Trip planner web sites/software

[blackheart]

Hello - I know that there are some trip planning sites to find your next charging station, but I was wondering...
If I wanted to go on a loooong trip (250 miles), is there a site that I could put in the type of car that I have (Imiev...) and know the approximate range I have, and find me the logical chademo or level two stops along the way?
I know that I could plot my course - but it would be nice if there was a website where I could put a - b locations, and my current range remaining, or SOC, and have it plot my course.
Has anyone found that? I have looked at EVtripplanner.com - but it is for tesla's. If I had one of those, I wouldn't really worry about the trip. And EVjourney seems to lock up.
Any suggestions?
Thanks

 

[JoeS]

blackheart, a major part of the fun of taking a longer trip in an EV is the planning process - just like navigating a boat across the ocean, it's playing with 'what-if' scenarios to determine the best strategy and, more importantly, to have backup plans in case something goes wrong.

Doing this planning manually gives you a very good appreciation for your limitations and thus available alternatives.

Prior to embarking on your trip you should equip yourself with portable 120vac/240vac charging capability and various adapters, the most common being NEMA 14-50 (RV parks). If you are visiting friends, than have adapters for NEMA 10-30 (old dryer) and NEMA 14-30 (new dryer) and a 240vac extension cord. This topic is touched upon in various places on this forum.

To answer your question:

By far the most useful app/website is http://www.plugshare.com, as their filters allow you to select the type of charging stations that would best serve you on that particular trip.

During our recent Tesla round-US trip I primarily relied on a combination of PlugShare and Google Maps (computer version, not iPad version, as it allows for manually altering routes).

For example, when preparing to cross the vast wasteland of Texas and beginning to be a bit nervous, my most pleasant surprise was finding a lovely small house for inexpensive overnight rental with 14-50 listed under PlugShare's private home filter.

Finally, as far as I know, Tesla is the only one that has attempted to idiot-proof longer-distance travel. When a destination distance is marginal, the onboard Tesla trip planner (often infuriatingly) insists that you go to intermediate charging stations which it identifies for you and routes you there, often without you realizing it. The various apps/maps of SuperCharger locations and EVTripplanner.com provide more help and, together with the superb onboard energy use predictive algorithms, there is absolutely no excuse for anyone in a Tesla for ever running out of juice.

With the i-MiEV, longer distance trips are certainly easily doable, they simply take a bit of time to plan and execute.

 

[PV1]

Same here. I use Plugshare to find stations, then plug the addresses into Google Maps, usually ticking the Avoid Highways button, then customizing my route if necessary. This combination has helped me to plot out routes to a few distant destinations. Sure, you could do the same thing in Plugshare on a computer, but as soon as you modify the route, the distances go away.

 

[blackheart]

I understand that it is part of the 'adventure'. But it would be nice if there was an app out there that would take the 'somewhat' limited range of the Imiev into consideration - and chosen route (wow that has a really long uphill grade, etc) and let me know if it is likely that I will get to my next charging outpost or not.
I do use plug share. Just wondered if there was an 'app for that' - ??can you make it??

 

[rkarl89203]

I use Plugshare for any trip longer than 150 miles. While planning my Route 66 cross country trip, I found following the satellite views invaluable for finding unlisted RV parks and such. We will be doing the EVSE upgrade for quicker charging opportunities next month. L3 quick chargers seem to be popping up at a surprising rate also. Problem is, if they're EVGO quick chargers they are amazingly expensive.Good luck on your trip planning. I-mievs are meant for short or medium range trips, but don't give up on longer trips. We have done many 200+ mile trips!

 

[JoeS]

blackheart, sometimes it's advantageous to let the old noggin do some work and actually do your homework manually ahead of time. What you have to realize is that individual driving style is such a huge variable that it, alone, primarily determines whether you "can make it" when you're pushing the car's range limits.

Two more helpful links -

When I know there are some significant altitude changes, I copy and paste my Google Maps route URL into http://www.gpsvisualizer.com which produces an elevation profile of the trip.

I found http://www.rvparky.com and their app really useful in not only finding RV parks but also determining whether they have 14-50 outlets and what users have to say about them. PlugShare is really incomplete in this regard.

Even though I have some great URLs for real-time San Francisco Bay Area winds (speed and direction), I haven't yet found a URL that provides this information (including time of day) that I could easily use along a route. I usually just enter a city along the way to see what that says, but, for example, going through Colorado sure resulted in hugely varying windspeeds and directions over a 150-mile stretch.

 

[blackheart]

I got it, I got it
- But still, it would be nice to continue to develop tools to bring more convenience to having an EV for the masses.
Yes the chargers are out there - and there are lots of apps to show you that. But do you have a snowballs chance in hell to get to the next one - - well, only if you maintain an average of 4.2 m/kWh - which means, keep it below 50, or keep the heat off, or something...

I am hoping we can make things easier for folks who haven't made the transition to EV's yet.

We have made it 'easy' for folks to drive fossil fuels. And by 'easy' I mean- they have to get out and pump gas (stations so numerous, you don't need an app - unless it is to find the cheapest), get tune-ups (mechanics in every town that know how to work on your car, or plenty of chiltons manuals), get the oil changed (go to autozone down the street and get the stuff, or take it to Jiffy lube...), etc, etc...

