Thanks Matt!
BTW, this is a screenshot the Tesla app.
Which of course, lends itself to abuse.
Thanks Matt!
BTW, this is a screenshot the Tesla app.
Which of course, lends itself to abuse.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
Careful, Janel might google up how to lock you out of her car.
You have to tap an icon on the touchscreen to honk the horn? Lol
Agent98 said:You have to tap an icon on the touchscreen to honk the horn? Lol
Yes, yes. If you do not have your phone, you cannot use the horn, open the trunk or flash the lights. 
That’s the app. You can honk the horn via the internet if you want to mess with your wife.
If you’re driving, you poke the hub of the steering wheel like any other car.
I'm just crossing my fingers and hoping for typical luxury car depreciation, and also for these to be super long-term reliable. My wife and I both want one as our second car, just gotta wait on the price to drop a bit. And hopefully throw some solar panels on the roof as well, so charging the car will essentially be free.
I hear you. My AutoTrader search alerts send me results for Porsche, Corvette, Mustang GT350... and Tesla.
This poor car. We've put 1122 miles on it in 9 days. This is probably a little out of the ordinary for EVs :)
This past weekend, we took it to Denver for an overnight trip. That's a different kettle of fish than the SLC trip last weekend, because we had to find power to get home. I could write a long travelogue of the whole thing, but here are some thoughts.
There are two ways to think about energy management.
One, charge whenever you can and get enough power to get to the next stop as you do something else. Pros - quick charging, probably healthier for the battery, convenient. Cons - margin of error can be slim. There's a big difference between needing 30 miles of extra range and 100 when you're facing a Level 2 charger that will give you 20-25 miles per hour of charging.
Two, take advantage of that big battery and Superchargers. Pros - big margin of error, fewer stops, less dinking around. Cons - stops may not suit your schedule, a little rougher on the battery over the long term. Superchargers will pump in power more than 20 times faster than Level 2 chargers, so charge time isn't really a big factor like it is with a Level 2. The downside of a big battery is that it takes a lot of energy to fill it.
We chose to go with option 2 on this trip and ended up charging more than we really needed to. I don't think we ever dropped below 100 miles of range. That's more range than a fully charged 2016 i3 to put things in perspective. I may still have some range anxiety :) Every one of our stops ended up being useful for something - lunch, dinner, shopping - so they weren't a big inconvenience with one exception as you will find out. I could have skipped at least one of the charging stops in retrospect. Really, all we needed to do was leave with a full battery and top up in either Glenwood Springs or Silverthorne as we went past in each direction.
The Supercharger network is still being built out. Denver has two clusters, and there are two others between here and there. There are five more planned to be opened before the end of the year. Tesla's big year means that the demand seems to be a bit ahead of supply in Denver itself.
The problem stop was in Silverthorne. I'm not a fan of that outlet mall stain in the road, but they have the closest Supercharger cluster to Denver. According to Chargepoint, it's a busy station. 8 chargers, and the car told us that 3-4 of them were available. We arrived and found this. Welcome to electron rationing :)
Turns out that of those 8 chargers, two were broken. A third was blocked by what appeared to be an abandoned Model S - rust on the rotors, multiple parking tickets, an interior that looked kinda like someone had been living in it. That's 62.5% availability. After a 45 minute wait, we got a chance to plug in. In Denver, we found that 1 out of the 10 chargers was out of order.
Obviously, Tesla needs to take care of the problem chargers. But the abandoned car raises a different question. Who ensures access? The lot owner probably thinks it's Tesla's problem. Tesla probably says it's a private lot, they just provide the chargers. The cops definitely aren't interested. So how do we get that dead car out of there? A couple of phone numbers attached to the side of a charger - one to report dead chargers, one to report problem cars at this location - would be a reasonable solution.
About the charging time- the first 80% happens quickly. Trying to get the last 20% means about double the time, so it's really only something you want to do if you're trying to get absolute maximum range. We ended up charging our car to almost 100% because we'd park it and go do something else. If we were waiting, we'd probably just do what we needed to get to the next stop when on a road trip.
