690 miles in an electric car with a 18 months old :)

[gangzoom]

A few months ago we finally took delivery of our 75D Tesla Model X. To say this is the most expensive, complicated, luxurious, and largest car we’ve owned would be an understatement. The car it replaced (a Nissan Leaf) was nearly 1 ton lighter, half a meter smaller, and multiple folds cheaper. However with a growing family, some hard saving, and my own interest in all things new in tech the Tesla is the car I’ve been looking forwards to owning for a long time!!


Two of the key questions I always get asked about EVs is range and charging. We did take our old Leaf on a 300 mile round trip from Cardiff to Leicester, but a combination of limited range (80-90 miles) and not that quick charging meant that one trip was enough to put me off using the Leaf for long distance drives for the whole time we owned it. So although the original 24kWh Leaf was/is a great commuter car, using one as a family wagon on long trips really isn’t enjoyable – Current 30kWh Leaf and the new 40kWh should change that though.


So what better to try and see what a difference the Tesla makes to the range/charging experience than road trip with the family??


Rather than just do a simple trip from Leicester to Cardiff, we decided to go a tour heading up north via Liverpool, than Lake District, Edinburgh, than back down to Leeds, before finally coming back to Leicester.

After plugging in the destinations to Google maps the total trip time came out to 673 miles, equating to nearly 14hrs of driving!!



Having previously done some big drives in the past including a 2000 mile blast across Europe it wasn’t the distance that bothered me, more how our 18 months old daughter would cope sitting in a car seat for that long!!! I even thought about cancelling the whole thing but when the departure day came we went for it.

Outward leg: Leicester to Edinburgh, via Liverpool – 356 miles, 7hr+

We left Leicester fully charged, and arrived in Warrington Supercharger for lunch. For those who don’t know Tesla have a series of rapid chargers (Superchargers) along the UK M-way network. These chargers provide a stupid amount of electricity, it takes a Tesla Supercharger about 1 minute to deliver the same amount of electricity a normal 3 pin plug can deliver in 1 hr!!


Unlike other EV chargers the Tesla chargers are much more reliable, have multiple chargers at each site, and can only be used by Tesla cars. So the chance of arriving at a Supercharger and not been able to charge is rare.




By the time we finished lunch the car was 100% charged and it meant when we didn’t need to do any kind of charging overnight when visiting friends in Liverpool.


The next day was the longer drive up to Edinburgh, up the M6. The scenery was beautiful, and we stopped for lunch just north of Carlie where there was another service station with 4 Tesla Chargers. Again by the time we finished lunch the car was at 100% charge, so we headed up to Edinburgh. This was when we were really thankful for having a massive car, our daughter hand been sat in the car seat for nearly 5 hrs that day and we needed everything thing possible to keep her entertained. The roads were amazing when we turned off the M-way!!



Anyone whos been to Edinburgh knows how hard city parking is we had some underground parking which was great, and given the traffic in town elected not to move the car for the next few days. It also meant we didn’t have anyway to charge the car, but with 40% charge left in the battery I wasn’t worried.



Return leg: Edinburgh to Leicester, via Leeds – 318 miles, 6h 30 min.

For the return leg we split the trip into two again for our daughter. First stop was just as Abington for breakfast/break. The car arrived with 10% charge but after 30 minutes was back up to 75%. This was enough to get us to Tebay with ease. When we arrived at Tebay it was time for lunch and gave much daughter a chance to run around before the drive to Leeds via the A roads, the car had once again got to 100% charge before we were ready to go. The scenery was lovely, but I was glad to pull into the hotel in Leeds, 2hrs spent navigating twisty Yorkshire A roads does knacker you out!!





Finally after spending a lovely night in Leeds, we headed up back home. Again I didn’t bother looking for a charger in Leeds, as I knew the car had enough range for the last leg. So finally after nearly 690 miles we were home!!.


The car performed perfectly, we didn’t need to stop any where any longer than we wanted to, didn’t need to bother looking for charging points in hotels/friends house, didn't need to slow down to 50mph tailgating a lorry. We simply drove it as would our previous cars.

So anyone whos still not sure how EVs can cope on a long family trip.....as long as you have a 200 miles range EV, with associated reliable charging network it simply isnt an issue.

Oh I forgot the average temp for our trip was around 5 degrees, and we never needed to turn any heating/light off to make it to the next stop. After this trip I can confidently say EVs really are a viable option for most, all that remains to be solved is get the price lower and more reliable M-way charging .

We are planning our summer road trip already!!

[rich12]

Nice write up.

Got my MS 75D last week and love it.
My daily commute is 50 miles so no worries there and I don't like going away in this country either so pretty much perfect for me too haha.

