since i saw the horror story, i thought i'd add mine...this car is amazing. we just did a little over 3800 miles - from southern california to KC (via AZ, NM, TX, OK and KS), and then back on a slightly different route (via IA, SD, WY, UT, AZ, NV). no range anxiety whatsoever, the car literally tells you exactly when you need to stop and for how long (although this is one of my few gripes, i'll explain later).
we stopped to supercharge 30 times along the way (including once at the KC supercharger the day after we arrived to "fuel up" for the week)...each time we would have already needed to stop to either stretch, use the restroom, or just take a break in general. in fact, we still had to stop a few times without supercharging (in case of needing a restroom in-between superchargers, although we tried to only stop at superchargers and at least plug in if that was the case, even if only for a few minutes). we also charged three times during the few days in KC when we happened to be near a chargepoint charger and knew we would be staying at that location for an hour or more.
three gripes: the first two are minor, both nav related (and both kind of play into each other). if i'm missing something and it is possible to do either of these, please let me know...
1) i wish there was a way to add a waypoint. there were a few times where we wanted to put in our final destination for the night and then add stops along the way (to use the aforementioned car ability to tell you how long to charge at each stop), and it didn't seem that was possible. we had to set up one trip to each stop, and then kinda guess from there as to whether or not we had enough range to get to the next supercharger.
2) it would be nice if there was a way to tell the nav to limit the time spent charging rather than the way it seems to work, which is to limit the number of stops. there were a few times where we could (and did) stop at a few superchargers along the route and do smaller stops at each one rather than a longer charge at a given charger and then skipping one or two along the way.
3) this is the more major one - not having satellite radio as an option sucks. really, really sucks. there was more than one point where i drove through areas with no cell service and no radio stations available (and that goes for both the AT&T connection in the car as well as my T-Mobile cell phone, so please spare me the "you could just tether your cell phone" excuse that i've gotten in the past when i mentioned satellite radio should have been an option...let alone the fact that according to tesla's documentation you can't use your cell phone to enable premium features such as streaming audio). i did save some music on spotify and downloaded a few howard stern interviews to get me through those spots, and that worked fine...but especially in the heart of the baseball playoff chase and the first weekend of college football, i would have rathered have the ability to listen to live content during those stretches.
now to the best parts: autopilot - it's truly amazing how much less stressful a long drive like this is when you have autopilot available and only have to supervise while letting the car do most of the work. much, much less exhausting than trying to do this drive (as we did last year in my volt, see notes below) without any of those convenience features. my volt has regular cruise control, but that's it. even just using TACC would have made this so much less stressful, but autosteer and auto lane change just take it to another level. another gripe though (extremely minor), i do wish there was a way to limit the nag for autosteer when on a perfectly straight stretch of road. there were several points on I-40 and I-90 in particular (but also on some of the other interstates we used) where there were miles and miles and miles of straightaway stretches...yet the car still nags you to turn the wheel. even though i was driving with my hands on the wheel to be prepared to take over, i wasn't turning the wheel because there literally wasn't any reason to. the road was perfectly straight for miles and miles at a time.
cost - supercharging and chargepoint fees combined for the entire trip cost me a little over $150. the same trip last year in my chevy volt cost nearly $400 in gas. this trip only cost me a little over $400 for both energy costs plus lodging for three nights of the road trip.
in summary: this car is amazing. aside from the gripes i mentioned here and the madness that is the phone key, i couldn't be happier with my investment. the best part? every single gripe i mentioned here except for the satellite radio part is something that tesla could theoretically solve via OTA software update...
we stopped to supercharge 30 times along the way (including once at the KC supercharger the day after we arrived to "fuel up" for the week)...each time we would have already needed to stop to either stretch, use the restroom, or just take a break in general. in fact, we still had to stop a few times without supercharging (in case of needing a restroom in-between superchargers, although we tried to only stop at superchargers and at least plug in if that was the case, even if only for a few minutes). we also charged three times during the few days in KC when we happened to be near a chargepoint charger and knew we would be staying at that location for an hour or more.
three gripes: the first two are minor, both nav related (and both kind of play into each other). if i'm missing something and it is possible to do either of these, please let me know...
1) i wish there was a way to add a waypoint. there were a few times where we wanted to put in our final destination for the night and then add stops along the way (to use the aforementioned car ability to tell you how long to charge at each stop), and it didn't seem that was possible. we had to set up one trip to each stop, and then kinda guess from there as to whether or not we had enough range to get to the next supercharger.
2) it would be nice if there was a way to tell the nav to limit the time spent charging rather than the way it seems to work, which is to limit the number of stops. there were a few times where we could (and did) stop at a few superchargers along the route and do smaller stops at each one rather than a longer charge at a given charger and then skipping one or two along the way.
3) this is the more major one - not having satellite radio as an option sucks. really, really sucks. there was more than one point where i drove through areas with no cell service and no radio stations available (and that goes for both the AT&T connection in the car as well as my T-Mobile cell phone, so please spare me the "you could just tether your cell phone" excuse that i've gotten in the past when i mentioned satellite radio should have been an option...let alone the fact that according to tesla's documentation you can't use your cell phone to enable premium features such as streaming audio). i did save some music on spotify and downloaded a few howard stern interviews to get me through those spots, and that worked fine...but especially in the heart of the baseball playoff chase and the first weekend of college football, i would have rathered have the ability to listen to live content during those stretches.
now to the best parts: autopilot - it's truly amazing how much less stressful a long drive like this is when you have autopilot available and only have to supervise while letting the car do most of the work. much, much less exhausting than trying to do this drive (as we did last year in my volt, see notes below) without any of those convenience features. my volt has regular cruise control, but that's it. even just using TACC would have made this so much less stressful, but autosteer and auto lane change just take it to another level. another gripe though (extremely minor), i do wish there was a way to limit the nag for autosteer when on a perfectly straight stretch of road. there were several points on I-40 and I-90 in particular (but also on some of the other interstates we used) where there were miles and miles and miles of straightaway stretches...yet the car still nags you to turn the wheel. even though i was driving with my hands on the wheel to be prepared to take over, i wasn't turning the wheel because there literally wasn't any reason to. the road was perfectly straight for miles and miles at a time.
cost - supercharging and chargepoint fees combined for the entire trip cost me a little over $150. the same trip last year in my chevy volt cost nearly $400 in gas. this trip only cost me a little over $400 for both energy costs plus lodging for three nights of the road trip.
in summary: this car is amazing. aside from the gripes i mentioned here and the madness that is the phone key, i couldn't be happier with my investment. the best part? every single gripe i mentioned here except for the satellite radio part is something that tesla could theoretically solve via OTA software update...
