Looking for day trip recommendations - Atlanta

[AtlTesly]

Hi, first time EV owner. Recently purchased a MYLR5 in Kennesaw and want to do a day trip with 3 passengers in approximately 2 weeks. I plan to order a tire plug kit, a tire repair kit, jack pads, jack and tools, and a portable inflator. No spare wheel or tire, however.

Looking for recommendations on where to buy above items as well as what additional items to carry. Open to all suggestions, tips, etc.

Also what are good places to visit on a day trip?We are open to just dirving around, sightseeing, meals, window shopping, some exploring but no treks or hiking. Not looking to take in any shows or events.

Direction doesn’t matter just want to experience a long drive, testing range, superchargers, etc.

Thanks in advance.

 

[jsight]

Have you been to Chattanooga? Seems like lookout mountain is a decent day trip with some nice views and touristy attractions (incline railway, rock city, ruby falls, etc).

The buc-ee's in adairsville should make a good stop along the way too.

 

[vanjwilson]

Helen, GA, is another day trip option from Kennesaw. It a little overtly tourist-y, but the drive should be beautiful.

It looks like it's less than 100 miles each way from Kennesaw, but with elevation change you'll probably want to Level 2 charge while you walk around or eat in Helen. Check out PlugShare.com, filtered to Tesla and J1772 plugs. There are some superchargers in the northern Atlanta suburbs, like Roswell and Alpharetta, if you need them on the way back. You could also supercharge on the way there, until you get comfortable with the car's range.

 

[CTDW]

Greenville, SC is another option.

 

[1speed]

In Oxford, Alabama you could drive the Talladega Scenic Drive. Lots of pullovers with great views. There is a supercharger in Oxford. If you get a flat, just call Tesla roadside assistance. They will bring you a temporary wheel.

 

[AtlTesly]

Have you been to Chattanooga? Seems like lookout mountain is a decent day trip with some nice views and touristy attractions (incline railway, rock city, ruby falls, etc).

The buc-ee's in adairsville should make a good stop along the way too.

We’ve been to the Ocoee a couple of times. Visited Ruby Falls a long time ago as well as the aquarium.

Thanks for the suggestion. If we go here I can visit my first Bucees

 

[AtlTesly]

Thanks for all the suggestions. Some great options. Looking forward to the drive.

Do you carry any tire repair tools or always best to call Tesla roadside? What is the cost of Tesla bringing a loaner wheel and repairing my flat? Also what would be the turnaround on such a service? If I’m 100 miles away, I’d have to go back to get the original wheel and tire after repair. How do other folks manage this?

 

[Daniel454]

Here is my setup:

Tesla Motors Club: Emergency Roadside Kit / Jack

The Jack is from eBay, originally for / with the Ram Promaster. Its more than capable of lifting the weight as the van it was originally with was much heavier and has the alignment nipple built in so you don't need jack pads for it.

Looks like they are cheaper now, here is one example but suggest looking around as this was just the first lower $$ one I came across:
eBay DODGE RAM Promaster Van Jack Kit

The First Aid kit was from Tesla direct.

The fire extinguisher was from evannex.com.... Other places offer it as well but as it was my first order with them, they had a coupon so was the cheapest option at the time.

Element E100 Fire Extinguisher

Quite a few solid recommendations from others in that thread as well. In fact, I'd look at some of their recommendations for tire plug kits, I used mine once and it worked ok but others in that thread looked like they might be better.

The rest of the stuff was Amazon.

Mechanix Wear Gloves
Adjustable Wrenches
AirMan ResQ Pro Compressor
21MM Socket
Telescopic wheel nut wrench set
Headlamp

+ a few screwdrivers, diagonal cutters, needle nose / standard pliers and zip ties I had on hand.

I went cheap on the adjustable wrenches and the headlamp, figured they would be used rarely anyway. Oh and I recommend installing lithium batteries in the headlamps or flashlights stored in your car (if not getting rechargeable). They will last longer with the temp changes and more likely to be available when needed.

Others have reported having issues with tire inflators working for our car as the DC socket voltage is a higher than they are engineered for. I only tested mine for about 20 minute and it seemed to work ok (it appears to be made by the same company as the Tesla one from their website), but be forewarned, you may want to test whatever you get for an extended period of time...

