What ODB dongle - ABRP (massive trip to France)

[smyth1492]

Just working out if I can use the ID3 for our summer holiday trip, 2 weeks and circa 2500 miles. Be good not to take our ICE car even though this is where its good. (I think the ID3 is nicer to drive, more comfortable and quite).

What ODB dongle are people using to get the live data into ABRP please?

[MotMot]

I have one of these that works fine. If the link doesn’t work (Amazon one’s sometime sdont) hit reply and you’ll see the link.

TONWON OBD2 Scanner OBDII...

[MotMot]

Ps works with the car scanner app on iOS. Not sure about android.

[Bengeo]

Ps works with the car scanner app on iOS. Not sure about android.

Is that this one: https://www.carscanner.info/ ?

[MotMot]

Yes - decent app.

[baguette]

I've been using an OBDLink CX and it works fine, with the one caveat that if the car is locked and I'm within BT range and activate ABRP on my Android device, it sets off the ID.3's alarm.

Supposedly this dongle is safe to leave plugged in, because it will only pair when first powered up.

[MotMot]

yes mine sets off the alarm. Sometimes... and sometimes not. Huh.

[MotMot]

As an aside - apart from providing 'real time' updates on battery to ABRP - the dongle also enables ABRP to calibrate itself to your driving style and actual consumption... rather than just using a set rate. Neat.

ALL of this that ABRP does (albeit a bit flakily) should be done via the Nav system onboard... but thats a rant for another thread

Look at how good the integrated google system is on Polestars and the new Megane.... cough cough. VW? Listening? Thought not!

[LongMynd]

Trip to France possible: definitely.
We've taken our ID.3 Tour to France twice.
One hiccough on the first trip when we were relying on a site with only one charger and it was out of order. We found a work around.
Second trip went without a hitch. Used a lot of Ionity, as we are still getting Ionity for 45p via the WeCharge card, but we did use others.
There's a bit of a shortage of chargers between Reims and Calais Northbound but ABRP predicted our requirements very well.
We don't use an ODB dongle.

[OB1CCFC]

A number of us have done successful ID3 trips around Europe. Don’t think anyone has hit any serious problems. Most seem to rely on Ionity via a WeCharge subscription.
Here’s my ID3 trip in June to Swiss border, Germany…
viewtopic.php?t=2148

[LongMynd]

I should add that another member of the family drove to the South of France with a 58kWh battery and had no problems.

[smyth1492]

Thanks all - very helpful. The two main concerns are the days with loads of miles. 750km in one day and 700km in the other with an 80% charge needed just before the destination for the final leg home. I can do both of these in 1 tank of fuel in my diesel.

[baguette]

Plan your days ahead and save the planned routes in ABRP. If you want an extra bit of confidence, plan your routes so that you're using only chargers with live data, and then while you're driving, ABRP will show you the live data of the charger you're hearing toward, as well as a realtime graph showing your battery drop and predicted drop before arrival, which you'll find to be bang on accurate.

Also bear in mind that continental Europe has numerous charger networks that are not on WeCharge. If you want to stick with WeCharge, be careful that ABRP doesn't route you to these, but my recommendation is that you actually look into some of these other networks, because they may not cost you any more money, and some of them are fast and convenient.

And if you've got the ability to use Android Auto/Apple CarPlay, do so. The dual screen setup is great.

I've driven from Finland to Spain and Spain to Finland using ABRP and had zero problems. ABRP's estimates are great, and the realtime data of both battery and approaching charging station completely remove range anxiety.

[OB1CCFC]

Thanks all - very helpful. The two main concerns are the days with loads of miles. 750km in one day and 700km in the other with an 80% charge needed just before the destination for the final leg home. I can do both of these in 1 tank of fuel in my diesel.

In the end it’s how many rest and comfort breaks you have. I rarely drive over 2 hours without a 20 minute stop and prefer 90 mins or so. 30 mins for a lunch stop.
EV charging fits with my natural rhythm of driving.

[smyth1492]

Found through the comments on BatteryLife's YouTube channel a service to get information from the car without using a dongle - https://www.tronity.io/?lang=en. Going to give this a try next week on a route that I don't need to charge on to see how it plans and gets the information with ABRP

[baguette]

Tronity is not really a suitable replacement for an OBD dongle. The update frequency isn't nearly good enough for realtime data while driving. It's fine for archival type information, but if you want ABRP integration for actual driving, you can't beat OBD.

[MotMot]

Dongle also gives you data on battery temp and so much more....

[StuartT]

Dongle also gives you data on battery temp and so much more....

I'm in my late fifties and I can remember, as a youngster, looking at cars with amp meters/oil-pressure gauges/etc and being mesmerised, but by the time I was old enough to drive, I then looked upon them as "worry gauges"
I only ever want to know the minimum amount of information, unless there's a problem and then I want to know promptly.
My brain can only cope with the minimum amount of incoming information, it seems Ain't it a good job we're all different?!...