A friend and I just completed a Tesla-centric road trip last night--arriving home at a minute to midnight after enduring blizzard conditions over Vail Pass on I-70 heading back home. Here is a recap of the trip.
Tl;dr - The Model 3 was phenomenal the whole way, making what would have been an exhausting trip in any other vehicle--and a literally impossible trip in any non-Tesla EV--a blast.
The Trip
We left Denver around noon on Wednesday in my friend's P3D, heading north to Wyoming.
Thursday we checked out the Salt Lake City Tesla store, which has a bank of Superchargers on the lot. We continued onward, hitting up the Gigafactory--or trying to. Turns out that (as expected) there's no public access, and 'we're Tesla fans and would love to see even just the lobby' is not deemed a valid reason to approach. We ended Thursday in Truckee, CA, near Tahoe.
Using A Better Route Planner to manage a trip leg on the car's display
Friday morning we continued on to the Fremont factory, and took an afternoon tour. I can't talk about specifics due to the NDA, but in general terms: the factory employees were very friendly, waving and smiling at us on the tram while we navigated their work areas. I'm sure they're encouraged to act upbeat and be nice, but they did seem genuine. The factory tour is something I'd recommend any Tesla owner take if you find yourself planning to travel to the Bay area.
The Factory and my tour badge:
Saturday was down to LA to check out the Tesla Design Center and SpaceX HQ in Hawthorne. Did not catch a Model Y prototype or break into the top-secret area to get a gander at the pickup, but it was still a fun stop. There's a Supercharger monitor in the lobby that shows the current # of vehicles charging and where, along with totals for total system lifetime kWh delivered, miles enabled, and gallons of gasoline saved. It periodically zooms into random stations and gives further details, like # of stalls currently in use, total site consumption, etc. Tesla security asked me not to photograph it, so I did not. We also got to stand with the first successfully-recovered Falcon 9 and see the Hawthorne Hyperloop pod competition test track and Boring Company test tunnel.
SpaceX's HQ intersection on Rocket Rd, the first recovered Falcon 9, and Tesla Model S security vehicles at SpaceX
Saturday night we spent in Vegas as it was right along our route back home, and Sunday was a long but direct trip back to the Denver area.
Our route:
Some Stats (thanks, TeslaFi!)
Trip stats
Some Observations
I highly recommend road tripping in a Tesla.
Tl;dr - The Model 3 was phenomenal the whole way, making what would have been an exhausting trip in any other vehicle--and a literally impossible trip in any non-Tesla EV--a blast.
The Trip
We left Denver around noon on Wednesday in my friend's P3D, heading north to Wyoming.
Thursday we checked out the Salt Lake City Tesla store, which has a bank of Superchargers on the lot. We continued onward, hitting up the Gigafactory--or trying to. Turns out that (as expected) there's no public access, and 'we're Tesla fans and would love to see even just the lobby' is not deemed a valid reason to approach. We ended Thursday in Truckee, CA, near Tahoe.
Using A Better Route Planner to manage a trip leg on the car's display
Friday morning we continued on to the Fremont factory, and took an afternoon tour. I can't talk about specifics due to the NDA, but in general terms: the factory employees were very friendly, waving and smiling at us on the tram while we navigated their work areas. I'm sure they're encouraged to act upbeat and be nice, but they did seem genuine. The factory tour is something I'd recommend any Tesla owner take if you find yourself planning to travel to the Bay area.
The Factory and my tour badge:
Saturday was down to LA to check out the Tesla Design Center and SpaceX HQ in Hawthorne. Did not catch a Model Y prototype or break into the top-secret area to get a gander at the pickup, but it was still a fun stop. There's a Supercharger monitor in the lobby that shows the current # of vehicles charging and where, along with totals for total system lifetime kWh delivered, miles enabled, and gallons of gasoline saved. It periodically zooms into random stations and gives further details, like # of stalls currently in use, total site consumption, etc. Tesla security asked me not to photograph it, so I did not. We also got to stand with the first successfully-recovered Falcon 9 and see the Hawthorne Hyperloop pod competition test track and Boring Company test tunnel.
SpaceX's HQ intersection on Rocket Rd, the first recovered Falcon 9, and Tesla Model S security vehicles at SpaceX
Saturday night we spent in Vegas as it was right along our route back home, and Sunday was a long but direct trip back to the Denver area.
