Random Thoughts on SuperCharging an S85 after a 1300-mile roadtrip

[liuping]

Once the San Diego SC opens and all SC's are upgraded to 120kW you can bypass Hawthorne and go directly to Lebec.

Is there a San Diego SC planned? I don't see on on the map. I though San Juan Capistrano was the closest. It should let me bypass Hawthorne as well, which is my main goal anyway. SJC to Tejon should be much better.

 

[liuping]

It is unfortunate, but if I were buying a Model S I would still buy the option.

There are several options if you don't want the HPWC...

a) try and get Tesla to buy it back (I saw some posts about this, not sure if it's possible)
b) sell it on here or ebay
c) donate it to a business for charging on the road

That's my plan. I'm annoyed they bundled it. I' pretty sure I will regret not getting it when high power chargers are common in a few years.

It should not be hard to sell the HPWC for around $1000. That makes the dual charger $1700, instead of $1500, which I count that as part of the recent price increases.

 

[liuping]

There is a secret San Diego SuperCharger going in -- to someone's home. It's kind of the talk of the town to those who've heard about it. I found that even the folks at the San Rafael Tesla Service Center, 500+ miles north, knew about it.

I think it's going into Carlsbad or somewhere else in North County (I would've thought Rancho Santa Fe). Rumored price for this personal SC: $500,000.

Seems kind of silly to me, but I guess for the gazillionaire who has everything except a personal SuperCharger, what's $500,000?

If I have that much money, I'd buy a couple of Model S's and keep them charging in rotation

 

[napabill]

So last night near midnight we arrived home from a 4-day trip from San Diego to Silicon Valley and Marin County and back all the way to San Diego. Total distance, about 1300 mi.

It was an eye-opening experience. Why? For conflicting reasons, some bad, some good.

Some random thoughts:

• The SuperCharger concept is great as a concept, but not as great in execution.

• We found that driving a Model S on I-5 in the State of California takes nearly twice as long to get from your starting point to your destination. What is normally a ~7-hour journey in an ICE takes over 12 hours. It took us 13 hours to drive from La Jolla to Santa Clara, CA. Mostly thanks to 2-hour wait at Hawthorne, which put us into LA rush hour on 405 -- total nightmare. It took 6 hours to go from La Jolla to Tejon Pass. On the drive home, it took 13 hours as well, this time starting from San Rafael in Marin County. But, on top of the 13 hours, I had to spend 2 hours before we even started the return journey, getting a charge, starting at 7 am, at the San Rafael Tesla Service Center. There I got only 25mph charge on their HPWC (I don't have dual chargers, grumble grumble). I needed that charge in order to limp over to Fremont to use the SuperChargers there.

• By the way, from an investor's perspective, I was very impressed with the San Rafael Tesla Service Center's folks. Friendly, knowledgable, loved their jobs, loved their company, love their customers! They work Sundays even though the place is closed! Early Sunday too! I was there at 7; they showed up around 730 or 8. I asked 'em -- how come you're here? You're closed today! "Heh, lots of work to do. It never stops. Gotta keep things moving..." This is the kind of work ethic I like in a company!

• The Superchargers vary WILDLY in terms of rate of charge. Seems to have nothing to do with whether cars are there or not. At Fremont, I was getting something like 90-140mph. At Tejon Pass on the northbound leg, we got ~313mph (awesome!). But on Tejon on the way home, we got ~100 and I think it inched up to 140 finally, after the car next to us left. Harris was okay on the north journey, but so-so on the south, even though we were the only car there.

• Travel is essentially a completely different experience in a Model S versus an ICE because of these long long waits at SuperCharger locations. Had I known I would have 13-hour drives just to go 500 miles, I might not have ordered the car. But here is the thing --- one would think this would be incredibly aggravating, frustrating, and boring. Especially when it is 105 degrees outside in blazing sun, as it was this past weekend in central California. But the travel experience was, in hindsight, very relaxing! Instead of the how-fast-can-I-get-there ICE type journey, where 7 hours door to door from San Diego to Silicon Valley is pretty darn good, considering the 24/7 nightmare that is Los Angeles, you calm down. You drive slow. You enjoy the scenery. You get out of the car every ~150 miles or so and walk around. You eat IN restaurants. You forget about the words "to go" at In-in-Out. There is no such thing as "drive thru". You relax. You stop and notice things. You shop. You people-watch. You enjoy life. And you constantly fidget with the iPhone app checking on charge status (ooh! we just hit 200mph! ooh! now it is 250mph! wow, now it is 300mph! uh oh, it just dropped to 250mph, uh oh, it just went under 100mph, uhoh, it's under 50mph, wer're doomed, etc). I wish the iPhone app just did a push notification when charge was done or when reached a pre-determined point, and you would not have to constantly check it.

