Galway to Romania in 2019 M3P

rocky

I've done about 3200km, the Model 3 is amazing to munch huge distances on motorways.

Without autopilot it would have probably taken 3x as much time, with autopilot I drove:

Wednesday: Galway - York (UK), where we visited the railway museum, then stopped for the night.

Charging in Enfield, the car wanted to get to 90% to make it to Flint Mountain S/C, I think it calculated the distance on the boat as driving, can't see how otherwise... Left with 70% and made it to Flint with plenty to spare.

FlintMountain v3 S/C:

On the Holyhead to York stretch saw big numbers of Model 3, seemed like every 1 out of 10 cars, of which 3/4 were white. I didn't see many white model 3s in Galway, thought it was rare 😎

Mallard, fastest Steam engine, 126mph

On the way down to Luton, S/C in Ferrybridge was closed so had to charge in Leeds where I parked near a blue Model Y, not sure of the same color in the Y I ordered, probably will change it to white again...

Had a longer break in Newport Pagnell, where we ate

...tbc...

rocky

Saturday morning around 8am off the ferry in Calais, through France, Belgium, (short entry to Netherlands for a S/C), Germany

Urmond, Netherlands, red looks good on a Model 3 but somehow I still prefer the white. I find that in anything than perfect conditions - sunny, car spotlessly clean - red and blue can look dull on them.

40 stall S/C in Oberhonnefeld, Germany

Driving in Germany is great, from stories I thought lots of the unlimited Autobahns would be limited, but there's lots of unlimited stretches... Yes there are limited parts with temporary yellow markings with narrower lanes, but I feel the car needed those to cool down after the 200+km/h speeds. The limited

stretches felt like driving behind the pace car, with the sign

marking the start of the race. On the initial acceleration, I was pulling away from 'ze germans', moving right after 200km/h and they would overtake, once their steam pressure built up (I mean their turbos spooled up)😀. Of the cars driving faster than me on the unlimited stretches, 80% Bmws, 10% Merc and Audi, 10% an assortment of Porsche (a Cayenne was so close to my back bumper I could see the eye color of the driver, at 200+km/h, while overtaking cars doing 180km/h in the lane to the right), and exotics.

I made probably 10+ accelerations to over 200km/h, with max reached 228, but the Autobahn in that part wasn't the smoothest and was afraid to push any further (to the car's max of 261), maybe I'll get the chance on the way back.

Autopilot only works up to 150km/h, still great... While taking bends in the road at that speed it felt like a very slight ping-ponging, not touching the lane markers, but feeling in the steering wheel, as if some component was slightly lose, and it kept correcting one way, then the other. Very slight, not sure if it's a known issue, or it's just the limits of the current technology and components?

The last stretch in Germany and all the way through Austria it started raining and was getting dark. I was trusting autopilot 100%, mostly cruised at 140km/h on the speedometer through Austria.

Then Hungary, 3 S/C with free charging (I think it's because the war in Ukraine Elon made them free for a while), about a 60 euro saving, not huge, but better than a kick in the nutz I suppose.

I made the mistake of following the navigation through the middle of Budapest, it was the shortest route, but my god the roads are awfully bad, no potholes as such, just the surface seemed very old and maybe mostly concrete, and bumps had formed every 10-20m, first time I regretted the hard suspension on the M3P. On the way back I'll make sure to skip going through Budapest.

rocky

Debrecen, Hungary, last S/C before my destination in Cluj, Romania, 240km away

I fell asleep here for 1h, waking up to 100% charge.

Last stretch in Romania was the only non-motorway, and people were driving very slowly (didn't help that it was Sunday morning), and made it to Cluj around 11am.

In front of my parents' house

rocky

Public charging situation in Romania: state-owned stations are free, and with the many Dacia Springs sold here, they are mostly occupied (maybe not at night, haven't checked), max 50kw DC, some 20kw DC.

