Having picked up my Tesla Model 3 RWD in December, this week saw me make my first big trip in it… to my son’s wedding in London! To be honest, we usually travel by train when we visit, but as that option is pretty unreliable at the moment, and as we had a lot of stuff to take with us (including the wedding cake!) it had to be the car this time.
This was the first time I’d ever used the supercharger network in earnest, apart from a small test charge at the Trafford Centre a few weeks ago, and I was suitably impressed. We live in Lancashire and were 197 miles away from our London destination according to the in-car sat-nav. We were starting fully charged at 100%, so I was somewhat surprised that it suggested stopping at the Rugby Supercharger, by which time it thought I’d be at 18% charge. As it turned out, that prediction was way out - I actually arrived with about 40% charge, so topped up anyway to over 90%. I’d barely had time to sip the coffee I’d bought to drink alongside my picnic sandwiches before the car was telling me it was ready to go - very impressive!
On our return journey we needed to top up at Oxford services and the same thing happened there - I hadn’t even got to the front of the sandwich queue before the app was telling me my charge was almost complete! I actually had to move the car to elsewhere in the car park so I could finish my lunch and avoid incurring an idle fee.
So much for the good bits, now for the bad!
Whoever at TfL had the bright idea to create two small lanes at either side of an otherwise quite wide road that were only 6ft 6ins wide for cars whilst allowing buses to go straight through the middle, and put lovely concrete islands with high kerbs to separate the traffic? Yes, you guessed it - I managed to kerb the alloys! If I have to drive in London again and come across one of these traffic calming monstrosities, I might just be tempted to drive through the centre lane reserved for buses. Yes, the cameras will get me, but the fixed penalty notice will probably be cheaper than fixing the alloys!
"London Skyline" by Adrian Snood is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Admin note: Image added for Blog Feed thumbnail.
This was the first time I’d ever used the supercharger network in earnest, apart from a small test charge at the Trafford Centre a few weeks ago, and I was suitably impressed. We live in Lancashire and were 197 miles away from our London destination according to the in-car sat-nav. We were starting fully charged at 100%, so I was somewhat surprised that it suggested stopping at the Rugby Supercharger, by which time it thought I’d be at 18% charge. As it turned out, that prediction was way out - I actually arrived with about 40% charge, so topped up anyway to over 90%. I’d barely had time to sip the coffee I’d bought to drink alongside my picnic sandwiches before the car was telling me it was ready to go - very impressive!
On our return journey we needed to top up at Oxford services and the same thing happened there - I hadn’t even got to the front of the sandwich queue before the app was telling me my charge was almost complete! I actually had to move the car to elsewhere in the car park so I could finish my lunch and avoid incurring an idle fee.
So much for the good bits, now for the bad!
Whoever at TfL had the bright idea to create two small lanes at either side of an otherwise quite wide road that were only 6ft 6ins wide for cars whilst allowing buses to go straight through the middle, and put lovely concrete islands with high kerbs to separate the traffic? Yes, you guessed it - I managed to kerb the alloys! If I have to drive in London again and come across one of these traffic calming monstrosities, I might just be tempted to drive through the centre lane reserved for buses. Yes, the cameras will get me, but the fixed penalty notice will probably be cheaper than fixing the alloys!
"London Skyline" by Adrian Snood is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Admin note: Image added for Blog Feed thumbnail.
. It’s some distance from the shops that location.