[NDNDNDND]

Out of curiosity, I thought I'd try to work out how long it took you to charge up your car.

First leg to Warrington supercharger - 100 miles. Assumed range of 259 miles means you arrived with 62% charge. According to leccy.net, to get back to 100% you would've stopped for lunch for 1.5hrs?

Your second leg to Carlisle was about 150 miles, so you arrived with about 43% charge. To get back to 100% would've meant another lunch stop of an hour and three quarters?

Are these times accurate? I ask because you give a time charge from 10% to 75% as 30mins, but leccy.net estimates it to take 45 minutes for an XP75D.

[gangzoom]

^ We had an overnight between Warrington and Carlise. I was more worried about blocking a charger with a fully charged car whilst finishing food than having to wait for a charge to complete.

Charging from 10-80% is really quick, the last 10% is what takes time. We got to Warrington with 22% charge because we didn't leave home with 100%. Within 15 mintues the charger had added 30%. I also found the phone App always overestimated time needed to complete the charge, especially when charging to 100%.

Edited by gangzoom on Saturday 18th November 18:08

[SimonYorkshire]

This isn't aimed at the OP... each to their own.

But, from another angle... Driving 700 miles in any car with an engine, regardless of how much the car cost or was currently worth, wouldn't have been worth writing a thread about because refuelling it anywhere in just a couple of minutes wouldn't have been a problem, 350 miles range is an easy nod for most ice cars (but even if an ice car had 100 mile range, filling up in minutes still makes 700 miles not a problem), no need to find a Tesla supercharger at any point along the journey.

My car could make the entire 700 miles trip without having to stop for fuel once and isn't worth a fraction of the cost of a Tesla. I wouldn't have to plan my trip to pass Tesla superchargers along my route, I could refuel where I wanted, take any route I wanted, eat where I wanted, sleep where I wanted. For anyone planning the same trip in any different model car what are the chances they'd just so happen to eat next to a Tesla supercharger (and take 90 mins to eat), and have had to plan for this, etc. Not far from the mark saying Tesla superchargers deliver about as much power in 1 minute as a 3 pin plug delivers in an hour, it almost goes without saying that this was the reason for your exact route and exact times you ate etc? Last time I did a similar distance trip I refuelled in 2 minutes, bought a couple of scotch eggs, sarnies, bags of crisps and pop and set off on the trip again immediately.

If we were to compare overall costs of your trip to overall costs of the same trip I might do in an ice car, my costs would be lower - I didn't have to buy a Tesla (how much did that cost, what £75000?)! If we were to compare how green the Tesla was to how green my car was there wouldn't be much difference - tell us what dates/times you charged and we can find out roughly the proportions of how much of your electricity likely came from wind/solar/tidal or far more likely from coal, gas and nuclear. If we were to compare convenience my car would easily come out on top - I wouldn't have had any of my route, stopovers or eating location(s) dictated by my car. Not the sort of compromises I'd ever want to put up with from a £1k car never mind one as expensive as a Tesla.

Genuine questions - Are batteries for Tesla's leased (like some other EV batteries are)? If so, how much, and will that figure be the same when the Tesla is say 10 years old? Or how much to buy a Tesla battery outright?

Edited by SimonYorkshire on Friday 8th December 18:01

[limpsfield]

Oh God

[anonymous-user]

SimonYorkshire said:

This isn't aimed at the OP... each to their own.

But, from another angle... Driving 700 miles in any car with an engine, regardless of how much the car cost or was currently worth, wouldn't have been worth writing a thread about because refuelling it anywhere in just a couple of minutes wouldn't have been a problem, 350 miles range is an easy nod for most ice cars (but even if an ice car had 100 mile range, filling up in minutes still makes 700 miles not a problem), no need to find a Tesla supercharger at any point along the journey.

My car could make the entire 700 miles trip without having to stop for fuel once and isn't worth a fraction of the cost of a Tesla. I wouldn't have to plan my trip to pass Tesla superchargers along my route, I could refuel where I wanted, take any route I wanted, eat where I wanted, sleep where I wanted. For anyone planning the same trip in any different model car what are the chances they'd just so happen to eat next to a Tesla supercharger (and take 90 mins to eat), and have had to plan for this, etc. Not far from the mark saying Tesla superchargers deliver about as much power in 1 minute as a 3 pin plug delivers in an hour, it almost goes without saying that this was the reason for your exact route and exact times you ate etc? Last time I did a similar distance trip I refuelled in 2 minutes, bought a couple of scotch eggs, sarnies, bags of crisps and pop and set off on the trip again immediately.

