A Better Route Planner Basics
This tutorial gives the basics of trip planning in “A Better Route Planner”
([Link]). It includes the steps for setting up your account along with
advice for defaults to use, as well as a hypothetical trip from home (1600 Pennsylvania Ave) to a
destination (The liberty Bell) and back, requiring a charge as well as an overnight stay. It
therefore incorporates all the recommended techniques that would be used for a much longer
trip, as well as suggestions for making trips smoother as well as highlighting a few painful quirks
in the application. The screenshots included are from the web application version 4.1.10. I
recommend using a computer with a monitor resolution of at least 1920x1080 in order to see all
of the content; on lower resolution monitors things like the “table view” are not available.
Table Of Contents
Initial Setup 2
Navigating The UI 6
Beginning A Trip 8
Adding An Overnight Hotel Stop 14
Editing Charging Percentage For A Charger 16
Locate An Alternate Charger 17
Adding Amenities To A Charging Stop 21
Adjusting For Cold Weather 23
Warnings And Recommendations 25
Last Updated: Dec 19, 2021
Initial Setup
The first time you go to the ABRP website, you get a welcome screen prompting you to login or
create an account. I highly recommend at least creating a free account to start so that you may
save your plans and edit them as necessary. If you like it then buy a premium subscription.
1. Click the “LOGIN” button in the upper right, which gives you the option to create an
account or login with an existing one. In the login dialog box click “create an account”:
2. After creating your account and logging in, you need to select your vehicle in the upper
left. For the purposes of this tutorial, I selected Mach-E Extended Range Rear Wheel
Drive. Note that all of the Mach-E’s have “alpha” next to them; that is OK as ABRP hasn’t
gotten a lot of feedback on the car’s actual performance. The consequence of that is that
ABRP tends to be conservative with efficiency and charging speed.
3. Go into the settings menu by clicking the settings button in the upper left,
which will bring up the basic settings menu by default:
4. I recommend first setting the language and units so the rest of the steps are in those
familiar units. Scroll down to “User Interface”, open it, and set those items for your locale.
For the USA:
5. To properly configure ABRP, enable the “Advanced Settings” toggle at the top of the
settings, which allows you to specify the “reference consumption” and other variables
that configure the trip planner:
6. By default ABRP displays efficiency in the Tesla-style wh/distance format; to change that
to distance/kwh click the “wh/mi” text and it will toggle to the “mi/kwh” format Ford and
others use. By default ABRP is conservative with the Mach-E and rates it less efficient
than it really is. For my Route 1 which is RWD with 18” wheels my base efficiency at
65mph is 3.5 mi/kwh. For 19” wheels on a Premium RWD I would suggest 3.4, and 3.1
for a premium AWD. For Selects with 18” wheels I would use 3.5 and 3.2 for RWD/AWD
respectively.
7. Speed has a large effect on efficiency, and thus ABRP gives several configuration
options. Therefore, you can configure how much over or under the speed limit you intend
to drive (“reference speed”), and whether you will allow it to adjust your speed below the
“reference speed” in order to make the charging destination if there is too much distance
between available chargers.
8. If weather conditions are known, set them in the “Road Conditions” drop down. For this
reason it is a very good idea to recalculate your plan a few days before going on the trip
to ensure that updated conditions are available.
Exit the Settings Menu by clicking
Navigating The UI
The User Interface can be a little confusing at first because the contents and format of the panel
in the upper lefthand corner where you add and edit the waypoints changes slightly depending
upon what “edit mode” you are in. I don’t know what ABRP calls the 2 different modes/views but
for purposes of this tutorial I will call them “waypoint list” and “plan details”.
To exit the plan details view and edit the waypoint list, click the “restart” button in the lower left.
