My spouse and I recently made a 9-day road trip from the Boston area to Washington, DC, and back. It was our first long road trip in the Model S. This post is to describe our experience with the charging aspects of the trip, for the benefit of anyone else who is new to this sort of thing, and to benefit others making a similar trip in this corridor.
I am posting this in the Battery and Charging sub-forum because aside from charging, we had absolutely no issues with the car.
In summary, the scenario was as follows:
• Day 1, we left the Boston area and headed west on I-90 (Mass. Turnpike), then took I-84 to Hartford. Our first charging stop was at the Supercharger in West Hartford. Aside from a little confusion finding the correct “unnamed road” the charger site is on, this was a good site. Not crowded, good charging speed. The adjacent Red Robin Restaurant proved to be a nice place for a leisurely, tasty lunch on their outside patio.
• We decided to take I-91 south towards New York City. I do not want to get into a debate about the best way to get through New York City, but I’d say we did not plan this part of our trip as well as we might. (I am not faulting the car’s navigation here.) We ended up crossing the Hudson on the George Washington Bridge and heading onto the New Jersey Turnpike.
• Our next charging stop was at a Turnpike rest stop in Cranbury, NJ. Again, not busy, good charge rate. Site has the usual rest stop facilities – food, coffee, bathrooms. We stayed here long enough to get a good charge so that we could get to our next stop, Philadelphia, and then back onto I-95. (By the way, this was the first place we had seen signs in the rest area directing us to the charging area – nice touch.)
• We stayed overnight in Philadelphia but did not use the car for local trips and did no charging there. I had made sure we had enough charge to get here and back to the highway and to the next logical charging stop.
• Day 2, we left Philadelphia, re-joined I-95 and charged next at the Newark, DE rest area. This is a massive rest area in the median of I-95, serving both northbound and southbound traffic. Twelve supercharging stalls, busy, but we got a fast charge rate. Very large food court, but a good walk from the chargers.
• Arrived at our destination in Gaithersburg, MD. We stayed here two nights for a wedding. The hotel (Gaithersburg Marriott Washingtonian Center) has a single Level 2 charger, but it was tied up by a BMW hybrid the entire time we were there so we did not use it. We also did not use the car, so I was not particularly concerned.
• Day 3, wedding, no travel.
• Day 4, we traveled from Gaithersburg down to Arlington, VA, where we were to stay for 4 days to visit the sites in and around Washington, DC. This was when we made our first tactical error, I think. We stopped at the "temporary" Supercharger at the Bethesda-Montgomery Mall. It has only one charging unit and two stalls. One was already busy so we suffered from a slow charge as the second car. We wandered around the mall awhile, had something to drink, but left before gaining very much charge. We arrived in Arlington with roughly 75 or 80 miles of range, as I recall. In retrospect, I wish we had waited a little longer to give us more margin for our stay in Arlington.
• Days 4-7, touring in Washington area. The hotel we used does not have a destination charger, but I was not too concerned because we planned to use the DC Metro (subway) to get in and out of the city. As it turned out, we also used Uber a few times for destinations not convenient to the Metro. We used the Tesla relatively little, except for one side trip to dinner and another to have lunch with a friend. Because I wanted to have more margin in case we made other side trips, we did try one day to find level 2 chargers, but were not successful. We found a site at a shopping mall near our hotel listed on ChargePoint but it turned out to be a set of Blink chargers. I have no Blink account and was unable to get a one-time authorization to work using their web site, despite several attempts. So after wasting an hour or so looking for sites and trying to get this one activated, we gave up. As it turned out, we did not need any more charge. But if we had wanted to take any more side trips, say to Mount Vernon, we would have run short.
• Day 8, we left Arlington and started the trip home. We charged at the new Supercharger in Laurel, MD, arriving with only a few miles of range. The place was virtually deserted so we got a very fast charge while getting some drinks and snacks at the nearby Harris Teeter supermarket. We headed back to I-95 and stopped next in Newark, DE, for another good charge. We stopped for a bathroom break at another rest area (East Brunswick, I think) on the NJ Turnpike late in the day, and made our second strategic charging error. We were taking a side trip to Queens, NY to visit family, and I was not careful enough to figure out how much charge I would need to reach Queens and then get to the next logical charging location on the way back to Massachusetts. So we did not use the opportunity to charge on the NJT when we could have. Consequently we reached Queens with roughly 30-40 miles of range.