If we were to compare overall costs of your trip to overall costs of the same trip I might do in an ice car, my costs would be lower - I didn't have to buy a Tesla (how much did that cost, what £75000?)! If we were to compare how green the Tesla was to how green my car was there wouldn't be much difference - tell us what dates/times you charged and we can find out roughly the proportions of how much of your electricity likely came from wind/solar/tidal or far more likely from coal, gas and nuclear. If we were to compare convenience my car would easily come out on top - I wouldn't have had any of my route, stopovers or eating location(s) dictated by my car. Not the sort of compromises I'd ever want to put up with from a £1k car never mind one as expensive as a Tesla.

Genuine questions - Are batteries for Tesla's leased (like some other EV batteries are)? If so, how much, and will that figure be the same when the Tesla is say 10 years old? Or how much to buy a Tesla battery outright?

Edited by anonymous-user on Friday 8th December 18:01

Oops. You’re not allowed to say things like that on this forum. You’ll be crucified soon.

[RobDickinson]

Why not sell him an LPG conversion for it....

[angels95]

SimonYorkshire said:

My car could make the entire 700 miles trip without having to stop for fuel once and isn't worth a fraction of the cost of a Tesla. I wouldn't have to plan my trip to pass Tesla superchargers along my route, I could refuel where I wanted, take any route I wanted, eat where I wanted, sleep where I wanted.

I agree with this. I can see the appeal of electric cars in urban areas, but for long distance journeys I can't see why you'd put yourself through it. They sound very stressful and time-consuming for that sort of thing. Then again that's not what they're designed for, so I suppose it would be unfair to expect anything different at the moment.

[rscott]

SimonYorkshire said:

This isn't aimed at the OP... each to their own.

But, from another angle... Driving 700 miles in any car with an engine, regardless of how much the car cost or was currently worth, wouldn't have been worth writing a thread about because refuelling it anywhere in just a couple of minutes wouldn't have been a problem, 350 miles range is an easy nod for most ice cars (but even if an ice car had 100 mile range, filling up in minutes still makes 700 miles not a problem), no need to find a Tesla supercharger at any point along the journey.

My car could make the entire 700 miles trip without having to stop for fuel once and isn't worth a fraction of the cost of a Tesla. I wouldn't have to plan my trip to pass Tesla superchargers along my route, I could refuel where I wanted, take any route I wanted, eat where I wanted, sleep where I wanted. For anyone planning the same trip in any different model car what are the chances they'd just so happen to eat next to a Tesla supercharger (and take 90 mins to eat), and have had to plan for this, etc. Not far from the mark saying Tesla superchargers deliver about as much power in 1 minute as a 3 pin plug delivers in an hour, it almost goes without saying that this was the reason for your exact route and exact times you ate etc? Last time I did a similar distance trip I refuelled in 2 minutes, bought a couple of scotch eggs, sarnies, bags of crisps and pop and set off on the trip again immediately.

If we were to compare overall costs of your trip to overall costs of the same trip I might do in an ice car, my costs would be lower - I didn't have to buy a Tesla (how much did that cost, what £75000?)! If we were to compare how green the Tesla was to how green my car was there wouldn't be much difference - tell us what dates/times you charged and we can find out roughly the proportions of how much of your electricity likely came from wind/solar/tidal or far more likely from coal, gas and nuclear. If we were to compare convenience my car would easily come out on top - I wouldn't have had any of my route, stopovers or eating location(s) dictated by my car. Not the sort of compromises I'd ever want to put up with from a £1k car never mind one as expensive as a Tesla.

Genuine questions - Are batteries for Tesla's leased (like some other EV batteries are)? If so, how much, and will that figure be the same when the Tesla is say 10 years old? Or how much to buy a Tesla battery outright?

Edited by SimonYorkshire on Friday 8th December 18:01

You're comparing an old car with LPG conversion to a brand new vehicle? Why not compare a helicopter instead - it's about as relevant. Equivalent to his new Tesla is probably something like an X5 , Merc GLE or Range Rover.

You might be superhuman and able to drive 700 miles with only a sandwich, scotch egg, bag of crisps and bottle of pop, but normal humans tend to need longer breaks and proper sustenance.


I guess your questions in bold show up how little research you've done about Teslas before spouting your anti-EV rhetoric on every thread on here.

[SimonYorkshire]

rscott said:

You're comparing an old car with LPG conversion to a brand new vehicle? Why not compare a helicopter instead - it's about as relevant. Equivalent to his new Tesla is probably something like an X5 , Merc GLE or Range Rover.

You might be superhuman and able to drive 700 miles with only a sandwich, scotch egg, bag of crisps and bottle of pop, but normal humans tend to need longer breaks and proper sustenance.


I guess your questions in bold show up how little research you've done about Teslas before spouting your anti-EV rhetoric on every thread on here.