(Which reminds me, I REALLY need to get out there and test mine for longer! hah )

 

[N4HHE]

Make sure your socket fits the lug nuts. My original lug nuts were 21mm with a thin shiny metal cap. Insides swelled, socket no longer fit. Service center replaced with steel nut with a plastic cap that has to be removed to access the nut. A special tool helps remove the caps that haven’t fallen off on their own.

Have purchased McGard solid stainless steel replacements which use a 22mm socket.

 

[AtlTesly]

Here are the stops and route I am considering. However, I am only seeing superchargers in Adairsville 45 mins into the trip on the way up 75 and one at Avalon in Alpharetta on the tail end of the 280 mi. trip.

Not sure this will work. Thoughts?

 

[AtlTesly]

Here are the stops and route I am considering. However, I am only seeing superchargers in Adairsville 45 mins into the trip on the way up 75 and one at Avalon in Alpharetta on the tail end of the 280 mi. trip.

Not sure this will work. Thoughts?

I should add it would be approx 225 mikes between charges on windy roads with varying elevation, in a MYLR.

I’ve owned the vehicle for about 1 month and never charged past 80%. I’m thinking charging to 100% at the first stop and hoping I’ll make it to the next supercharger stop approx 225 mi away.

Not sure if that is a good idea or good for battery health.

 

[JulienW]

I should add it would be approx 225 mikes between charges on windy roads with varying elevation, in a MYLR.

I’ve owned the vehicle for about 1 month and never charged past 80%. I’m thinking charging to 100% at the first stop and hoping I’ll make it to the next supercharger stop approx 225 mi away.

Not sure if that is a good idea or good for battery health.

Charging from 80% to 100% at a Supercharger will take almost a hour if you are allowed. Topping off is SUPER SLOW and if busy the Supercharger site won't let you.

You will be PLENTY good for 225 miles from 80% to 85%. Elevation change only marginally affects range since you gain back energy going downhill. Also (highway) speed is the BIGGEST range killer BY FAR and MUCH more than wind and on the roads you will be on you will probably only be going 60MPH max and slower a lot of the time.

Also maybe plan to eat in Helen and they have L2 chargers you can use since this is your first time. But you will be fine anyway. You can >99% trust the Tesla trip calculator and it WILL get you to the Supercharger.

 

[vanjwilson]

This is a challenging route, but if you can charge at one of the public Level 2 chargers in Helen for a couple of hours while you are there, it should be no problem.

I used your list of stops to get a rough estimate in ABRP. Without Level 2 charging somewhere along the route, it recommends an almost-full charge in Adairsville. You also don't have to get all the way back to NW Atlanta without charging; you could detour a little and charge at the Roswell or Peachtree Corners superchargers.

 

[AtlTesly]

This is a challenging route, but if you can charge at one of the public Level 2 chargers in Helen for a couple of hours while you are there, it should be no problem.

I used your list of stops to get a rough estimate in ABRP. Without Level 2 charging somewhere along the route, it recommends an almost-full charge in Adairsville. You also don't have to get all the way back to NW Atlanta without charging; you could detour a little and charge at the Roswell or Peachtree Corners superchargers.


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If I add a non-Tesla charging station in the navigation app in the car, should it recognize and calculate how long to charge and what will be SoC when departing, similar to what I see for Tesla superchargers?

Also, is there any way to send this route from ABRP to the car?

 

[vanjwilson]

If I add a non-Tesla charging station in the navigation app in the car, should it recognize and calculate how long to charge and what will be SoC when departing, similar to what I see for Tesla superchargers?

Also, is there any way to send this route from ABRP to the car?

I don't think the Tesla nav will calculate charging except for superchargers that already appear on its screen (and a few EVGo stations that have Tesla plugs and appear in the Nav, too).

During the trip, it will re-calculate on the fly, as your state of charge increases enough from a non-Tesla charging session.

You can link your car to your ABRP account, and then click the "Share" button and choose your linked Tesla from the list of possible destinations. That may require a paid ABRP account, but I seem to remember that you could select one "favorite" car type with the free account, so you didn't have to pick the car each time you planned.