There are a few privately owned charging networks, best I found is https://rnvapp.e-charge.ro/ for 50c/kwh, they have a few chargers dotted around the country, and especially good they have VAG-group placed chargers, from 75kw to 150kw, all the rest I found are 50kw max.

There are a few Tesla S/C in Timisoara, Sibiu, Pitesti, Bucuresti and Constanta, with one planned in Cluj, once that's built, I wouldn't have need for these other networks.

the_amazing_raisin

Looks like an amazing journey, it's good to see charging networks like Tesla SuC is growing in Romania

Hopefully Ionity and other HPC networks will make their way over there and help with EV adoption

slave1

Charging in Enfield, the car wanted to get to 90% to make it to Flint Mountain S/C, I think it calculated the distance on the boat as driving, can't see how otherwise... Left with 70% and made it to Flint with plenty to spare.

Correct, the Tesla will count the sea journey as part of "to be driven" mileage, I got caught in Castlebellingham having to charge to nearly 100% to make it to Glasgow Eurocentral only to arrive with way too much to spare

mfceiling

Thanks for sharing. Cool trip!! Goes to show how easy a long trip across Europe is in a Tesla. Did you get caught for the overstay fee at the one you fell asleep at?

Thumper Long

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119328720#Comment_119328720

Bit mental alright you can traverse the continent stress free, yet a trip to the west of Ireland would have you touching cloth

rocky

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119328720#Comment_119328720

Now that I think about it, although battery was at 100%, it didn't say 'charging complete', it could still have been doing cell rebalancing, so theoretically still charging.

rocky

The car is a pleasure to drive, now I can't wait for the drive back.... crazy to say. It's just so effortless in the way it makes progress, that the hours fly by.

And then there's the Germany Autobahn 😍

slave1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119330082#Comment_119330082

There's no overstay fee unless 50%+ of stalls occupied at the time and from the photo that looked doubtful

rocky

Almost went to Greece for a week, but for the lack of a VLC didn't want to risk exiting the EU - apparently roads are better and mostly motorway through Serbia and Macedonia, compared to Bulgaria, which is in the EU, but rumor is that there's a higher chance that police will try and do you for insignificant technicalities, even if untrue - apologies to any Bulgarians if this is not true.

Replacement VLC arrived in Galway 10 hours after the planned departure date, so I have a picture of it...

So this week am relaxing in the Carpathian Mountains, around Bran Castle. There's a 25kw DC charger 10 mins walk away, need an app called Plugpoint and it's 34c/kWh and 20c/hr parking. Day after tomorrow will juice up again at Sibiu supercharger - will try and make it under 10% to get around 30€ of free electricity, on the way back to Cluj for the final week.

the_amazing_raisin

Looks amazing, enjoy the vacation you lucky b*stard! 😁

ELM327

Lovely shots and I echo the earlier poster that you can literally traverse thousands of KM across Europe easier than you can drive 300km in Ireland anywhere that's not Dublin to Cork!

rocky

Car had connection issues for about 9hrs yesterday, and to top that off, 3 s/c were showing as offline, one I was going to use on my way back through Transylvania. I assumed it was a network connection issue for the sites as opposed to actual superchargers being down, and went ahead anyway.

Assumption correct, got to my destination with no other issues. Had a few alternate chargers planned on route anyway.

Also had the car cleaned interior and exterior for the first time since new for 8€ equivalent.

Some things are cheaper here, but e.g.electricity is not, cheapest is 16c/kWh for under 100kwh a month, if you consume over that it's 34c/kWh and there's no day/night or smart meters...

rocky

Watching Bjorn's video

https://youtu.be/Wi0kmshoVDk

I'm having second thoughts on the new model Y, seems autopilot only works up to 140km/h (vision only, compared to 2019 Model 3 that also has radar and goes to 150) and high beam assistant is awful...

