I just replicated this trip on Friday and Saturday. Thanks to MikeW for posting the detailed charging/usage info, as it gave me the guideposts I needed to feel comfortable taking my first long distance all-electric road trip. The car performed extremely well with great performance and no glitches running 4.1 (1.19.31). But I got some interesting insights into the realities of supercharging and a bit of range anxiety. Some observations:
1) At freeway speeds of 70-75mph, some elevation change and temperatures mostly in the 40's, consumption averages right around 400 wh/mi. So the 300 mile "ideal"/265 mile "rated" battery is a 210 mile "real" battery.
2) Contrary to Elon's touting of being able to add 150 miles of range in 30 minutes, in most cases I spent 45 minutes charging in order to add enough range to go the 115 miles to the next supercharger location, with a 15 minute "splash and dash" to cover the 31 miles from Gilroy to home. On average my battery was at 31 miles of remaining range when I initiated charging.
3) There is little margin for error/unexpected circumstances. My first bit of range anxiety came when leaving San Jose at 5:30 am on Friday and hearing that I-5 was closed at the Grapevine. I knew there was a supercharger there, but I didn't know which side of the closure it was on. At my first charging stop, I called supercharger support and the helpful person determined that the closure was south of the charging station so I could continue on. Fortunately, when I reached my second charging stop at Tejon Ranch, the road had reopened. If it had remained closed, I would have been stuck, because even with a full battery I would have been unable to reach the supercharger at SpaceX if I had to take the 2 hour detour west to 101. My second bit of range anxiety was self inflicted. On the way home from Tejon Ranch to Harris Ranch, I left the supercharger with 157 miles of rated range to cover 115 miles, knowing that the initial gradient was downhill. It fact there was a lot of additional up and down, and with 25 miles to go I had 25 miles of rated range. So I slowed to 55 mph and managed to reach the charger with 1 mile of rated range left. Won't do that again!
4) The superchargers are indeed siamesed, and the second car plugging into a supercharger gets less juice. I pulled in next to another Model S at Tejon Ranch and after 10 minutes noticed I was only getting 100 amps. He was still getting around 190 if I remember correctly. So I moved to the farthest charging stall and quickly ramped up to 250 amps.
5) The single supercharger at Harris Ranch is a huge bottleneck in the network. The fellow Model S owner arrived at Harris Ranch shortly before I did, and I had to wait 45 minutes to get access to the supercharger. So instead of a 45 minute stop, it took me 1 1/2 hours. Fortunately, Harris Ranch serves good food and the NFL playoffs were on. Nonetheless, if Tesla doesn't fix this before the summer driving season, there will be some unhappy owners. Can you imagine taking the family to Disneyland and having to wait 1-2 hours at your first charging stop?
6) Model S owners are really nice people. I had very pleasant conversations with a Delta Airlines pilot at SpaceX, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur returning from CES at Tejon Ranch and Harris Ranch, and a Tesla mechanical engineer at Gilroy.
7) The lack of charging at destinations is an issue. I used a Chargepoint station at my dinner spot to get enough range to make it to SpaceX for my return trip. The owner who went to CES could only charge on 110 at his Vegas hotel, left for Barstow with only 200 miles of range, and had to drive with no heat and draft semis in order to coast into Barstow with 1 mile of range left.
8) Taking a trip outside of your charge-at-home radius requires planning and patience. On my trip to LA I did 6 1/4 hours of driving and 1 1/2 hours of charging. On the return trip I did 6 1/4 hours of driving and 3 hours of charging/waiting. While that is not an issue for EV enthusiasts, it will most likely be one as Tesla tries to expand its market to the general buyers of luxury cars. And my experience was somewhat ideal, since I was following a route where the supercharger infrastructure is in completed form for the next several years, modulo adding chargers at Harris Ranch. Driving from Silicon Valley to Santa Barbara would have been much more difficult.
In summary, my first long distance EV trip was very successful and also eye opening. It made me realize that while Tesla has made long distance travel in EVs possible, we are still in the very early days of this.
