We just returned from a short trip to Hilton Head before (Charlotte to Hilton Head and back) before school starts. We went down on Thursday and came back on Sunday.
Short story - charging on the island is difficult at best. I made it even more challenging by forgetting to bring along my mobile connector and 110v adapter.
I had planned to charge overnight using a standard household outlet on the exterior of the house we were renting for the weekend. I wouldn't have gotten much out of it but based on prior experience I was expecting 4ish miles per hour which meant I could easily add around 50 miles per night at a minimum. I did this when we went to the mountains a few weeks ago and was getting 60-70 miles per night. With this plan we would've been perfectly fine because we really didn't drive much once we got there - maybe 30 miles per day.
We arrived with 150 miles of range and then I realized I didn't have my charge cable. DOH!!
I knew there were a handful of level 2 chargers spread around the island. What I didn't know is that finding an open one would be difficult! I was able to charge for a little bit on Thursday night while we ate at Rockfish and then again on Friday evening at Shelter Cove.
But on Saturday I was in bad shape with only 130ish miles of range. So I decided to go find a charger and Uber back to the house while it charged for 4-5 hours. I could NOT find an open charger to save my life. I went to 6 before I finally found one (the same one at Shelter Cover again). At this point I only had a little over 100 miles of range and we were leaving on Sunday so I wanted to get at least above 200 miles so that we could easily make it to the Santee SC. I'd imagine that finding an open charger on the island during peak summer season would be next to impossible. I got lucky that we were there at the very end of summer when the crowds are lower.
Anyway - I plugged it in and Ubered back to the house and hung out with the family for the afternoon. I was able to get up to 250 miles and by the time we left on Sunday morning I had around 230 miles. We made it to Santee with plenty to spare and the rest of the trip was uneventful.
BUT... this is the first time I've had range anxiety since buying my M3. Admittedly this was 100% my fault for forgetting my charge cable. However, this also points out some issues that I think need to be addressed over time. Hilton Head is a big tourist destination. There are a billion other places like this in the world and I'm sure this scenario exists in many of those.
Here's the scenario - you can EASILY travel TO the destination and arrive with approximately 50% charge due to the robust SC network. But if there are not enough charging options at the destination (and often there aren't) you will be stressed. I feel like the Tesla SC network does a good job (for the most part) of comfortably getting you to where you're going. But a gap exists at the actual destination that can leave you scrambling to get enough charge to get you back home. We (Tesla/EV owners) are still early adopters I think. Hopefully the infrastructure will continue to be built out to address these types of issues. I personally don't think that it should be up to Tesla to do all of this. But it SURE would be helpful if they placed a SC location in areas like this to solve the issue.
Short story - charging on the island is difficult at best. I made it even more challenging by forgetting to bring along my mobile connector and 110v adapter.
I had planned to charge overnight using a standard household outlet on the exterior of the house we were renting for the weekend. I wouldn't have gotten much out of it but based on prior experience I was expecting 4ish miles per hour which meant I could easily add around 50 miles per night at a minimum. I did this when we went to the mountains a few weeks ago and was getting 60-70 miles per night. With this plan we would've been perfectly fine because we really didn't drive much once we got there - maybe 30 miles per day.
We arrived with 150 miles of range and then I realized I didn't have my charge cable. DOH!!
I knew there were a handful of level 2 chargers spread around the island. What I didn't know is that finding an open one would be difficult! I was able to charge for a little bit on Thursday night while we ate at Rockfish and then again on Friday evening at Shelter Cove.
But on Saturday I was in bad shape with only 130ish miles of range. So I decided to go find a charger and Uber back to the house while it charged for 4-5 hours. I could NOT find an open charger to save my life. I went to 6 before I finally found one (the same one at Shelter Cover again). At this point I only had a little over 100 miles of range and we were leaving on Sunday so I wanted to get at least above 200 miles so that we could easily make it to the Santee SC. I'd imagine that finding an open charger on the island during peak summer season would be next to impossible. I got lucky that we were there at the very end of summer when the crowds are lower.
Anyway - I plugged it in and Ubered back to the house and hung out with the family for the afternoon. I was able to get up to 250 miles and by the time we left on Sunday morning I had around 230 miles. We made it to Santee with plenty to spare and the rest of the trip was uneventful.
BUT... this is the first time I've had range anxiety since buying my M3. Admittedly this was 100% my fault for forgetting my charge cable. However, this also points out some issues that I think need to be addressed over time. Hilton Head is a big tourist destination. There are a billion other places like this in the world and I'm sure this scenario exists in many of those.
Here's the scenario - you can EASILY travel TO the destination and arrive with approximately 50% charge due to the robust SC network. But if there are not enough charging options at the destination (and often there aren't) you will be stressed. I feel like the Tesla SC network does a good job (for the most part) of comfortably getting you to where you're going. But a gap exists at the actual destination that can leave you scrambling to get enough charge to get you back home. We (Tesla/EV owners) are still early adopters I think. Hopefully the infrastructure will continue to be built out to address these types of issues. I personally don't think that it should be up to Tesla to do all of this. But it SURE would be helpful if they placed a SC location in areas like this to solve the issue.
