Road Trip(s): East Bay to Lake Tahoe Alright I've now made two trips from Hayward to Tahoma (west shore Lake Tahoe near Homewood, 10 minutes outside of Tahoe City, 35 minutes from 50/89 Y). First trip up I took HWY 50 to charge up at Folsom SC station. Pleasantly surprised with easy access to the SC, good shopping and decent food options around. Then crossed over to 80 through Folsom. Even popped in the Rocklin store. Not a lot of action over there but it's a nice big store. Stats: 309 Rated Range to travel 245 Actual Miles. Coming back took HWY 89 to 50 all the way. Stats: 215 Rated Range to travel 230 Actual Miles Second trip took HWY 50 all the way up. States: 334 Rated Range to travel 222 Actual Miles Took HWY 80 all the way back with no charge. States: 207 Rated Range to travel 221 Actual Miles Traffic flow was good both trips. Probably to no ones surprise charging at Folsom is a must going up. On average it took us an hour to fill up and only one other Tesla was charging. Keep an eye on the wife or she'll go crazy shopping at the outlets. Coming back shouldn't require a charge for most bay area residence. See my Facebook for pics: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1385705828330213.1073741826.1384835111750618&type=3
Plan to make another trip to Tahoe. This time going with factory 19" wheels. I wonder if that and/or the cold climate will make a difference.
thanks for the update. maybe on your next trip the Vacaville station will be open. Do you think the 19" tires will make that big of a difference?
I was at the Vacaville station on Dec 14, 2013 and it was still under construction. Will be going by there on Dec 22 again so I'll see what the stat is on that day.
I'm not sure if I can make it to Lake Tahoe charging at Vacaville instead of Folsom. But I'll probably give it a try. It would be nice not having to cross over from 50 to 80. This was my fourth trip to Tahoe. The cold weather seem to suck about 10% more energy. We tried not to use the heater that much.
By the way, there is a free charger at Squaw at the Far East building. If you have the Plugshare app, search for Squaw Valley Far East Center. Two of the pictures are of my dark blue Tesla in the summer. The clean one.
A couple of months ago I picked up a set of 19's from a local fellow Tesla owner. Figured it's good to have a back up set. And since the rear (21") tires are in need of replacement I decided to swith them out for a short time. The highways were 100% free of snow so I didn't need chains. Around town there were some light icing on the ground. To be honest I probably will never drive the car up there if the roads are questionable. We have a SUV and a Wrangler, so why put the wear on the Tesla (salt, paint, etc). Even with no snow, it took a while to get her clean.
I drove my car up to Washington last week and it went well even with the 21". Not sure if I was cutting it close. http://instagram.com/p/h_e6nBMDF9/ http://instagram.com/p/iC43HSMDDE/