Road trip notes:
- I think the new software update might have tweaked the cruise logic. Either that or I'm getting used to it, but it seemed much smoother on this trip. I left the regen high (gotta get those amps back going downhill) but set the acceleration level to "chill" so it was a little less abrupt when gaining speed. It did get concerned a couple of times, but I usually saw that coming and took control before the car would react. On a normal cruise system, you'd be doing this fairly regularly. We didn't bother with Autosteer, I don't think that will ever get turned on again.
- the seats are not really leather, they're PU "leather". I find them quite hot. Might be useful in the winter, but I suspect this will lead to increased AC use in the summer. I evolved for cold climates.
- Tesla has some spectacular aero guys. At 85 mph, there's not a wuffle of air noise. Hard to believe. If you hit a piece of fresh asphalt, the silence in the car is amazing. Makes for a great highway cruiser.
- You can drop the back seats for greater cargo space. But if you do that, you have to make sure your cargo doesn't make any noises. In the absence of the usual wind/engine noise, a little scritch scritch scritch from a box flap will drive you nuts :)
- the car really does not like being out of touch with the outside world. I think AT&T was having a tower problem near Grand Junction, and the voice control went down in a way that suggested the actual mic was dead. You could see the poor cell reception on the display. I've seen this before in canyons. It's a weird error mode.
- if you mix up the volume and the cruise controls on the steering wheel, you may be puzzled as to why the audio still doesn't seem loud enough until your wife points out that you're hauling ass.
Hopefully there wasn't a dead guy behind the wheel of the dormant Tesla....
On a long trip with sketchy charging options, I wonder if you could bring along a big honking H9 type battery like as found in the new Challengers, 100AH worth, and some type of cable /adapter to plug in --just to get you that next 100 miles? These batteries are like boat batteries, they weigh 65 lbs...
No visible dead guy - but that probably would have expedited things, as the cops likely would have been more interested. The car was unplugged, and you can't do that without the ability to unlock the car. The window was down about an inch as well. That car is probably in pretty rough shape.
Charging stops are definitely one reason why I would want to keep a ICE car around for long trips. At least until the infrastructure is better sorted. Here in the northeast, one would think we would have a good charging network, but from what I've seen that is not the case. Some rest stops on the NJTP have them. None on the PATP or NYS Thruway that I've seen. A couple of rest stops on the Merrit Parkway in CT have chargers, but those stops are such poo-holes that I really wouldn't want to get stuck at one for a couple of hours. I haven't noticed any on the MassTP or other CT rest stops.
It's definitely a bit of a chicken-egg problem, but for me an EV would mainly be a commuter car that would get charged at home.
Some of the parks seem to have chargers, of course they are mostly closed at night...
Are Teslas 400V, 3 phase? Trying to imagine some inverter /cable rig that doesn't cost $1000 bucks...
Ian F said:Charging stops are definitely one reason why I would want to keep a ICE car around for long trips. At least until the infrastructure is better sorted. Here in the northeast, one would think we would have a good charging network, but from what I've seen that is not the case. Some rest stops on the NJTP have them. None on the PATP or NYS Thruway that I've seen. A couple of rest stops on the Merrit Parkway in CT have chargers, but those stops are such poo-holes that I really wouldn't want to get stuck at one for a couple of hours. I haven't noticed any on the MassTP or other CT rest stops.
It's definitely a bit of a chicken-egg problem, but for me an EV would mainly be a commuter car that would get charged at home.
The big batteries change the equation. When you can run up to 300 miles between charges, it becomes less of a problem but you need faster chargers. You can see active Superchargers on Tesla's website. They're not always immediately obvious - the ones in Glenwood Springs are in a hotel parking lot, so you wouldn't come across them unless you were looking. Superchargers add range stupendously quicky, so a 15 minute stop can make quite a difference.
But yeah, long road trips are going to be the weakest point of EV use for a long time when it comes to infrastructure. That's why Tesla is building out their network so aggressively. This trip of ours wouldn't have been possible a decade ago - heck, probably not five years ago. In 2013, there were a total of 8 Superchargers in the country. Now there are something like 14,000 of them worldwide. We weren't really inconvenienced by having an EV on this trip other than the Silverthorne wait, and we had to wait 20 minutes at Chipotle there as well. SIlverthorne just sucks overall.
