I have owned my MXP since June 30, 2022, but never driven it out of Florida until September, 2023, when I took two road trips that are about as opposite in the type of place I went to as possible: rural Alabama and a hotel two blocks from the White House in Washington DC.
Both of these trips presented some concerns to me that would not be concerns in an ICE vehicle. I would like to share my experiences with anyone who might be interested, especially anyone new to road tripping in an EV. But I would like to say that notwithstanding these concerns, I will never go back to ICE as I found the concerns to be easy to overcome with a little patience and planning. Of course some people may not agree, and these type of concerns give EV and Tesla haters ammunition to use against us.
My first trip in early September was to visit a friend and his wife who lives on a farm in a very rural area in Alabama, the part of AL between Prattville and Selma, about dead center in this screen shot between (and far from) all the Superchargers.
Driving to Jones, AL, was uneventful. I stopped at a friend's house near Orlando for the night each way, charging the car from his dryer outlet. Supercharging stops on the way were in convenient locations, I never had to wait for a stall, and they all "just worked".
However, since I was going to be staying at his house for almost a week, and would be doing daily trips into Prattville (35 miles each way) and Selma (25 miles each way), it was apparent to me that driving one or more times to Montgomery to charge would be inconvenient and it would necessary to make provisions to charge at his house. I thought about the dryer receptacle option, but discussing this with my friend I determined he had a NEMA 6-50 located near where I would park, so I ordered that adapter for my mobile connector.
I have owned the car long enough that I no longer have any range anxiety for daily driving, or even Supercharging when driving to places like Orlando, Naples, or Tampa, but having never been to Jones, AL, and seeing how far it was from the closest Supercharger, I still had a little anxiety about what I would do when I got there. What if his NEMA 6-50 did not work? So at the last charging session before I arrived there, I charged so I would arrive with ~50% SOC. When I got to his house, the NEMA 6-50 worked fine, and my anxiety instantly went away, and there were absolutely no problems, I charged the car up every night, and the rest of this trip went well. We even drove to Birmingham one day, a 1-1/2 hour trip each way, and I did not need to Supercharge, just charged up that night at his house.
Red Ryder supping on some electrons on the farm in rural Alabama:
This is really in the middle of nowhere!
My next road trip in late September, 2022, was to Washington, DC, a total of over 2,350 miles. We stayed at a hotel about 2 blocks from the White House. This trip is to a place that is about as opposite of rural Alabama as it gets, but has its charging challenges too.
We broke the trip from Boca Raton to DC into two days: the first day was a long drive to Florence SC. Again, we had no issues charging along the way. The Superchargers were conveniently located, never had to wait and they all worked fine. We charged overnight at the hotel in Florence, and we were on our way for the shorter second day of the trip into DC.
We stayed in DC for 4 nights. I was born in Washington DC, and raised in Bethesda, MD, so we drove around a lot visiting some old friends and places. There are plenty of Superchargers in the DC metro area, but I discovered they were all located in parking garages, and as opposed to the intercity travel where they are located right along your route. This is definitely not convenient as we had to go out of our way to find them. I think there are people that would find it very annoying if they had to charge using Superchargers located in parking garages on a regular basis. But we dealt with it, and doing this for a few days was not too bad. I would not want to charge like this on a regular basis, and people who park on the street would, I think, not want to do this for daily driving. I think the EV industry is going to have to make charging for street parking a reality before people who park on the street will buy EVs in large numbers.
I had two problems on this trip:
First problem was the second day, driving from Florence to DC, the cruise control and auto steer did not work. The car said cruise control was not available. I cleaned the cameras but that did not resolve the problem. The steering wheel icon, and the max speed limit did not display. The next day, driving around the DC area, the steering wheel icon would come on and off, sometimes it would flicker rapidly. This finally cleared up, and worked perfectly on our two day drive from DC back to Florida. I have a service appointment in the next few days, but I suspect Tesla will not be able to determine what caused this.
The second problem I had was my key card got lost in the "abyss" between the cover that covers the cup holders/storage area in the center console and the phone chargers. Staying at a hotel 2 blocks from the White House means the car will be parked in a parking garage, and the parking attendant was wondering what happened to the key when he got the car for me. Discussing it with him, he said he set the key down on top of the cover, and I showed him how it disappeared into the abyss.