• When you get to a geographical area beyond reach of a SuperCharger, I find that one's entire existence focuses on your car and how and where you are going to keep it charged. It is stressful. You discover that people and places you intended to visit are located on roads that are HILLY, and HILLS are enemies, and take you into Orange Zones (you drain the battery) and never enough Green Zones (regen the battery). I am convinced the earth is more uphill than downhill, when it should, in theory, be exactly 50-50 if you think about it. Every waking moment during our trip out beyond SuperChargers was spent thinking about charge.

• Chargepoint was a nightmare. 19mph. I don't own a card, so I had to call their 800-number, in noisy city garages in strange cities, lung-choking exhaust from ICEs filling the garage while I waited for a Chargepoint person to come on the line and explain how to set me up to use the charger.

• CHADEMO is a nightmare. Nothing like finding a charger in a grocery store's parking lot, you're low on power, you back in, you get out, you get all your cables together, you walk to the charger unit and you pull out its cable and you see this bizarro huge plug and then you realize . . . CHADEMO . . . nooooooooooooooooooo! And then inevitably some stranger walks up and wants to talk Tesla and how cool your car is etc etc and you are like gooooooooo awaayyyyyyyyyy don't you see we are dooooooooommmmed here, this town has no decent chargers, all is doomed!, and you see the expression of interest on the stranger's face morph into an expression of annoyance and smirk and eyebrows lower and they sulk away no doubt thinking, what a stuck-up jerk, yeah these Tesla people, so elitist...

• The SuperChargers feel like a classic rocket scientist's solution. String some way-stations out among the planets and moons, and the manned spacecraft basically has to find and connect to each one succesfully or it is doomed. Same with the SuperChargers, basically. If they're not working, or you can't reach 'em, and you don't know where else to turn, you're kinda doomed. So you cannot screw up. And they cannot screw up. Everything is single point of failure. And sh** happens. Things fail. It is not easy to travel long-distance in my opinion.

• When battery power is dropping due to the long distances, you realize pretty quickly to stop playing around with what I like to call "teleportation" on the freeway. Meaning, what another TMC user calls "identify and occupy" -- you see a spot up ahead that you desire the car to jump to, and you simply "will" it to happen and in an instant the car jumps to that location before any other driver knows what the heck just happened. Such is the Tesla Model S beast. And you don't need a P85 or + to teleport. Standard 85 is plenty enough.

• Hawthorne SuperCharger is currently a mess. Construction going on. Lots of locals, including Model S limos charging there. Long-distance travelers: expect long waits and slow charges. On the northbound initial leg of trip, we were stuck at Hawthorne for 2 hours. When we finally got to charge, we got 50 mph most of the time until other cars started leaving then finally got 200+mph. Took forever.

I read that Elon's going to take his family across the country. "Only 9 hours of charging" he says. Ha ha. Not going to happen. I betcha he has secret duplicate Model S's -- fully charged -- planted all along his route. If things get dicey -- and they will -- he can swap 'em out. No way he is going to have a smooth journey. Actually, I bet he postpones the trip until 2014. But we'll see.

Anyways. SuperCharging is thrilling, exciting, living in the future. But also living right out on the bleeding edge when it comes to long-distance travel.

I have revised my thinking about long trips from, say, San Diego to, say, Vancouver. Now I think, oh, it'll happen, and we'll prolly do it, but we will expect more hotel stays, and longer delays than if it were an ICE journey. Driving a Model S long-distance is ideal for folks who believe the journey to and from the destination is the reward, and long journeys in a Model S are adventures. if you're adventurous, what are you waiting for? Go for it. Just leave a lot of time, and keep your calendar wide open.

Wonderfully put. And I am one of those that believes the journey is the reward

 

[markb1]

There is a secret San Diego SuperCharger going in -- to someone's home. It's kind of the talk of the town to those who've heard about it. I found that even the folks at the San Rafael Tesla Service Center, 500+ miles north, knew about it.

