Farthest road trips from So Cal (OC, LA, SD, IE areas).

[JetFalcon]

I am just wondering what is the farthest some Tesla owners have gone? I heard some states have very few, some non at all. But I'm not too worried nor would it have affected my buying decision since living in So Cal is much easier to own a Tesla. Since there are supercharging stations within most day trip type of travels like me going from OC to LA, SD, Santa Barbara. When it comes to day trips starting in Lake Forest CA, I feel the only day trips I need to charge up for are San Diego ones sometimes (if I add up local driving), Santa Barbara for sure. I've done snowboard trips to mt high and that's close enough to do round trip no charging.

So far I think Santa Barbara and San Ysidro and Mt High are the farthest I've gone with the Tesla. I never tried national parks yet so I would like to know how to prepare for something like that and know if there are local EV charging stations within Yosemite or Grand Canyon, or any national park in CA or Utah. Since maybe that's a possible future destination. Plus would autopilot really come in handy when doing 8-10 hour long drives in middle of nowhere places?

But I want to know if anyone has encountered any problem when trying to push the Tesla to its limit when it comes to driving outside the So Cal area. Or if everything went smoothly? How long does it take to charge and would eating for 20-40 min be enough for charging? Just wondering if people had to wait to charge or were able to do it while doing another activity?

Plus has anyone ever forgot to charge a supercharging station? Maybe because you didn't turn the GPS on and assumed you knew how to get to your destination? And then realized you drove too much that you would not make any supercharging station back tracking or going any direction?

6 States Where You Can’t Charge a Tesla – 24/7 Wall St.
Six states have no Tesla Superchargers: Alaska, Arkansas, Hawaii, Mississippi, Nebraska and North Dakota.

 

[MyJoule]

Supercharge.info is your friend. Outside of CA, there are very few instances of people waiting to charge at a supercharger. The Grand Canyon actually has a 12 stall Supercharger. Also for trip planning in advance, just to understand where the chargers are and what a trip might look like, I've used abetterroutplanner.com and evtripplanner.com You'll have no problems going to most places- Just a few areas that can't be reached easily yet. I've traveled all over the country in my S. and a 3 has more range and charges faster

 

[Jedi2155]

I actually did a road trip from Diamond Bar to Utah/Arizona just a bit over a year ago (5/2 to 5/7/2019) on my 20" PS4S tires. It was quite the experience and a huge reason why I got a Tesla with AP. Being able to drive through the Nevada/Utah mountain ranges on autopilot and actually being able to observe my surroundings from time to time versus just paying attention to the road is AMAZING.

Here's my rough route.

I definitely suggest using ABRP to map your journey ahead of time and plan for destination chargers.
A Better Routeplanner

My biggest issue with the route was going from a hotel about 20 miles from Zion -> Byrce Canyon -> Page, AZ on the same charge with various elevation changes (no superchargers inbetween). Probably not an issue on an LR RWD or AWD on 18" aero wheels but definitely an issue with the 260-280 mile range of a P3D+. I ended up having to stop in Kanab, UT which had some destination chargers for about an hour before making it to the Page, AZ supercharger. Interesting locals....(lots of amish/type clothing).

 

[Zcd1]

I am just wondering what is the farthest some Tesla owners have gone? I heard some states have very few, some non at all....

6 States Where You Can’t Charge a Tesla – 24/7 Wall St.
Six states have no Tesla Superchargers: Alaska, Arkansas, Hawaii, Mississippi, Nebraska and North Dakota.

That link is from 2016 and though it says it’s been updated recently, it’s no longer accurate.

There currently are no Superchargers in Alaska and North Dakota. The other states listed all have Superchargers.

 

[MyJoule]

fwiw- according to supercharge.info there are 4 Superchargers under construction and 2 in planning/permting in North Dakota. Still no love for AK as far as I can tell

 

[Uncle Paul]

Just took a trip from San Diego, up 395 through Bishop to East gate of Yosemite.

Cruised through beautiful Yosemite and across to San Francisco.

Took spectacular Highway 1 down the coast and back home through Ojai.

Most amazing trip in my X.

Never had any range anxiety or issues finding convenient Superchargers.

Never had to wait in line or have any issues with any of the Superchargers.

Simply used the on board computer and display to plan my route and determine which Superchargers to use and how long to charge.

Did not cost me a dime for fuel.

I found the Supercharging stops to be welcome breaks from the usual druggery of long road trips. Feels good to get out of the car occasionally and stretch my legs. Taking time to smell the roses as it were.

 

[joebruin77]

In general, road trips are a pleasure. I have driven from LA to Vegas and LA to Big Sur. The only issue I ran into was while taking the scenic highway 1 along the coast leading up to Big Sur. Apparently, there is no cell service in this area and, as a result, the navigation "freaked out". It kept telling me to turn around and go back to the 101. It wanted me to go to Big Sur via Monterey. It was as if the navigation didn't even recognize highway 1 was an option. And I kept getting warnings that I would run out of battery before getting to my destination. Luckily, I did my homework in advance on abetterrouteplanner and I new that, in this one instance, the Tesla nav was wrong.

So my advice is that if you are driving through a desolate area away from a major highway or any other area where cell service may be nonexistent, plan out your route on abetterroutepalnner first and/or use the navigation on your cell phone as a backup. On our trip to Big Sur, the Tesla nav malfunctioned but the nav on my iPhone worked just fine. Not sure why, but the iPhone did work.

 

[Saghost]

Last summer I took my then two week old Raven on a three week, 7k road trip from Delaware back to the California factory by way of Kentucky and the Colorado Rockies.

