Road trips with electric vehicles are fun, and now Tesla, Australia’s best-selling EV brand, is about to add a feature to make trip planning a whole lot easier.
Tesla’s upcoming app update will allow Tesla owners to plan trips, including charging stops and breaks, before leaving home for their destination.
The feature will be rolled out on the Tesla app version 4.20.69 as per Tesla’s latest Twitter post.
Trip Planner now available in Tesla app pic.twitter.com/k9YyLszAqu
— Tesla (@Tesla) April 20, 2023
The feature works by allowing owners to search for their destination in the app. The app then tells the driver the way to get there along with any required Supercharger stops.
For longer trips, this could mean several supercharger stops, especially when road-tripping along the east coast of Australia.
Drivers can then send the Tesla app trip planner directly to their car without having to retype it in the car’s in-built navigation system.
This is quite helpful when planning family road trips as the drivers no longer need to be bound to sit inside their vehicles.
At this stage, the app trip planner is restricted to one destination but this could be further improved for more stops such as various sites to stop at while on-route.
The current app version in Australia for Android users is 4.19.5 and it’s unclear when this feature will be rolled out locally.
Rollout in the US and Tesla’s announcement means that it would not be too far before making its way to Australian owners.
A closer look at the new mobile app feature was done by Not A Tesla App and shared on Twitter:
A Closer Look at Tesla's Trip Planner Feature in the Tesla App
— Not a Tesla App (@NotATeslaApp) April 22, 2023
It worked very well and showed the state of charge at various stops along with abilities to set charge rate limits.
Many other EVs currently sold in Australia do not have current charger information let alone any trip-planning capabilities via their respective apps.
Tesla introduced trip planning over two years ago in their apps which has been very well received by many owners.
You can also see The Driven’s Australian long-distance EV trip guide below: Planning a long-distance EV trip? Key Tips for the Land of the Slow Transition
Riz is the founder of carloop based in Melbourne, specialising in Australian EV data, insight reports and trends. He is a mechanical engineer who spent the first 7 years of his career building transport infrastructure before starting carloop. He has a passion for cars, particularly EVs and wants to help reduce transport emissions in Australia. He currently drives a red Tesla Model 3.