Prefer trailer-friendly is not working anymore
As I drive with a caravan the Prefer trailer-friendly feature is very essential for me. But since the last update it is not working anymore. I enabled Settings → Chargers & Networks → Prefer trailer-friendly but when I plan a multi charging route then most of the selected charging places are without the trailer icon. I tried to disable and enable the setting with no change. Issue in Android App and as well in web portal. See
https://abetterrouteplanner.com/?plan_uuid=2-6a07591e-49a4b9575ac347b6572aca77
- Where does this happen?
- ABRP version number (found at bottom of settings menu)
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Comments5
Bo (ABRP)
May 20
Thanks for reporting! We just double checked and the preference works as it should but on your route there a) Does not seem to be many trailer friendly sites at near your destination and b) there is a conflict with the strong preference for EnBW charging sites.
Would you prefer if we add a stronger preference for trailer friendly sites when you turn it on?
Michael Klipphahn
May 20
Hi Bo,
thanks for checking this.
Regarding point a): When I manually select one of the non-trailer-friendly charging stations suggested by the route planner and then use the “Search nearby charging stations” function with the trailer-friendly filter enabled, I can find several possible trailer-friendly charging stations along or near the route. So it does not look like there are no suitable alternatives available.
Regarding point b): I also tried removing the preference for EnBW charging sites, but this does not lead to a significant change in the route planning result. The planner still selects mostly charging locations without the trailer-friendly icon.
See the following route as an example
https://abetterrouteplanner.com/?plan_uuid=2-6a0dedbf-d1007038181d0ae330267275
For me, the trailer-friendly option should be weighted much more strongly. When I enable this option, it means that I really depend on it. A non-trailer-friendly charging station should only be selected if there is truly no reasonable trailer-friendly alternative available.
The reason is that charging at a non-trailer-friendly site with a caravan is not just slightly inconvenient. It usually means that I have to detach the caravan, find a suitable place to park it, secure it against theft, charge the car, and then reconnect everything afterwards. This costs a lot of time and is very uncomfortable.
Because of that, I would actually prefer this option to be available directly in the route planning options, not under the generic Settings. Even better would be if it could depend on the selected vehicle configuration / profile. For example, I have created a separate configuration for driving with a trailer, with a lower maximum speed and higher consumption. In that profile, trailer-friendly charging should ideally be able to selected.
So yes, I would strongly support adding a much stronger preference for trailer-friendly sites when this option is enabled and this feature was the main reason why I bought a ABRP subscription.
Best regards,
Michael
Bo (ABRP)
May 21
Good comments! We have reviewed the selection process and found that there are steps where the charger preferences are not correctly taken into account. We will fix that and see how it works on your example.
Michael Klipphahn
Jul 3
Hi Bo, how did you made progress there? I just drove this week 1000 km with my camping trailer and still most of the planned chargers were still not trailer friendly even that there were enough suitable chargers available on the route. Can I support you somehow that this is maybe fixed on my way back from vacation?
Johannes ABRP
Aug 12
Thanks for flagging this. We had a look over the summer and made changes so that trailer-friendly chargers are now strongly prioritized during routing.
One thing worth noting: the more preferences a user enables, the smaller the pool of matching chargers becomes. For example, selecting both pet-friendly and trailer-friendly may return fewer trailer-friendly options than trailer-friendly alone.