Elon Musk has made much of the potential of autonomous vehicles to change our mode of personal transport. Tesla offer their version-under-development, Full Self Driving (FSD), as a $10,000 option at purchase for Australian delivered Model 3s. We chose not to take up the option, and I suspect most other purchasers do likewise. More recently Tesla have also offered a monthly rental option for FSD.
All Teslas have safety features and autopilot included at delivery and selectable by the driver and these replicate some of the features of FSD. Teslas have used both cameras and radar for external inputs but appear to be moving to camera only with their recent US models.
On the long, straight roads on our route after Port Augusta we finally get to test all of these features. Previously we have frequently used cruise speed control (more accurately Traffic Aware Speed Control) which accurately controls the car’s speed as selected by the driver or speed limit and reduces to allow a fixed time interval to traffic in front. This feature is unnervingly accurate but perhaps gets a little closer to traffic ahead than I am used to.
Tesla have a Lane Assist function (Lane Departure Avoidance) that warns when the car is about to deviate out of lane. The next stage of protection selectable is Autosteer that keeps the car central in the lane. This works well when the lane is well delineated on both edges, with two reservations. The car seems to make left-hand turns slightly to the right of lane centre which may work well in left-hand-drive markets, but not in ours. And the feature was rather unnerving when passing B-doubles and triples in the opposite direction. Truck drivers seem to have an understanding when passing each other to move to the left of their lane. Not so much when passing small vehicles like ours. We now disconnect this feature when passing trucks and move as far left in our lane as is safe.
These features were used to great effect on the long straights of the Nullarbor and significantly reduced driver workload. The Nullarbor EV challenge remains range.
Our longest planned day was 720km from Border Village, at the SA/WA border, to Norseman WA, with a stop planned for a charge in Caiguna. By the time we reached Border Village we were coming to the view that our planned achievable range of 400km was looking optimistic. Travelling west across the Nullarbor is into the prevailing westerly winds and leaving before dawn meant that the car, and battery, were at low temperature, negatively affecting our range.
We decided to attempt the 350km to Caiguna non-stop provided we still had a predicted range at the Caiguna stop of 5% or more. We left Border village with a predicted range at Caiguna of 6% (26km). If not, we had a few charging options en route and, for better range, reduced our maximum speed to 100 km/hr which seems to be the trucks’ limit. Extra charging proved unnecessary and we rolled into Caiguna with exactly 6% range in hand.
The Caiguna charger was installed last year and is a super charger based on used cooking oil from their roadhouse cafe. The used oil is the fuel for a generator that is fired up when needed and, after a short delay, charges the car. A 90 minute charge had us close to fully charged for the next 370km mile leg and we chose a recharge at a roadhouse halfway to ensure success without speed restraint. A long day, but exactly as planned with no extra overnights needed.
Charging on the Nullarbor relies on the goodwill of roadhouse operators which were, without exception very supportive. Aside from Caiguna, charging on the Nullarbor is mostly by 3-phase outlets installed for other uses or a 10 amp household outlet. These are workable for an occasional EV on the Nullarbor with the continued support of roadhouse managers. It is unlikely to be a long term solution as EV traffic builds up.
