car only pre-heats the battery, to allow for faster charge times, when driving to a Tesla supercharger. If you’re charging elsewhere then a workaround is to tell the car that you’re driving to a Tesla charger and then redirect at the last minute – although this trick didn’t always seem to work.
Know thy EV chargers
Once you’re looking beyond the Tesla supercharger network, it’s important to know your car’s charging capabilities and pay close attention to the specs of the chargers.
The Tesla Model Y is happy to pull down more than 100 kW, which gets you back on the road fairly quickly. In Horsham and Torquay, I pulled up in RACV Chargefox bays only to realise that I’d picked the 40 kW charger rather than the 120 kW charger sitting alongside.
Thankfully, I noticed my mistake before I plugged in and moved the car to a faster charger, otherwise I was in for a long wait.
While PlugShare is a great way to find non-Tesla chargers, it’s important to read the fine print.
Like most EVs sold in Australia, my Tesla Model Y features a Combined Charging System 2 (CCS2) charging socket. This lets it connect to a seven-pin AC-power Type 2 charging plug, like on my home charger and some public chargers. Plus the car features two extra power contacts to support DC-power fast charging from public superchargers.
I tend to stick to CCS2 superchargers when travelling, because I’m happy to pay extra for the faster charging speeds. Once you get off the beaten track you can’t always afford to be so fussy.
Narrowing down your PlugShare searches to CCS2 and Type 2 chargers is very helpful. Even then, you can still get caught out because some Type 2 public chargers expect you to ‘Bring Your Own’ charge cable, which is a $200-$300 optional extra. Without your own cable, there’s no way to use the charger.
I haven’t bought a separate Type 2 cable, or the $500 “mobile connector” cable for plugging into a standard power point, because I don’t think I’d get the use out of them. If I spent a lot more time in regional areas I expect they’d be worth the investment.
Staying in McLaren Vale, south of the Adelaide Hills, I made the mistake of thinking I could use the nearby RAA Chargefox Type 2 chargers, only to discover that they required a cable. To be fair, I would have realised this if I’d paid more attention to PlugShare.
At this point, I had about 15% in the battery and the Tesla app told me there were no chargers in range. After a brief moment of panic, I turned to PlugShare to discover that there was an RAA Chargefox CSS2 fast charger only 10 minutes’ drive away in Seaford. The story could have ended much worse if I was in the middle of nowhere.
Pay attention to your estimated remaining battery level on arrival
By default, on long journeys that include charge stops, the car plans for you to arrive at your final destination with less than 15% onboard. That’s great for reducing charging times on the road, but problematic if you can’t afford to roll into town running on empty.
It’s a big problem if the place where you stop for the night isn’t within range of the next charger. For example, the Tesla let me arrive at McLaren Vale with only 15% in the tank, even though it didn’t think I could make it to another charger (not recognising that Chargefox wasn’t far away).
Likewise, on a multi-day road trip, you can’t afford to arrive at a stop-over town running on empty, not if there’s nowhere to fill up and you need to start the next day on a full charge. The further you get off the beaten track, the more potential there is to run into this kind of trouble.
Tesla recently added the ability to set your desired arrival battery level and plan the length of mid-journey charges accordingly. Alternatively, you can just ignore the car’s recommendation for a short mid-journey charge and stay a little longer (which I often did in order to ensure I had power to spare).
Of course, that’s not much help if requires a full charge to get from your final charge stop to that night’s accommodation in the middle of nowhere. The further you get from the big smoke, the more you need to plan your overnight stops and charging with care.
Having just enough juice onboard to arrive at your next destination also makes it much harder to deal with the unexpected. As such, I aimed to always have at least 20% in reserve at the end of the day.
For example, one of the reasons why we were running so low coming back from Torquay was that I’d made an unplanned 30-minute round trip back to Barwon Heads the day before. I hadn’t allowed for this drive when planning charge stops.
Similarly, on the way home from Adelaide, friends suggested we take the scenic route and cross the Murray by ferry at Wellington, which required some quick recalculations to ensure we’d make it.
Having crossed the Murray, our detour required an extra charge at Tailem Bend. I’d been navigating past Tailem Bend to Keith but the car popped up a warning that if we didn’t change the plan we risked driving out of charging range, offering Tailem Bend as an option.
Even then, I was nervously sitting on one arse cheek as we rolled into Tailem Bend with only 5% in the tank. It was made more stressful by the fact that the car took us to the wrong spot and we had to backtrack to find the Tesla chargers outside of town.
The lesson is that, without the ability to pull into any old petrol station, it’s much harder to wing it on a road trip – especially once you get off the beaten track.
More concerning is that, the day after we arrived home from Adelaide, bushfires closed the highway between Keith and Horsham. Had we been travelling a day later, we would have been forced to make a large detour south which could have been very challenging battery-wise.
Admittedly it all sounds pretty stressful but, at the end of the day, I’m not regretting my decision to buy an EV and next summer will be much easier. You shouldn’t have too much trouble finding charge spots between the capital cities and major regional centres, and we never had to queue for a charger but it could be a different story if you’re driving at peak travel times.
Even if you’re sticking to the major routes, you still need to plan ahead – especially if you’re limiting yourself to CCS2 and Type 2 chargers which have their own cable. If you’re a free spirit who likes to get off the beaten track and change your plans on the fly, investing in a Type 2 and/or standard AC charge cable to keep in the boot could be a wise investment to ensure your EV road trip doesn’t leave you stranded in the middle of nowhere.
The post What I learned on my Tesla’s first summer EV road trip appeared first on GadgetGuy.
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