Also, the sharing with ABRP is finicky, because it shares one destination at a time. You have to leave ABRP running on your phone, and when the Tesla gets to the first destination, you have to share the next and so on. It gets out of sync easily. I usually just use ABRP for pre-planning, and then do the trip with the Tesla nav.

 

[AtlTesly]

We modified the route a bit and did this drive on Thursday. We had rain all day but it was still enjoyable and I got to experience the benefits and challenges.

Total distance was approximately 275 miles. Leaving with a charge of 80% required two stops at superchargers (88mi and 40mi fill-ups). Got back home with 24%. In theory we could have skipped the second stop but didn’t want to chance it with 3% when getting back home.

While I don’t have FSD, I did use TACC and Auto-steer extensively. Sometimes it was great, other times it was horrible and the rest of the times it was ok. A few things that became quickly obvious are:

• Gotta remember TACC will slow down, and even stop for cars ahead of you at traffic lights but if you are first at a light, gotta remember to disengage TACC. The worst one was when I was coming up behind a car at a red light and decided to change lanes. Since there was no one in front of me in this lane, the car accelerated. Woah! Had to slam the brakes and get a lot of flak from the family.
• Several instances of phantom braking. Sucked every time it happened.
• Auto steer is jerky, obviously cannot see the terrain the way a human does and often felt too fast going through winding roads even though it was set to the speed limit. Even at 35 I felt extremely nervous as I approached several turns and would either flick the right scroll button down to reduce the speed instantly or just push the stalk up to deactivate cruise control.
• With that said, however, when Autopilot worked correctly to was impressive. With the cruise speed set to 35 mph, I saw the vehicle slow down often to just the right speed and then pick up again as we zigzagged across the winding, mountainous terrain. I can see this continuing to improve and wonder how awesome it will become in 5, 7, or 10 years.
• Lost cellular connectivity on the Russell-Brasstown Scenic Byway and encountered a lot of fog in the mountains. Got messages for, “Autopilot speed limited due to poor visibility,” and, “Autosteer temporarily unavailable” a few times.

Trip:

• 12p Left with 80%
• 12:45p Arrived Buccees with 54% (250kw)
• 1:20p left with 98%
• (Didn’t plan this long of a stop, time got away while we shopped and picked up snacks and drinks. Good news is we got to almost 100%)
• 2p arrived at Praters Mill 80%
• (Site was closed)
• 2:10 left with 80%
• 3:35 arrived at Blueridge GA 55%
• (Explored a bit and got fast food)
• 4:40p left with 54%
• 5:50p arrived Helen with 36%
• (Explored, had dessert)
• 7p left Helen 30%
• 8p arrived at Avalon supercharger 10% (68kw)
• (Netflix)
• 8:15p left with 30%
• 8:55p arrived home 24%

Buccees Adairsville supercharging stalls were plentiful clean.

The superchargers at Avalon in Alpharetta didn’t charge at 250 kw. These were the smaller white ones, charged at 68 kw and my stall had the handle laying on the ground. After charging, I tried to hang it on the charger but it fell despite me trying multiple times. This was also a high usage area and charging would be limited to 80%.

Later, I realized I had attached a wet charger handle to my car and wondered if that can cause electrical issues. Luckily nothing bad happened.
Conclusion:

Successful first long trip in an EV. Fun to drive, convenient supercharging, got to use my free charging miles. Surprised to see a 26% drop in 45 minutes on the freeway, which gave me some range anxiety. Getting that 98% charge helped a lot otherwise we would have had to hit a 3rd party charger outside Helen. Wife wants to do this drive again in the fall when the leaves are changing color. Will be doing other trips again before that also.

Thanks for all the tips and suggestions. God Bless!

 

[jsight]

The superchargers at Avalon in Alpharetta didn’t charge at 250 kw. These were the smaller white ones, charged at 68 kw and my stall had the handle laying on the ground. After charging, I tried to hang it on the charger but it fell despite me trying multiple times. This was also a high usage area and charging would be limited to 80%.

Alpharetta, GA | Tesla - Looks like those are "Urban" superchargers. They are limited to 72kw. There are 250kw chargers in Roswell if you could have made it to there.