With family in Norway and Slovakia I decided to combine summer visits into a pretty long road trip.
Drove through 13 different countries in total with 5 ferry crossings:
Scotland > England > Netherlands > Germany > Denmark > Norway > Sweden > Poland > Czechia > Slovakia > Austria > Germany > Netherlands > Belgium > France > England > Scotland
Outbound was 2000 miles over 9 days, really only 3.5 days of driving with the rest being leisure:
Inbound was 1500 miles over 3 days:
Cost of using public chargers (mostly Tesla) averaged out to around 10p per mile. Incidentally, total cost of ferries plus charging was about equivalent to return flights with Ryan Air to Bratislava for a family of four with luggage included. This way we got to see so much more and visit additional family plus have a car available once at our main destination.
Supercharging as expected made the trip very straightforward in so much that I didn't bother planning out stops this time. The only exception to this was in Poland. Arriving into the port of Świnoujście, it became clear that the North and West of the country is very much lacking in Superchargers, so much so that the navigation asked me to drive to Berlin and continue my journey through the Eastern side of Germany to then cross back into Poland again, much further South. I found a public charger (150kW) that was on my route within Poland and fortunately it was with 'Greenway' whom I already had an account with. The rest of the Polish journey wasn't much better, with long detours into Poznan city centre to use the Tesla Superchargers there (driving through a busy city centre for the first time, on the wrong side of the road is a little nerve-wracking) then another 30 min detour to access the Tesla superchargers in Wroclaw. I had looked for alternative non-Tesla chargers, but couldn't find any en route that were of a decent speed/not broken.
Out of about 30 different superchargers we visited, many of which open to all EVs, I only had to wait to charge at one of them, Scotch Corner. Luckily it was only a couple of minutes.
Found a few odd/interesting things at a few stops, first being Timo Glock's (of, "is that Glock...." fame) BMW Formula car, the championship he won in 2001. This was suspended from the ceiling at the supercharger in Lohne, Germany.
Charging on the ferry with a Wallbox between Denmark and Norway. 13 Euros to reserve an EV charging spot, probably not worth it for a 3 hour crossing in hindsight:
A bunch of mini teslas at a supercharger stop by a science museum in Norway:
Finally, in Bratislava, a site with 6 superchargers rated at 130kW, priority on two of the chargers given to Model 3. I suspect these 2 may have been 150kW although I maxed out at 120kW so not certain:
So a great road trip once again to Eastern Europe, the car performed great fully laden with luggage and the four of us. Really happy with the performance of the all season Kumho tyres too, as I was worried they might not be great in hotter temperatures but that turned out to not be the case.
I still need to investigate however I think that I may need a new wheel bearing for the offside rear, there's a strange rubbing sound coming from that wheel when driving between 10-25mph. The noise started after the outbound leg, I thought it may just be a small stone caught between pad and disc however after 1500 miles I'd be surprised if it was still there.
Drove through 13 different countries in total with 5 ferry crossings:
Scotland > England > Netherlands > Germany > Denmark > Norway > Sweden > Poland > Czechia > Slovakia > Austria > Germany > Netherlands > Belgium > France > England > Scotland
Outbound was 2000 miles over 9 days, really only 3.5 days of driving with the rest being leisure:
Inbound was 1500 miles over 3 days:
Cost of using public chargers (mostly Tesla) averaged out to around 10p per mile. Incidentally, total cost of ferries plus charging was about equivalent to return flights with Ryan Air to Bratislava for a family of four with luggage included. This way we got to see so much more and visit additional family plus have a car available once at our main destination.
Supercharging as expected made the trip very straightforward in so much that I didn't bother planning out stops this time. The only exception to this was in Poland. Arriving into the port of Świnoujście, it became clear that the North and West of the country is very much lacking in Superchargers, so much so that the navigation asked me to drive to Berlin and continue my journey through the Eastern side of Germany to then cross back into Poland again, much further South. I found a public charger (150kW) that was on my route within Poland and fortunately it was with 'Greenway' whom I already had an account with. The rest of the Polish journey wasn't much better, with long detours into Poznan city centre to use the Tesla Superchargers there (driving through a busy city centre for the first time, on the wrong side of the road is a little nerve-wracking) then another 30 min detour to access the Tesla superchargers in Wroclaw. I had looked for alternative non-Tesla chargers, but couldn't find any en route that were of a decent speed/not broken.
Out of about 30 different superchargers we visited, many of which open to all EVs, I only had to wait to charge at one of them, Scotch Corner. Luckily it was only a couple of minutes.
Found a few odd/interesting things at a few stops, first being Timo Glock's (of, "is that Glock...." fame) BMW Formula car, the championship he won in 2001. This was suspended from the ceiling at the supercharger in Lohne, Germany.
Charging on the ferry with a Wallbox between Denmark and Norway. 13 Euros to reserve an EV charging spot, probably not worth it for a 3 hour crossing in hindsight:
A bunch of mini teslas at a supercharger stop by a science museum in Norway:
Finally, in Bratislava, a site with 6 superchargers rated at 130kW, priority on two of the chargers given to Model 3. I suspect these 2 may have been 150kW although I maxed out at 120kW so not certain:
So a great road trip once again to Eastern Europe, the car performed great fully laden with luggage and the four of us. Really happy with the performance of the all season Kumho tyres too, as I was worried they might not be great in hotter temperatures but that turned out to not be the case.
I still need to investigate however I think that I may need a new wheel bearing for the offside rear, there's a strange rubbing sound coming from that wheel when driving between 10-25mph. The noise started after the outbound leg, I thought it may just be a small stone caught between pad and disc however after 1500 miles I'd be surprised if it was still there.
