Charging during holiday travel

[TexasEV]

All this talk about Plugshare, dryer outlets, RV parks, etc. may be scaring off new or potential owners unnecessarily. You have a 310 mile range car, and this is 2018, not 2013. With the massive expansion of the supercharger network since then, it’s highly unlikely that anyone would need to resort to any of the above measures on a road trip. Sure, if you’re staying at a family member’s house it would be nice to plug into the 120V outlet in the garage to pick up an easy 40 miles overnight or 90 miles in 24 hrs, but you’re not going to need to think about extension cords to their dryer outlet. If you’re staying at a hotel it’s a time saver to pick one that has Tesla destination charging, but you’re not going to need to look for a J1772 to charge at for a few hours while you do who knows what.

I drove a 208 mile range Tesla halfway across the country in 2014, and a 310 mile one on the same route in 2018, and the latter was an entirely different experience.

 

[Silicon Desert]

If you're staying mainly to interstate routes that have Supercharger coverage, then you don't really need to do much preparing or planning for other kinds of charging if you don't want. Superchargers are going to be at least 7 to 10 times faster than most other kinds of charging, so it's usually not worth messing with other kinds unless something does happen to be really convenient next to where you are going to park overnight anyway. I did a 5,332 mile trip in 11 days in February this year, and I didn't even bother to plan what cities I was going to stop in. I would just get up, see how far I wanted to go that day, round it off to the nearest city with a Supercharger, and then book an AirBNB room in that city. Easy enough.

It was February, though, so here's a tip for the cold. If you aren't going to be charging overnight, you want to head to the Supercharger when you get to the city in the evening to at least do most of a charge while your battery is still warm, rather than just planning to do your recharging in the morning. Sitting out in the cold overnight below freezing will put a serious limitation on your charging speed in the morning. You'll get to the Supercharger, and the car will be warming itself for a half hour or more before ramping up to significant charging speed.

Amen. This sounds like exactly what I did on my coast to coast trips. (10,000 miles) and never thought once about anything but a supercharger.

 

[Petrlol]

Off the general topic, but you factor in cold weather and there are many places that are ~125 miles away that makes a round trip a pain. I live near a super charger, a 125mi one way trip to my in-laws and back is going to leave me near empty when its 35deg outside.

Tesla recommends I drive an hour further south charge for 45 minutes then drive nearly 3 hours home.

 

[TexasEV]

Off the general topic, but you factor in cold weather and there are many places that are ~125 miles away that makes a round trip a pain. I live near a super charger, a 125mi one way trip to my in-laws and back is going to leave me near empty when its 35deg outside.

In that situation you should consider installing a NEMA 14-50 outlet in their garage.

 

[wws]

If you are staying with a friend or relative, have them send a photo of the receptacles. Then you'll know which UMC adapter you'll need. Also if they only have a 120v receptacle, see if it is a 20 amp 5-20. (Has a T-shaped slot on one of the blade openings.) If so, the 5-20 adapter will give a significant bump to using the lowly 5-15 adapter that comes with the car.

 

[longshadows]

Thanks, everyone, for your helpful and interesting thoughts on this situation.