"Lots of little stops" is what my Grandad used to do 70-years ago when his transport was a pony and trap. Today in 2024 I own a Tesla. The thought of "lots of little stops" where I have to go off the motorway on many occasions being the best way to drive a long journey is enough to encourage me back to a diesel car with 1,0000 mile range on one tank meaning I can stop where I like, i.e.where I can brew up my coffee on a picnic table in the nicest surroundings, and at a time which suits me and the passangers.
As with previous ICE cars, I prefer fewer but longer stops, want to stretch my legs, grab a coffee or a bite to eat, etc. You wont find me sitting in a car while it's charging 😁 I actually often charge past 80% because the car reaches it before I've finished my coffee (Tesla superchargers exclusively).
Lucky you, I will stick on my i3 for a couple of years, can't afford a Tesla right now, I want one, I would love to have 300 miles range, but I still love my BMW. I don't want to sell it. Enjoy it!!!!
have the notion many stops is based on only-actual-charging-time? there are at least 2 other factors, the overhead-time for the excursions to/from charging station and annoyance of an unwanted stops
Great video Ian. I’ve been subscribed for around 8 months and I picked up my first EV after watching your channel. I’ve got an Audi Q4 e-Tron and charged at my first supercharger during the week! ⚡️
I find charging to between 60-65% is the sweet spot, find a charger about 120-150miles away and aim to arrive at between 5-15%, once you’ve got it set right you can ride the charge curve and cover long distances really fast.
Literally just watched a What Car? video this morning of the same thing! They used 2xMercedes EQE (I think) and one charged to 50% and the other 80% at each stop. The 80% won in their video. Congrats on the 10k by the way!
The eqe has a flatter charge curve than a Tesla so only charging to 50% doesn’t make much sense. Out of spec used one in the I90 surge video and discovered it was better running down to 10% and charging to 80% as the curve was very flat.
@@Joeb4iley Correct. But unless you're in a race or in a super hurry, 70 to 80% is still better even on a front loaded charging speeds Tesla. Especially if you hit some V2's, or 150kW CCS chargers, along the way on those short stops.
Great content, I was thinking about switching from hybrid to a Tesla but unleaded @ £1.34 would cost £47.50 to do the same miles in my Toyota. But more importantly I decide if and where I stop as no need to charging time. My bladder can take a break according and not to suit the detours and Starbucks locations
I get the argument- but at the same time mechanically powered cars stop for coffee so much that they build drive through lanes. Public charging vs fuel can be a similar price. But your local running about at home? My petrol o30 is 14.6p a mile at current prices. Tesla? 3.6p
Haigh Superchargers between Wakefield and Barnsley on the M1 are V4 chargers. They haven’t been open long but they are handy when travelling to and from Sheffield.
I'm over in France for the festive period with the Kia; charge on the way down to Portsmouth - 80p/KWh, charge in Saint Malo after getting off the ferry - 30€c/KWh. Once again, we're being taken for mugs in the UK...
This is really a Tesla-specific strategy, which does make sense for a Tesla-focused channel. However, the general EV heuristic is whether the the difference in time required to charge enough to skip a charging stop is less than the amount of time lost by making an additional stop. For EVs with flatter charging profiles, such as E-GMP or Porsche EVs, it's best to charge to 70-80% battery because doing so only takes about 5 minutes longer than charging to ~60%. Simply getting off the road to charge costs at least another 3 to 5 minutes, so it's not always better to make those shorter stops.
The simple truth for non-Tesla is that your entire strategy has to be based around finding locations that (a) have a lot of stalls, (b) have fast charging speeds and (c) aren’t £lots per kWh. Not easy…
@@justgetatesla If you have the Tesla app, everything gets easier and cheaper, even if you have a BMW i3 that charges at 50Kw. But it charges at 50KW from 0% to 92%, then you continue your journey to the next supercharger. LOL, I went from Wigan to Aberdeen and back charging only at superchargers. It cost me almost half of what I would pay at other chargers.
@@justgetatesla I certainly can't speak for Europe, but that's less of an issue in the United States, in my experience. In the last two years, traveling quickly in a non-Tesla EV has become pretty easy. I also tend to focus on average power per stall and overall throughput rather than the total number of stalls. V3 Superchargers only have a maximum 90 kW available per stall when the station is full, so even our 20 to 40 stall Supercharger sites don't have significantly more throughput than our 10 + stall public sites. I've heard good things about the Alpitronic chargers used in Europe, but we're just now getting them here. Also, Ionity seems to be an okay network, but maybe it's pricey.