Our route:
Some Stats (thanks, TeslaFi!)
- Time spent driving: 42.6 hours
- Time spent charging: 11.6 hours
- Drive/charge ratio: 79% (eg about 1 hour of charging for every 4 hours driving)
- 21 Supercharging stops, averaging 33 minutes. We used these breaks to have meals, grab snacks, use the restrooms, etc. As such, our total time spent sitting around waiting for charging to complete was about 30 minutes for the entire trip. Supercharging is a crazy-efficient use of time. We included no Destination charging hotels on this trip, so this should be an accurate representation of how easy it is to road trip in a Tesla when relying entirely on the Supercharger network for energy.
- 2,479 miles driven, 3,428 rated miles used, for about an 80% efficiency rating. 299 Wh/mi per the car's trip computer. Overall trip average temp was 51 degrees, and ranged from about 25F to 75F.
- 822 kWh consumed, which is the energy equivalent to 24.4 gallons of gasoline, or ~112.7 MPGe.
- Those efficiency stats seem pretty good to me, as this was a P3D (18" Aeros with covers on for the trip) on Interstate highways that have long stretches of 80 MPH limits with 85 MPH+ prevailing speeds. Probably 90%+ of the miles we traveled were on roads with 70 MPH or higher speed limits. The trip also included tens of thousands of feet of elevation gain and loss as we passed over the continental divide in both directions, plus the mountains of Utah and California. Plus whiteout blizzard conditions coming home over Vail Pass, which was... nerve-wracking.
Trip stats
Some Observations
- On long trips, especially condensed into a short period like this one was, Autopilot is worth its weight in gold. For all the complaints people (including myself) have raised about the system, it's virtually flawless on long interstate drives, and takes the vast majority of the stress out of the drive. Auto-lane change is a great addition to Autosteer, and largely did a good job on our trip.
- The Supercharger network remains a vastly under-appreciated competitive advantage for Tesla. As I mentioned above, we spent about 30 minutes (thirty minutes!) in total waiting for charging. Across a 4+ day, 2,749-mile trip. I've had good luck not waiting in the past, but generally travel with my kids and wasn't sure whether I was being too generous to the Supercharger system's effectiveness due to the slowness of my kiddos when we make a stop. But this trip was just two adult dudes, and we did not dawdle. We ate meals at a quick pace, made speedy restroom stops, and grabbed snacks for the road on some stops. Even given this, the car was ready to continue before we were on the large majority of our 21 stops. Could we have pushed ourselves to the point where we were waiting for charging more often? Sure. But it would not have been as enjoyable of a trip.
- Following on the prior point--no other manufacturer's EV could have made this trip in a reasonable time. None, and it's not even close. This is why I believe the Supercharger network is such an advantage. It's literally the only way to take this sort of trip in any EV, and that's not going to change anytime soon. Even if/when competition has sufficient network locations to complete the trip, it will be a long time additional to that before it's as convenient and fun as Tesla's. Being able to just have the nav calculate everything, pull up to a stall, plug in and walk away (without hassling with charge network payment/membership cards), then have the phone app ping us when we have enough charge for our specific trip's next leg is a level of integration that I don't expect from anyone else anytime in the near-to-medium term.
- This is the third road trip of > 1,500 miles I've taken in a Model 3. All three were similarly easy to make happen, with very little range anxiety. The only times I've had serious anxiety were on last summer's trip, which included a 280-mile single leg up to Medora, ND to see Teddy Roosevelt National Park (no Superchargers in ND yet, so we used an RV park adjacent to our hotel--rented an RV space and just parked there overnight using the UMC on a 14-50 outlet), and last night coming home when we didn't plan on adding 90 minutes and blizzard conditions to that leg (much heavier HVAC usage, much colder and less efficient weather than expected when we departed the prior Supercharger). In both cases, the car made it without any issues.
- The Kettleman City Supercharger seems like a proof-of-concept of what interstate fueling stops will look like in the future--40 stalls, a lounge, a barista (!), vending machines that included sandwiches, wi-fi, Tesla gear, windshield cleaning and tire-filling station, and a giant solar canopy and energy storage to aid in peak shaving. It's just a great execution of the post-gasoline rest stop.
I highly recommend road tripping in a Tesla.
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