How to Road Trip in a Taycan - Tips & Suggestions

[daveo4EV]

anyone serous about road tripping with any EV needs one of these (in north america):

• JDapter - https://www.shop.quickchargepower.com/JDapter-Stub-40-Amp-Tesla-Charge-Station-Adaptor-JDPTRSTB.htm
• TeslaTap - http://www.umc-j1772.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=17&product_id=100

you only need one - get the 80 amp version - it’s a $150,000 vehicle - you can afford the $40 delta for the heavier duty adapter so it doesn’t melt.

one of these adapter in the vehicle with you will let you charge at Hotels/Businesses that have installed Tesla L2 chargers - and there are a lot of them!!!

NOTE: this adapter will NOT - I repeat NOT - let you charge your Taycan at a Tesla Supercharger

but it will let you charge overnight at:

Plaza Inn & Suite Ashland Creek​

98 Central Ave, Ashland, OR, United States, 97520​

https://www.plugshare.com/location/72008​

https://maps.apple.com/?ll=42.199726,-122.715652&q=Unknown Location&_ext=EiQpAAAAoJAZRUAxAAAAQM2tXsA5AAAAoJAZRUBBAAAAQM2tXsA=​

​

or​

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Post Ranch Inn in Carmel​

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or many many many many other businesses that have installed 1000's of free Tesla chargers all over North America…​

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Many hotels have Tesla chargers, but may not have J-1772 EV chargers - one of these adapter in your Taycan means you’re good to go to use a Tesla charger over night at any business or hotel that lets customers use their Tesla chargers.

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[daveo4EV]

for each segement of the trip put your next stop into the Porsche Nav - and then look at the battery % it’s prediction for your destination - it’s a pretty good SWAG and I’ve found it to be highly accurate.

• enter the address and Porsche nav says you’re arriving with 17% battery - you’re good to go - probably no issue, continue to monitor it while driving and if it starts dropping mitigate your speed
• enter the address and Porsche nav says you’re arriving with 3% battery - hmmmmm - that’s a bit dicy - you can easily lose 3% in overhead or just slight changes in driving style - might want to consider what your plan “b” is - or severely modify your driving style (ie. drive much slower) in order to increase the chance’s you’ll get there with some battery left
  • make sure you have high confidence in the charging situation under these circumstances
  • might want your full road warrior kit with you in case you arrive and things don’t go well
• enter the address and Porsche nav says you’re arriving with 34% battery - and you have high confidence in the charging situation at destination - DRIVE IT LIKE A PORSCHE!! HAVE FUN!

The Porsche NAV battery percentage will get better over time during your drive - monitor it and make adjustments - if you’re gain percentage of keeping equal you’re doing great - keep doing what you doing and if you like add some speed...

If you’re losing percentage, well then it’s doing that for a reason- you may need to modify your route or your speed to gain back battery confidence in your arrival percentage - but if you’re percentage is dropping you’re doing it wrong, drive different, or pick a different charging destination - but not making any change isn’t going to go well for you.

Cold Weather (40F or lower) whack 15-20% off the Nav battery estimate - it knowns nothing about cold weather and increased consumption…

15F ambient - enter a nav destination -porsche nav battery estimate at destination is 12% - yeah you’re not making that destination - time for a new plan.

 

[thecoloradokid]

I would add to Dave's cold weather efficiency loss that if you put the roof rack on your Taycan it will affect your range as well. Put a bike on top of your Taycan, then plan on losing 15% to 20% of your range.

Drive in colder weather with the rack and a bike plan don't plan to go much farther than 150 miles at 75 miles an hour. I did this the first week of December and drove from Vegas to Denver. I stopped at every EA charger, and it made for a long day of driving!

I don't advise this until you have some experience with the car, experience charging, and a good plan on where you will charge.