Your videos are useful guides for someone heading to the highlands from Oxford for a holiday. :) (How can I turn on that split-screen setup. Where the car show bigger on the screen than the map while driving?)
This is going to depend heavily on the charge curve and stall. For my model 2022 model 3 long range, it’s best to do 0-30% hops for example. Arrive with 0% and charge to 30% then hammer it to the next one
I have had my model 3 for a year now and love it but only charge at home. What is the normal process for queuing at Super Chargers if they all the bays are full ? (Sorry if a dumb question :) )
I liken the process to when you go in to a barbers for a hair cut. When you arrive you check out who is waiting to charge (it is usually pretty obvious) and you let the cars waiting when you arrive go first and then its your turn to charge. I have to say that 99% of the time you wont have to wait particularly if you aim for Supercharger sites with say 10+ stalls. On another thread in this video when Ian arrived at the EV OTM supercharger EV installed all those V4 superchargers but did they provide a roof over the chargers - of course they didnt!!!!!
I’ve had an equally squirrely couple of journeys to Dundee and back and Galashiels and back in the past few weeks for work. Todhills and over the tops to Scotch Corner/Leeming bar are also my go tos. (I’m in a leaf so need the short stops 😂) Scotch corner is always mobbed tho.
@ I can’t charge at home (apartment), so depending on public charging (supercharger) exclusively. For a company car, I can claim only 7p a mile, so even at 4 miles per kWh, I loose 2.75p a mile. Not great
I agree, I want to be able to filter them out since they're not Tesla. The car doesn't automatically include all the others so no justification for forcing EV OTM on us. Give us a choice as to what to include, along with others.
@Newman79-zg6yw I am not sure where you are in the world, however Tesla prices are amongst the cheapest, most Council, General Carpark, Corporate Carparks, Retail Shop Petrol Stations, & Fuel Giant Petrol Stations are way higher priced, The point here is to get the price below 50p per kW/h, then cheaper again as more chargers get installed. The ICE Party are doing everything they can to stop it. If you can find cheaper than Tesla open chargers please post here, so we can all enjoy.
Nice vid! In essence it's a trade off between shorter stops meaning faster rate of charge, and more stops meaning more stopping overhead - ie the time it takes to get off the motorway and back on again. In an ICE care fewer stops will always be quicker (less stopping overhead) but in an EV where your charging may be the limiting factor in the length of the stop it may not be. BTW you could have used the 350kW gridserve chargers at Scotch Corner rather than the Tesla ones as a backup if the Tesla ones were busy, we tend to avoid the SCs at Washington and Scotch Corner for the reasons you discuss, but there are a number of Gridserve and Fastned sites available as an alternative, if only the Tesla nav system utilised them in its planning.
I try and avoid Scotch Corner if I can - and it’s always been like that regardless of what car I drive. Terribly cramped site with not enough parking when busy and queues to get in and out
The number of charges is not really a problem unless its to the max of the NMC battery in which degradation would occur. But at 100% SOC you could drive a long way between stops (normally) and so fewer stops for a very long trip, thus negate the many charges. Also time was a factor in these decisions.
The stops might be fairly short but I assume this does not include the time spent coming off your route to get to the charger. If you were in an ICE car then you could just carry on. Still not convinced I should get one but I will wait until next year. Personally a Tesla that does 320 @ 80% would probably be enough for me to change over. I enjoy watching your videos. Thanks.
@@justgetatesla I appreciate what you are saying but if you have 400 miles in your tank (either gas or electric) then you have much better chance of stopping at a convenient cheaper station that is actually on your way rather than diverting. Personally I do not really want to drive 20, 30 or 40 miles out of my way to get to a Tesla charger as these seem to be mainly on major routes. I know I could use other chargers but this is where the costs per mile really add up and the charging speed varies. Not even sure if Tesla will put many more chargers in the UK in the future, they may put the odd one or two but not sure if they will be widespread. In 10 years time maybe battery chemistry will give us true 400+ miles.
Interesting video. Obviously with Tesla, the pre-conditioning does use more energy and doing that repeatedly on a journey feels like it could be counter-productive. I’ll give it a go though! Great video. All the best for 2025.
I find that preconditioning for the first stop is the hungriest. But subsequent preconditioning events aren’t as hungry probably because the battery is already warm. But lately I’ve found that the preconditioning starts earlier prior to arrival (70miles), but then it regularly cycles on/off. I’m guessing it’s using the heatpump now, whereas on previous journeys it would start preconditioning maybe 40miles and use resistive heating. There are journey stats that break down the energy consumption, so I’ll be mindful to check that on my next long journey. I’m guessing though that preconditioning should be “free” on the warm/hot days as all that needs to happen is that the aircon for your cabin dumps the heat into your battery rather than the outside air.
As long as they're not out of your way, but ideally stick to v3 & v4. Going via Larkhall I'd probably charge at Perth rather than Dundee as I'd be going down A9. M74/M6 to London much better than East coast for V3s and V4s. (Larkhall, Gretna, Todhills, Tebay, Preston, Stoke, Rugby, Tottenham) Some of them can get busy, but they clear quickly.
You seem to drive these distances on your own, I wonder if you’d have been better off with a model 3, more aerodynamic and more efficient. I’ve drive a model 3 and have never seen economy as bad as you are getting.
If you look at various videos you will see me with the car fully loaded. Model 3 just isn’t big enough- it’s already a downsize from a full size SUV which also used to get loaded up to the roof
So your complaint is modernity, not EVs. Incidentally we both know that old Insignias were godawful. Take the worst elements of Vectra-Cs - and I had two of those as company cars - and make it worse
"Lots of little stops" is what my Grandad used to do 70-years ago when his transport was a pony and trap. Today in 2024 I own a Tesla. The thought of "lots of little stops" where I have to go off the motorway on many occasions being the best way to drive a long journey is enough to encourage me back to a diesel car with 1,0000 mile range on one tank meaning I can stop where I like, i.e.where I can brew up my coffee on a picnic table in the nicest surroundings, and at a time which suits me and the passangers.
As with previous ICE cars, I prefer fewer but longer stops, want to stretch my legs, grab a coffee or a bite to eat, etc. You wont find me sitting in a car while it's charging 😁 I actually often charge past 80% because the car reaches it before I've finished my coffee (Tesla superchargers exclusively).
Picking up my Model Y tomorrow!!!!
Enjoy, they are great!!
Lucky you, I will stick on my i3 for a couple of years, can't afford a Tesla right now, I want one, I would love to have 300 miles range, but I still love my BMW. I don't want to sell it. Enjoy it!!!!
have the notion many stops is based on only-actual-charging-time? there are at least 2 other factors, the overhead-time for the excursions to/from charging station and annoyance of an unwanted stops
Great video Ian. I’ve been subscribed for around 8 months and I picked up my first EV after watching your channel. I’ve got an Audi Q4 e-Tron and charged at my first supercharger during the week! ⚡️
Were you at a level 3 blocking two bays
I find charging to between 60-65% is the sweet spot, find a charger about 120-150miles away and aim to arrive at between 5-15%, once you’ve got it set right you can ride the charge curve and cover long distances really fast.
Literally just watched a What Car? video this morning of the same thing! They used 2xMercedes EQE (I think) and one charged to 50% and the other 80% at each stop. The 80% won in their video. Congrats on the 10k by the way!
The eqe has a flatter charge curve than a Tesla so only charging to 50% doesn’t make much sense. Out of spec used one in the I90 surge video and discovered it was better running down to 10% and charging to 80% as the curve was very flat.
@@Joeb4iley Correct. But unless you're in a race or in a super hurry, 70 to 80% is still better even on a front loaded charging speeds Tesla. Especially if you hit some V2's, or 150kW CCS chargers, along the way on those short stops.
Great content, I was thinking about switching from hybrid to a Tesla but unleaded @ £1.34 would cost £47.50 to do the same miles in my Toyota. But more importantly I decide if and where I stop as no need to charging time. My bladder can take a break according and not to suit the detours and Starbucks locations
I get the argument- but at the same time mechanically powered cars stop for coffee so much that they build drive through lanes. Public charging vs fuel can be a similar price. But your local running about at home? My petrol o30 is 14.6p a mile at current prices. Tesla? 3.6p
Haigh Superchargers between Wakefield and Barnsley on the M1 are V4 chargers. They haven’t been open long but they are handy when travelling to and from Sheffield.
I'm over in France for the festive period with the Kia; charge on the way down to Portsmouth - 80p/KWh, charge in Saint Malo after getting off the ferry - 30€c/KWh. Once again, we're being taken for mugs in the UK...
80p / kWh is more than double to cost of diesel on a motorway journey.
What do you expect in ripoff Britain.