I think it's going into Carlsbad or somewhere else in North County (I would've thought Rancho Santa Fe). Rumored price for this personal SC: $500,000.

Seems kind of silly to me, but I guess for the gazillionaire who has everything except a personal SuperCharger, what's $500,000?

OMG, seriously? Someone with more money than they know what to do with, I guess. But good to know that Tesla will accommodate private superchargers. This would make sense for fleets, for instance.

 

[Frankrb]

I'm planning a Las Vegas to Albuquerque trip in my MS in Nov and will have to do it without any SC's.

Starting the RV park charging plan now. Anyone with any ADVICE would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

 

[SFOTurtle]

But dual chargers only help with high amp public charging or HPWC, superchargers bypass them. I haven't seen any public charging above 30amp? Maybe there are more in CA?

Yes, there are quite a few 70A chargers in CA. I've used them probably a good two dozen times, if not more, thanks to having dual chargers. Up and down 101, and a couple along I-80 west and east of Sacto. And don't forget the HPWC at Tesla service centers. I didn't buy my MS to do long roadtrips, but I have found that I am making more trips because of the ease and fun of using both SCs and 70A stations and, frankly, just slowing down and enjoying the drive more. If you're in a hurry, fly.

 

[tbleakne]

But dual chargers only help with high amp public charging or HPWC, superchargers bypass them. I haven't seen any public charging above 30amp? Maybe there are more in CA?

I agree high amp public charging with dual chargers could fill a real need, but outside of Canada it is more potential than reality right now. I know of only half a dozen public high amp charging in California. They are not too easy to find. Most are legacy Roadster stations that have been upgraded to 70A J1772. There is one in Davis, Goleta, other towns along US 101.

Sun Country is a Canadian Company. Their units appear to be re-branded Clippercreeks, which is fine. Their map shows only one planned location in California, and it is too close to Harris Ranch to be relevant or useful.

The locations need to be planned carefully, co-located with decent food for a stop of an hour or more. A forum member donated a HPWC that was installed at Chiriaco Summit, on I10 near Joshua Tree NP S. entrance. Unfortunately this location is scheduled to be eclipsed by a Supercharger installation nearby. With the HPWC now bundled with the dual charger option, perhaps more folks will choose to donate the HPWC if then don't really need it in their garage. It would help if Tesla would provide some kind of support for this effort.

 

[TommyBoy]

Brianstorms -

What an awesome (and eye-opening!) post! It's very honest and gave me a lot of food for thought. I'll be doing Mission Viejo to Sacramento a few times a year and using Tejon/Harris/Folsom SuperChargers. You posted several things I never thought about.

Thank you for the informative real-world post. We need more like that here!

 

[J1mbo]

OMG, seriously? Someone with more money than they know what to do with, I guess. But good to know that Tesla will accommodate private superchargers. This would make sense for fleets, for instance.

I think Tesla would benefit from opening up the SC network to private companies. If someone installed a bunch of private 120KW SCs and charged say..50% of the equivalent gas price for using them, I am sure people would pay to avoid a 2hr queue. Be interesting to work out how long it would take to recover the initial $500k investment (although I bet most of that was the one-off cost of the grid connection rather than cost per-outlet).

 

[Ocelot]

four pages deep and no one has mentioned battery swap. the concept gets no love around these parts, but for me it would be the best of several things. still no ICE, so good environmentally and much faster than waiting for a charge. yes its great to stop and smell the roses, but with two little kids kicking and screaming and peeing ( and smiling) sometimes waiting for a couple hours mid- road trip seems hard on the nerves. with the model-x coming out, being geared towards families this issue will continue to grow.

i would have no qualms paying 50-60 bucks (same as a tank of gas) to swap my battery and have it stored till i get back. and to be frank, i would have no problems to just keep swapping batteries, and never get 'the original' back. kinda like you buy it as part of the car, then your donation to the 'pool' gets you access to one from the pool.

 

[tbleakne]

I'm working with a few others and hope to have 240V/70A J1772 chargers in Salida, CO and Pagosa Springs, CO this fall. We are working to fill in the "4-Corners Black Hole"

View attachment 30272

Even though the 4-Corners Region looks covered, the realities of mountain roads mean that you need more charging options to drive this region in an MS.

These 70A chargers will give you a 50 mph charge rate, but only if you have twin chargers. In my opinion, twin chargers are a necessity for road tripping even when the SC network is built out.

