Hi all
So sorry for the late reply! My family and I have just had 4 weeks touring to the south of France and back. It was a cracking holiday and the Tesla did us proud!
I’ve got to say, using Tesla chargers made the trip very cheap. On the way down to Leon from our home, we used £100 of electric. We charged once at Newport Pagnell on the way to Dover which was our most expensive charge. Otherwise in France it was around euro 16 to fill it.
Thanks for all the questions and comments. If I would have read these before we left I would have made a better effort of recording the trip data. I do have some stats to share however.
This was the trip:
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So we started out in Haydock and drove down to Dover and caught the ferry to Calais.
From there we went to our first night stop off in D’Orbec, the following day we stayed in Saint-Cyr, then onto le col vert in Leon. We had two weeks there so was our main holiday.
On the way back we went through camping bastide on the dordogne then belle isle in chateauroux, camping les pres, camping viviex carpes where we also took the dog to the vets for his wormer to get back into the uk. Final stop in France was La licorne in Normandy. We stayed for a couple of days in each site so in total we had a good 4 weeks!
I took this photo when I got home:
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So in total we drove 2405 miles and used an average of 484wh/mile.
A couple of things to note. We were fully loaded with 4 weeks worth of clothes, games, books etc. paddle boards, kayak and 5 bikes so we’re no doubt on the heavy side.
I always check nose weight before I set off and try to retain the nose weight of the caravan when empty as this is obviously the balance the caravan manufacturers think is best. For mine it’s 100kg exactly.
I can keep this weight fairly consistent as it is a twin axel so is very balanced anyway. I have the awning and water containers over the wheels and the only things in the front are the gas bottle, Cadac and wooden blocks for the legs. We actually put the clothes bags on the front couch to add more weight as we had 4 bikes on the back of the caravan. The 5th smallest bike was also over the wheels.
Tyre pressure is usually 43-45psi and not something I’ve ever changed.
Final observation to improve range….
I noticed that weight is irrelevant to some degree as either empty or full I’ve had similar towing results, as is having the climate control on. The biggest impact to range was speed. As an example, we did one leg of 172 miles - 100% at the start and arrived with 4%. To achieve this i stuck to 50mph. If I took my speed up to 60mph my range would be circa 120 miles. I tried 65mph and the range was closer to 90 miles.
As we only ever stopped once on any leg (some we never stopped at all), I judged the stop time around lunch time to kill two birds and all that. If we set off late and only had an hour maybe an hour and a half till lunch, I tended to gun it at 65. I would then get to the charger at lunch time and spend the hour topping up the battery and our belly’s. Earlier starts would see me stick to 50 so I could drag out the miles to lunch.
We are away with family again tomorrow till bank holiday Monday so I will record some more stats for you.
Let me know if you want any specific data and I will come back to you next week.
Thanks