 

[daveo4EV]

if you are trying to extend range - speed is your main tool to reduce consumption - nothing else in the vehicle (screens, HVAC, radio, seat warmers) will have a major impact

but “speed” can make or break a trip with a 10% margin - slower will go farther - faster will go shorter

the drive train consumption is so overwhelmingly big that it is the only thing that will drain the battery

effective speed is what matters - if you’re driving 70 mph into a 10 mph head wind - you are consuming power for 80 mph…this can be devastating to range.

watch your consumption and the nav’s battery percentage estimate - if it’s dropping like a rock you may be driving in a head wind - you’ll need to reduce speed to arrive at your destination.

under constant speed and conditions the nav battery estimate won’t change across the course of the trip - you’ll start the trip with a 17% estimate, and it will stay right around 17% for the entire trip - or drop slightly or gain slightly - if you started at 17%, and then it said 14%, and then it said 8%, and now it says 5% - ummmmmm you’re consuming more power than estimated probably because of a head wind - cause the nav knows about speed limits and elevation changes - if it’s estimate is changeing it’s because consumption is higher than planned/predicted - probably head winds.

above 40 mph - aero dynamic drag is the majority cost of moving the vehicle - and it’s not linear - in fact there is a velocity-squared component to aero-drag (V^2) - it cost much more to go from 65 to 70 mph than it does to go from 60 to 65 mph - even though both changes are only a 5 mph delta - they are not porportional in cost to move the vehicle...

driving 78 mph into a 15 mph head wind is the equivalent aero-drag of 93 mph and the associated V^2 cost increase for that effective speed delta…

speed is the range killer - and from a practical point of view the only mechanism you control as a driver if you need to extend range - slower will increase range - even small changes can have big effects…62 mph vs. 67 mph - no real consequential difference in arrival time, big impact on battery percentage…

uphill @ 82 mph into a 12 mph headwind - yeah - you’re not making it to the top of that hill - LOL

effective speed of 45/50 mph and slower - aero drag is not a significant source of consumption - that’s all rolling resistance and weight cost - changes in speed below these numbers will have limited impact on overall range

 

[daveo4EV]

cold weather + high speed + head wind = terrible consumption numbers - perhaps 50% reduction in range…plan appropriately.

 

[daveo4EV]

conversely - tail winds are awesome!!! OMG soooo much awesome for range.

 

[daveo4EV]

some additional data however is that EV's are super consistent with regards to consumption - so if you know a trip in the past take 32% battery - there is an excellent chance it will take 32% again the next time - at least that's what I"ve found with my Tesla's, Bolt, Taycan - you can almost depend on it - to the point that one drive I do from San Jose to Santa Cruz take 21% battery - I've often gotten in the EV with 25% battery - and just made the trip cause - that trip is always 21% battery…

the predictability of consumption for a given route at a given speed is very very reproducible and once you've learned some routes and charging stops you can reliably repeat that trip with very high confidence and knowledge that your consumption is likely to match your expectations.

 

[wemct]

@PanameraFrank - thanks for starting this thread. The information is great. For my long distance trips (those that are 6+ hours in length), here is what I am currently doing:

• charge the battery to 100% before departure
• map out the total trip on ABRP and Plugshare and identify probable EA charging stops
• use Waze for navigation and run ABRP in the background
• input the address of the first charging stop into the Porsche Nav
  • I do not input the final destination into the Porsche Nav because doing so will cause the Porsche Range Planner to populate a bunch of charging stops that are useless (50kW stops, non-EA locations, etc.) - one reason for the nav behavior is the map is not up to date with all of the new EA locations that are constantly rolling out - another is the Porsche Range Planner is very conservative
• when I am about 20 miles away from the charging stop that I originally input as a street address in the Porsche Nav, I use the Porsche Chargers - Point of Interest to find it on the Porsche Nav and select it as the "new" POI destination (the Porsche Nav is not smart enough to realize the address and the POI are the same)
  • by doing this at this time (instead of at the beginning of the leg), the POI can usually find the EA charger, and it preconditions the battery for charging and if I can't find the chargers when I arrive at the destination I zoom in on the Porsche Map to get a more precise location (it has come in handy in the large mall locations)
• after I arrive at the charging location and start the charging session, I decide whether or not to continue with the pre-planned stops or to use ABRP to identify a different EA charger as the next stop
  • decision is based on the updated range estimate calculated by the car and distances to the next EA chargers (next one per original plan and the one after that if I can stretch it to the next location past the one in the original plan)
  • if the EA Charger is humming along above 120 kw, I usually stay plugged in longer than originally planned to take advantage of a good charger (since I might not be as lucky at the next charger) - once it starts to drop off below 90kW it's time to disconnect and decide if I can skip the next charger based on SOC and estimated range
• repeat process of typing in the address of the next Charger in the Porsche Nav, etc above
• run Waze for navigation and run ABRP app in case of an unexpected change of plans (road closure, etc.)
• if the stop over (hotel) on a multi-day trip has a charger - I will use it overnight - if the hotel does not have a charger (or it is limited to a short charging session), I will try to stop by an EA charger before arriving at the hotel to have about 60% SOC to start the next day
• my driving habits are completely different on a road trip. I'm usually in Range mode on road trips and limit high speed sprints vs. when I'm home and driving around town I am never in Range or Normal (usually in Sport or Sport+ or Individual which I have configured as Sport with the lowest ride height setting)
• for roadtrips, the 20-30 minute charging stops go by quickly when I get out to stretch my legs, grab some food to go and hit the men's room
• In addition to Waze, I run my Valentine 1 Gen 2 radar detector w/the JBV1 app on my Android phone, and the Highway Radar app
• ventilated and massage seats are awesome