I have posted pictures on Plugshare, taken by a friend at my request, of new Chargepoints installed at the Durango Transit Center. These are only 30A, but they are a short block from what looks like a decent motel. Locations are also needed west of Durango, extending down into AZ on US 160.

Getting a host to accept the loss of a parking spot is often not easy, and ICE risk is not acceptable when we are talking no alternatives for 100 miles. One solution I have seen getting traction is to suggest that a local manager initially park in the spot, and agree to move his/her vehicle when necessary.

 

[wraithnot]

Hawthorne SuperCharger is currently a mess. Construction going on. Lots of locals, including Model S limos charging there. Long-distance travelers: expect long waits and slow charges. On the northbound initial leg of trip, we were stuck at Hawthorne for 2 hours. When we finally got to charge, we got 50 mph most of the time until other cars started leaving then finally got 200+mph. Took forever.

I've gone a number of supercharger enabled road trips and for the most part I've had a very good experience and I would still choose the Model S over a plane or an ICE as long as there are superchargers along the route.

But my two stops at Hawthorne did leave a bad taste in my mouth (and this was even before the most recent construction). If you aren't there during business hours, the closest bathroom requires a hike up Crenshaw blvd and there is usually a long wait due to all the locals using the superchargers (including one guy who said he was there charging his boss's Model S). When I was there, the fifth charging stall was also inoperable, but instead of a sign to this effect, there was a bunch of cobwebs on the charging port door and a jagged hole in the fiberglass where the button to open the charging port door used to be. But luckily Hawthorne seems to be an aberration since the rest of the superchargers I've visited (Gilroy, Harris Ranch, Tejon Ranch, Barstow, Buellton and Atascadero) are placed and maintained significantly better.

I also agree that the whole supercharger experience breaks down somewhat when they get crowded (although if you know which charging stalls are paired and choose accordingly this can help a lot). Tesla is being responsive by adding more charging stalls at Gilroy so hopefully they will be able to better handle demand at all superchargers in the near future.

 

[mknox]

Sun Country is a Canadian Company. Their units appear to be re-branded Clippercreeks, which is fine.

Given that, don't Clipper Creek have high power units for sale in the US, or are those models somehow custom-built for Sun Country?

 

[FredTMC]

I've gone a number of supercharger enabled road trips and for the most part I've had a very good experience and I would still choose the Model S over a plane or an ICE as long as there are superchargers along the route.

But my two stops at Hawthorne did leave a bad taste in my mouth (and this was even before the most recent construction). If you aren't there during business hours, the closest bathroom requires a hike up Crenshaw blvd and there is usually a long wait due to all the locals using the superchargers (including one guy who said he was there charging his boss's Model S). When I was there, the fifth charging stall was also inoperable, but instead of a sign to this effect, there was a bunch of cobwebs on the charging port door and a jagged hole in the fiberglass where the button to open the charging port door used to be. But luckily Hawthorne seems to be an aberration since the rest of the superchargers I've visited (Gilroy, Harris Ranch, Tejon Ranch, Barstow, Buellton and Atascadero) are placed and maintained significantly better.

I also agree that the whole supercharger experience breaks down somewhat when they get crowded (although if you know which charging stalls are paired and choose accordingly this can help a lot). Tesla is being responsive by adding more charging stalls at Gilroy so hopefully they will be able to better handle demand at all superchargers in the near future.

I was there last Friday 9/6. Yes, it's under construction. Looks to me that they are adding a sixth station.
Construction guys were cool. They opened stalls when a line formed. Only two stalls open when I got there.

 

[tbleakne]

Given that, don't Clipper Creek have high power units for sale in the US, or are those models somehow custom-built for Sun Country?

Clippercreek will sell you a CS-100 in the US, and their CS-50, CS-60, CS-70 are mentioned on their web page, but they don't quote prices. If they were really serious, their units would be available on Amazon, like Aerovironment and Leviton.

- - - Updated - - -

While more high-current J1772 can add 50-70 miles on a road trip during lunch stops, 30A J1772 is plenty to get a full charge overnight at a motel. I suggest that we should advocate for more J1772 motel deployment every time we stay in a motel.

This is a link to an independent Google map of motels with charging. You can submit more locations as you discover them.

http://dcubed.com/evmap/

 

[mnx]

Clippercreek will sell you a CS-100 in the US, and their CS-50, CS-60, CS-70 are mentioned on their web page, but they don't quote prices. If they were really serious, their units would be available on Amazon, like Aerovironment and Leviton.