Be careful that you are not already on the “waypoint list” view because the same icon is labeled
“clear” on the “waypoint list” view and is used to clear the entire plan. Note the 2 different
buttons below:
Below are examples of the 2 views with the “waypoint list” first and “plan details” second:
Waypoint List View
Plan Details View
Beginning A Trip
If you haven’t planned a trip before, the list of waypoints will be empty. If ABRP is currently
showing the previous trip you planned, you can clear the list of waypoints by clicking the “clear”
button:
1. To begin entering the waypoints for a trip, click the first waypoint, and it will bring up the
list of known waypoints as well as the choice of “my position”, “Home”, and “Work”. Since
you have not set the “Home” and “Work” addresses yet they will be blank:
2. Begin typing in “1600 pennsylvania avenue, washington dc”, and as you type the list will
begin populating with the closest matches. Once it displays that address, select it. To set
that address as “Home”, click on it and click the “SET” button to the right of “Home”:
After setting 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue as “HOME”, that is how it will be displayed in the
Waypoint list:
3. Now click on the remaining waypoint with “The end of your trip” in it and begin entering
“525 Arch st, philadelphia pa”. Note that normally you would correctly fill in “Home” as
the end of the trip, but this “error” is just intended to illustrate how to reorder waypoints in
the following steps:
4. Click the “Add Waypoint” button at the bottom of the waypoint list so we can add “Home”
as the final destination. Note that the waypoint is inserted in the middle of the list:
5. Click the text that says “Somewhere along the way”, and select “HOME” as the address
6. Now grab the “525 Arch St” waypoint by the and move it between the two “HOME”
waypoints:
7. Have ABRP compute the trip plan by clicking which also displays the plan details
view along with the route on the map
8. To view the list of stops including times in table form, in the lower right click
9. Now let’s set a departure time from home as well as overriding the starting state of
charge. To do that, click the pencil icon for the starting waypoint (“HOME”):
10. Enter “100” in the “Departure SoC”, and set the departure time to 12:45 PM. To toggle
the “AM/PM” value just click on it. Enter “leave after lunch” in the notes section to see
how notes are displayed in the waypoint table.
11. Click on to regenerate the plan, and look at the table to see the change.
12. Now save the plan by clicking the button. It will give you an option to replace an
existing plan or insert a new one.
Adding An Overnight Hotel Stop
Now that we’ve planned a roundtrip to Philadelphia, let’s add an overnight stay at the four
seasons hotel. The following steps assume you’re starting from the “waypoint list” view.
1. Using the steps previously outlined, insert a new waypoint after “525 Arch Street”. Enter
the address as “four season philadelphia” and allow the tool to fill in the address of the
hotel at 1 logan square.
2. Now click on the “pencil” icon for the four seasons hotel and enter the departure time as
“9:30 AM”.
3. Replan the trip by clicking
Editing Charging Percentage For A Charger
At times it is handy to edit how much of a charge is taken on or the length of time spent at a
charging stop. For example, you may want to make sure that you have enough power to get to
an alternate charging stop because the planned stop is unavailable.
1. In the “Plan Details View” click the “pencil” icon for the Wawa Store in New Castle that
was inserted by the trip planner.
2. To specify the target charging percentage instead of charging time, click on
3. Fill in the charging percentage as “70”
4. Replan the trip by clicking
Locate An Alternate Charger
It’s a good idea to locate alternate chargers just in case the initially selected charger is
unavailable for some reason. After the plan is calculated and the map is updated, locate an
ultrafast charger further along the route. Ultrafast chargers are identified by the multiple lightning
bolt icon
1. Click on the Multiple lightning bolt icon along the highlighted path below
2. Information about the charging location will be displayed in place of the “plan details
view”. The types and power levels of the chargers available at the location are
surrounded by segmented circles that indicate how many of that type of charger exist -
the number of segments correlates to the number of that charger in the location. Blue
segments indicate that the charger is operational.
3. To add the location as a waypoint click
4. After adding the location as a waypoint, the “waypoint list” view is displayed.
5. The waypoint may need to be moved. Drag it by clicking and holding its handle
6. Now set the charging percentage at the Wawa to 1% to simulate being unable to charge
there. To edit the charging percent click the pencil icon for the Wawa waypoint
7. Replan the trip by clicking
8. The Table View shows that it is possible to make it to Abingdon in the event that the
Wawa is unavailable:
9. Now edit the Wawa charging location to have your initial charging level to 70% again.
Alternatively, you can simply hit the “reset” button for that waypoint so that ABRP
computes the charging level.
10. You can leave the alternate location in the waypoint list and change its charge level to
1% to prevent ABRP from charging at the alternate location, or you can add the address
and departure SoC% of the abingdon charger to the notes for the Wawa waypoint.
11. In the event that an alternate charger beyond the “primary” charger (selected by ABRP)
cannot be reached, you will need to: work backwards and manually increase the charge
level achieved at the prior stop, add a charger before the one that ABRP selected
(making the charger selected by ABRP the alternate/backup), or configure ABRP to try
recomputing the trip to your preferred alternate charger at a speed lower than the
“reference speed”. To allow ABRP to adjust your speed below the “reference”, go to the
settings menu and under the “speed” section enable the “adjust speed” setting:
12. Replan the trip by clicking
Adding Amenities To A Charging Stop
To better make use of the time spent charging, it is convenient to work stops into mealtimes.
While it is possible to find chargers close to restaurants within walking distance of charging
stops, ABRP can help you find them automatically. Continuing with the example trip, we will
change the arrival time at the Wawa to coincide with lunchtime and search for nearby
restaurants.