@@danielduggan7126 Where diesel is £1.80 at the motorway services. 50p more than other patrol stations.
This is really a Tesla-specific strategy, which does make sense for a Tesla-focused channel. However, the general EV heuristic is whether the the difference in time required to charge enough to skip a charging stop is less than the amount of time lost by making an additional stop. For EVs with flatter charging profiles, such as E-GMP or Porsche EVs, it's best to charge to 70-80% battery because doing so only takes about 5 minutes longer than charging to ~60%. Simply getting off the road to charge costs at least another 3 to 5 minutes, so it's not always better to make those shorter stops.
The simple truth for non-Tesla is that your entire strategy has to be based around finding locations that (a) have a lot of stalls, (b) have fast charging speeds and (c) aren’t £lots per kWh. Not easy…
@@justgetatesla If you have the Tesla app, everything gets easier and cheaper, even if you have a BMW i3 that charges at 50Kw. But it charges at 50KW from 0% to 92%, then you continue your journey to the next supercharger. LOL, I went from Wigan to Aberdeen and back charging only at superchargers. It cost me almost half of what I would pay at other chargers.
@@justgetatesla I certainly can't speak for Europe, but that's less of an issue in the United States, in my experience. In the last two years, traveling quickly in a non-Tesla EV has become pretty easy.
I also tend to focus on average power per stall and overall throughput rather than the total number of stalls. V3 Superchargers only have a maximum 90 kW available per stall when the station is full, so even our 20 to 40 stall Supercharger sites don't have significantly more throughput than our 10 + stall public sites.
I've heard good things about the Alpitronic chargers used in Europe, but we're just now getting them here. Also, Ionity seems to be an okay network, but maybe it's pricey.
Your videos are useful guides for someone heading to the highlands from Oxford for a holiday. :) (How can I turn on that split-screen setup. Where the car show bigger on the screen than the map while driving?)
Swipe left on the divide between the car and the map
@justgetatesla I don't have the divider.
Wonder if a mix of small and long stops would be better?
This is going to depend heavily on the charge curve and stall.
For my model 2022 model 3 long range, it’s best to do 0-30% hops for example. Arrive with 0% and charge to 30% then hammer it to the next one
I have had my model 3 for a year now and love it but only charge at home. What is the normal process for queuing at Super Chargers if they all the bays are full ? (Sorry if a dumb question :) )
I liken the process to when you go in to a barbers for a hair cut. When you arrive you check out who is waiting to charge (it is usually pretty obvious) and you let the cars waiting when you arrive go first and then its your turn to charge. I have to say that 99% of the time you wont have to wait particularly if you aim for Supercharger sites with say 10+ stalls. On another thread in this video when Ian arrived at the EV OTM supercharger EV installed all those V4 superchargers but did they provide a roof over the chargers - of course they didnt!!!!!
Five years in and not queued yet. It's been close a couple of times.
Can you imagine as a ICE car driver making a video about fuel stops. Seriously.
Can you imagine someone who dislikes EVs so badly helping to pay for one by watching videos and then commentating on them?
Loved The Video, Tesla AI doing a good job.
I always wonder if an OBDII dongle and ABRP would give similar or better results?
What did you get for Xmas?
Having to use an App on the car and then calculate how many stations are available vs the output split between other cars…. ah nah!
I’ve had an equally squirrely couple of journeys to Dundee and back and Galashiels and back in the past few weeks for work. Todhills and over the tops to Scotch Corner/Leeming bar are also my go tos. (I’m in a leaf so need the short stops 😂) Scotch corner is always mobbed tho.
Scotch corner is horrific avoid at all costs ferrybridge was restricted to 35kw on dec 23rd
49p per kWh, pricy that. Can we avoid these non-Tesla chargers on the car navigation?
Not that pricy - my stop at Perth on next Friday’s video was 48p
@ I can’t charge at home (apartment), so depending on public charging (supercharger) exclusively. For a company car, I can claim only 7p a mile, so even at 4 miles per kWh, I loose 2.75p a mile. Not great
I agree, I want to be able to filter them out since they're not Tesla. The car doesn't automatically include all the others so no justification for forcing EV OTM on us.
Give us a choice as to what to include, along with others.
@Newman79-zg6yw I am not sure where you are in the world, however Tesla prices are amongst the cheapest, most Council, General Carpark, Corporate Carparks, Retail Shop Petrol Stations, & Fuel Giant Petrol Stations are way higher priced, The point here is to get the price below 50p per kW/h, then cheaper again as more chargers get installed. The ICE Party are doing everything they can to stop it. If you can find cheaper than Tesla open chargers please post here, so we can all enjoy.
