We might go to Telluride in December and wondering if this trip is reasonable or not in the ZDX. I'm sharing a link to the route plan. A few things concern me about this route:

https://abetterrouteplanner.com/?pla...0-d76b7a65d767

1. The first stop after leaving Cedar Park, TX is 232 miles away. Last time I drove that far I had only 14% of battery left and ABRP is telling me I'll have 20%. This is a bit tight, and makes me question the rest of the route planning. Along this route there are very few fast chargers, almost no option to stop sooner to add safety. (parts of TX are an EV desert).
2. The 3rd stop in Fort Sumner is at a Francis Energy with only 2 stalls. Not the biggest most reliable network and only 2 stalls. I think I'd stop in Clovis earlier which has a few more chargers just to be safe. Maybe again in Santa Rosa.
3. The goal is to make it day one to Albuquerque.
4. The Milan to Cortez section, near the end, is almost 200 miles again and might be nerve wracking.
5. This will be in December. Cold, 3 passengers and lots of luggage, and lots of elevation gained.

I'm thinking the CR-V is a much safer bet. Thoughts?

 

Bill, I can't see your route but will offer these thoughts (not recommendations). From watching many YouTube videos, by the "outofspec" folks and others, one key to successful road tripping in an EV is taking on only the energy needed to get to your next recharge plus a small buffer. Having said that and not knowing your route and available chargers, if I could make it at 15% or more, I'd be comfortable with that. I too wouldn't be thrilled with counting on a 2-stall charger, BTW. Perhaps a small detour with more charger access would be appropriate, if possible. I do have a NACS adapter, so the Tesla charger, version 3+ and 4, are available to me.
I must admit, however, if my wife is with me, we'll be in her RDX unless charging looks bullet-proof! For me, part of the fun is in the planning, and I do hope that and the trip go well for you. Please keep us informed.
John

 

Huh, I thought that "share link" feature on ABRP actually worked. Oh well. If we go will be with wife and daughter, so almost certainly taking the CR-V at this point. If it was just me, different story.

Question: when using the built-in Google Maps to navigate, when it routes you to a charger and you pull in and start charging, does it tell you "you only need to charge to 60% to make your next charging stop"? Because otherwise I'd go to 80% out of caution. I notice ABRP actually tells you "this stop you wlll charge from 17% to 63%".

Observation: short road trip this weekend, out-and-back on a single charge so no worries. But planning with both ABRP and the built-in Google they differ wildly. ABRP tells me it will take 56% of the battery total. Built-in Google says 64%. Will be interesting to see who is closest.

 

The Google map feature will tell you approximately how much charge will be remaining when you get to the charging station. I haven't seen any info as to how much charge is needed to get to the next planned charging station.

Have fun!!

 

Thanks for that info. Since ABRP will run directly on our cars (with live battery charge information), using that for a trip might be more informative than using the built-in Google.

 

I can see your link. I don't know the exact elevation change, but I think with careful planning, you might not need as many stops as ABRP suggested.

First of all, I think you can shoot for arriving at places with plenty of charging stations at low 10%. The charging soon reminder lights up at 10%, and you have another 4-5% of totally useable reserve before the car goes into turtle mode. The goal is to stretch these legs to be able to deal with those 200-mile stretches, preferably starting from 85-90%. That should give you a wide enough window to adjust on-the-fly to hit the 200 mile target.

Like others said, don't rely on two-stall locations. The leg between Albuquerque and Lubbock is so tricky, with few backup options. I don't know how busy things are in NM, but the 4-stall EA station in Santa Rosa sounds risky in my mind. I would definitely try making a long stop around Lubbock to charge as much as I can, in order to stop at any of those EA stations along I-40 if the Santa Rosa station is somehow unavailable.

 

The result? It took us 66% of the battery, but we had about an extra 15 miles of driving around town and such in addition to the actual trip. So the built-in Google I would say nailed it. ABRP was overly optimistic. Makes me not want to trust ABRP for routing any more.

Started with a 100% charge, estimated at 352 miles of range. Trip odometer told us it was 207 total miles at 2.8 mi/kWh. Not bad at all!

 

Excellent Bill! Thanks for sharing.
John

 

Also worth noting in case you need to tap into single-digit SoC, battery preconditioning stops at 11% or so