Ummm how is ordering from Amazon easier than ordering online from Clipper Creek? Anything less than a CS-100 is somewhat pointless unless you're really pinching pennies... FWIW, They have these on sale right now which are a great deal!
Charging Station / TS70 (90)

A 30A j1772, would take >17 hours to fully charge an 85kWh battery FWIW. Not really adequate even for hotels IMO.

 

[TylerCA]

So last night near midnight we arrived home from a 4-day trip from San Diego to Silicon Valley and Marin County and back all the way to San Diego. Total distance, about 1300 mi.

It was an eye-opening experience. Why? For conflicting reasons, some bad, some good.

Some random thoughts:

• The SuperCharger concept is great as a concept, but not as great in execution.

• We found that driving a Model S on I-5 in the State of California takes nearly twice as long to get from your starting point to your destination. What is normally a ~7-hour journey in an ICE takes over 12 hours. It took us 13 hours to drive from La Jolla to Santa Clara, CA. Mostly thanks to 2-hour wait at Hawthorne, which put us into LA rush hour on 405 -- total nightmare. It took 6 hours to go from La Jolla to Tejon Pass. On the drive home, it took 13 hours as well, this time starting from San Rafael in Marin County. But, on top of the 13 hours, I had to spend 2 hours before we even started the return journey, getting a charge, starting at 7 am, at the San Rafael Tesla Service Center. There I got only 25mph charge on their HPWC (I don't have dual chargers, grumble grumble). I needed that charge in order to limp over to Fremont to use the SuperChargers there.

• By the way, from an investor's perspective, I was very impressed with the San Rafael Tesla Service Center's folks. Friendly, knowledgable, loved their jobs, loved their company, love their customers! They work Sundays even though the place is closed! Early Sunday too! I was there at 7; they showed up around 730 or 8. I asked 'em -- how come you're here? You're closed today! "Heh, lots of work to do. It never stops. Gotta keep things moving..." This is the kind of work ethic I like in a company!

• The Superchargers vary WILDLY in terms of rate of charge. Seems to have nothing to do with whether cars are there or not. At Fremont, I was getting something like 90-140mph. At Tejon Pass on the northbound leg, we got ~313mph (awesome!). But on Tejon on the way home, we got ~100 and I think it inched up to 140 finally, after the car next to us left. Harris was okay on the north journey, but so-so on the south, even though we were the only car there.

• Travel is essentially a completely different experience in a Model S versus an ICE because of these long long waits at SuperCharger locations. Had I known I would have 13-hour drives just to go 500 miles, I might not have ordered the car. But here is the thing --- one would think this would be incredibly aggravating, frustrating, and boring. Especially when it is 105 degrees outside in blazing sun, as it was this past weekend in central California. But the travel experience was, in hindsight, very relaxing! Instead of the how-fast-can-I-get-there ICE type journey, where 7 hours door to door from San Diego to Silicon Valley is pretty darn good, considering the 24/7 nightmare that is Los Angeles, you calm down. You drive slow. You enjoy the scenery. You get out of the car every ~150 miles or so and walk around. You eat IN restaurants. You forget about the words "to go" at In-in-Out. There is no such thing as "drive thru". You relax. You stop and notice things. You shop. You people-watch. You enjoy life. And you constantly fidget with the iPhone app checking on charge status (ooh! we just hit 200mph! ooh! now it is 250mph! wow, now it is 300mph! uh oh, it just dropped to 250mph, uh oh, it just went under 100mph, uhoh, it's under 50mph, wer're doomed, etc). I wish the iPhone app just did a push notification when charge was done or when reached a pre-determined point, and you would not have to constantly check it.

• When you get to a geographical area beyond reach of a SuperCharger, I find that one's entire existence focuses on your car and how and where you are going to keep it charged. It is stressful. You discover that people and places you intended to visit are located on roads that are HILLY, and HILLS are enemies, and take you into Orange Zones (you drain the battery) and never enough Green Zones (regen the battery). I am convinced the earth is more uphill than downhill, when it should, in theory, be exactly 50-50 if you think about it. Every waking moment during our trip out beyond SuperChargers was spent thinking about charge.