But if that's a problem, just rent an ICE for the weekend.
BTW, the car will condition the battery for Supercharging if you tell the nav system that you're going to one. The car starts making sci-fi noises, you can hear subtle whines as you accel/decel.
Also, I confirmed the inability of the car to accept regen if the battery is completely full. It actually shows on the display, first it puts up a warning and then the power meter has a dotted line at the limit of the regen ability that gradually goes away as the battery depletes and is able to accept power. It's a good thing to know if you're getting used to one-pedal driving.
is there a Tesla branded credit card ?
it seems a good idea with everyone having down time while charging ! Shoping , eating etc
I can just imagine how backed up the chargers are 150-200 miles from a major city like Los Angeles ,
1000s of Teslas halfway to where they want to go .
What is the AAA policy on towing Teslas to the next charger,
Thanks for posting about your travels , waiting for when your weather changes and we get a snow report :)
In reply to Keith Tanner :
I've seen chargers in odd locations. A couple of years ago I ate at a diner in western PA. I forget which town, but it wasn't a heavily populated area. Along the back of the parking lot were about 8 Tesla chargers.
Keith Tanner said:No visible dead guy - but that probably would have expedited things, as the cops likely would have been more interested. The car was unplugged, and you can't do that without the ability to unlock the car. The window was down about an inch as well. That car is probably going to be eligible for the 2020 Challenge.
Fixed
Ian F said:Charging stops are definitely one reason why I would want to keep a ICE car around for long trips. At least until the infrastructure is better sorted. Here in the northeast, one would think we would have a good charging network, but from what I've seen that is not the case. Some rest stops on the NJTP have them. None on the PATP or NYS Thruway that I've seen. A couple of rest stops on the Merrit Parkway in CT have chargers, but those stops are such poo-holes that I really wouldn't want to get stuck at one for a couple of hours. I haven't noticed any on the MassTP or other CT rest stops.
I know there are a few Superchargers at the Danbury Fair Mall, which is just over the NY border off of I-84.
Ian F said:In reply to Keith Tanner :
I've seen chargers in odd locations. A couple of years ago I ate at a diner in western PA. I forget which town, but it wasn't a heavily populated area. Along the back of the parking lot were about 8 Tesla chargers.
Might even have been you that posted the map, but there are 3 charging areas where I live in western PA, the Nissan Dealer, the Sheetz Station at the turnpike exit, and a Dunkin Donuts. Just a single level 1 charger in a Dunkin parking lot. Strangest thing to see, because it's not a busy area, there's NOTHING to do within walking distance, and there's only like 8 parking spots in the whole lot.
In reply to RevRico :
Turns out I got my trips confused. The Tesla Superchargers are at The Spot in Binghamton, NY. Near an interchange between I-81 and I-88 so it's a logical placement. Stop there for dinner while your car gets a couple of hours of charging.
Is it a thing that the car/nav will warn you if you are about to drive out of range of known chargers?
In the future, if you come across another Tesla sitting in a charger, not charging, plug it in, the owner will get notices and if they don't have unlimited supercharging, they will get charged idle fees
Will we be seeing Fly'n Tesla soon?
Love my Model S, best car I have ever owned
Ian F said:In reply to RevRico :
Turns out I got my trips confused. The Tesla Superchargers are at The Spot in Binghamton, NY. Near an interchange between I-81 and I-88 so it's a logical placement. Stop there for dinner while your car gets a couple of hours of charging.
Just moved out of that area and drove by that restaurant every day on the way in to work. It sure seemed weird to me when those chargers just popped up there. Not really super close/accessible from the highway for anyone in desperate need of a charge.
In reply to bashr52 :
I think they're close enough and it seems Tesla owners tend to plan on where they'll stop to charge. And I think one of the things about charger locations is there needs to be something to do while the car is getting charged. In a way, it could cause a resurgence in the traditional rest stop with nice amenities. Or at least a decent cafe with seating and WiFi.
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