I accepted those things as normal and not a bother at all - UNTIL I started driving an ev after only a few months Now, those things seem ludicrous to me. Why do I want to smell like gas, or even breath the fumes? Or an oil change ever 3000 - really???? None of those things SEEMED inconvenient when I was driving a dinosaur. Every 'car' will have it's needs, but now - I can't believe I put up with what I once thought was just the 'norm'....

Now, from a flip side perspective, showing folks that there are plenty of tools to make this transition to a better mode of transport is completely easy - and no martha, range anxiety is really all in your head - should be a focus. If I knew how to develop the app, I would. Enter the make and model of your ev, assume an average m/kWh, calculate distance, altitude changes, average or actual temperatures, etc - and let me know if I have the option to get there on the freeway, or maybe you should putter along a side road b/c you didn't use your noggin - or didn't anticipate the headwind, or the temp is 30 degrees colder than it was the last time I took this trip, etc.

But I get it. For those who have chosen the path, it is part of the deal, the adventure. - I am looking at making it easier for those who are about to tip into the mode we should have been using all along.

Anyone up for helping me build the app?? Martin? Xavier? ;-)

 

[jray3]

Sorry I ain't got the programming chops to help, but I am surprised that no EV navigation apps have made the jump to model-specific range estimation based on speed, terrain, and temperature.

 

[JoeS]

blackheart, as I mentioned, Tesla's software does what you want up to a point. I've been told (by Tesla during a presentation) that Tesla's predictive algorithm takes into account -

* Inside temperature
* Outside temperature
* Elevation
* Wind
* Speed

When pressed, the presenter was unable to answer -

1. What is meant by 'speed'? Is is speed limit or some % above or below the speed limit or is it based on Tesla data mining of their own cars over the route in question?

2. What is the perceived effect of outside temperature, recognizing that the battery pack is temperature-controlled? Perhaps simply for the climate-control system, which gets us also to the inside temperature settings?

3. Does elevation also factor in reduced air density at higher altitudes (decreased wind resistance), or are they just looking at ∆ elevation?

4. Wind: presumably they are looking at windspeed and direction along the route at some future time (or is that in the present)? This could be a biggie, even for a low-Cd vehicle like the Tesla.

5. As I'm driving, what effect does my driving have on the endpoint: does it presume that my driving style will remain constant or does it merely do a revised calculation based on the energy I've used up to this point in time?

These are just a few of the variables that should be taken into account. I need to take a snapshot of Tesla's wonderful predictive "Trip" screen that constantly updates the end SoC during the trip. Incredibly accurate if you drive "normally", and I've been able to handily beat it and raise the end-SoC the few times that I felt I needed a better margin at the end.

As far as the i-MiEV is concerned, IMO there's no point in developing such software. First off, it would have to emulate or link to PlugShare to know where all the charging stations are, which is a continuously changing variable. Even if we ignore that and manually enter locations, we know right off the bat that for any highway trip, recognizing that one always wants to have a bit in reserve, that with normal temperatures and no wind and no elevation changes -

* 40 miles is comfortable
* 50 miles is doable
* 60 miles is pushing it
* 70 miles takes some serious hypermiling

Blackheart, using your example of a 250-mile trip, you would like to automate this process? Developing such software is not something I'd be inclined to fund unless I was an auto manufacturer - heck, this was promised by Nissan for the Leaf five years ago - what have they done so far?

I suspect that with the nextgen "200-mile" BEVs we'll be seeing such software come with the car. All to give innumerates a warm fuzzy feeling...

OK, I'll crawl back down in my hole...

Edit -
Uh, crawled back out of my hole as my wife just sent me the snapshot she took of the Tesla screen predicting the SoC at the end of a short trip. What's interesting in this particular trip is that there was a sharp climb followed by a long descent towards the end which caused the SoC to go back up. Amazing how most trips end up being within just a couple of percentage points of the initially predicted value. The "Trip" represents the route entered into the Tesla's Map screen, and this photograph was snapped just two miles after this trip started. Throughout our 10,000-mile cross-country Tesla adventure, this screen gave me a very nice warm fuzzy feeling.

 

[Palm35]

have you try or do you know this web site ?
:arrow: http://www.jurassictest.ch/GR/

 

[blackheart]

have you try or do you know this web site ?
:arrow: http://www.jurassictest.ch/GR/

I will give that a shot today - thank you!

 

[misterbleepy]

For those of us in the UK, this is quite interesting, as there is some customisation you can do to tell it your battery capacity, how far out of your way you are prepared to go to charge, your preferred min and max charge levels, the type of charge your car can accept, and maybe some more I haven't spotted:

https://evhighwaystatus.co.uk/

 

[blackheart]

For those of us in the UK, this is quite interesting, as there is some customisation you can do to tell it your battery capacity, how far out of your way you are prepared to go to charge, your preferred min and max charge levels, the type of charge your car can accept, and maybe some more I haven't spotted:

https://evhighwaystatus.co.uk/

Thanks - I'll take a look at that too. It would be interesting if Google could apply some of it's algorithms to EV drivers that are using their apps to make real time assessments for driving conditions and how it could adversely affect your range.

 

[JoeS]

For those interested in pursuing both wind and elevation effects, I just ran across this thread on the Tesla Motors Club forum which links to a couple of websites for those parameters:

https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/tesla-winds-and-elevation-web-browser-app.71667/