The top of the carbon fiber cover is very slick and slopes slightly downward and if a key card is placed there it will instantly disappear "into the abyss". This has happened to me before and I should have known to inform the parking attendant not to set the key card there, or better, just left the cover open. The times it happened before I was able to retrieve the key by flooring the accelerator on my Plaid and the key slid back out, but was unable to do that in Washington DC. Now that I am back in Florida I will take Red Ryder out to the west part of Boca on highway 441 and try it again.
I think this is a Model S and X problem. I strongly advise that 1) you leave the cover open when valet parking, and 2) you bring two key cards with you on a road trip. Since I had no choice but to park in a parking garage, I had to have a key card. This required me to spend several hours on Saturday going to a Tesla service center in Vienna, VA, for them to make new key cards. While I was in the Vienna area, I stopped to Supercharge as the Supercharger in Vienna, VA, is not in a parking garage and I was down to 15%. Vienna is far enough out of the urban part of DC to not need the Supercharger in a parking garage.
I had a few other concerns that turned out to not be real concerns. I have found that the navigation system's prediction of the battery state of charge when reaching a destination is very accurate. So far in my experience this has never failed, but on one leg of my trip the prediction was that I would reach the next Supercharger with 10% SOC, and on the way the traffic was stopped due to an accident ahead. I was worried that the car would use more energy just sitting in the stopped traffic but that did not happen. I suppose if traffic was stopped for many hours this could be a problem, as the car does use some power just sitting. After that experience, I now try to charge so that I will reach my next destination with a 20% SOC just to reduce the anxiety that I experienced.
I expect I will do 2 to 3 long road trips a year. When I say long, I mean more than one stop at a Supercharger, or for me driving north of Orlando or Tampa. The inconveniences I have discussed above are more than made up by not having to buy gas and have oil changes and other ICE maintenance for daily driving. If you make long road trips on a frequent basis, some of these inconveniences may become too much for some people. I hope to see some comments regarding this.
The problem I had with cruise control is a concern and I expect I am not over with that.
I hope the above might be helpful for new Tesla owners who might encounter road trips to similar destinations.
Thank you for reading.
Both of these trips presented some concerns to me that would not be concerns in an ICE vehicle. I would like to share my experiences with anyone who might be interested, especially anyone new to road tripping in an EV. But I would like to say that notwithstanding these concerns, I will never go back to ICE as I found the concerns to be easy to overcome with a little patience and planning. Of course some people may not agree, and these type of concerns give EV and Tesla haters ammunition to use against us.
My first trip in early September was to visit a friend and his wife who lives on a farm in a very rural area in Alabama, the part of AL between Prattville and Selma, about dead center in this screen shot between (and far from) all the Superchargers.
Driving to Jones, AL, was uneventful. I stopped at a friend's house near Orlando for the night each way, charging the car from his dryer outlet. Supercharging stops on the way were in convenient locations, I never had to wait for a stall, and they all "just worked".
However, since I was going to be staying at his house for almost a week, and would be doing daily trips into Prattville (35 miles each way) and Selma (25 miles each way), it was apparent to me that driving one or more times to Montgomery to charge would be inconvenient and it would necessary to make provisions to charge at his house. I thought about the dryer receptacle option, but discussing this with my friend I determined he had a NEMA 6-50 located near where I would park, so I ordered that adapter for my mobile connector.
I have owned the car long enough that I no longer have any range anxiety for daily driving, or even Supercharging when driving to places like Orlando, Naples, or Tampa, but having never been to Jones, AL, and seeing how far it was from the closest Supercharger, I still had a little anxiety about what I would do when I got there. What if his NEMA 6-50 did not work? So at the last charging session before I arrived there, I charged so I would arrive with ~50% SOC. When I got to his house, the NEMA 6-50 worked fine, and my anxiety instantly went away, and there were absolutely no problems, I charged the car up every night, and the rest of this trip went well. We even drove to Birmingham one day, a 1-1/2 hour trip each way, and I did not need to Supercharge, just charged up that night at his house.
Red Ryder supping on some electrons on the farm in rural Alabama:
This is really in the middle of nowhere!
