Good Morning Fellow TCG Warriors. I am back and finally rested up from my trip to Boston and as promised below will be my report of the road trip in the Tesla Model S.
Some basic things to get out of the way..... I will try to break down the trip by each day we were driving. Since we decided to make a stop in New York to see the 9/11 memorial, the drive is slightly longer than a straight shot to Boston.
During my trip I tried to take as many pics as I could of the stops and what was around. Unfortunately mother nature was not cooperating for parts of there and back with massive downpours. Therefore I missed some photos. However I will describe the stops whether good or bad as best I can.
One thing to note that I will discuss more at the end. Chargers are getting more full during peak travel times, and are heavily dominated by Model 3's now. I never had to wait, but more than one time it was down to 1 or 2 remaining chargers, the rest were full.
Also the weather was abysmal on the drive there and back. I mean the only way it could have been worse was a blizzard. It poured rain from Ohio all the way to Boston, and vice versa on the way back we hit horrific rain and 30 MPH headwinds. Both of which really impacted the cars range. Basically if we wanted to test this EV we did it. We had the worst conditions possible for maximizing range in any vehicle.
The basics: 2018 Tesla Model S 75D (75kw battery) 19 inch wheels. Stock tires set at 50 PSI.
Theoretical Range under Normal Conditions 260 miles..........
Day 1: Traveling from Home to Bloomsburg, PA
Started the trip with a pretty full battery. About 97 Percent. The dash said I had about 248 miles in the battery. Plugged our hotel destination into the cars Navigation and got a few surprises. One good and one a little odd.
The good news..... The car showed we would only have to charge 4 times to reach the hotel instead of the 5 I thought before. The odd? Well it showed we would drive and stop in about 140 miles at Notre Dame in Mishawaka, IN. This was not the first stop I was expecting. I was expecting to travel all the way to Angola, IN for the first stop. The car was showing I had 35% when arriving in Mishawaka... so I was considering skipping it and moving on to Angola. (Good thing I didn't)
Spoiler alert.... always listen to the cars Nav. It knows way more than you do..... More on that later.
Stop #1 Mishawaka, IN.
Good Charging spot. Tons to do. There was a mall, a Barnes and Noble, eating places, fast food, sit down restaurants etc.... So zero complaints in that department. The wife particularly enjoyed Barnes and Noble to brows books and use the restroom.
The car initially said we would need to sit here for 40 minutes to charge. Right off the bat I could see that this winter road trip was going to be different than our summer trip to Nashville. However after about 25 minutes the car was ready to go to the next stop. So it seemed my trend of stopping for less than the car showed was continuing... Below are some pics of the stop.
That however did not last.......
Stop #2 Maumee, OH
Again another good Supercharger location with tons to do. It was in the parking lot of a Meijer, along with various eating places and a Smoothie place that we hit up. Car once again showed 40 minutes to charge, but after about 30 it was ready to go. We walked around Meijer, grabbed a smoothie and used the restrooms. So far so good, and it was nice to stretch our legs about every 2 hours. This really cut down on fatigue.
Here are some pics of the stop. Chargers are off to the side of the lot.
Plugged in with about 40 miles in the tank
During the trip you can also view how you are doing on the entire leg of the drive vs how the car thinks you should do..... most times you will be right on target or beat the cars estimate.
More Model 3's Charging
Stop #3 Strongsville, OH
This stop was by far the longest the car wanted on the entire trip. The entire drive the navigation never changed... it always wanted to stop here for an Hour and 10 minutes. Now sitting there that long will give me a full battery so I was a little curious why it was requesting this. I will elaborate....
Something I never encountered or considered on the drive was #1 Weather and #2 Hills and mountains. Neither of which we encountered on our trip to Nashville. The good thing? This car factors in both. It knows what the outside temp is, and also factors in elevation changes. So that 150 mile leg of the journey may need 200 miles of battery to make it. The car knows this and will keep you at the charger until you reach that.
At this stop we planned to eat lunch so the extra charge time was not an issue since we would be in the restaurant. It is a good thing we did because the car charged the entire time. I had 240 miles of range and the car still wanted to charge for another 5-10 minutes. Even still it showed we would arrive with 5 percent battery at our next stop???? I was honestly baffled and confused as this leg of the journey was no where near 240 miles. But again I forgot PA, and NY are very Hilly and mountainous. At this point in the drive we were climbing hundreds and sometimes thousands of feat over and over using tons of energy at 75 MPH.
Here are some pics of the stop. It is in the parking lot of a Sheetz gas station next to some eating places. Note how full the charger was and once again dominated by Model 3's. with an X and S in there.
