Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

Cost to drive a RWD Model 3 on a road trip

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
I recorded the following on a road trip from Alpharetta, NY to Sayre, PA to Ogdensburg, NY. I then spent days driving around northern NY, before leaving to drive back to Alpharetta, NY.
  • All driving was done at roughly 5-7 MPH over the speed limit, and AC was set to 72.
  • I drove as I'd drive any car, and no hypermiling techniques were applied.
  • My wife was with me for the first half of the trip, (she flew home early because she didn't have as much vacation time as me) and I drove home solo.
  • Weather was mostly good, with the exception of the Lexington, VA -> Hickory, NC -> Greenville, SC -> Alpharetta, GA leg, when there was a lot of heavy rain. That's why I stopped at the Greenville, SC supercharger for a few minutes out of paranoia.
  • I gave I don't know how many rides to people on the trip to show them the car, and my 26 year old son had a blast driving it to dinner. (The Erwin, NY supercharging was me showing him how supercharging worked.)
  • Stops for free charging at the hotel in Sayre, PA, a Chargepoint station in Ogdensburg, NY and using level one charging at my dad's house were not recorded.
After this trip I definitely agree that driving with EAP makes it much easier to go long distances without feeling tired. I wouldn't want to do it again, but the return trip from Ogdensburg, NY (pulled out of my parents' driveway at 4:43 AM) to Alpharetta, GA (plugged in at 1:19 AM) was done in one very long day.

Aside from trucks and slow drivers clogging up both lanes on I81 south in Virginia, I81 south being completely closed at mile marker 196 in Virginia due to an accident and the re-route adding an hour to the trip, and rain that was very, VERY heavy in VA, NC, SC, and GA, it was a very easy trip to do in one day.

TL;DR I drove 2,557 miles with my RWD 3, got home with 61 miles of range left, and supercharging cost me an average of $0.0303 per mile for the trip.

Screenshot 2018-08-04 at 10.30.16 AM.png


My apologies to any folks on the Facebook Tesla 3 group that saw me post the first half of this early this week. Sorry for the dupe to you folks.
 
Very nice.

But those included some free charging. How much more would it have been if you had to pay for everything at a supercharger?

There wasn't much charging for free. I left my 3 on the Chargepoint level 2 charger for about 3 hours, and I did level 1 charging at my dad's house for maybe a 18-24 hours total during the time I was there. If I had to guess how much that free charging added, maybe $10-15 worth of Supercharging.