Anyone got a good way to load a Trip with multiple charging stops?

[evanevery]

I'm getting ready to run a 1400 mile trip early next week. I've owned 4 EV's now and this will be the first one to ever go out on a "real" Road Trip. I simply want to get personal experience with on the "on-road" charging requirements and experience...

So, I've mapped out my trip (out and back) using ABRP on my PC. I know where all the charging stations are along my route. ABRP has identified all the suggested chargers. I replaced only one of those with a different choice. I've checked the chargers using PLUGSHARE and they all seem to be reasonable choices. I have my "ideal" route with all charging stops out and back. I captured/printed the tabular route listing from ABRP for both directions. I also created a simple spreadsheet with all the street addresses of the primary charging points, backup charging points, and distances between each and all of them...

I think I'm as prepared as I can be...

So, now I need to get that route into the car. (I have the Charging Planner and the Porsche Intelligent Range Manager options). This is where it gets extremely frustrating...

So, I use the PC (Web) version of "Porsche Connect" (cause the Android App won't log in and when it does it ALWAYS crashes when I ask it to show charging locations - EVERY EFFIN TIME). I use Porsche Connect on the web to manually enter the address of all the chargers along my route by address. I then send each of them to my car so they are all in my favorites list. This should make it easy to go point-to-point between chargers if I'm unhappy with the suggested routing presented by the NAV system in real time. Right? ...Wrong!

Now that I have all my charging locations pushed into my favorites list, I go out to the car in a mock attempt to get my route loaded. First I load my destination and let the Nav system calculate some charging points on its own. Given the sparsity of good chargers along my route, I have no idea how Porsche is choosing the ones it thinks are appropriate. No worries, I can easily add stopovers to my route to replace them. Right? ...Wrong!

So I start adding "stopovers". It appears you can't simply build a route (Porsche calls it a "tour") by adding stopovers one at a time. You can't add a stopover UNLESS you already first have a final destination established. So, I have my destination and now I start adding my charger "stopovers". The Nav system seems to insert these in some random fashion (between start and destination). It doesn't appear to insert them in order one after another (either from the destination backwards or from the start forward). So, I'm FIGHTING with the nav system as it tries to calculate charging updates as I try to add my list of chosen chargers. This doesn't go well. After about an hour of starting this process, I think I finally get all my chargers added and also moved around (using EDIT ROUTE) so they are in the proper order. Whew! This should all be ready to go now. Right? ...Wrong!

I tell the Nav system to start the Route. All kinds of new chargers pop up! Apparently, the NAV system doesn't recognize the exact same street addresses as actual charger locations. ...and its NOT using some of them at all. Its still inserting additional chargers even though I'm stopping at EXACTLY the same street address!

OK... So now I'm still in the car ang go through EACH AND EVERY "favorite" I added via Porsche Connect (Web), select the option to find NEARBY CHARGERS, select "PORSCHE CHARGING SERVICE", and identify the very same address as a brand new "favorite"...

Then... I go through my list of favorites and delete all the chargers I originally added via Porsche Connect so only the ones added via the Nav system remain in their place...

I rebuild my route. Start with the Desination, add all the stopovers ("Favorite" Charging locations added from the NAV system), Fight with the Nav System while adding them and trying to get them sorted in the proper order along the way.

I'm a couple of hours into this now - sitting in the car - I THINK I got it all set the way I want it. ...and... THERE IS NO WAY TO SAVE THIS ROUTE!

So, apparently I need to get up a couple of hours earlier than necessary if I want to load a trip with specific charging stops. Sure, I can go point-to-point as individual trips between the chargers but WTF?

I have a Commercial Pilots License. I fly all over the country and also to the Bahamas and Canada. The amount of labor and frustration with this crap far exceeds anything I have ever had to do for trips planned in an aircraft! ...and aircraft flight planning includes far more variables and considerations!

We simply should be able to build a route using a list of chargers in sequence and without having to fight with the Nav System. Ideally, we should be able to do this from the comfort of a chair (and keyboard/mouse) while sitting at a desk - and then send it to the car (via Porsche Connect?). As a minimum, after spending hours fighting with this in the car, we should at least be able to SAVE the route ("tour") in the PCM itself!

Am I missing something? Anyone have any suggestions on how/where to create/save/restore a specific route in the Nav System?

Do I really need to just say "Fork it!" and go point-to-point between the chargers?

Sponsored

 

[louv]

I have serious empathy.

I developed the same kind of spreadsheet each night before the next day’s travel.

First Tip: Enter your destination first, then each stopover in reverse order. Each new stopover wants to be the very next place you go. (Or, as you saw, you can just enter them and EDIT ROUTE to put them in the right order.)

Since there is no way to tell the Nav “this destination is a charging station”, you need to search for a charging station at that Address. You can’t just enter the address. It’s not smart.

On the good side, you CAN enter addresses as search criteria for Charging Stations. That way the search results (and stopovers) will actually be the Station.

 

[Las Vegas Taycan]

reading this makes me nervous to head out on a extensive drive....Having been a software engineer Porsche needs some help!!!

 

[evanevery]

reading this makes me nervous to head out on a extensive drive....Having been a software engineer Porsche needs some help!!!

See This Thread for a Road Trip Planning Guide (What I learned along the way)

Sponsored