AndyBoBandy

Im on a similar trip, though my destination was Lithuania, and I’m in an SR+,

my route was ferry from Dublin - Cherbourg (to avoid U.K.), and then drove 1,300km from Cherbourg to Kiel in Germany with an overnight stop in Maastricht, Netherlands…. Then from Kiel we took another ferry to Klaipeda in Lithuania.

id echo the sentiment about going anywhere as the SuC network just makes it effortless. Would dream of doing that trip again in anything other than a Tesla..

charging here is the same, mostly free, and very busy but I’ve been taking any opportunistic charges I can get and the car hasn’t been lower than 58% So it’s been sufficient!!

most common EV’s in Lithuania: Tesla by a mile!! Can’t understand why they only have 1 half working SuC site in the whole country!!

leaving next Tuesday, but have the drive from Kiel to Cherbourg split over 3 days, and will be visiting the Beer & Wine supermarket outside Kiel to fill the car to the gills with wine!!

rocky

Back in Galway...

rocky

Didn't need to, but stopped in Athenry supercharger on the way back to check it out. They misspelled Tesla 😀

Thumper Long

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119414651#Comment_119414651

You can’t trust the EBS

rocky

Apparently I saved almost 1k driving the Model 3 compared to petrol... 7c/km while mostly charging at supercharger

the_amazing_raisin

I wonder what that's based on, if it's Irish prices then it probably wouldn't be as much as our petrol prices are a little higher than EU average

If it's US petrol prices though then you probably saved a lot more

Either way you cut it though, that's a whole lot of cash saved

rocky

Here's more info from the Tesla app, 8.17 euro presumably for a gallon of petrol? UK gallon sounds more likely

kanuseeme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119417931#Comment_119417931

you can find it when buying a model 3 ''How fuel savings are calculated''

We've assumed a fuel economy of 6.4 l/100 km for a comparable petrol powered car. We've also assumed the national average of € 0.24 per kilowatt-hour for residential electricity (assumed for 100% charging) and € 1.82 per litre for petrol over the next five years. Tesla efficiency values are based on Model 3 Rear-Wheel Drive.

Comparison petrol vehicles are selected based on vehicle class, seating capacity and standard features. We use the WLTP estimated range standard to compare efficiency data between our cars and a comparable petrol alternative using each vehicle's combined city/motorway MPG and MPGe ratings. Actual range may vary based on factors such as speed, weather conditions and elevation change.

Model 3 consumption rating = 14.4 kWh/100km

Comparison car consumption rating = 6.4 l/100 km

References:

We used the most recent petrol (last updated: May 2, 2022) and electricity (last updated: July 2021) prices that were available to us on globalpetrolprices.com on May 8, 2022.

They only way I can work out the 8.17euro is using American gallons and a fuel price of over 2.10 euro per litre.

For the OP

I still cannot figure out a few things,

How many km did you drive? Assuming 20 kWh per 100 km you should have done 10000 km,

rocky

ABRP estimated just over 23h from my starting point in Romania to Calais. I did it in 24.5h, of which 20min stop under a tree for code red hailstorm just 100m away from first supercharger in Debrecen Hungary 😀, 40min Hungarian border, 20min Austrian checkpoint.

UK then was quite busy, about 1h stuck in traffic, and had to wait about 4.5h for the Holyhead - Dublin ferry. Got a charge on the ferry, from 25% to 51%, and made it back to rainy Galway yesterday at 9am.

Autopilot behaved impeccably the whole way through, with 3 exceptions:

1. On the motorway, if there were no lane markings at all, it worked fine, but if there was fresh tarmac over markings for 10-20meters in a turn, it would be a bit undecided and jerk the steering wheel

2. And 3. Both in Wales, for the last 50km to Holyhead, sometimes if there was a motorway exit, the Welsh "straight and left arrows" made autopilot jerk the steering wheel,

And 3. What looked like some leftover from when the motorway was built, a line of dots in the tarmac curbing away to an edge, when there were 2 such lines in parallel that looked like a lane, autopilot would try and follow it. Don't know if it would have realized in time to return to the real lane...

