Yup, always pack wash supplies as I say no to drive thru car washes, no to car detailers, and no to SC washes.
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Yup, always pack wash supplies as I say no to drive thru car washes, no to car detailers, and no to SC washes.
Well, we are finally home again. We left our friends' house in Lake Wylie, SC yesterday morning around 8am and arrived at home around 10:30 last night. I decided to enjoy the trip and not obsess about tracking all the details, but here's a quick summary:
The trip always takes longer than you expect. Don't be in a hurry! We ended up staying overnight an extra night on the road on the way up instead of arriving in the wee hours of the morning exhausted. It was worth it!
No issues at all on any of our charging stops. And we even stopped at Bethesda on the way back, around rush hour on a week day. Had to wait about 15 minutes for one of the two chargers to open up, but we plugged into a 14-50 while we waited.
The nav update to route through superchargers was helpful, but has some funny quirks. We had to perform some minor workarounds to get what we needed, but overall it was quite useful.
We ran into very few other people charging. As many charging stops as we made, it seemed odd.
NY drivers are rude and aggressive.
The further north you go, the less likely drivers in the right lane are to move over when approaching cars are trying to merge onto the highway.
Traveling with someone who has to pee every 5 minutes gets old by Day 2. Especially when it's NOT a toddler.
You should make the road trip snacks harder to get to while driving.
Your Tesla friends will track you and text you the entire time, asking a bazillion questions. And you'll gladly answer them because that's what Tesla people do! And you know they care and want to know you're safe.
The Model S is a fantastic road trip car! We put 3,500 miles on her over the last 2 weeks!
The trip always takes longer than you expect. Don't be in a hurry! We ended up staying overnight an extra night on the road on the way up instead of arriving in the wee hours of the morning exhausted. It was worth it!
No issues at all on any of our charging stops. And we even stopped at Bethesda on the way back, around rush hour on a week day. Had to wait about 15 minutes for one of the two chargers to open up, but we plugged into a 14-50 while we waited.
The nav update to route through superchargers was helpful, but has some funny quirks. We had to perform some minor workarounds to get what we needed, but overall it was quite useful.
We ran into very few other people charging. As many charging stops as we made, it seemed odd.
NY drivers are rude and aggressive.
The further north you go, the less likely drivers in the right lane are to move over when approaching cars are trying to merge onto the highway.
Traveling with someone who has to pee every 5 minutes gets old by Day 2. Especially when it's NOT a toddler.
You should make the road trip snacks harder to get to while driving.
Your Tesla friends will track you and text you the entire time, asking a bazillion questions. And you'll gladly answer them because that's what Tesla people do! And you know they care and want to know you're safe.
The Model S is a fantastic road trip car! We put 3,500 miles on her over the last 2 weeks!
FLDarren
Member
Lol, good idea! I didn't mind really. It gave me something to do when Jim was driving.
LoL Rick
Like Buttah
Yeah, I thought it was our job to entertain you on the road. Glad you're home - I'm exhausted now.
Overall, it really was a great trip. Driving a Tesla long distance is a piece of cake, at least for the route we took. One other observation I didn't mention:
Not all Nissan dealerships are created equal. On the way up I called Coggin Nissan in Jax. I didn't HAVE to charge there, but since it's 174 miles from the St Augustine SC to Savannah SC, I wanted to pick up just a few miles on their CHAdeMO. They said I could, yet when we got there and started to plug in, they came out and said their policy was to allow only Nissans to charge there. That's fine, but I had called ahead for that very reason, so I didn't exactly drive the speed limit on the way there. Very disappointing, maybe I wouldn't recommend a Leaf to someone wanting an entry level BEV now...
On the way home, for the same leg in reverse I found another Nissan dealership in Brunswick, GA. I called Jenkins Nissan, who couldn't have been nicer. They were kind of excited, as they said no one had ever used their CHAdeMO before. We got there, plugged in with no problem, and went inside to say thanks. They insisted on giving us ice cold bottled water and showing us to the customer lounge. We got what we needed in about 15 minutes and were on our way. Take a lesson, Coggin Nissan!
Not all Nissan dealerships are created equal. On the way up I called Coggin Nissan in Jax. I didn't HAVE to charge there, but since it's 174 miles from the St Augustine SC to Savannah SC, I wanted to pick up just a few miles on their CHAdeMO. They said I could, yet when we got there and started to plug in, they came out and said their policy was to allow only Nissans to charge there. That's fine, but I had called ahead for that very reason, so I didn't exactly drive the speed limit on the way there. Very disappointing, maybe I wouldn't recommend a Leaf to someone wanting an entry level BEV now...
On the way home, for the same leg in reverse I found another Nissan dealership in Brunswick, GA. I called Jenkins Nissan, who couldn't have been nicer. They were kind of excited, as they said no one had ever used their CHAdeMO before. We got there, plugged in with no problem, and went inside to say thanks. They insisted on giving us ice cold bottled water and showing us to the customer lounge. We got what we needed in about 15 minutes and were on our way. Take a lesson, Coggin Nissan!
