How To Make Electric Car Road Trips Less Stressful - Planning Charges 

One limitation of ABRP to be aware of is that it only knows about DC fast chargers - it pretty much ignores level 2's. There are some situations where ABRP will tell to plug into a DC fast charger at 88% and charge to 100% where, for just 5 minutes more, you could charge at a level 2 somewhere else with much better scenery/amenities while you wait. ABRP is good to get a basic idea of a route plan, but cases like this is why I will usually refine the plan with manual consultations of plugshare.

A thing to add: If you run ABetterRoutePlanner as your primary/secondary navigation system you actively see (based on your driving habits, speeds, wind, rain, etc.) at every leg of the trip (from charger to charger) how much more or less energy that you are using against what ABetterRoutePlanner predicts your charge will be at the end of a specific leg. This allows you to plan to charge a couple % energy more or less at each charging stop.

I planned a trip from Tucson, AZ to Hampton Beach, NH, last summer on ABRP. I drive a 2022Kia EV6, RWD. Paid for premium and bought a compatible OBD device for live car data. I used it with CarPlay. It really wasn’t very good. There were significant delays following the route on the map. The range estimates were inaccurate. The map itself was very crude. I switched to PlugShare at the end of day 2. Much better integration with CarPlay. Maybe ABRP has gotten better in the intervening year but I just used PlugShare to plan a trip to North Carolina. I expect it will work as well or better than last year. IMO, PlugShare is simpler for planning the trip and actually making the trip.

ABRP is a great tool. I'm glad you mentioned PlugShare. It can also be helpful to check the rating of charging stops suggested by ABRP, and choose another one if it looks unreliable. Since you asked, I would be interested in seeing the in-car experience of ABRP, since I've never used it that way.

My XC40 Recharge will not pass SOC to ABRP - I do not understand why Volvo blocks data while Polestar passes data.

I get why Tesla people talk about the network so much. Imagine having your mom or dad need to think of all this when trying to go on a trip. This is the pinnacle of the enthusiast mindset making a bad experience good. I won’t recommend any non Tesla until most brands have comprehensive route planning that doesn’t require a million variables as if we’re charting a course across the Atlantic.

Love some road trip video! Show us all the nitty gritty. That would be great. I would like to see how ABRP ties in with the OBD and how that works.

Wish ABRT would add the mercedes eqs SUV’s. So frustrating I’ve emailed and tweeted but they haven’t added them.

Biggest issue I had with ABRP on a trip to Florida is that it was WAY off on my range. I had my ID.4 all programed in but it thought I was out of charge much earlier than was needed. I kept having to restart the route with my current SOC and it would route me to different chargers. Really helpful, but really frustrating.

I've tried a better route planner it's not great, but I still do my all my planning and road trip in my Nissan Leaf 😍😉🚗 🔌😊

Definitely interested in all ev road trip vids. I wish ABRP had something where it would automatically recommend another charger in the area if the one you pull up to isn't working.

I take a belt and suspenders approach by running both the Polestar nav and ABRP during my trips. I found that Google's nav won't pick up some EV stations. For example it doesn't recognize the EA station in El Paso TX. No problem as I can use ABRP to pick up the slack.

Good stuff man, I have really been impressed with the PoleStar trip planning. Totally adequate, but I will check out what you mentioned in the video. As a PS2 owner, I would love to see more videos with it or some aspect of it as the centerpoint, but that probably goes without saying, and not everybody wants to see that😊

TFTC the chargeway app does route planning and plug share functions in one thing, no payments required.

Going Colorado to Vegas in a few days. Thanks for the great video and advice! Grabbed ABRP for $5. Easing my dumb Range Anxiety. haha

I've used ABRP since before we got our Tesla Model 3 RWD LFP. Out of interest I put in Boulder to San Fran for our car and it says just under 4 hours less total with 2.5 hours less charging. In the UK we also have Plugshare and Zap-Maps to help with finding chargers. I really like to use Zap Maps for finding chargers at Hotels and sometimes for eateries.

I did trip with my Ionic5 from Colorado Springs to Walton beach FL and back three weeks ago. No issues at all. I did use ABRP without subscription.

I wish they would update the EV list much quicker. I have a 2023 ID.4 S trim and they do not have that car in the list, so it makes it much harder to plan a route out of the box.

Stuff like this makes my decision to just get a PHEV even more solid. I know it's a little far fetched but if a friend said to me at any moment "we need to leave in an hour and get to " no matter the state of my car currently I can always just get some gas, pack, and go. Noo need to know which chargers along the route are under maintenance, we can just trade off drivers and drive straight through if we needed to with just gas/washroom stops. This is the freedom a car is supposed to bring. My PHEV gets over 500 miles to a tank, so if we were really hardcore we could make it with two 10 minute stops other than side of road driver swaps every couple hours.

I hope Rivian acquiring ABRP doesn’t affect using it with other vehicle brands. They say it won’t, but long term you have to wonder.

I would to see how the native navigation compares to ABRP. Thanks!

I would love to see ABRP in use on the trip. IIRC, you can feed the current SoC to ABRP from the ODBII dongle.

Does ABRP account for % grades in a mountain or hilly area?

Good luck on that trip stopping at Electrify America...I guess you wish Tesla would open more chargers for that trip.

Watched your video went to my ABRP, and the site has grayed out the plan button. Maybe your video crashed there servers?

Max enjoy your trip, it will be fine electrify America will work. I always leave 1 hour earlier than usual so I can set the hda and enjoy the trip, the one hour will cover all or any issues on a road trip if things go perfectly you will arrive early. We usually stop somewhere fun for a deep 100% charge. Relax and enjoy this gs are always groovy in an ev.

Thanks for the information about ABRP. It would be interesting to see how you use it on a actual roadtrip,

Last weekend I drove from home (Sacramento) to my sister’s-in-law home in Berkeley, about 90 miles. I charged my 2021 M3 SR+ to about 90%. Off we (my 13 year old son and I) went! (I do drive fast, 75 mph, btw.) We got there and had a nice time celebrating her birthday with many family members. When it was time to go (I had cooled the cabin ahead of time), the Tesla Navigation said I’d need to stop in Vallejo for a 5 min top off. Cool. Once we crossed the Carquinez Bridge, the Navigation recalibrated as I drove through the toll plaza, and said I did not need to stop in Vallejo and I’d arrive at home with 10% SOC. Cool. We got home with 9% SOC. Done on the fly, in real time, with me not having to do a thing. I’m familiar with ABRP, and I have used it. But for ease of use, real time adjustments (this example was just the latest example), nothing beats Tesla’s built in Navigation!

I have a Tesla I don’t worry about charging. I live my days.

I’m live in the south without a garage. Last thing I want is a big window. Those Teslas that go on for from front to top are the worse.

How to make it way less stressful… drive an ICE vehicle. Bam!!! Problem solved

Ha ha just get a Tesla. Plan charging 😂