1st Road Trip - Very Happy

[SD419]

I'm writing this mainly for those interested in a Tesla or those who own one, but suffer from range anxiety. If you're pondering an adventure in your car, PLEASE do it!

We just returned from our first road trip along California's central coast. We've had our Y a little over 3 weeks and I had no experience with superchargers. We traveled with 4 adults and with luggage for 3 nights. Overall, we were very pleased. I couldn't be happier with the supercharger locations and operation. We never waited at any of the locations (Thousand Oaks, Goleta, San Luis Obispo, Paso Robles). The wives loved shopping while the husbands played games or watched shows using the infotainment system.

We traveled a total of 945 miles, used 285 kWh, at a rate of 302 Wh/mi. Probably 80% highway miles at 65-75mph. San Diego to Cambria/Paso Robles has some minor elevation changes, but nothing crazy.

We had four "phantom brake" events while in cruise control. All of them happened on major highways, during broad daylight, little or no traffic, with no obstructions in the road. The first one was fairly violent and scared my wife pretty good. I'm running 2020.40.3 and I think people have been complaining about this for quite a while.

Other than the phantom brakes, I have absolutely no complaints. We loved the trip!

 

[mrbloons]

I'm writing this mainly for those interested in a Tesla or those who own one, but suffer from range anxiety. If you're pondering an adventure in your car, PLEASE do it!

We just returned from our first road trip along California's central coast. We've had our Y a little over 3 weeks and I had no experience with superchargers. We traveled with 4 adults and with luggage for 3 nights. Overall, we were very pleased. I couldn't be happier with the supercharger locations and operation. We never waited at any of the locations (Thousand Oaks, Goleta, San Luis Obispo, Paso Robles). The wives loved shopping while the husbands played games or watched shows using the infotainment system.

We traveled a total of 945 miles, used 285 kWh, at a rate of 302 Wh/mi. Probably 80% highway miles at 65-75mph. San Diego to Cambria/Paso Robles has some minor elevation changes, but nothing crazy.

We had four "phantom brake" events while in cruise control. All of them happened on major highways, during broad daylight, little or no traffic, with no obstructions in the road. The first one was fairly violent and scared my wife pretty good. I'm running 2020.40.3 and I think people have been complaining about this for quite a while.

Other than the phantom brakes, I have absolutely no complaints. We loved the trip!

Glad to hear your trip went well!

We’ve taken our Y on several road trips, and have also had great experiences every time and found that range is better than I expected. As a first time EV owner I worried about charging being a big inconvenience while in fact it’s the opposite, and I find it to be more convenient than stopping to fill a tank with gasoline. I’ve travelled mostly within my state, and usually less than 300 miles in a day, usually charging at my destination, which has included my home, hotels, camp grounds, family vacation home, and home of other family members. It’s nice being able to always wake up to a full charge if needed without really having to “wait”.

After our first trip (220 miles) away from home we were inspired to take a long side trip on the return, which went well.

Have travelled pretty far (over 200 miles) from the nearest supercharger (upper reaches of Michigan’s upper peninsula) and didn’t have any concern about range. Was staying at a campground and using 50 amp RV charger which could fully charge a drained battery overnight, allowing long day trips each day if desired. Note this will probably be more difficult to do in winter with reduced range.

On a few occasions I have stopped to use Tesla Superchargers and have been amazed at how fast, and convenient they are to use. Usually a charging stop coincides with a bathroom break and grabbing food, and by the time we’re back to the car (only 10 or 15 min) we’ve got more than enough charge to reach our destination.

I used autopilot pretty extensively on all these trips and didn’t have any phantom braking occurrences, although I did have it happen to me once driving on the freeway locally, just a few miles from my home as I approached an overpass on a bright day.

 

[quadroplexor]

Sounds like a great trip. I'm also toying with the idea of heading up to Cambria in the MY.

Over the labor day weekend we drove up to Yosemite (Santa Clarita, Kettleman City, Fish Camp) with an overnight in Oakhurst. We skirted around the fires and dealt with 100 degree heat the whole way up (118 at one point!). After a day in Yosemite we went east over the Tioga Pass (my first time) had some range anxiety until we made it to Gardnerville. Finally spent a week at Lake Tahoe before coming home the 395. Overall trip was 1486 miles, 437 kwh, and 294 wh/mi. Not bad with a family of 4 and AC cranking on the way up.

This was the first time I've truly enjoyed a roadtrip that I can remember. Normally it's a means to an end but the MY is such a nice drive.

 

[mark95476]

Good report.

FYI--You can disable automatic emergency braking. I leave it enabled, but I haven't had a phantom braking event.

We had four "phantom brake" events while in cruise control. All of them happened on major highways, during broad daylight, little or no traffic, with no obstructions in the road. The first one was fairly violent and scared my wife pretty good. I'm running 2020.40.3 and I think people have been complaining about this for quite a while.

 

[noshadow]

Sounds like a fun trip!

I recently also took my MY on a road trip, from San Francisco, CA to Bend, Oregon. We had 3 supercharger stops that were so short, I barely had time to stretch. We ended up charging way more than A Better Route Charger told us we needed, just so we could stretch legs, walk the dog, go into stores to buy stuff without sales tax in Oregon

Luckily we had zero phantom breaks, and the FSD worked great.