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Below is a list of what not to forget when you make your first long road trip in your Tesla car. Note: many of the suggestions would apply for any EV road trip and some suggestions would apply for any vehicle at all.
Note: The Tesla Supercharger system is fabulous. We never had to wait for a stall at any of our stops on several cross-country trips, including from the East Coast to the West Coast. A typical Supercharger has 8 stalls, but we have seen Superchargers in California with 40 stalls on busy routes (See Figure 2). You back in or park parallel, open your charge port, grab the cable head, and stick it in the charge port. When you have reached the desired state of charge, stop the charging on your screen or by pushing the button on top of the cable head. Unlike any other charger I have used, Tesla automatically bills your credit card.
Figure 2: Tesla Supercharger with 40 Stalls. Baker, California. February 21, 2022. Photo by Fritz Hasler/CleanTechnica.
Superchargers: In my experience, there is a Supercharger every 120 miles or fewer along every major Interstate Highway route. However, rarely you might need to go up to 20 miles out of your way to find a Supercharger on your route.
Also, I have found Superchargers on major non-Interstate routes — like between Rawlins, Wyoming, on I-80 through the Black Hills to I-90 near Rapid City, South Dakota. Tesla recently added a Supercharger station that makes the direct diagonal non-Interstate route between Worthington in far west Minnesota on I-90 to Minneapolis easier. In another case, driving directly between Minneapolis to Wausau, Wisconsin, there is no longer a small detour needed at Eau Claire, Wisconsin. A number of new Superchargers in Northern Wisconsin and Michigan now make more trips to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan possible.
A little about Supercharging strategy: Don’t charge above 80% unless absolutely necessary. Making frequent stops and charging to 80% or less will save you time. Again, from my brother: Your most time-efficient strategy is to leave the Supercharger when the charging rate drops to 56 kW, assuming you can reach the next charger.
Once I am plugged in, I enter the next Supercharger into the navigation. The easiest way is to search for nearby chargers on the screen and push the button on the bottom. If you scroll up, you will see the Estimated Charge Upon Arrival (ECUA). It may be blank or negative to start, but as the charge proceeds, you will see the ECUA increase. I like to charge not leaving until arrival battery consumption reaches 15 to 30%. Be conservative at first. I have two bikes on the back and you may have a roof rack or a headwind, which will make the estimate too optimistic. I believe the estimate accounts for elevation change and soon will also account for air density and wind.
If you always put the next Supercharger in the navigation, the car will precondition the battery for fast charging starting many miles before arrival. Again, from my brother: When you are stopping for the night, always charge up on arrival rather than waiting until morning. If not, when it’s a cold night you will regret it when you see how slow a cold battery charges.
On a V3 250kW Supercharger, I am charging above 200 kW from 5% to 40% state of charge (SOC), then the charging speed starts to drop to avoid damaging the battery. Above 60% you drop below 100 kW, above 80% below 50 kW, and as you approach 90% the charging slows to ~15 kW.
This works fine for Supercharger spacing up to 120 miles with no bikes on the back of my Long Range Tesla Model 3. With the bikes, I sometimes need to charge to 90%. As my wife and I are about 80 years of age and we travel with our small dog Zuni, the frequent stops are actually welcome. We visit the bathroom, walk the dog, stretch our legs to prevent thrombosis, grab a bite if needed, and before you know it we have enough charge to continue our trip.
More of Kate’s suggestions: Get food before you start to charge, download Netflix — you can eat, charge, and get in an episode of your favorite show or watch a movie at each stop. The time charging then goes so fast.
Please let me and the readers know your tips in the comments section.
Arthur Frederick (Fritz) Hasler, PhD, former leader of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization & Analysis Laboratory (creator of this iconic image), and avid CleanTechnica reader. Also: Research Meteorologist (Emeritus) at NASA GSFC, Adjunct Professor at Viterbo University On-Line Studies, PSIA L2 Certified Alpine Ski Instructor at Brighton Utah Ski School.
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