(Posted to Facebook 8/23/2021)
There are many sources of drain on my Tesla's battery throughout the day that result in averaging 400-450 W/mile overall, but this is a very misleading value. This would equate to only a 165-190 mile range for driving 100%-0%... ouch.
Thankfully, this isn't the reality when actually driving. Here are a few stats on the reality for long trips.
Commutes to/from work - I am averaging about 280 W/mile... this equates to about 270 miles of range (again, this is 100%-0).... half of this drive is HW, and half of it is on roads that have 45mph speed limits or lower.... It seems like the sweet spot for driving is in the 30-45 mph range to get maximum range. (note that my car loses about 10-20 miles of range just sitting at work on a really hot day.... I can't wait to get some cooler weather and see how this changes).
In our several long trips on mostly highways where we generally drove 70-80 mph, I was averaging 300 W/mile... or 250 miles of range maximum.
From our recent Supercharging experiences, it seems most optimal in time to operate between 10-75% while traveling on longer trips. This would equate to about 165 miles between charges.... or about 2.5 hours of driving really. Honestly... this is perfect... I don't know about you, but I need a break every two hours or so.
My next challenge - we are preparing for a family trip to Deep Creek Lake MD in the coming weeks.... and we bought a nice tandem Kayak (a regular Kayak... but huge.. 16 ft. long). We'll have this on the top of the car and might have a couple of bikes on the back of the car as well. I might take a couple of test drives up and down 422 to test out my W/mile statistics to see what the impacts will be for our trip out there and back. There are more than enough chargers along the way, so no concerns there other than we'll likely need an extra stop or two to make sure we have plenty of juice to get there. More to come in a future post.