1. In either the “waypoint list” view or the “plan details” view click the “pencil” icon to edit the
waypoint
2. Enable the “add a stop around this waypoint” and select “restaurant” as the amenities
type
3. Replan the trip by clicking
4. As part of the replanning, ABRP will present a list of alternate chargers nearby the Wawa
waypoint that may have more interesting restaurant options.
5. To cycle through the list of chargers click the left or right arrow icons. In this case the
Christiana Mall has a several “sit down” restaurants, so select that charger and click
6. After seeing the arrival time, edit the departure time from the Four Seasons hotel to
11:15 AM to arrive at the christiana mall at a more appropriate time for lunch
7. Replan the trip by clicking and the table view will look like this:
Adjusting For Cold Weather
BEV’s are affected by colder temperatures, and ABRP does have controls in the settings menu
to enter prevailing weather conditions. However, I have not yet had an opportunity to test its
accuracy in temperatures colder than 40 degrees Fahrenheit. The formulas may not properly
compensate for colder situations, particularly since there are no settings for the 2 things that can
impact cold weather efficiency the most: preconditioning and cabin heater settings. The best
recommendation would be to try to do a half hour or more highway test tracking the mi/kwh
efficiency of the car and comparing that to the efficiency computed by ABRP.
1. The “waypoint table” that is visible in the “plan details” view displays the computed
efficiency at the bottom:
2. To see the computed efficiency in the summary at the top of the “plan details” view click
anywhere on the trip summary at the top (click anywhere inside the red border to toggle
the visibility of the efficiency):
3. The summary wll now also include the estimated efficiency. Note that it also includes an
estimate of the charging cost; this estimate may or may not be accurate as some
chargers don’t report their pricing structure to ABRP. To determine if a charger’s cost is
known or not, be sure to look through the waypoint table to see if a cost is computed for
each charger in the plan:
Warnings And Recommendations
● There is no “undo” action: Care must be taken when editing a trip. It is highly
recommended to save the plan after making several significant changes so that you may
go back to that last saved point in the event of a significant error
● Be careful clicking on the address of a waypoint: In either the “waypoint list” or “plan
details” view clicking on an address will bring up the address selection list. Make sure
you click on the same address in the list; clicking outside of the list or selecting a
different address in the list will replace it. If you fail to notice this and correct it, then the
next time you regenerate the plan it will do so with that unintended change
● Exporting plans: Plans may be exported to excel or google maps through the “Share”
button. I recommend exporting to an excel spreadsheet on your phone to be able to
retrieve the best level of detail while driving
● Validate charger reliability with [Link]: Once you’ve mapped out a plan, I
highly recommend checking the reviews of your selected charger locations. Some
locations have notoriously poor reliability and/or issues with chargers being blocked by
parked cars not charging due to their close locations to entrances. For example at the
time of this writing the Electrify America location in Gainesville Florida 3 of the 4
chargers were out of service. In that case it is best to manually select a different location
on the route to use as the “primary” charger location.
● Replan just before going on the trip: If you plan a trip well ahead of time it is best to
have ABRP recalculate the plan a few days before the trip is set to begin. This will give
you the opportunity to set the true weather conditions in the settings menu as well as
finding potential last minute issues with charging locations being out of service. At that
time it is also recommended that you check the latest reviews through [Link] as
well as the state of the chargers (i.e. are any of them out of service).
● Find Hotels with L2 chargers: Plugshare is also an excellent way to locate hotels along
your route that have L2 charging available. The same suggestions apply for reading
reviews about the L2 chargers being broken and/or constantly blocked by cars not
charging. Unfortunately many hotels put their L2 chargers in prime parking spaces and
don’t bother to enforce the “for charging only” rule. For that reason it is recommended
not to rely on sites with only 1 or 2 chargers as the chances of them being blocked,
broken, or in use by someone else is so great.
● Get a TeslaTap for L2: Many hotels only have Tesla “destination chargers” which are
compatible with the Mach-E by use of an adapter. Many of these adapters are available
on EBAY and elsewhere, but beware there are a large number that are not certified and
tested, and may not be rated for the minimum 60 Amps required. There is a company
called “TeslaTap” that is highly recommended, UL listed, and certifies their adapters for
the necessary 60A current.
● Overriding default charge levels: ABRP will allow the charge to drop down to 10% and
go up to 100%, neither of which is necessarily a good idea. Charging above 80% tends
to slow down significantly, and charging down to 10% doesn’t leave much margin for
error. I do however like to charge to 100% at home just before leaving: