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Trips to Brownsville from Houston Area

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Beryl

Member
Supporting Member
Feb 19, 2015
683
239
South of Houston
I need to retrieve my niece and nephew during school breaks and would love to do it in my Tesla rather than an ICE.

This is the result of my research (evtripplanner.com, Tesla destination charger webpage, and Plugshare)
db5c053972020189f4f8504c81616bb8.jpg

The Victoria SC should eventually shave a couple of hours but it looks like the best I can do with my dual charger S90D is 13 hours one way which would be the round trip time in an ICE. I'd then need to spend the night (which I rather not do) and do another 13 hours back.

Maybe I'm missing something so I welcome any knowledge on how to expedite this or a similar trip (e.g. Corpus Christie).

(Wish there were CHAdeMO locations down there.)
 
What you're missing is Victoria is just the first supercharger on the planned route from Houston to Corpus Christi to Brownsville. It's coming-- not in time for this winter break obviously, but it is coming-- otherwise there's no point in building the station in Victoria.
 
My own experience of driving from Houston to Corpus Christi has been pretty dismal. With my 85kWh battery, I can just BARELY make it if I drive 5-10mph less than the speed limit. Once in Corpus Christi, charging options are pretty limited and include the mall or the Best Western on Padre Island.

Tesla needs that supercharger in Victoria, and it needs it bad. After that, another supercharger in Kingsville or thereabouts would finally put the RGV within reasonable reach.
 
My own experience of driving from Houston to Corpus Christi has been pretty dismal. With my 85kWh battery, I can just BARELY make it if I drive 5-10mph less than the speed limit. Once in Corpus Christi, charging options are pretty limited and include the mall or the Best Western on Padre Island.

Tesla needs that supercharger in Victoria, and it needs it bad. After that, another supercharger in Kingsville or thereabouts would finally put the RGV within reasonable reach.

That is what I thought. Glad to hear that these spots are still on Tesla's radar even though they didn't happen this year.
 
My own experience of driving from Houston to Corpus Christi has been pretty dismal. With my 85kWh battery, I can just BARELY make it if I drive 5-10mph less than the speed limit. Once in Corpus Christi, charging options are pretty limited and include the mall or the Best Western on Padre Island.

Tesla needs that supercharger in Victoria, and it needs it bad. After that, another supercharger in Kingsville or thereabouts would finally put the RGV within reasonable reach.


What is it that makes that drive a challenge? Google Maps says the distance from Houston to Corpus Christi is 208 miles, which would seem quite possible with an 85kwh battery. What is the speed limit along that route? Is the drive generally into the wind? I'd understand if cold were a factor, but that far south I expect that's much of a factor? I'm not doubting your experience, I'm just curious as to the cause.
 
What is it that makes that drive a challenge? Google Maps says the distance from Houston to Corpus Christi is 208 miles, which would seem quite possible with an 85kwh battery. What is the speed limit along that route? Is the drive generally into the wind? I'd understand if cold were a factor, but that far south I expect that's much of a factor? I'm not doubting your experience, I'm just curious as to the cause.

I'll take this.

You'll arrive with a nearly discharged battery and must sit for 8 hours (or spend the night) using Corpus Christie's 40A destination chargers . That is why I added 1 hour to my Brownsville trip by going to Home Made Kitchen and Dunkin Donuts which do have 80A charging capability.
 
What is it that makes that drive a challenge? Google Maps says the distance from Houston to Corpus Christi is 208 miles, which would seem quite possible with an 85kwh battery. What is the speed limit along that route? Is the drive generally into the wind? I'd understand if cold were a factor, but that far south I expect that's much of a factor? I'm not doubting your experience, I'm just curious as to the cause.
The trip from Houston to Corpus Christi is certainly do-able on an 85kWh battery if you don't mind staring at single-digit %charge at destination for the entire trip and arriving with about 3%. It's especially fun when the car starts out saying you'll land with 10%-ish and then watching that number get smaller, and smaller, and smaller. That's when I start driving slower and slower to keep the % from dropping. Not fun.

Contributing factors include wind and a family of three with luggage in the car. Elevation change is negligible.

To save charge, the car will attempt to route you onto small back-roads with lower speed limits. What the car doesn't know is that those roads are pretty rough so you still have to drive slower than the speed limit to maintain a decent % safety margin at destination. As a result, you end up on two-lane roads with other motorists killing themselves to get past you. These days I ignore the car's route, stay on main roads, and stay out of the passing lane.

EDIT: Oh, and the distance from my house to my parent's house is 220 miles rather than 208. Also, if I leave from work rather than home, that adds 13 miles to my trip. It all adds up and none of it is in my favor.
 
The trip from Houston to Corpus Christi is certainly do-able on an 85kWh battery if you don't mind staring at single-digit %charge at destination for the entire trip and arriving with about 3%.
And then you can't leave quickly, if need be. That makes me anxious. But then I'm the kind of lady who would fill up whenever the tank went below 50%.