1st Time ABRP Premium User Thoughts with the Macan EV

[SteveInKirkland]

I'm about to start a 2,000 mile journey in the Macan EV and I finally took a few minutes to start to try some tools to help. Here are some first thoughts:

(1) I paid for an ABRP premium subscription to see what it's like. It looks really useful. I intend to use it during the trip. But I'm put off because it doesn't know the status of (free) Electrify America charging stations. It will be interesting to see whether I prefer the Porsche PCM trip planner or ABRP.

(2) I am using the Porsche PCM navigation system, the Electrify America app for real-time stall data, Plugshare, ABRP, and the individual apps for all of the charging networks that I think I *might* use on the trip. I'm sure many of you already know this but it sounds crazy, on its face, to my spouse.

(3) I am using ABRP's data link service for real-time data for the car. It works. But I can't use an OBD2 dongle with it for customization/refinement and I can't use the Premium Porsche service that is only available in the EU. It's a bummer.

(4) The route planning solution in PCM Nav and ABRP is very useful. The somewhat obvious 2nd order feature that these apps lack is an easy Plan B mode. On certain portions of this trip, the distances between charging stations can be meaningful. The cost of a planned but unusable station in these deserts is much, much higher than in an area where there are 5 viable options within a mile of each other. The math to build the network analysis to guide you to make good choices around deserts is not that hard and I wish someone would have already done this work in an app.

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[Heavywun]

Be interesting to see your results.

My initial grumble with the Porsche PCM nav here in Australia is that it currently doesn't have the Tesla charging stations that are open to non-Tesla vehicles. They're amongst the best chargers here, and often cheaper than the competition so it's a significant omission.

Do you still get auto pre-conditioning with ABPR premium?

We get Porsche recovery included here as long as our cars are in warranty, and they've assured me that they'll come out and rescue us if we run out of juice. Do you get anything similar in Trumpville?

 

[SteveInKirkland]

My initial grumble with the Porsche PCM nav here in Australia is that it currently doesn't have the Tesla charging stations that are open to non-Tesla vehicles. They're amongst the best chargers here, and often cheaper than the competition so it's a significant omission.

Do you still get auto pre-conditioning with ABPR premium?

We get Porsche recovery included here as long as our cars are in warranty, and they've assured me that they'll come out and rescue us if we run out of juice. Do you get anything similar in Trumpville?

You do not get pre-conditioning with ABRP premium.

Porsche recovery is included with the Macan EV but it is a true extremely bad outcome if this happens. My wife will never (not for a long time) let me take this car on another trip.

Interestingly, when I installed ABRP yesterday on a bunch of devices and created a fresh account, it actually assumed I had a NACs adapter and it was showing me every Tesla station. It took me a while to disable that. Perhaps it knows something that I don't know yet.

 

[vanjwilson]

I have also used the premium version of ABRP for about 4 years. Used with a Tesla Model Y, a BMW i3, a Chevy Bolt, and for the last 3 months with my Macan 4S.

I find that ABRP is better for "pregame" planning and experimenting with what-if scenarios. I'll double-check chargers it recommends with PlugShare. When I'm actually doing the trip, I'll rely on the built-in nav, first Tesla and now Macan, which usually have reliable real-time data about the state of the chargers. (For the i3 and the Bolt, the road trips were shorter, so Apple Maps was fine.)

As far as getting the built-in nav to reflect what you planned earlier with ABRP, the best thing way I've found to force those same stops, if they don't get selected naturally, is to put them in as waypoints.

Aside: it is a good idea to download and set up payment apps for charging networks in areas you'll be traveling through.

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