Coming back to this article....
When I first looked at the "analysis", I was still in the order queue waiting for my LRMY to show up. I got it on November 5th and after a few months of ownership, I can provide my experience as a "mostly home charger". I thought this might be useful for others that are still waiting for their car and wondering if there were any grains of truth in that article.
1) I've used the Tesla Supercharger network a total of 7 times in those 3 months. Once was for about 2 minutes just to test that it worked. The other 6 were for a 500 mile (each way) road trip where I had to stop 3 times each way. I was fortunate to be able to participate in the 1000 miles referral program, so I don't know what the cost would have been if it weren't free. However, the 5 of the 6 stops were no more than 1 mile out of the way. One was likely 10 miles out of the way as I got rerouted at the last second. Generally, charging time was around 20-30 minutes, but because the SuperChargers were at rest stops, we were generally using that time anyhow. My guess is that after the coffee and bathroom break, I had to wait an additional 5 minutes for the car to finish charging. In an ICE car, I would have used the same 5 minutes while I pumped the gas. BTW, it's also quite possible that I didn't really need to wait those 5 minutes and I could have made it to the next charging stop with just a lower charge when I got there. It was my first (and only) long distance road trip, so I was being conservative with making sure I had enough battery.
2) Other than that road trip, the only times that I use outside chargers is if I happen to be at a place that has ChargePoint and it's free. I've taken advantage of that 4 times. Note that even though it is free, the "analysis" would charge me some exorbitant fee instead as supposedly my property taxes were paying for that. Ironically, the places were I got the free charges were not in my home state.
3) The rest of my charging has been at home. I timed it, and it takes 13 seconds for me to connect and another 15 to disconnect the charger and wrap the cord onto the holder. So, let's call it 30 seconds total for the connect/disconnect cycle. My charger is mounted on the passenger side of the car, so even that 30 seconds is likely longer than it would take people who mount their charger on the driver's side of the car. I don't see how it's anywhere near possible that it takes the author 5 minutes to do the same.
4) Also, while I typically charge every day, I certainly don't have to. I'd guess that I could charge once every 5 days and be fine. So, if you figure 30 seconds times 6 charges per month, it comes up to 3 minutes total amount of time used for charging the car during the entire month. Meanwhile, I used far more time than that to go to the gas station once to get a gallon of gas for a snowblower.
When I first looked at the "analysis", I was still in the order queue waiting for my LRMY to show up. I got it on November 5th and after a few months of ownership, I can provide my experience as a "mostly home charger". I thought this might be useful for others that are still waiting for their car and wondering if there were any grains of truth in that article.
1) I've used the Tesla Supercharger network a total of 7 times in those 3 months. Once was for about 2 minutes just to test that it worked. The other 6 were for a 500 mile (each way) road trip where I had to stop 3 times each way. I was fortunate to be able to participate in the 1000 miles referral program, so I don't know what the cost would have been if it weren't free. However, the 5 of the 6 stops were no more than 1 mile out of the way. One was likely 10 miles out of the way as I got rerouted at the last second. Generally, charging time was around 20-30 minutes, but because the SuperChargers were at rest stops, we were generally using that time anyhow. My guess is that after the coffee and bathroom break, I had to wait an additional 5 minutes for the car to finish charging. In an ICE car, I would have used the same 5 minutes while I pumped the gas. BTW, it's also quite possible that I didn't really need to wait those 5 minutes and I could have made it to the next charging stop with just a lower charge when I got there. It was my first (and only) long distance road trip, so I was being conservative with making sure I had enough battery.
2) Other than that road trip, the only times that I use outside chargers is if I happen to be at a place that has ChargePoint and it's free. I've taken advantage of that 4 times. Note that even though it is free, the "analysis" would charge me some exorbitant fee instead as supposedly my property taxes were paying for that. Ironically, the places were I got the free charges were not in my home state.
3) The rest of my charging has been at home. I timed it, and it takes 13 seconds for me to connect and another 15 to disconnect the charger and wrap the cord onto the holder. So, let's call it 30 seconds total for the connect/disconnect cycle. My charger is mounted on the passenger side of the car, so even that 30 seconds is likely longer than it would take people who mount their charger on the driver's side of the car. I don't see how it's anywhere near possible that it takes the author 5 minutes to do the same.
4) Also, while I typically charge every day, I certainly don't have to. I'd guess that I could charge once every 5 days and be fine. So, if you figure 30 seconds times 6 charges per month, it comes up to 3 minutes total amount of time used for charging the car during the entire month. Meanwhile, I used far more time than that to go to the gas station once to get a gallon of gas for a snowblower.
