My family of 5 went on an epic road trip in our Tesla over the Christmas break and I got a lot of questions from friends and family about it because there are some elements that are a significant paradigm shift from driving a gasoline vehicle. The #1 question I get asked is “How long does it take to charge?” which is a difficult question to answer quickly, so I decided to create a series of videos going over the details of how well our used/CPO 2015 Tesla Model S 85D performs on this 5,883 mile winter cross country road trip from Salt Lake City, UT to Orlando, FL with my young family. My goal in creating these videos is to educate Tesla owners on what their vehicles are capable of, and prospective Tesla owners what they can expect out of their future Tesla (at least as much as I can show with the somewhat outdated Model S 85D) and any limitations we run into. In each video I also review our TeslaFi.com data logs to show detailed data around vehicle performance driving and charging. To see my videos go to this URL Our 5,883 Mile Tesla Family Road Trip from Utah to Florida - YouTube
Over those 5,883 miles our Tesla consumed 2,068 kWh of electricity) over 16 days. We were in 11 different states, (including 4 corners and Texarkana border) went to an Atlantic coast beach and gulf coast beach, stayed 5 nights in 5 hotels and 10 nights in 4 friends/families houses. We charged at 39 different Tesla Superchargers, 3 hotels and 4 friends/families homes and we charged from 6 different types of electrical outlets (Supercharger, NEMA 10-30, NEMA 14-30, NEMA 14-50, NEMA 5-15, J1772) and spent $0 on that electricity (Our Model S has free unlimited supercharging and we offered to friends/family to pay but they were all just happy to have us visit and covered that minimal cost. The electricity cost would have been an estimated $358 according to ABetterRoutePlanner.com if we had paid and only charged at superchargers). We toured the USS Alabama battleship and submarine and saw lots of old airplanes in the museum. We visited the Wild Florida zoo & outdoor safari and had lots of fun collecting shells or other random things on the beaches. We went on a kid friendly hike in Phoenix, AZ and had lots of time to visit with family and friends everywhere we went. Overall it was a successful trip worth doing, but a bit on the long side from my wife and kids perspective...I never got tired of driving our Tesla though!
Before and after the trip we didn't have to do any trip related maintenance to our Tesla although we happened to install new tires (Continental ExtremeContact DWS06) 1 month prior to the trip and the trip was an entire tire rotation interval covered by Discount Tire as included in their service policy. The tire measurement prior to the trip was 10/32 and afterward it was 9/32 on all four tires. If you replace tires at 4/32 tread depth per manufacturers safety recommendation then this trip consumed 1/6th of the tread life of the tires. Which assuming similar wear going forward (highway miles which isn't going to be the case) the tires could last about 36,000 miles at this rate. Considering these tires have a 50,000 mile warranty I may be collecting on that warranty when these tires need to be replaced. Take away; Teslas are heavy and have a lot of torque which wears tires out faster than equivalent gasoline vehicles. For what it's worth we did very few full accelerations on this entire trip while giving friends and family on test drives or regular driving.
I hope you gain some insights from this post, and my YouTube videos, and if you have any feedback for me in editing the next videos as I continue to document our journey feel free to comment here or in the YouTube video comments.
Over those 5,883 miles our Tesla consumed 2,068 kWh of electricity) over 16 days. We were in 11 different states, (including 4 corners and Texarkana border) went to an Atlantic coast beach and gulf coast beach, stayed 5 nights in 5 hotels and 10 nights in 4 friends/families houses. We charged at 39 different Tesla Superchargers, 3 hotels and 4 friends/families homes and we charged from 6 different types of electrical outlets (Supercharger, NEMA 10-30, NEMA 14-30, NEMA 14-50, NEMA 5-15, J1772) and spent $0 on that electricity (Our Model S has free unlimited supercharging and we offered to friends/family to pay but they were all just happy to have us visit and covered that minimal cost. The electricity cost would have been an estimated $358 according to ABetterRoutePlanner.com if we had paid and only charged at superchargers). We toured the USS Alabama battleship and submarine and saw lots of old airplanes in the museum. We visited the Wild Florida zoo & outdoor safari and had lots of fun collecting shells or other random things on the beaches. We went on a kid friendly hike in Phoenix, AZ and had lots of time to visit with family and friends everywhere we went. Overall it was a successful trip worth doing, but a bit on the long side from my wife and kids perspective...I never got tired of driving our Tesla though!
Before and after the trip we didn't have to do any trip related maintenance to our Tesla although we happened to install new tires (Continental ExtremeContact DWS06) 1 month prior to the trip and the trip was an entire tire rotation interval covered by Discount Tire as included in their service policy. The tire measurement prior to the trip was 10/32 and afterward it was 9/32 on all four tires. If you replace tires at 4/32 tread depth per manufacturers safety recommendation then this trip consumed 1/6th of the tread life of the tires. Which assuming similar wear going forward (highway miles which isn't going to be the case) the tires could last about 36,000 miles at this rate. Considering these tires have a 50,000 mile warranty I may be collecting on that warranty when these tires need to be replaced. Take away; Teslas are heavy and have a lot of torque which wears tires out faster than equivalent gasoline vehicles. For what it's worth we did very few full accelerations on this entire trip while giving friends and family on test drives or regular driving.
I hope you gain some insights from this post, and my YouTube videos, and if you have any feedback for me in editing the next videos as I continue to document our journey feel free to comment here or in the YouTube video comments.
