A Better Routeplanner (ABRP)

This app is amazing for planning my charging on road trips. It’s totally worth paying $5 for the month of my trip. After that, you can just cancel. Think it of as the cheapest trip expense you’ll have that helps make it as good as it can be! Like all apps, it’s not perfect. However, it’s still the best for route planning a route trip by far. This applies even to the free version. Also, the app gets regular updates, so it continues improve over time too. Side note, I drive a Tesla. This app allows me to plan my trip even better than Tesla’s already good in car route planner. For example, I want to keep my state of charge between 30% and 70% and end my trip at 50% to maximize the lifespan and long term capacity of my battery. ABRP enables me to do that. It’s a great compliment to the Tesla route planner. When driving across a long desert stretch, for example, it’s a good idea to use the worst case arrival state of charge between the two to be on the safe side.

So this app does help you plan for your trip it allows you to set an average speed and plot charging based on that which is nice for those of us who don’t want to go 65 in an 80 zone to make it to the next charger. The app has a few problems, I’ve noticed when data is limited the app malfunctions, it doesn’t properly forecast the remaining battery percentage when you go below the minimum set threshold and if you set it below where you would like the battery to be at the next charger it will plot it to that percentage. What ends up happening is when you go below let’s say 25% where I set it to it then says you won’t make it and you will arrive with negative 600% battery. I think if they changed it to minimum charge preference instead of minimum charge theshold that calculation wouldn’t fail. It also crashes when left open on the map for a long time too. Overall this is a nice trip planner, not sure if premium is worth it based on the limited app stability and calculation performance in real time. The stability issues had me using the Tesla nav and not the app on my return trip.

VERY highly recommended! This is a marvelous app. While the stock Tesla in-car navigation system is great, abetterrouteplanner is an order of magnitude improvement and makes trip planning a pleasure. The wealth of data that this application synthesizes virtually eliminates any vestige of “range anxiety” that I still had after over a year of Tesla ownership. Among many other features, the ability to select various route options, such as “avoid highways” is extraordinarily welcome, especially since the native Tesla navigation system does not allow such fine tuning. The basic version of this app is great and highly functional but the premium version is well worth it. I would also stress that while it has a few minor glitches (virtually inevitable with a complex application) the developer is so conscientious and so dedicated that I have no doubt that it will continue to improve. The developer has plans to execute a video tutorial, which will be a real plus. If every app developer had his attitude the virtual world would be a far better place!