My next road trip in late September, 2022, was to Washington, DC, a total of over 2,350 miles. We stayed at a hotel about 2 blocks from the White House. This trip is to a place that is about as opposite of rural Alabama as it gets, but has its charging challenges too.
We broke the trip from Boca Raton to DC into two days: the first day was a long drive to Florence SC. Again, we had no issues charging along the way. The Superchargers were conveniently located, never had to wait and they all worked fine. We charged overnight at the hotel in Florence, and we were on our way for the shorter second day of the trip into DC.
We stayed in DC for 4 nights. I was born in Washington DC, and raised in Bethesda, MD, so we drove around a lot visiting some old friends and places. There are plenty of Superchargers in the DC metro area, but I discovered they were all located in parking garages, and as opposed to the intercity travel where they are located right along your route. This is definitely not convenient as we had to go out of our way to find them. I think there are people that would find it very annoying if they had to charge using Superchargers located in parking garages on a regular basis. But we dealt with it, and doing this for a few days was not too bad. I would not want to charge like this on a regular basis, and people who park on the street would, I think, not want to do this for daily driving. I think the EV industry is going to have to make charging for street parking a reality before people who park on the street will buy EVs in large numbers.
I had two problems on this trip:
First problem was the second day, driving from Florence to DC, the cruise control and auto steer did not work. The car said cruise control was not available. I cleaned the cameras but that did not resolve the problem. The steering wheel icon, and the max speed limit did not display. The next day, driving around the DC area, the steering wheel icon would come on and off, sometimes it would flicker rapidly. This finally cleared up, and worked perfectly on our two day drive from DC back to Florida. I have a service appointment in the next few days, but I suspect Tesla will not be able to determine what caused this.
The second problem I had was my key card got lost in the "abyss" between the cover that covers the cup holders/storage area in the center console and the phone chargers. Staying at a hotel 2 blocks from the White House means the car will be parked in a parking garage, and the parking attendant was wondering what happened to the key when he got the car for me. Discussing it with him, he said he set the key down on top of the cover, and I showed him how it disappeared into the abyss.
The top of the carbon fiber cover is very slick and slopes slightly downward and if a key card is placed there it will instantly disappear "into the abyss". This has happened to me before and I should have known to inform the parking attendant not to set the key card there, or better, just left the cover open. The times it happened before I was able to retrieve the key by flooring the accelerator on my Plaid and the key slid back out, but was unable to do that in Washington DC. Now that I am back in Florida I will take Red Ryder out to the west part of Boca on highway 441 and try it again.
I think this is a Model S and X problem. I strongly advise that 1) you leave the cover open when valet parking, and 2) you bring two key cards with you on a road trip. Since I had no choice but to park in a parking garage, I had to have a key card. This required me to spend several hours on Saturday going to a Tesla service center in Vienna, VA, for them to make new key cards. While I was in the Vienna area, I stopped to Supercharge as the Supercharger in Vienna, VA, is not in a parking garage and I was down to 15%. Vienna is far enough out of the urban part of DC to not need the Supercharger in a parking garage.
I had a few other concerns that turned out to not be real concerns. I have found that the navigation system's prediction of the battery state of charge when reaching a destination is very accurate. So far in my experience this has never failed, but on one leg of my trip the prediction was that I would reach the next Supercharger with 10% SOC, and on the way the traffic was stopped due to an accident ahead. I was worried that the car would use more energy just sitting in the stopped traffic but that did not happen. I suppose if traffic was stopped for many hours this could be a problem, as the car does use some power just sitting. After that experience, I now try to charge so that I will reach my next destination with a 20% SOC just to reduce the anxiety that I experienced.
I expect I will do 2 to 3 long road trips a year. When I say long, I mean more than one stop at a Supercharger, or for me driving north of Orlando or Tampa. The inconveniences I have discussed above are more than made up by not having to buy gas and have oil changes and other ICE maintenance for daily driving. If you make long road trips on a frequent basis, some of these inconveniences may become too much for some people. I hope to see some comments regarding this.
The problem I had with cruise control is a concern and I expect I am not over with that.
I hope the above might be helpful for new Tesla owners who might encounter road trips to similar destinations.
Thank you for reading.
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