Due to some unfortunate turn of events I had to drive AMS-BCN-AMS in 3 days, the BCN-AMS with wife and two very young kids and I have to say Model S 85 (6.1 fw) came out with flying colors.
All in all, we made 15 supercharger visits and one CHAdeMO visit (at BCN). Overall it was a great stress-free trip but there were some moments of suspense:
a. We had a short turnaround time at BCN and had calculated that the B:SM car park next to our rented place would charge like in AMS, 50 km/h. It turned out to be 16 km/h which caused some anxiety before the Tesla team in Spain came to the rescue and informed us that the street charging points in BCN have CHAdeMO chargers and even though the instructions mention use of a card (even the city officials maintain the need for card over phone), it actually is not needed (interesting security implications, especially since Tesla need a CHAdeMO adapter.....). That got me 150 km/h charge and we were able to leave on time.
b. Don't remember which stretch it was, most likely between the Orange and Vienne Superchargers, even though we had charged an extra 100 km more that the rated km distance, somewhere towards the mid of the journey we experienced very strong winds, which in combinations with the up-down nature of the French highways in that side of the country was eating up the buffer very very rapidly. Range anxiety set in, especially since it was in the dead of the night. We had to turn on Range Mode and suffer a bit of the cold but the mode made a big difference and we reached with around 60 km to spare.
Couple of points to keep in mind if you are doing something similar:
1. Keep enough buffer, around 100 km.
2. Driving around 120 km/h seems to be the best with range-time consideration
3. Better to not charge the batteries up fully as it is quicker to charge from 0-80% than from say 20-90%
4. Strong winds can bring down the range much more than up-down road
5. Superchargers are a bit harder to get to if situated next to hotels and it is the middle of the night since they close the gates. A simple intercom call is usually enough to get them opened.
6. Superchargers near supermarkets/open spaces are eerie in the dead of the night
7. You will be fine!
All in all, we made 15 supercharger visits and one CHAdeMO visit (at BCN). Overall it was a great stress-free trip but there were some moments of suspense:
a. We had a short turnaround time at BCN and had calculated that the B:SM car park next to our rented place would charge like in AMS, 50 km/h. It turned out to be 16 km/h which caused some anxiety before the Tesla team in Spain came to the rescue and informed us that the street charging points in BCN have CHAdeMO chargers and even though the instructions mention use of a card (even the city officials maintain the need for card over phone), it actually is not needed (interesting security implications, especially since Tesla need a CHAdeMO adapter.....). That got me 150 km/h charge and we were able to leave on time.
b. Don't remember which stretch it was, most likely between the Orange and Vienne Superchargers, even though we had charged an extra 100 km more that the rated km distance, somewhere towards the mid of the journey we experienced very strong winds, which in combinations with the up-down nature of the French highways in that side of the country was eating up the buffer very very rapidly. Range anxiety set in, especially since it was in the dead of the night. We had to turn on Range Mode and suffer a bit of the cold but the mode made a big difference and we reached with around 60 km to spare.
Couple of points to keep in mind if you are doing something similar:
1. Keep enough buffer, around 100 km.
2. Driving around 120 km/h seems to be the best with range-time consideration
3. Better to not charge the batteries up fully as it is quicker to charge from 0-80% than from say 20-90%
4. Strong winds can bring down the range much more than up-down road
5. Superchargers are a bit harder to get to if situated next to hotels and it is the middle of the night since they close the gates. A simple intercom call is usually enough to get them opened.
6. Superchargers near supermarkets/open spaces are eerie in the dead of the night
7. You will be fine!
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