• Chargepoint was a nightmare. 19mph. I don't own a card, so I had to call their 800-number, in noisy city garages in strange cities, lung-choking exhaust from ICEs filling the garage while I waited for a Chargepoint person to come on the line and explain how to set me up to use the charger.

• CHADEMO is a nightmare. Nothing like finding a charger in a grocery store's parking lot, you're low on power, you back in, you get out, you get all your cables together, you walk to the charger unit and you pull out its cable and you see this bizarro huge plug and then you realize . . . CHADEMO . . . nooooooooooooooooooo! And then inevitably some stranger walks up and wants to talk Tesla and how cool your car is etc etc and you are like gooooooooo awaayyyyyyyyyy don't you see we are dooooooooommmmed here, this town has no decent chargers, all is doomed!, and you see the expression of interest on the stranger's face morph into an expression of annoyance and smirk and eyebrows lower and they sulk away no doubt thinking, what a stuck-up jerk, yeah these Tesla people, so elitist...

• The SuperChargers feel like a classic rocket scientist's solution. String some way-stations out among the planets and moons, and the manned spacecraft basically has to find and connect to each one succesfully or it is doomed. Same with the SuperChargers, basically. If they're not working, or you can't reach 'em, and you don't know where else to turn, you're kinda doomed. So you cannot screw up. And they cannot screw up. Everything is single point of failure. And sh** happens. Things fail. It is not easy to travel long-distance in my opinion.

• When battery power is dropping due to the long distances, you realize pretty quickly to stop playing around with what I like to call "teleportation" on the freeway. Meaning, what another TMC user calls "identify and occupy" -- you see a spot up ahead that you desire the car to jump to, and you simply "will" it to happen and in an instant the car jumps to that location before any other driver knows what the heck just happened. Such is the Tesla Model S beast. And you don't need a P85 or + to teleport. Standard 85 is plenty enough.

• Hawthorne SuperCharger is currently a mess. Construction going on. Lots of locals, including Model S limos charging there. Long-distance travelers: expect long waits and slow charges. On the northbound initial leg of trip, we were stuck at Hawthorne for 2 hours. When we finally got to charge, we got 50 mph most of the time until other cars started leaving then finally got 200+mph. Took forever.

I read that Elon's going to take his family across the country. "Only 9 hours of charging" he says. Ha ha. Not going to happen. I betcha he has secret duplicate Model S's -- fully charged -- planted all along his route. If things get dicey -- and they will -- he can swap 'em out. No way he is going to have a smooth journey. Actually, I bet he postpones the trip until 2014. But we'll see.

Anyways. SuperCharging is thrilling, exciting, living in the future. But also living right out on the bleeding edge when it comes to long-distance travel.

I have revised my thinking about long trips from, say, San Diego to, say, Vancouver. Now I think, oh, it'll happen, and we'll prolly do it, but we will expect more hotel stays, and longer delays than if it were an ICE journey. Driving a Model S long-distance is ideal for folks who believe the journey to and from the destination is the reward, and long journeys in a Model S are adventures. if you're adventurous, what are you waiting for? Go for it. Just leave a lot of time, and keep your calendar wide open.

What a wonderful write up. Thank you for being so descriptive! This helps a lot in case my wife wants to do a romantic road trip.

Now can anyone school me on the difference in the charging time for a HPWC? Thanks!

 

[dirkhh]

Great writeup, brianstorms.
This is a great example why in a few other threads many of us argue that we need bigger batteries and that the idea "the Supercharger roll out will be complete" is just silly.
An S120 when driven with some restraint will make it 400 miles. That's about 7h or driving. You plan a 2h break with lunch/dinner near a Supercharger and get another 300 miles. And you shouldn't drive more than 700 miles a day, anyway.
Charge at a T70 or better over night. Repeat.

 

[strider]

Yep, I'm w/ Ocelot. It looks like I'll be making the Bay Area to San Diego run next summer for a family gathering. Historically we would fly to these and rent a car but planning to take the Model S. If the SC's are jammed and the kids are antsy then just swap your pack. It's the same price as driving your ICE. So if the SCs are open you drive for free, and if not you're paying the same as your ICE. The only thing I haven't worked out is the whole "getting your own pack back thing.". What if I drive down to SoCal on a Wednesday and SCs are free all the way down. Then I come home on Sunday and the SC's are jammed. If I want to pack swap there's no way I'll get my own pack back since I'm on my return journey. Hopefully Tesla will have this worked out by next summer