We took off from the charger and the battery percent climbed from 5% to 8%. Eventually it got to 10% but that was as high as it got.
Stop #4 Falls Creek, PA
By this time it was dark out. This charger was once again in the parking lot of a Sheetz Gas station. Really nothing to do around here. There were some small shops across the street, but it was getting colder and it was already dark so we did not want to venture around in a place we had never been. So this stop was a little boring if I had to be honest. We used the restroom, stopped for about 30 total minutes and continued on to the hotel. The hotel we stopped at had a tesla destination charger which gave me a full charge overnight.
We then continued on to NY and then to Boston. We only had to stop once after NY.... as the parking garage we stopped at had a tesla charger in NY. For times sake I will spare you those stops. Nothing was particularly of interest and the stops were quick.
The hotel charger. They had 4 tesla chargers and 2 regular EV ones.
The Return Trip
Sparing you some random driving around for the weekend and 1 quick stop after the Patriots football game... we started out our day in Albany, NY. Which is where we spent the night after the football game.
Here is where I found 1 small flaw with the cars Nav. I forgot to snap a photo of it.... but the car always wants to go the fastest most direct route with chargers... well in this case that would be going through Canada and popping out in Michigan. Well we did not bring our Passports so this was not an option. So I had to trick the Nav. I had to put in a Supercharger I know we would have to hit on the way home taking the U.S. route vs the Canada route. Once we arrived at that charger I would change my destination to my house.
Annoying? A little that I cannot choose different routes like on google maps. It is something I am actually submitting to tesla to change. This is a simple software update and I assume it will be coming down the road anyway. But in the interest of being unbiased... I had to report I found it annoying.
On this long part of our journey we would stop 6 times. (Syracuse, Ny, Buffalo NY, Erie PA, Sheffield OH, Maumee Oh, and finally Mishawaka again)
Some of the above I have covered earlier so I will spare you.
Stop #1 Syracuse NY
This stop sucked. I mean it really sucked. I had read this as well on my plugshare app as well as its ratings on the tesla's in car Nav. It had nothing to do. It was literally in the parking lot of a hotel. The only place to walk to was a Walgreens and a speedway gas station. Which meant crossing a busy street. We did this as we wanted some coffee.... which took all of 15-20 minutes with walking time. Which Meant we had to sit here for another 10-15 minutes and do nothing. The wife read her book and I browsed TCG lol.
If I ever do this trip again or am in this area I will avoid this location
Note after this stop the weather turned to complete Shit. And I was not able to get photos of the remaining stops I have not visited. For the rest of the entire drive it looked like this..... Which once night fell turned to fog and 30 MPH head winds.
Stops #2 and #3. Buffalo NY and Erie, PA
Both were ok. Both had hotels, food and a Cracker Barrel. So we were able to use the restroom and stretch our legs. Nothing of major to report. Both times were about 35 minutes to charge due to the colder temps and rain.
Stop #4 Sheffield, OH
By this point the wife was getting a little crabby with the drive. We had been going since 6:30am Eastern time. And honestly there is a downside to an EV roadtrip like this as you are limited to charging times. there is no way I can say... ok lets push it and just keep driving and just to splash and dashes to get home. You have to stop and wait. Its a short wait, but either way you have to.
Nothing to report here. It was in another Sheetz station. The rain was so heavy we couldnt really walk anywhere.
Stop#5 Maumee, OH.
Already went over this one... but the rain and wind was getting so bad it was really starting to affect my range. Instead of arriving with better than the cars est percent I was now dropping. Each leg the car would drop the percent more and more for my arrival percent.
However since the wife was getting a little stir crazy I made the choice to leave about 5 minutes before the car said it was ready.
This turned out to be a poor choice.......
Final Stop Mishawaka, IN
To elaborate on my above statement being a poor choice to leave early..... Well as I said earlier in my posts the car will account for weather and altitude changes. However it cannot account for intense rain and the drag that causes on the tires along with 30 MPH headwinds. When we left Maumee, OH it said I would have 12 Percent when arriving at IN. However that began to drop...11%.... 10%..... 9%.... and so on. It kept dropping. Finally I turned on range mode in the car which limits battery heating and uses only 1 of the 2 electric motors in the car. (Basically FWD instead of AWD)
With 15 miles to go I dropped my speed from 75 down to 70 MPH. But still this didnt do much to help. We arrived with 7% in the battery and 15 Miles showing on my dash.
I wasn't exactly scared of not making it as the car never popped up a warning telling me to slow down (which it will do if it thinks you wont make it at your current speed) it was just the intense weather that was annoying and worrying me. The car was doing its best to factor in everything, but we had quite literally the worst conditions possible thrown at it on this part of the drive.
