On Saturday morning I left home in Bavaria and headed east deep into Czech. I learned a few things in the process.
East of Prague Tesla Superchargers are a bit thin on the ground. I'd figured I'd top off around Prague (Vestec) and hope to have enough to make it to Hradec Kralove and back, as a contingency I knew there were generic CCS chargers in Hradec Kralove.
Charging was slow at Vestec and when I realized I was going to be late for my first appointment I started to floor the accelerator. I made my appointment but at the end of it I realized I needed to find a CSS charger.
I found a charger with a Model S plugged in and charging. I downloaded an App, (which took about 15mins without WiFi) from Poltfazer Direct, entered card details and waited. The enable button came up but no charge! Several attempts later, still no charge. No one answered the help line.
I went back to my hotel, which didn't offer Destination charging and asked for somewhere to plug in. I carry a long extension cable along with my Tesla supplied charging unit.
I was able to plug into a standard 220v outlet and watched with some relief as she started to charge at around 10amps. I wandered across the town square to a restaurant and had just started to eat when the Tesla App pinged to tell me charging had stopped. When I got back to the car I discovered that the circuit breaker had popped on my extension cable. I reset it, reduced the charging current and waited to see if it would trip again. It did, and a couple more times until finally, charging at about 7amps, it seemed stable. I only had needed about 2 metres of cable but instead I had a 20metre extension cable with CB protection!
By morning I had about 220km range, enough to get to the Tesla Supercharger at Humpolec, and I had time to get there and back before my next appointment at 14:00 in Pardubice. I decided to check another CSS charger from the same company. This time, after scanning the barcode the thing kicked into life first time. I left it to top to 90%, much relieved and went for coffee. Perhaps overnight the server had enabled my new account.
The CSS charger was a little slower than a Tesla Supercharger and it took about an hour to get to 90%. I was then comfortably able to get back to Vestec, south of Prague and replenish. One more stop at Wernberg-Koblitz in Bavaria and I then I was home.
Lessons learned:
Try and pick a hotel with a Tesla destination charger and charge at 16Amps.
Carry an additional, short 220vAC extension cable without a circuit breaker.
East of Prague Tesla Superchargers are a bit thin on the ground. I'd figured I'd top off around Prague (Vestec) and hope to have enough to make it to Hradec Kralove and back, as a contingency I knew there were generic CCS chargers in Hradec Kralove.
Charging was slow at Vestec and when I realized I was going to be late for my first appointment I started to floor the accelerator. I made my appointment but at the end of it I realized I needed to find a CSS charger.
I found a charger with a Model S plugged in and charging. I downloaded an App, (which took about 15mins without WiFi) from Poltfazer Direct, entered card details and waited. The enable button came up but no charge! Several attempts later, still no charge. No one answered the help line.
I went back to my hotel, which didn't offer Destination charging and asked for somewhere to plug in. I carry a long extension cable along with my Tesla supplied charging unit.
I was able to plug into a standard 220v outlet and watched with some relief as she started to charge at around 10amps. I wandered across the town square to a restaurant and had just started to eat when the Tesla App pinged to tell me charging had stopped. When I got back to the car I discovered that the circuit breaker had popped on my extension cable. I reset it, reduced the charging current and waited to see if it would trip again. It did, and a couple more times until finally, charging at about 7amps, it seemed stable. I only had needed about 2 metres of cable but instead I had a 20metre extension cable with CB protection!
By morning I had about 220km range, enough to get to the Tesla Supercharger at Humpolec, and I had time to get there and back before my next appointment at 14:00 in Pardubice. I decided to check another CSS charger from the same company. This time, after scanning the barcode the thing kicked into life first time. I left it to top to 90%, much relieved and went for coffee. Perhaps overnight the server had enabled my new account.
The CSS charger was a little slower than a Tesla Supercharger and it took about an hour to get to 90%. I was then comfortably able to get back to Vestec, south of Prague and replenish. One more stop at Wernberg-Koblitz in Bavaria and I then I was home.
Lessons learned:
Try and pick a hotel with a Tesla destination charger and charge at 16Amps.
Carry an additional, short 220vAC extension cable without a circuit breaker.
Last edited:
