Panama run

[evme]

Panama run (Most daring roadtrip yet?)

It seems some owners from Louisiana decided to drive to Panama. Yes, the country.

Panama Run - EVWORLD.COM

That is probably the boldest trip yet.

 

[Robert.Boston]

Wow, this is a crazy drive! They've already reached Jaco, Costa Rica. They report to be tying directly into 240v lines (i.e., no plugs!). This trip makes driving from LA to NYC look like a walk in the park.

 

[ecarfan]

That is crazy cool!

 

[ckessel]

I was going to say it'd invalidate the warranty, but it looks like the verbiage that used to exist about charging outside of US/Canada is gone from the warranty. Maybe it went away one EU shipments started.

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

That is crazy cool!

The border crossing from El Salvador into Honduras seemed a little on the ‘expensive’ side though. ‘Paying’ $500 seems a little excessive… :scared:

 

[AudubonB]

Yowza. This is making our drive to Alaska seem like a walk through a substation!
That $500 entrance fee may seem excessive, but it shouldn't come as any surprise. Nicaragua, on the other hand, is probably NOT going to present crossing shake-down problems, and that is (historically) what would be the surprise.

 

[MikeC]

Now that's a road trip.

 

[Bradleybang]

update from site
"Now as for somewhat more important news... Randy just informed me they had their best day's travel today. They are in Jaco, Costa Rica having driven 261 miles: "...our best day. It was long, 13.5 hours from departure. 11 hours on the road, and then 2.5 hours to find a hotel to let us charge. We wired again directly to the 240 power without a plug."

 

[AudubonB]

"...directly without a plug".

Right - I'd seen that and it puzzled me then, too. I've been of the impression that the Tesla-supplied cord &c is too smart to allow that to happen. That is, it tests the circuits to ensure there is appropriate grounding and so on. Have the travelers described - some earlier stop? - just how they are able to Macgyver their way through this? Especially with their having decided to bop on down just a few days ago?

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

"...directly without a plug".

Right /.../ Have the travelers described - some earlier stop? - just how they are able to Macgyver their way through this? Especially with their having decided to bop on down just a few days ago?

:biggrin: Funny stuff.

There’s a ~18 min. podcast stream in that link in the OP. The quality of the phone line to Central America, and that particular dialect of the two travelers made it a little challenging for me as a Swedish person to understand everything they were saying though. But as I remember it, they have been planning this trip for a while. But the actual bop apparently came to in a somewhat spontaneous fashion. They didn’t really elaborate on this part though. And one of the travelers is some kind of engineer. And they also have some kind of technically knowledgeable contact at Tesla. And they have some 20 different adapters and/or different 'electrical interface thingies' with them in the car. I'm however unfortunately not that versed in the technical stuff…

 

[Jack6591]

Traveling to Panama in Model S, and these guys don't speak Spanish. Grande cojones.

 

[Discoducky]

I hope for a full 62 page report or full novella as one of the guys is a novelist. what an amazing trip. Also hope Elon and the TM crew are following and publicize this trip.

 

[Robert.Boston]

I hope for a full 62 page report or full novella as one of the guys is a novelist. what an amazing trip. Also hope Elon and the TM crew are following and publicize this trip.

I know that Tesla Motors is looking into this:

we’ve sent the story over to our Press and Communications team. They’ll look into the trip, and decide whether or not to include the trip as one of our customer stories.

 

[Bradleybang]

or a movie.
The Tesla Diaries
The Motorcycle Diaries - YouTube

 

[detlefo]

Pretty crazy, wiring directly. With the constant current draw of a charging Tesla and the real potential of substandard wiring, it is lucky that they didn't burn down a hotel or two. Still a great story. They didn't say how they plan to get home. There must be a market for the car in one of the larger cities. Turn a profit and fly seems like a good plan.

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

IIRC (and understood correctly) they might continue going further south than Panama. One problem with that plan though seemed to be that in some parts of South America, the electrical grid is more like the one here in Europe (or some such)… But they said that at some point they’ll ship the car back to the US. There’s no way they’re going back the way they came.

But I guess that if they can sell it for a profit, then that sounds even better.

 

[ElSupreme]

IIRC (and understood correctly) they might continue going further south than Panama. One problem with that plan though seemed to be that in some parts of South America, the electrical grid is more like the one here in Europe (or some such)… But they said that at some point they’ll ship the car back to the US. There’s no way they’re going back the way they came.

But I guess that if they can sell it for a profit, then that sounds even better.

There isn't a road that connects North and South America. Not even rough logging roads. Northern (Western) Columbia and Southern Panama are really swampy, mountainous, rough terrain, and don't connect for normal vehicles.

 

[ModelS4Taos]

Also know as the Darién Gap. Might be impossible to build a road there mainly because road crews would be killed by whatever flavor of militant happens to control the area.

I believe there are car ferries from Panama to Columbia. However, the status of these boats changes monthly. Using a shipping container maybe the most reliable and possibly cheapest way to get a car from Panama to Columbia.

 

[lolachampcar]

My guess on the "wired directly in" comment is that they have a bare wire pigtail on something like a 50 amp socket (NEMA 6-50?). They connect the L1, L2 and gnd free leads to whatever panel they have access to then plug the UMC into the 50 amp socket. The car is perfectly happy and they can test the boundaries of available current by slowly increasing current and monitoring voltage and the panel. Again, just a guess.

 

[SwedishAdvocate]

There isn't a road that connects North and South America. Not even rough logging roads. Northern (Western) Columbia and Southern Panama are really swampy, mountainous, rough terrain, and don't connect for normal vehicles.

I (obviously) didn’t know that. And I guess that was why I didn’t connect that they must have been talking about shipping the car south…