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My brother and I made a very similar road trip (Skiing holiday to Austria ~ 1000 km.) I drove a 'normal' car and he drove a tesla Model 3. He left an hour earl

My brother and I made a very similar road trip (Skiing holiday to Austria ~ 1000 km.) I drove a 'normal' car and he drove a tesla Model 3. He left an hour earlier and arrived 30 minutes after me (with a relatively full battery to avoid the need of destination charging). He has the car for a little over a year so he probably optimized the charging schedule a bit better, but I still wonder why there was such a big difference between his and your experience (1.5 extra hours vs 4 extra hours for a single trip). He did not have to wait at the chargers, so that could account for some of it.. We only stopped for gas, toilet breaks, and took a 15 minute break for coffee and lunch.

IgorPartola 5y ago
The person you are replying to says they rented the Tesla and your brother owns one. I wonder if the rented vehicle was somehow abused or poorly maintained.
- MisterTea 5y ago
  > I wonder if the rented vehicle was somehow abused or poorly maintained. Very likely. Though more likely is the owner of a Tesla is more apt to the nuances of charging and planning ahead.
- izacus 5y ago
  Or there were longer lines at the chargers. Or they chose different chargers. Or the chargers were broken/slow (common occurence). Or the car burned more power due to lower temperatures. There's a lot of variance that comes into driving an EV on a longer trip.
- situationista 5y ago
  I own a Tesla and regularly make very long trips. Travel in an EV requires a completely different mindset from ICE and takes a little getting used to. I'm not surprised that a one-off road trip experience was less than smooth, but once you get into the habits of EV travel it's already a perfectly satisfactory experience.
easton 5y ago
Maybe the temperatures on the drive were higher in your case? That seems to be a downside of EVs at the moment, low temperature means bad range.
Gareth321 5y ago
I'm not sure but to speculate: 1. I drove fast on the Autobahn. I'm usually cruising at 160kph+, and did the same with the Tesla. Doing some homework, this kills efficiency fast. I imagine your brother was driving slower. Probably more within the high efficiency band. 2. Temperature delta. It was -5C + wind chill for most of our trip, and much colder up the mountain. 3. I kept a healthy battery reserve when seeking chargers (10%+) Tesla owners seem to encourage letting the battery drop below even 5% as this means an even faster charge to 60%. I am told there is an optimal cadence to charging which I suppose one perfects over time. 4. I did not conserve heating, as I'm told many EV owners do on longer trips. My wife likes our car to be subtropical. 5. Our Tesla might have been abused, though I recall it having <20,000km. 6. 1,000km is 17% shorter than my trip, further compounding (reducing) these differences. 7. Maybe my regenerative braking was set to low. I didn't think or know to check. 8. My route took me to at least a few regular chargers instead of superchargers. Maybe if I had been smarter and spent more time planning I could have used only super chargers. 9. Perhaps you stopped for a lot of breaks, reducing the relative advantage you might have had in your car. 10. Perhaps he left more than an hour earlier than you. 11. Perhaps my charging lines were longer than his. I'm sure there are many other factors I'm not considering.
- breytex 5y ago
  You should checkout https://abetterrouteplanner.com/ https://abetterrouteplanner.com/ for your next trip :)
  - Gareth321 5y ago
    Thanks, that's a cool site.
- r00fus 5y ago
  You said motorway speeds, but then state you were on the Autobahn doing 100mph+. Most other jurisdictions/autoways this speed is illegal. I definitely see my battery going down massively at 80mph/130kph speeds+ on my non-Tesla EV. In fact, going such speeds is probably massively inefficient for ICE cars as well, just that they're already incredibly inefficient already that you don't see much of a loss.
breytex 5y ago
1.5 extra hours would be my expectation as well. If we consider a long trip for vacation 3 times a year, the 4.5hrs invested into charging is offset by less day-to-day charging stops with an EV (if you can charge at home), the reduced costs of electricity vs gas and the reduced costs of maintenance. I would optimize the car choice for the 90% use of daily commute instead of optimizing for the 3-times-a-year vacation trips.

IgorPartola 5y ago

The person you are replying to says they rented the Tesla and your brother owns one. I wonder if the rented vehicle was somehow abused or poorly maintained.

MisterTea 5y ago
> I wonder if the rented vehicle was somehow abused or poorly maintained. Very likely. Though more likely is the owner of a Tesla is more apt to the nuances of charging and planning ahead.
izacus 5y ago
Or there were longer lines at the chargers. Or they chose different chargers. Or the chargers were broken/slow (common occurence). Or the car burned more power due to lower temperatures. There's a lot of variance that comes into driving an EV on a longer trip.
situationista 5y ago
I own a Tesla and regularly make very long trips. Travel in an EV requires a completely different mindset from ICE and takes a little getting used to. I'm not surprised that a one-off road trip experience was less than smooth, but once you get into the habits of EV travel it's already a perfectly satisfactory experience.

easton 5y ago

Maybe the temperatures on the drive were higher in your case? That seems to be a downside of EVs at the moment, low temperature means bad range.

Gareth321 5y ago

I'm not sure but to speculate: 1. I drove fast on the Autobahn. I'm usually cruising at 160kph+, and did the same with the Tesla. Doing some homework, this kills efficiency fast. I imagine your brother was driving slower. Probably more within the high efficiency band. 2. Temperature delta. It was -5C + wind chill for most of our trip, and much colder up the mountain. 3. I kept a healthy battery reserve when seeking chargers (10%+) Tesla owners seem to encourage letting the battery drop below even 5% as this means an even faster charge to 60%. I am told there is an optimal cadence to charging which I suppose one perfects over time. 4. I did not conserve heating, as I'm told many EV owners do on longer trips. My wife likes our car to be subtropical. 5. Our Tesla might have been abused, though I recall it having <20,000km. 6. 1,000km is 17% shorter than my trip, further compounding (reducing) these differences. 7. Maybe my regenerative braking was set to low. I didn't think or know to check. 8. My route took me to at least a few regular chargers instead of superchargers. Maybe if I had been smarter and spent more time planning I could have used only super chargers. 9. Perhaps you stopped for a lot of breaks, reducing the relative advantage you might have had in your car. 10. Perhaps he left more than an hour earlier than you. 11. Perhaps my charging lines were longer than his. I'm sure there are many other factors I'm not considering.

breytex 5y ago
You should checkout https://abetterrouteplanner.com/ https://abetterrouteplanner.com/ for your next trip :)
- Gareth321 5y ago
  Thanks, that's a cool site.
r00fus 5y ago
You said motorway speeds, but then state you were on the Autobahn doing 100mph+. Most other jurisdictions/autoways this speed is illegal. I definitely see my battery going down massively at 80mph/130kph speeds+ on my non-Tesla EV. In fact, going such speeds is probably massively inefficient for ICE cars as well, just that they're already incredibly inefficient already that you don't see much of a loss.

breytex 5y ago

1.5 extra hours would be my expectation as well. If we consider a long trip for vacation 3 times a year, the 4.5hrs invested into charging is offset by less day-to-day charging stops with an EV (if you can charge at home), the reduced costs of electricity vs gas and the reduced costs of maintenance. I would optimize the car choice for the 90% use of daily commute instead of optimizing for the 3-times-a-year vacation trips.