We plugged in charged and made the final 130 mile drive home.....
Some basic things to get out of the way..... I will try to break down the trip by each day we were driving. Since we decided to make a stop in New York to see the 9/11 memorial, the drive is slightly longer than a straight shot to Boston.
During my trip I tried to take as many pics as I could of the stops and what was around. Unfortunately mother nature was not cooperating for parts of there and back with massive downpours. Therefore I missed some photos. However I will describe the stops whether good or bad as best I can.
One thing to note that I will discuss more at the end. Chargers are getting more full during peak travel times, and are heavily dominated by Model 3's now. I never had to wait, but more than one time it was down to 1 or 2 remaining chargers, the rest were full.
Also the weather was abysmal on the drive there and back. I mean the only way it could have been worse was a blizzard. It poured rain from Ohio all the way to Boston, and vice versa on the way back we hit horrific rain and 30 MPH headwinds. Both of which really impacted the cars range. Basically if we wanted to test this EV we did it. We had the worst conditions possible for maximizing range in any vehicle.
The basics: 2018 Tesla Model S 75D (75kw battery) 19 inch wheels. Stock tires set at 50 PSI.
Theoretical Range under Normal Conditions 260 miles..........
Day 1: Traveling from Home to Bloomsburg, PA
Started the trip with a pretty full battery. About 97 Percent. The dash said I had about 248 miles in the battery. Plugged our hotel destination into the cars Navigation and got a few surprises. One good and one a little odd.
The good news..... The car showed we would only have to charge 4 times to reach the hotel instead of the 5 I thought before. The odd? Well it showed we would drive and stop in about 140 miles at Notre Dame in Mishawaka, IN. This was not the first stop I was expecting. I was expecting to travel all the way to Angola, IN for the first stop. The car was showing I had 35% when arriving in Mishawaka... so I was considering skipping it and moving on to Angola. (Good thing I didn't)
Spoiler alert.... always listen to the cars Nav. It knows way more than you do..... More on that later.
Stop #1 Mishawaka, IN.
Good Charging spot. Tons to do. There was a mall, a Barnes and Noble, eating places, fast food, sit down restaurants etc.... So zero complaints in that department. The wife particularly enjoyed Barnes and Noble to brows books and use the restroom.
The car initially said we would need to sit here for 40 minutes to charge. Right off the bat I could see that this winter road trip was going to be different than our summer trip to Nashville. However after about 25 minutes the car was ready to go to the next stop. So it seemed my trend of stopping for less than the car showed was continuing... Below are some pics of the stop.
That however did not last.......
Stop #2 Maumee, OH
Again another good Supercharger location with tons to do. It was in the parking lot of a Meijer, along with various eating places and a Smoothie place that we hit up. Car once again showed 40 minutes to charge, but after about 30 it was ready to go. We walked around Meijer, grabbed a smoothie and used the restrooms. So far so good, and it was nice to stretch our legs about every 2 hours. This really cut down on fatigue.
Here are some pics of the stop. Chargers are off to the side of the lot.
Plugged in with about 40 miles in the tank
During the trip you can also view how you are doing on the entire leg of the drive vs how the car thinks you should do..... most times you will be right on target or beat the cars estimate.
More Model 3's Charging
Stop #3 Strongsville, OH
This stop was by far the longest the car wanted on the entire trip. The entire drive the navigation never changed... it always wanted to stop here for an Hour and 10 minutes. Now sitting there that long will give me a full battery so I was a little curious why it was requesting this. I will elaborate....
Something I never encountered or considered on the drive was #1 Weather and #2 Hills and mountains. Neither of which we encountered on our trip to Nashville. The good thing? This car factors in both. It knows what the outside temp is, and also factors in elevation changes. So that 150 mile leg of the journey may need 200 miles of battery to make it. The car knows this and will keep you at the charger until you reach that.
At this stop we planned to eat lunch so the extra charge time was not an issue since we would be in the restaurant. It is a good thing we did because the car charged the entire time. I had 240 miles of range and the car still wanted to charge for another 5-10 minutes. Even still it showed we would arrive with 5 percent battery at our next stop???? I was honestly baffled and confused as this leg of the journey was no where near 240 miles. But again I forgot PA, and NY are very Hilly and mountainous. At this point in the drive we were climbing hundreds and sometimes thousands of feat over and over using tons of energy at 75 MPH.
Here are some pics of the stop. It is in the parking lot of a Sheetz gas station next to some eating places. Note how full the charger was and once again dominated by Model 3's. with an X and S in there.
We took off from the charger and the battery percent climbed from 5% to 8%. Eventually it got to 10% but that was as high as it got.