• Day 9 – The navigation system said we would not have enough charge to reach the next supercharger on our desired route home, in southern CT, unless we traveled at restricted speeds. My gut feeling was that we would be okay, but it was raining (which eats into range) and my spouse preferred to be cautious. So we detoured to the Supercharger at JFK Airport, we cost us about an hour of travel time (besides the time to charge). The Supercharger site was easy enough to reach, despite being in a major airport, and we got a reasonably fast charge, even though these are older superchargers. This was the one time we basically sat around with nothing to do while waiting for the car to charge. From there, we went up I-684 to I-84 to the West Hartford Supercharger again, and had another nice lunch at the Red Robin – this time inside because it was chilly and rainy, no patio. From there we went home via I-84, I-90 and I-95.
The total distance traveled was 1017.7 miles. We sued 303 kWh, for an average of 297.7 wH/mi. I thought this was pretty reasonable, given the speeds we traveled and the rain on nearly the entire return trip.
Observations:
1. The real charging problem on this trip was not Supercharging on the long ride, it was the difficulty of locating local charging in our destination areas – Gaithersburg, Arlington, and Queens. Finding and using level 2 chargers in an unfamiliar area is time-consuming and, in our case, frustrating. I should have done more advance research before the trip to find where we could charge near our destinations, or should have made sure to get ample charging at the nearest Supercharger before arrival at the destinations.
2. As a minor point, the navigation system does not always have good directions for Superchargers in Malls, especially inside garages. We wasted time making wrong turns and guessing wrong on garage levels at both Bethesda and Laurel. It would be helpful if the pop-up box in the Nav system would give a bit more detail on Supercharger location (as well as amenities nearby) to supplement the GPS.
3. On the plus side, this was my spouse’s first time doing highway driving with the Model S, and she loved it! She also became a believer in the practicality of Superchargers for long-distance travel and said so in conversations with friends.
I am posting this in the Battery and Charging sub-forum because aside from charging, we had absolutely no issues with the car.
In summary, the scenario was as follows:
• Day 1, we left the Boston area and headed west on I-90 (Mass. Turnpike), then took I-84 to Hartford. Our first charging stop was at the Supercharger in West Hartford. Aside from a little confusion finding the correct “unnamed road” the charger site is on, this was a good site. Not crowded, good charging speed. The adjacent Red Robin Restaurant proved to be a nice place for a leisurely, tasty lunch on their outside patio.
• We decided to take I-91 south towards New York City. I do not want to get into a debate about the best way to get through New York City, but I’d say we did not plan this part of our trip as well as we might. (I am not faulting the car’s navigation here.) We ended up crossing the Hudson on the George Washington Bridge and heading onto the New Jersey Turnpike.
• Our next charging stop was at a Turnpike rest stop in Cranbury, NJ. Again, not busy, good charge rate. Site has the usual rest stop facilities – food, coffee, bathrooms. We stayed here long enough to get a good charge so that we could get to our next stop, Philadelphia, and then back onto I-95. (By the way, this was the first place we had seen signs in the rest area directing us to the charging area – nice touch.)
• We stayed overnight in Philadelphia but did not use the car for local trips and did no charging there. I had made sure we had enough charge to get here and back to the highway and to the next logical charging stop.
• Day 2, we left Philadelphia, re-joined I-95 and charged next at the Newark, DE rest area. This is a massive rest area in the median of I-95, serving both northbound and southbound traffic. Twelve supercharging stalls, busy, but we got a fast charge rate. Very large food court, but a good walk from the chargers.
• Arrived at our destination in Gaithersburg, MD. We stayed here two nights for a wedding. The hotel (Gaithersburg Marriott Washingtonian Center) has a single Level 2 charger, but it was tied up by a BMW hybrid the entire time we were there so we did not use it. We also did not use the car, so I was not particularly concerned.
