What with the pandemic and everything, I hadn’t seen my parents for nearly a year and a half. So, now that we’re all vaccinated, my wife and I loaded up the dog and headed down to my folks’ place in Naples, FL for a week. Got back on Sunday.
Overall conclusion: reduced charge speeds are a PITA, but provided you can start the day with a full charge a ‘chargegated’ S can still be a viable road trip car. The range / lack of degradation helps, I’m still getting 266 miles at 100%. We generally found that, at least on the first leg of the day, it was our desire for coffee or breakfast that caused us to stop, rather than the need to charge. And although it’s not the quickest way of covering a lot of miles, stopping for 20 minutes every hour and a half is a very civilized way of doing it.
I have vast amounts of TeslaMate data to unpack from the trip as and when I get around to it. But the TLR is:
Thursday 5/6: Easy drive to a friend’s house in Chapel Hill, NC. Left DC at 99%, arrived in Chapel Hill at 8%, charged at Chester, VA from 46% to 79% (Sandwiches from WaWa FTW ). Friend in Chapel Hill has a NEMA 14-50 in his garage.
Saturday 5/8: Longer but easy drive to more friends just south of Jacksonville, FL. Left Chapel Hill at 99%, charged at Lumberton (Panera breakfast), Santee (ran around with the dog), Hardeeville (gas station sandwiches) and Brunswick (bowling alley parking lot - not much to do), arrived St Johns, FL at 7%.
Sunday 5/9: Not such an easy day. Could only charge from a 120v outlet so left St Johns at 27%. Charged at County Road then on to Daytona Beach where the power was out … detoured to Port Orange, then onward through cr@ppy I-4 traffic to Celebration, Lakeland and Fort Myers to finally get to Naples. Arrived with 17% and could probably have cut out either Lakeland or Fort Myers, but decided to play it safe.
Friday 5/14: Left Naples at 99% thanks to the dryer outlet. Dinner in Venice, charged briefly at Sarasota while running into Wholefoods for breakfast stuff, arrived at friends NE of Tampa with 27%. Charged o/n on a 110 to 41%.
Saturday 5/15: I was concerned at not being able to charge to 100% overnight, but nonetheless this was a pretty straightforward day. Brief charge at Wesley Chapel (WaWa!) then to Ocala, Yulee (great charge stop, new development with tasty burgers), Hardeeville (again) and arrived at Santee with 19%. Dinner at Clark’s, o/n at the Holiday Inn across the street.
Sunday 5/16: Long day but straightforward apart from the usual I-95 traffic coming in to DC. Left Santee at 6am with 97%, breakfast charge at Lumberton, pit stop at Rocky Mount, WaWa lunch at Chester and got home at 3:15 with 14%.
Aside from the hiccups caused by (a) lack of 240v overnight charging and (b) Daytona being out, it was all very straightforward. Sure, a couple of the stops (esp Rocky Mount where there is very little to do) were longer than I’d have liked but others were shorter; and I’m still figuring out where my comfort level is in terms of anticipated arrival charge level.
Final thought: AP1 is exactly the right level of ADAS for this kind of trip, and I have no desire right now for “FSD”. AP1 plus FUSC, albeit chargegated, makes for a very relaxing way to travel. Sure, we could have got there and back quicker in our Audi but we’d have used $300 or so in gas, and the overall experience would have been much more tiring.
Roll on the next trip - Boston in a few weeks.
Cheers
JB
Overall conclusion: reduced charge speeds are a PITA, but provided you can start the day with a full charge a ‘chargegated’ S can still be a viable road trip car. The range / lack of degradation helps, I’m still getting 266 miles at 100%. We generally found that, at least on the first leg of the day, it was our desire for coffee or breakfast that caused us to stop, rather than the need to charge. And although it’s not the quickest way of covering a lot of miles, stopping for 20 minutes every hour and a half is a very civilized way of doing it.
I have vast amounts of TeslaMate data to unpack from the trip as and when I get around to it. But the TLR is:
Thursday 5/6: Easy drive to a friend’s house in Chapel Hill, NC. Left DC at 99%, arrived in Chapel Hill at 8%, charged at Chester, VA from 46% to 79% (Sandwiches from WaWa FTW ). Friend in Chapel Hill has a NEMA 14-50 in his garage.
Saturday 5/8: Longer but easy drive to more friends just south of Jacksonville, FL. Left Chapel Hill at 99%, charged at Lumberton (Panera breakfast), Santee (ran around with the dog), Hardeeville (gas station sandwiches) and Brunswick (bowling alley parking lot - not much to do), arrived St Johns, FL at 7%.
Sunday 5/9: Not such an easy day. Could only charge from a 120v outlet so left St Johns at 27%. Charged at County Road then on to Daytona Beach where the power was out … detoured to Port Orange, then onward through cr@ppy I-4 traffic to Celebration, Lakeland and Fort Myers to finally get to Naples. Arrived with 17% and could probably have cut out either Lakeland or Fort Myers, but decided to play it safe.
Friday 5/14: Left Naples at 99% thanks to the dryer outlet. Dinner in Venice, charged briefly at Sarasota while running into Wholefoods for breakfast stuff, arrived at friends NE of Tampa with 27%. Charged o/n on a 110 to 41%.
Saturday 5/15: I was concerned at not being able to charge to 100% overnight, but nonetheless this was a pretty straightforward day. Brief charge at Wesley Chapel (WaWa!) then to Ocala, Yulee (great charge stop, new development with tasty burgers), Hardeeville (again) and arrived at Santee with 19%. Dinner at Clark’s, o/n at the Holiday Inn across the street.
Sunday 5/16: Long day but straightforward apart from the usual I-95 traffic coming in to DC. Left Santee at 6am with 97%, breakfast charge at Lumberton, pit stop at Rocky Mount, WaWa lunch at Chester and got home at 3:15 with 14%.
Aside from the hiccups caused by (a) lack of 240v overnight charging and (b) Daytona being out, it was all very straightforward. Sure, a couple of the stops (esp Rocky Mount where there is very little to do) were longer than I’d have liked but others were shorter; and I’m still figuring out where my comfort level is in terms of anticipated arrival charge level.
Final thought: AP1 is exactly the right level of ADAS for this kind of trip, and I have no desire right now for “FSD”. AP1 plus FUSC, albeit chargegated, makes for a very relaxing way to travel. Sure, we could have got there and back quicker in our Audi but we’d have used $300 or so in gas, and the overall experience would have been much more tiring.
Roll on the next trip - Boston in a few weeks.
Cheers
JB