It was easy - the only time I was nervous was when the Utah higher speed limits and a big headwind ate my reserve. Slowing down fixed it - and I learned more about the adaptive nature of the prediction when I lost half my reserve on the next leg because it expected me to stay slowed down.

 

[Big Earl]

6 States Where You Can’t Charge a Tesla – 24/7 Wall St.
Six states have no Tesla Superchargers: Alaska, Arkansas, Hawaii, Mississippi, Nebraska and North Dakota.

That's a super old link. The only states without active Superchargers as of today are Alaska, Hawaii and North Dakota.

• Tesla is planning its first Supercharger in Alaska - Anchorage.
• Arkansas has two Superchargers with five more planned.
• Hawaii has three Superchargers planned - two on Oahu and one on Maui.
• Mississippi has six Superchargers.
• Nebraska has five Superchargers across Interstate 80.
• North Dakota has four Superchargers under construction across Interstate 94 with two more permitted on Interstate 29 up to Canada.

We've put 58,000 miles on our Model 3 in just under two years of ownership including extensive travel in New England, the mid-west, the plains and the south. We have a 7,000 mile coast-to-coast-to-coast road trip planned for this coming Friday. We'll cannonball most of the way to avoid staying at hotels as much as possible. Right now I have two overnight stops planned for the 3,300 mile drive to the Pacific Northwest. I haven't planned the trip home yet.

Long story short, you really don't have anything to worry about, particularly in California. Check out the links below for up-to-date information on the Supercharger network.

supercharge.info
Find Us | Tesla
A Better Routeplanner

 

[Uncle Paul]

Highway one has been having lots of road construction and road closures due to past heavy rains and rock slides. Believe it took that into consideration when suggesting turning around and looping over to 101.
I consider the navigation systems (not just Tesla's) be be only advisory. I take their suggested courses with a grain of salt and have no problems choosing alternative routes if if better fits my objectives. (99% of the time it has given good advise to me )

 

[Big Earl]

Highway one has been having lots of road construction and road closures due to past heavy rains and rock slides. Believe it took that into consideration when suggesting turning around and looping over to 101.
I consider the navigation systems (not just Tesla's) be be only advisory. I take their suggested courses with a grain of salt and have no problems choosing alternative routes if if better fits my objectives. (99% of the time it has given good advise to me )

Good advice. Tesla's navigation does not always account for road closures and detours. It's best to use additional tools like Waze and Google Maps for in-depth route planning, especially if a leg of your journey is cutting it close on range.

 

[SSonnentag]

No issues in over 77,000 miles. Road trips are awesome!

 

[roblab]

In the first month after we bought our first Tesla we drove to Washington State from the Frisco bay area. No drama. And there were NO Superchargers anywhere at that point. Amazing that eight years later new owners are worried that they might run out of charge on a little day trip! And they even have superchargers showing up on the center screen!

 

[SanDiegoM3]

I’ve done San Diego to Big Sur, Yosemite, Kanab Utah, Zion, and I’ll do more I’m sure. You should have no trouble with Yosemite with a supercharger right outside the park.
Utah could get dicey if you don’t plan correctly.

 

[Zaxxon]

No issues here, either!

As you can see, I've even pushed the car to the middle of North Dakota, charging desert that it is. In addition to this map, I took a trip to Fremont in my friend's Model 3. Also no issues. With a little planning from Supercharge.info and/or abetterrouteplanner.com, you can go anywhere. If you're keeping to interstates and aren't going to ND, you really don't even have to think about it.

That said, southern Utah is beautiful and doable without too much worry if you use destination chargers.

If you want more details on my experiences, here's one road trip writeup of mine (Fremont), and another (Utah).

 

[Uncle Paul]

Thanks to all the early Tesla pioneers that showed that clean, all electric travel was possible, even with small batteries and little dedicated charging opportunities.

Lots of stories of charging in campgrounds, welding shops, friends dryer sockets, and even overnights plugged into little 120V sockets. They were clever, resiliant and inventive in their ways.

 

[mtndrew1]

I’ve taken mine to Northern California, Portland Oregon, the Grand Canyon, Phoenix, Tucson, and Bisbee Arizona.

Great road trip car and with very little planning the supercharger and destination charger network make it easy.

 

[Gizmo35]

Last December I went from San Diego to Phoenix AZ. The hotel had destination chargers. From there I went to the Grand Canyon South Rim. They have destination chargers at the park and there are Super chargers a few miles down the road from the entrance. No issues during the trip. It was a very pleasurable way to travel. I do want to plan a trip from San Diego up to San Francisco.

 

[joebruin77]

Highway one has been having lots of road construction and road closures due to past heavy rains and rock slides. Believe it took that into consideration when suggesting turning around and looping over to 101.

I appreciate the thought, but no. This was not a simple case of the nav seeing a road closure and tellng me to go around it. This trip was well past the rains and the highway was indeed open. Somewhere north of Cambria, the nav went "cafluey" and the entire map went blank. Not only did the roads disappear from the map, the entire screen was blank and became a solid grey color. It was as if the nav was completely blind. My wife and I were joking that if we followed the actual directions the nav was telling us, we would have driven into the Pacific Ocean. The nav did come back once we were close to Big Sur and, I am guessing, back in range of a cell tower.

Shortly after this happened, I posted about it on TMC and other drivers reported similar experiences when driving through areas with no cell reception.

Just something to be aware of when planning trips, esp in areas with no cell coverage.

 

[Zaxxon]

That is strange, as the map tiles are dependent on connectivity but the directions are not. In other words if you lose reception the actual directions don't get lost or inaccuratre. Bizarre.