Stop #4 Falls Creek, PA
By this time it was dark out. This charger was once again in the parking lot of a Sheetz Gas station. Really nothing to do around here. There were some small shops across the street, but it was getting colder and it was already dark so we did not want to venture around in a place we had never been. So this stop was a little boring if I had to be honest. We used the restroom, stopped for about 30 total minutes and continued on to the hotel. The hotel we stopped at had a tesla destination charger which gave me a full charge overnight.
We then continued on to NY and then to Boston. We only had to stop once after NY.... as the parking garage we stopped at had a tesla charger in NY. For times sake I will spare you those stops. Nothing was particularly of interest and the stops were quick.
The hotel charger. They had 4 tesla chargers and 2 regular EV ones.
The Return Trip
Sparing you some random driving around for the weekend and 1 quick stop after the Patriots football game... we started out our day in Albany, NY. Which is where we spent the night after the football game.
Here is where I found 1 small flaw with the cars Nav. I forgot to snap a photo of it.... but the car always wants to go the fastest most direct route with chargers... well in this case that would be going through Canada and popping out in Michigan. Well we did not bring our Passports so this was not an option. So I had to trick the Nav. I had to put in a Supercharger I know we would have to hit on the way home taking the U.S. route vs the Canada route. Once we arrived at that charger I would change my destination to my house.
Annoying? A little that I cannot choose different routes like on google maps. It is something I am actually submitting to tesla to change. This is a simple software update and I assume it will be coming down the road anyway. But in the interest of being unbiased... I had to report I found it annoying.
On this long part of our journey we would stop 6 times. (Syracuse, Ny, Buffalo NY, Erie PA, Sheffield OH, Maumee Oh, and finally Mishawaka again)
Some of the above I have covered earlier so I will spare you.
Stop #1 Syracuse NY
This stop sucked. I mean it really sucked. I had read this as well on my plugshare app as well as its ratings on the tesla's in car Nav. It had nothing to do. It was literally in the parking lot of a hotel. The only place to walk to was a Walgreens and a speedway gas station. Which meant crossing a busy street. We did this as we wanted some coffee.... which took all of 15-20 minutes with walking time. Which Meant we had to sit here for another 10-15 minutes and do nothing. The wife read her book and I browsed TCG lol.
If I ever do this trip again or am in this area I will avoid this location
Note after this stop the weather turned to complete Shit. And I was not able to get photos of the remaining stops I have not visited. For the rest of the entire drive it looked like this..... Which once night fell turned to fog and 30 MPH head winds.
Stops #2 and #3. Buffalo NY and Erie, PA
Both were ok. Both had hotels, food and a Cracker Barrel. So we were able to use the restroom and stretch our legs. Nothing of major to report. Both times were about 35 minutes to charge due to the colder temps and rain.
Stop #4 Sheffield, OH
By this point the wife was getting a little crabby with the drive. We had been going since 6:30am Eastern time. And honestly there is a downside to an EV roadtrip like this as you are limited to charging times. there is no way I can say... ok lets push it and just keep driving and just to splash and dashes to get home. You have to stop and wait. Its a short wait, but either way you have to.
Nothing to report here. It was in another Sheetz station. The rain was so heavy we couldnt really walk anywhere.
Stop#5 Maumee, OH.
Already went over this one... but the rain and wind was getting so bad it was really starting to affect my range. Instead of arriving with better than the cars est percent I was now dropping. Each leg the car would drop the percent more and more for my arrival percent.
However since the wife was getting a little stir crazy I made the choice to leave about 5 minutes before the car said it was ready.
This turned out to be a poor choice.......
Final Stop Mishawaka, IN
To elaborate on my above statement being a poor choice to leave early..... Well as I said earlier in my posts the car will account for weather and altitude changes. However it cannot account for intense rain and the drag that causes on the tires along with 30 MPH headwinds. When we left Maumee, OH it said I would have 12 Percent when arriving at IN. However that began to drop...11%.... 10%..... 9%.... and so on. It kept dropping. Finally I turned on range mode in the car which limits battery heating and uses only 1 of the 2 electric motors in the car. (Basically FWD instead of AWD)
With 15 miles to go I dropped my speed from 75 down to 70 MPH. But still this didnt do much to help. We arrived with 7% in the battery and 15 Miles showing on my dash.
I wasn't exactly scared of not making it as the car never popped up a warning telling me to slow down (which it will do if it thinks you wont make it at your current speed) it was just the intense weather that was annoying and worrying me. The car was doing its best to factor in everything, but we had quite literally the worst conditions possible thrown at it on this part of the drive.
We plugged in charged and made the final 130 mile drive home.....