• Day 3, wedding, no travel.
• Day 4, we traveled from Gaithersburg down to Arlington, VA, where we were to stay for 4 days to visit the sites in and around Washington, DC. This was when we made our first tactical error, I think. We stopped at the "temporary" Supercharger at the Bethesda-Montgomery Mall. It has only one charging unit and two stalls. One was already busy so we suffered from a slow charge as the second car. We wandered around the mall awhile, had something to drink, but left before gaining very much charge. We arrived in Arlington with roughly 75 or 80 miles of range, as I recall. In retrospect, I wish we had waited a little longer to give us more margin for our stay in Arlington.
• Days 4-7, touring in Washington area. The hotel we used does not have a destination charger, but I was not too concerned because we planned to use the DC Metro (subway) to get in and out of the city. As it turned out, we also used Uber a few times for destinations not convenient to the Metro. We used the Tesla relatively little, except for one side trip to dinner and another to have lunch with a friend. Because I wanted to have more margin in case we made other side trips, we did try one day to find level 2 chargers, but were not successful. We found a site at a shopping mall near our hotel listed on ChargePoint but it turned out to be a set of Blink chargers. I have no Blink account and was unable to get a one-time authorization to work using their web site, despite several attempts. So after wasting an hour or so looking for sites and trying to get this one activated, we gave up. As it turned out, we did not need any more charge. But if we had wanted to take any more side trips, say to Mount Vernon, we would have run short.
• Day 8, we left Arlington and started the trip home. We charged at the new Supercharger in Laurel, MD, arriving with only a few miles of range. The place was virtually deserted so we got a very fast charge while getting some drinks and snacks at the nearby Harris Teeter supermarket. We headed back to I-95 and stopped next in Newark, DE, for another good charge. We stopped for a bathroom break at another rest area (East Brunswick, I think) on the NJ Turnpike late in the day, and made our second strategic charging error. We were taking a side trip to Queens, NY to visit family, and I was not careful enough to figure out how much charge I would need to reach Queens and then get to the next logical charging location on the way back to Massachusetts. So we did not use the opportunity to charge on the NJT when we could have. Consequently we reached Queens with roughly 30-40 miles of range.
• Day 9 – The navigation system said we would not have enough charge to reach the next supercharger on our desired route home, in southern CT, unless we traveled at restricted speeds. My gut feeling was that we would be okay, but it was raining (which eats into range) and my spouse preferred to be cautious. So we detoured to the Supercharger at JFK Airport, we cost us about an hour of travel time (besides the time to charge). The Supercharger site was easy enough to reach, despite being in a major airport, and we got a reasonably fast charge, even though these are older superchargers. This was the one time we basically sat around with nothing to do while waiting for the car to charge. From there, we went up I-684 to I-84 to the West Hartford Supercharger again, and had another nice lunch at the Red Robin – this time inside because it was chilly and rainy, no patio. From there we went home via I-84, I-90 and I-95.
The total distance traveled was 1017.7 miles. We sued 303 kWh, for an average of 297.7 wH/mi. I thought this was pretty reasonable, given the speeds we traveled and the rain on nearly the entire return trip.
Observations:
1. The real charging problem on this trip was not Supercharging on the long ride, it was the difficulty of locating local charging in our destination areas – Gaithersburg, Arlington, and Queens. Finding and using level 2 chargers in an unfamiliar area is time-consuming and, in our case, frustrating. I should have done more advance research before the trip to find where we could charge near our destinations, or should have made sure to get ample charging at the nearest Supercharger before arrival at the destinations.
2. As a minor point, the navigation system does not always have good directions for Superchargers in Malls, especially inside garages. We wasted time making wrong turns and guessing wrong on garage levels at both Bethesda and Laurel. It would be helpful if the pop-up box in the Nav system would give a bit more detail on Supercharger location (as well as amenities nearby) to supplement the GPS.
3. On the plus side, this was my spouse’s first time doing highway driving with the Model S, and she loved it! She also became a believer in the practicality of Superchargers for long-distance travel and said so in conversations with friends.