 

[ron_b]

I agree with using tools like PlugShare and A Better Route Planner. And if you are not trying to use the Porsche Navigation System to accomplish the preheating then you may want to choose to simply use Waze or Apple Maps or Google Maps via Apple CarPlay.

I personally have had no issues with routing to a charger or having the Chargers that I want to use available in the portion navigation and thus get the preheating feature. However when I am routing to my final destination then I will switch over to use Waze to get more notice of potential hazards on the road such as ones with blue and red flashing lights.

The other advantage of using the built-in navigation is that it displays the charge level at destination which I find to be reasonably accurate.

My trips so far have been well covered by EA chargers so I know that I am spoiled.

Thank you for the great thread @PanameraFrank.

 

[bootsie]

I eagerly await delivery of my Taycan to enjoy a Cirrus SR22 like experience as my wife and I traverse the road.

If the SR22 was fitted with the Taycan PCM rather than the Garmin G1000 you'd never dare fly the thing!

 

[Scandinavian]

Thanks for this thread. Some useful extra tips here. I use a process very similar to @ron_b . I like ABRP which is quite accurate once you set the consumption data manually. I also have ABRP running on my phone but not always via CarPlay. In ABRP you can see a lot ( not sure if all) Ionity chargers available. They seem to change in more or less real time? Really useful and I have seen one station go from green to red when there seemed to hve been problems at the canrger!
screenshot below

 

[tigerbalm]

What consumption rate are you manually setting @Scandinavian ?

I see the default for 4S with performance battery is: 3.92 km/kWH @ 110 km/h.

 

[Scandinavian]

What consumption rate are you manually setting @Scandinavian ?

I see the default for 4S with performance batter is: 3.92 km/kWH @ 110 km/h.

I have set my Turbo at 4.44 km/kWh. Or I had set it to 225 Wh/km and now pressed that hutton to convert. That is what I have achieved over a couple of weeks with normal driving out on national roads.

 

[Deleted member 1697]

forget about kids

 

[ron_b]

I have set my Turbo at 4.44 km/kWh. Or I had set it to 225 Wh/km and now pressed that hutton to convert. That is what I have achieved over a couple of weeks with normal driving out on national roads.

That's a great point, I forgot to mention. I tweak my ABRP to 270 Wh/mi @ 65mph. I have a Taycan 4S with 20" wheels and All Season tires.
That's with efficient driving in Range Mode but not overly speed restricted. 65 to 85 on the freeway. Outside temperatures around 55F-65F avg and cabin 69F.
If I want to be conservative I use 300Eh/mi.

P.S. the 270Wh/mi or 300Wh/mi numbers I plug into ABRP don't represent what I see on my Taycan on average. That is 322Wh/mi at 6700 miles. But ABRP probably has old battery capacity values requiring me to fudge the numbers.

For validation I just plugged in my 220 mile trip with many stops from the Bay Area ending in Pismo Beach. I started at 96% and ended at 11% so projected vehicle range would be 259mi. To get ABRP to plan it I needed to specify 250kW/mi @ 65mph and with that it estimated 90% battery usage when I had 85%.

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