I have over 26K miles on my P90D MX and can say I love the car for everyday driving. The handling, the comfort, the auto-pilot, the space...all top-notch. Being able to charge at home saves time. While I had some early problems and an alignment issue along the way, the Tesla service team eventually sorted it all out. It's not uncommon for me to put in 100-180 miles on a day driving to meetings/gym/soccer practices.
But for the vast majority of long drives, the MX doesn't make sense for our family. We use the Jeep Cherokee V6 with about 425 miles of range. When I say long drive, I mean any drive where we are going from home to a point that is more than 100 miles away assuming there isn't a supercharger right at our destination (or a slower-charger at my destination). An example of a long drive where there's a charger at the destination might be the Gilroy outlets. But anything else, the MX doesn't come close on a time efficiency basis...and hard to make sense on a cost-basis given the car depreciation. I've done roadtrips from Bay Area to Sacramento, Tahoe, LA, etc...so this is real-world experience
Why? My MX gets 214 on a 90% charge now...and can't get it past 241 on a 100%. So let's assume 90% although I will go to 95% if my drive will take me close to 200 miles that day. Assuming 214 miles in the AM, I get probably 190-195 if I drive rather conservatively on the highway. Of course, hills/traffic/etc will take this downwards. And if I stop, I tend to lose 1-4 miles per hour in phantom drain. So I can get 100 miles back and forth and just make it.
When I took the Tesla to South Lake Tahoe for a 3-night trip last year, it ended up about 500 miles of driving. I had to stop near Sacramento for a near full charge. Got to Tahoe but we had to drive to various sites for basketball. So I stopped in Gardnerville charger (20-25 minutes from where one of my kids' games was). And then stopped near Sacramento on the way back to get me home. That's 3 stops. Let's assume 45 minutes to charge each. And factor in that each charger is a bit out of the way...typically 5 minutes more than a gas station. So charging plus travel time was 150 minutes (not factoring in that it took 40+ minutes to get to/from gardernville). Comparing to the Jeep this year with the same itinerary, I only had to stop once for gas, taking 10 minutes. So, I save 140 minutes on 8-9 hours of driving plus no range anxiety, etc. I had similar experience with a trip to LA where I had 3 stops (perhaps could have done only 2, but would have taken longer to charge) vs. 1 fill-up.
What could Elon and team do to make it better? Adding more Superchargers helps with range anxiety and overcrowding at some places...but doesn't fundamentally change the equation. Adding range to 450 miles would help new cars if they could get the battery technology. But the time to charge would increase from 45 to let's say 70 minutes. The biggest improvement would be if he could get the 80% charge down to 10 minutes. At that case, going 400 miles are so would incur 2 charges plus extra drive time to charger...let's call that 25 minutes vs. 1 fill-up of 10 minutes. That would change my decision on road trips.
But for the vast majority of long drives, the MX doesn't make sense for our family. We use the Jeep Cherokee V6 with about 425 miles of range. When I say long drive, I mean any drive where we are going from home to a point that is more than 100 miles away assuming there isn't a supercharger right at our destination (or a slower-charger at my destination). An example of a long drive where there's a charger at the destination might be the Gilroy outlets. But anything else, the MX doesn't come close on a time efficiency basis...and hard to make sense on a cost-basis given the car depreciation. I've done roadtrips from Bay Area to Sacramento, Tahoe, LA, etc...so this is real-world experience
Why? My MX gets 214 on a 90% charge now...and can't get it past 241 on a 100%. So let's assume 90% although I will go to 95% if my drive will take me close to 200 miles that day. Assuming 214 miles in the AM, I get probably 190-195 if I drive rather conservatively on the highway. Of course, hills/traffic/etc will take this downwards. And if I stop, I tend to lose 1-4 miles per hour in phantom drain. So I can get 100 miles back and forth and just make it.
When I took the Tesla to South Lake Tahoe for a 3-night trip last year, it ended up about 500 miles of driving. I had to stop near Sacramento for a near full charge. Got to Tahoe but we had to drive to various sites for basketball. So I stopped in Gardnerville charger (20-25 minutes from where one of my kids' games was). And then stopped near Sacramento on the way back to get me home. That's 3 stops. Let's assume 45 minutes to charge each. And factor in that each charger is a bit out of the way...typically 5 minutes more than a gas station. So charging plus travel time was 150 minutes (not factoring in that it took 40+ minutes to get to/from gardernville). Comparing to the Jeep this year with the same itinerary, I only had to stop once for gas, taking 10 minutes. So, I save 140 minutes on 8-9 hours of driving plus no range anxiety, etc. I had similar experience with a trip to LA where I had 3 stops (perhaps could have done only 2, but would have taken longer to charge) vs. 1 fill-up.
What could Elon and team do to make it better? Adding more Superchargers helps with range anxiety and overcrowding at some places...but doesn't fundamentally change the equation. Adding range to 450 miles would help new cars if they could get the battery technology. But the time to charge would increase from 45 to let's say 70 minutes. The biggest improvement would be if he could get the 80% charge down to 10 minutes. At that case, going 400 miles are so would incur 2 charges plus extra drive time to charger...let's call that 25 minutes vs. 1 fill-up of 10 minutes. That would change my decision on road trips.