On the positive side, the narrow temporary yellow lane markings in Germany were recognized perfectly, and the car always centred in the lane, even when left or right were metal dividers, about 30cm tall... While driving through these narrower lanes and enabling autopilot, the car would pull initially towards the metal dividers, since I was leaving a bit more space on that side. I would hope the car would give more priority in avoiding a hard metal divider than a yellow lane marking😀, but didn't have the courage to test it out...

rocky

@kanuseeme a few additional points:

The charge stats in the Tesla app are for the last 31days, so it includes about 6 days driving in Ireland before the holiday.

I assume supercharger costs are exact, and Hungary and Romanian superchargers are free, as mentioned before. I also charged at some free local chargers that appear as 'other' in the app, and some not free that are also included in the 'other', but as a percentage of the total energy used, it's quite insignificant.

Finally, total energy in the trip computer does not include sentry mode being used, or any climate being left on dog mode, or cooling the car down a few minutes before getting in, or the cabin overheat protection kicking in... We got some hot temperatures, up to 38 degrees some days.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119418219#Comment_119418219

slave1

2. And 3. Both in Wales, for the last 50km to Holyhead, sometimes if there was a motorway exit, the Welsh "straight and left arrows" made autopilot jerk the steering wheel

I get this a lot, annoying

the_amazing_raisin

Sounds like Tesla might be a tad pessimistic about the fuel consumption and petrol prices then, although not by much

Still, even if it's 10% over, that's around €900 saved. You could afford another holiday on that 😁

kirving

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119379029#Comment_119379029

High beam assistant is intentionally like that, as it's doing it's best to help out an under-specced sensor suite.

You mention in your first post that it would have taken 3x as much time without Autopilot. I assume that you mean AP allows you to relax while the car takes most of the work? So where you could normally do say 4 hours solid driving in a day, AP lets you do 12 hours?

You then go on to day "Autopilot behaved impeccably the whole way through, with 3 exceptions:". But those three exceptions were all the car jerking the wheel without warning, not just disabling itself and slowing down. Personally, I do a lot of driving, but I'd really struggle to do 300% of my normal maximum, in a car that was ready to bite at any point like that.

rocky

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119418709#Comment_119418709

"High beam assistant is intentionally like that, as it's doing it's best to help out an under-specced sensor suite."

I discovered that high beam assistant can be disabled, not sure if it was like this from the beginning or Tesla added the ability to disable it in a later update, but I'm glad the option is there even on my 2019 car, it was pretty dire.

"You mention in your first post that it would have taken 3x as much time without Autopilot. I assume that you mean AP allows you to relax while the car takes most of the work? So where you could normally do say 4 hours solid driving in a day, AP lets you do 12 hours?"

Yes, mostly the fact you don't have to actively flex the muscles to steer the car, you may think it's not much, but try it for 10+ hours and see how it feels.

Still relating to keeping in lane, most of the mental processing to do that is taken away, you can be less focused on that and just keep an eye on abnormal lane markings that autopilot might interpret incorrectly.

You always keep hands on steering wheel, so even when autopilot jerks suddenly, it's not much of an effort to strengthen your grip for a second to keep it in line, then go back to being relaxed.

On the way over, biggest physical issue was my elbows resting in the same place for long periods of time, on the way back, I learned how to change arm positions so it wasn't an issue, and the biggest problem was neck and upper back muscles becoming a little bit sore, from the long hours of the head moving from side to side, normal movement while driving, but again, try that for 10+ hours a day.

Previous to this, longest drive was Galway to Belfast, so maybe if you do long drives regularly or are a professional driver, these issues won't affect you

"You then go on to day "Autopilot behaved impeccably the whole way through, with 3 exceptions:". But those three exceptions were all the car jerking the wheel without warning, not just disabling itself and slowing down. Personally, I do a lot of driving, but I'd really struggle to do 300% of my normal maximum, in a car that was ready to bite at any point like that."

Of the 3 exceptions, only the dotted lines in Wales surprised me a little bit, but it wasn't hard to keep the car in line.

AndyBoBandy

I disabled auto high beam the very first night I had the car (March 2020), and have never had it back on since…..