I didn't mention LPG at all, but yes my car has an LPG conversion.

If you don't like the comparison between a new EV and an old ice car, fine, let's compare a 10 year old Tesla to a 10 year old ice car... How much money has the Tesla lost in depreciation to the ice car? How much does keeping on top of batteries cost for the Tesla compared to maintenance for the ice car? All of the other comparisons and inconveniences of the EV are the same aren't they? Helicopters don't even come near the argument, comparing cars to cars is far more sensible... but if you want to talk helicopters, there are no EV versions for vert obvious reasons (not least, not enough fuel could be stored in terms of electricity at a light enough weight but even if that were possible the helicopter would need so large in terms of storage capacity a battery it would take forever to charge up even at some impossibly fast rate charger).

I could drive 700 miles without anything but a toilet break, sure. That'd be 10 hours at 70mph. But that wasn't the name of the game, name of the game was driving half that distance to arrive at some destination and returning a few days later. If I did that trip, like I said, I could take whatever route I wanted, stop and eat when and where I wanted.

I don't need to research costs involved with particular EVs for the main points I make. If you know the answers to my simple questions you've highlighted in bold why not just answer them?

[rscott]

It was obvious you were talking about an LPG converted vehicle - not sure I know of a single petrol vehicle with a 700 mile range.

I'd say his post was partly to show that even the first electric SUV on the market was capable of a long journey, contrary to some posts on here. It shows that a Model X can be a practical choice for those buying a NEW vehicle.

There have been electric helicopters (proof of concept only), but they exist.. electric passenger planes could be in service within a decade too - https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/sep/27/e... .

Tesla don't lease batteries. They're supplied with the vehicle and have an 8 year unlimited mileage warranty. A few seconds on Google would tell you that.

[SimonYorkshire]

rscott said:

It was obvious you were talking about an LPG converted vehicle - not sure I know of a single petrol vehicle with a 700 mile range.

I'd say his post was partly to show that even the first electric SUV on the market was capable of a long journey, contrary to some posts on here. It shows that a Model X can be a practical choice for those buying a NEW vehicle.

There have been electric helicopters (proof of concept only), but they exist.. electric passenger planes could be in service within a decade too - https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/sep/27/e... .

Tesla don't lease batteries. They're supplied with the vehicle and have an 8 year unlimited mileage warranty. A few seconds on Google would tell you that.

Ahh right.. So are you expecting to be going off on a foreign holiday in an electric airplane within the next couple of decades then? How long can the concept EV helicopter fly for before it needs to recharge it's battery? How long would that charge take and on what type of charger? I suppose we should ask the same flight time versus charge time questions about airplanes too...?

Thanks for the info about Tesla battery policies. Got to ask the question though - If the warranty runs out after 8 years on the battery, and batteries deteriorate, how much could it cost the owner when the car is just over 8 years old for a new battery? Is the reason Teslas are so expensive compared to other EVs because you buy the battery rather than leasing it, or what?

[Blaster72]

The Model X and S are so expensive because of the battery. An 85kwh battery for a Model S was $45,000 inc fitting 2 years ago and they expect to be down to around 60% strength after 200,000km of travel.

I’d imagine a battery exchange service would be more reasonable though in say 10 years time when lots of the current a Model S cars start to need new batteries.

That said, I don’t think a leggy Tesla will be a good second hand buy after a few years of use. They have the potential to be very costly out of warranty. The Model X is similar but with more complication with the rear doors.

The other issue is battery health, it seems they all suffer if people constantly charge to 100% and discharge to almost empty and much like a fossil engine need a careful owner to get the best life from them.

Edited by Blaster72 on Saturday 9th December 09:00

[RobDickinson]

Just ignore simon he is a grade a troll

[tr3a]

SimonYorkshire said:

My car could make the entire 700 miles trip without having to stop for fuel once

Do tell us about your 700 mile bladder.

[Blaster72]

To be fair, he said without a stop for fuel - not without any stopping.

[eldar]

5c, so presumably some sort of heating, electric I think. What impact does it have on range. Could it cope with being stuck for 4 or 5 hours, as the M5 yesterday?

[CanAm]

tr3a said:

Do tell us about your 700 mile bladder.

Be fair

SimonYorkshire said:

I could drive 700 miles without anything but a toilet break, sure.

And as for the range of petrol engined cars, I got over 600 miles over 5 days in a 2-litre Carlton (a blast from the past!) with two 265 mile trips and some pootling around in between. Driving more conservatively and in a single journey without 4 extra cold starts, a bit nearer 700 would have been on the cards.

[RayTay]

tr3a said:

Do tell us about your 700 mile bladder.

They must wear nappies.