I had a disappointing weekend driving experience this last weekend that is making me rethink how a MX 100D is going to work in my life. Drove from the San Francisco Bay Area to Fresno in central California with my girlfriend and her beagle, and then up into the California foothills above Fresno to visit my sister. Started with a 95% charge when we took off and 2 and a half hours later, we stopped at the Fresno supercharger to top off the car to 90% for drving in the mountains... and we picked up some sandwiches for lunch at the mall there. Got there with 70%, spent the weekend with family, drove a little to church, then decided to drive to my home down of Visalia to visit family. The weather was 102-105 degrees, we were running from 280 wh to 360 wh for the trip.
My sister does not have solar and pays for her own electricity so we did not charge at her house with the 120 volt connections.
Started down the mountain with the battery at 60% (phantom drain) and arrived at the Fresno supercharger about 3pm with the car at 49% and... There was a line of 4 cars waiting to get into the 10 slot supercharger. There were more cars backing up behind me. Called my cousin who has a model 3 and he said we could use their dedicated 40 amp wall charger and so off we went, south, about a 50 minute drive. Arrived in Visalia with about 29% charge, plugged in, visited and went out to dinner.
During dinner I got a notification on my phone that charging stopped and I figured, "oh dear, I blew their fuses with my car). It was still 102 outside. Drove to my cousin's house (in their model 3) and found out that indeed, the charging had stopped.. and the neighborhood was without power. Another California brownout. I don't think it was my fault. We were up to 40% and needed to get back to the SF Bay Area that night. There was no other option except to head to Colinga (out of our way) or Harris Ranch (a little out of our way) or back to Fresno. There were no supercharger slots available there according to the Tesla app and the car. So we decided to take a chance and just wait in Fresno for a slot to open.
Fortunately by the time we got back to Fresno, there were 3 slots open so we charged at a rate of about 36-50 kwh... but still took an hour to get up to 85%. We got back to the Bay Area at midnight at 20% charge and I left the car to charge overnight at my house.
We got back really late, took a long time to charge this weekend, I have a pissed off girlfriend and a tired beagle (he has his own bed in the back with the seats down and a dog harness and restraint system in the car to protect him if there is a sudden slowdown or stop). There are limited supercharging options down highway 99 and none in Visalia.. .but there are level 2 chargers there, and we figured out that we could use that if we were stuck. Still, the fear of range anxiety has sort of put me off the long distance trips with the Tesla. Perhaps I need to do more careful planning and set up options if there are unexpected difficulties....
