In March, I posted about a road trip to Fremont in a Model 3. This thread details my latest trip, this time to Utah--and including both a Model 3 and a new Raven Model X.
Our route out of Denver (clockwise):
This was an interesting trip, given that we wouldn't hit a single interstate road until the last two days of the trip. For the first six, we'd be on smaller roads, and therefore Supercharger access would be much less routine compared to a 'normal' trip like my last one linked above. We'd therefore be more reliant on destination charging, which can be risky since most lodging options have only 2 or 4 HPWC plugs, often load-shared. Arriving with two LR Teslas meant we'd either need two plugs all night (if load-sharing) or one plug and a late-night car swap.
All worked out fine. We did have some congestion at the Bryce Canyon Inn when four Teslas were there for only two HPWC, but they each put out 48A+ and so we were able to make it work. Interestingly, the Inn's owner told me that he's already wired to add 2-4 more HPWC but has had trouble getting Tesla to get back to him with additional HPWC. I fired off an email to the Charging Partners folks at Tesla to request they hook him up. (Note that any Tesla owner can do so here. Fill out the 'Suggest a Charging Site' section and select 'Tesla Owner' as the contact type. If you stay at a destination charging location and think it's a good one in need of expansion, see if the property owner is willing to expand and if so send in a good word to Tesla as an owner. Also--thank property owners for participating and let them know that you chose their business in part due to their support of EVs.)
We also made much less use of abetterrouteplanner this time. I did use it each morning to sanity-check my plan for the day in order to make sure I was not over-reaching with our trip plans. However, the in-car Energy app estimates seem to have gotten better (or this trip's specific landscape was more amenable to Tesla's algorithm). Tesla still tended to have an initial % remaining estimate that dropped a few points as we drove, but it stabilized fairly quickly and was never off by a lot, even though prevailing speeds were... solid.
Utah is gorgeous--if you're looking for a good road trip, you can do far worse than this trip. From Denver, we hit:
-Canyons of the Ancients National Monument
-Hovenweep National Monument
-Natural Bridges National Monument
-Four Corners
-Rainbow Bridge National Monument (via Lake Powell)
-Cedar Breaks National Monument
-Bryce Canyon National Park
-Capitol Reef National Park
-Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
If you had more time than us, say a full two weeks, there's far more to explore in this area:
-Zion NP
-Arches NP
-Canyonlands NP
-Bears Ears NM
-Several state parks
Some stats:
-3,539 total miles driven between the two cars
-978.5 kWh used
-276 Wh/mi average (includes a 3 and an X)
Quick selection of some of the more fun roads:
Destination charging in Durango, CO:
Visiting Natural Bridges National Monument:
Arriving in Tropic, UT:
Outside of a slot canyon near Boulder, UT:
More park fun:
Shot of the X's trip results after returning home.
Our route out of Denver (clockwise):
This was an interesting trip, given that we wouldn't hit a single interstate road until the last two days of the trip. For the first six, we'd be on smaller roads, and therefore Supercharger access would be much less routine compared to a 'normal' trip like my last one linked above. We'd therefore be more reliant on destination charging, which can be risky since most lodging options have only 2 or 4 HPWC plugs, often load-shared. Arriving with two LR Teslas meant we'd either need two plugs all night (if load-sharing) or one plug and a late-night car swap.
All worked out fine. We did have some congestion at the Bryce Canyon Inn when four Teslas were there for only two HPWC, but they each put out 48A+ and so we were able to make it work. Interestingly, the Inn's owner told me that he's already wired to add 2-4 more HPWC but has had trouble getting Tesla to get back to him with additional HPWC. I fired off an email to the Charging Partners folks at Tesla to request they hook him up. (Note that any Tesla owner can do so here. Fill out the 'Suggest a Charging Site' section and select 'Tesla Owner' as the contact type. If you stay at a destination charging location and think it's a good one in need of expansion, see if the property owner is willing to expand and if so send in a good word to Tesla as an owner. Also--thank property owners for participating and let them know that you chose their business in part due to their support of EVs.)
We also made much less use of abetterrouteplanner this time. I did use it each morning to sanity-check my plan for the day in order to make sure I was not over-reaching with our trip plans. However, the in-car Energy app estimates seem to have gotten better (or this trip's specific landscape was more amenable to Tesla's algorithm). Tesla still tended to have an initial % remaining estimate that dropped a few points as we drove, but it stabilized fairly quickly and was never off by a lot, even though prevailing speeds were... solid.
Utah is gorgeous--if you're looking for a good road trip, you can do far worse than this trip. From Denver, we hit:
-Canyons of the Ancients National Monument
-Hovenweep National Monument
-Natural Bridges National Monument
-Four Corners
-Rainbow Bridge National Monument (via Lake Powell)
-Cedar Breaks National Monument
-Bryce Canyon National Park
-Capitol Reef National Park
-Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
If you had more time than us, say a full two weeks, there's far more to explore in this area:
-Zion NP
-Arches NP
-Canyonlands NP
-Bears Ears NM
-Several state parks
Some stats:
-3,539 total miles driven between the two cars
-978.5 kWh used
-276 Wh/mi average (includes a 3 and an X)
Quick selection of some of the more fun roads:
Destination charging in Durango, CO:
Visiting Natural Bridges National Monument:
Arriving in Tropic, UT:
Outside of a slot canyon near Boulder, UT:
More park fun:
Shot of the X's trip results after returning home.