Nice vid! In essence it's a trade off between shorter stops meaning faster rate of charge, and more stops meaning more stopping overhead - ie the time it takes to get off the motorway and back on again. In an ICE care fewer stops will always be quicker (less stopping overhead) but in an EV where your charging may be the limiting factor in the length of the stop it may not be. BTW you could have used the 350kW gridserve chargers at Scotch Corner rather than the Tesla ones as a backup if the Tesla ones were busy, we tend to avoid the SCs at Washington and Scotch Corner for the reasons you discuss, but there are a number of Gridserve and Fastned sites available as an alternative, if only the Tesla nav system utilised them in its planning.
I try and avoid Scotch Corner if I can - and it’s always been like that regardless of what car I drive. Terribly cramped site with not enough parking when busy and queues to get in and out
You don't normally get that good a speed on 350kW chargers in a Tesla. Because that 350kW is at 800V you'll only see about 175kW in a Model 3 or Y.
What does 5 stops charging do for the battery in one day… then charge like that if your a saleman everyday?.
The number of charges is not really a problem unless its to the max of the NMC battery in which degradation would occur. But at 100% SOC you could drive a long way between stops (normally) and so fewer stops for a very long trip, thus negate the many charges.
Also time was a factor in these decisions.
The stops might be fairly short but I assume this does not include the time spent coming off your route to get to the charger. If you were in an ICE car then you could just carry on. Still not convinced I should get one but I will wait until next year. Personally a Tesla that does 320 @ 80% would probably be enough for me to change over. I enjoy watching your videos. Thanks.
Fuel stops may not have been as frequent in a diesel but I always had to plan those as well to find off-route cheap fuel.
@@justgetatesla I appreciate what you are saying but if you have 400 miles in your tank (either gas or electric) then you have much better chance of stopping at a convenient cheaper station that is actually on your way rather than diverting. Personally I do not really want to drive 20, 30 or 40 miles out of my way to get to a Tesla charger as these seem to be mainly on major routes. I know I could use other chargers but this is where the costs per mile really add up and the charging speed varies. Not even sure if Tesla will put many more chargers in the UK in the future, they may put the odd one or two but not sure if they will be widespread. In 10 years time maybe battery chemistry will give us true 400+ miles.
Interesting video. Obviously with Tesla, the pre-conditioning does use more energy and doing that repeatedly on a journey feels like it could be counter-productive.
I’ll give it a go though!
Great video. All the best for 2025.
I find that preconditioning for the first stop is the hungriest. But subsequent preconditioning events aren’t as hungry probably because the battery is already warm.
But lately I’ve found that the preconditioning starts earlier prior to arrival (70miles), but then it regularly cycles on/off. I’m guessing it’s using the heatpump now, whereas on previous journeys it would start preconditioning maybe 40miles and use resistive heating.
There are journey stats that break down the energy consumption, so I’ll be mindful to check that on my next long journey.
I’m guessing though that preconditioning should be “free” on the warm/hot days as all that needs to happen is that the aircon for your cabin dumps the heat into your battery rather than the outside air.
I’ve found my energy app has started to show how much time preconditioning is saving vs not preconditioning
As long as they're not out of your way, but ideally stick to v3 & v4. Going via Larkhall I'd probably charge at Perth rather than Dundee as I'd be going down A9.
M74/M6 to London much better than East coast for V3s and V4s. (Larkhall, Gretna, Todhills, Tebay, Preston, Stoke, Rugby, Tottenham) Some of them can get busy, but they clear quickly.
I prefer Perth as a site vs Dundee, but they’re both v2
@@justgetatesla same. Both V2 but Perth has more chargers and less vans charging.
You seem to drive these distances on your own, I wonder if you’d have been better off with a model 3, more aerodynamic and more efficient. I’ve drive a model 3 and have never seen economy as bad as you are getting.
If you look at various videos you will see me with the car fully loaded. Model 3 just isn’t big enough- it’s already a downsize from a full size SUV which also used to get loaded up to the roof
Its the future not i get 900 miles out of my old 1.6 insignia on one tank no road tax as well you have all been fooled.
So your complaint is modernity, not EVs. Incidentally we both know that old Insignias were godawful. Take the worst elements of Vectra-Cs - and I had two of those as company cars - and make it worse