Tesla Supercharger only road trip -- Mt Airy, MD to Disney World FL

[Electrified Outdoors]

What was total cost for 430KW

Tesla Membership Rates

Total $127.73

Sponsored

 

[Supratachophobia]

I had a lot of fun making this one. Road trip exclusively via the Tesla supercharger network. It was an excellent experience.

I also ran into a guy that was trying to use a level two Tesla adapter to charge with the superchargers ?. He was a nice guy though and I didn't record that cuz I'm not about embarrassing people.

Shaming people is the only way they'll change......

 

[Arnie1]

Tesla Membership Rates

Total $127.73

so about .30/KWHR and .14/MI..not bad. What is the monthly Tesla membership. Great video

 

[Electrified Outdoors]

Shaming people is the only way they'll change......

I humored him. I happened to have two NACS adapters with me. The A2Z and Lectron. I let him try to use the Lectron and explained. It was an EQB and it was actually a nice car. They will eventually get access probably next year sometime

 

[Electrified Outdoors]

so about .30/KWHR and .14/MI..not bad. What is the monthly Tesla membership. Great video

Thank you. Wasn't horrible price wise. Membership is $12.99 per month. Pays for itself with 2-3 20-80% charging sessions per month.

 

[Supratachophobia]

I humored him. I happened to have two NACS adapters with me. The A2Z and Lectron. I let him try to use the Lectron and explained. It was an EQB and it was actually a nice car. They will eventually get access probably next year sometime

Wow, so it just straight up worked with your adapter and his car?

 

[mkg3]

I actually think this is the wrong take, personally (from the infrastructure builders, not you).

I think the goal shouldn't be to put the charging networks where people ARE.

I think the goal should be to put the chargers between where people are and where they're going....

I think its both and are not mutually exclusive.

Vast majority of people who travel more couple of hundred miles tend to fly. Those who prefer roadtrips clearly drive. Those with large family or kids probably drive and if you need a car at the destination, you drive.

Also vast majority of people with EV also own and use ICE vehicle for roadtrips, not an EV.

So, I used to think and still believe RAN needs to be at the gates of all the national parks and places "adventure" takes place, not just along frequently traveled highways. I suspect this is very difficult in terms of land acquisition to place RAN near these places. The Outpost, near Yosemite is actually at a community near the South Gate but not next to it.

Most EVs are driven short distances on the daily basis; hence, where the charger are. Also, as you've mentioned, what do people that live in apartments do? They need to charge at some commercially available charging station. My kids live in large cities, in apartments. I have fully discouraged them buying EVs. Not until they buy a house where they can charge overnight at home.

 

[Arnie1]

Thank you. Wasn't horrible price wise. Membership is $12.99 per month. Pays for itself with 2-3 20-80% charging sessions per month.

Works out to about 3-4 cents/mile cheaper than an ice at 20MPG with 3.50/Gal gas...why did you not run I-95 in conserve? range and cost would be somewaht better...

 

[Joe schmoe]

Sure, this may be possible on the East Coast corridor.

But please, when you say things like this, make it clear that this isn't the case everywhere.

Here in the West, there are entire STATES where there are NO open Tesla superchargers. So making a trip with only the supercharger network is not possible.

When you present it the way you have, you do a great disservice to many people who are not familiar with the details. They may assume that they don't have to worry about planning trips, and may assume that they can ignore networks other than Tesla. While in some places this may be true, in other places you are just going to be responsible for causing some people a lot of trouble and potentially turning them off to all EVs as a result.

And BTW the converse is also true - it's possible, even trivial, to make that journey using only CCS networks. The Tesla superchargers give people additional choices, but realistically they are only one part of the national network and there are are large charging "deserts" where there are no available Tesla chargers.

There are large parts of the country (much larger than California) where travel on CCS is difficult, but superchargers are prevalent. The entire state of Mississippi comes to mind.

Last week I did almost 1600 miles on Superchargers exclusively, with the exception of one RAN station where I charged because it's the only RAN station I've ever been close enough to to reach.

Using superchargers shaved at least 5 hours from the round trip on CCS chargers (I did the same trip last year from Memphis to OshKosh, WI). This year, every station (superchargers and one RAN) I went to was fully functional, achieved rated speed, and at least half of the chargers were available.

I didn't have to switch around between cabinets to find one that worked, and they were spaced so that most of my stops were less than 20 minutes.

Last year, using mostly Electrify America, not a single site was fully functional, and only 1/5 of the "350kw" cabinets achieved 200+kw at low state of charge. More often than not, I had to switch between cabinets and/or wait in line. There were so few stations on the route that several stops were well over an hour in order to have enough charge to safely reach the next station. At one stop I was unable to charge at all, and had to negotiate with a car dealer about 50 miles away to use their "customers only" 50kw charger. I drove slowly after getting permission in advance and arrived at a very low site of charge.

After that trip I quit using the Rivian for travel, until the supercharger access became available.

Every single time I plugged in this trip I was getting 200+kw, and generally unplugged if I tapered to 120 kw, because by that time I had plenty of range to get to the next supercharger which was typically not more than 110-120 miles.

Using EA, I would be stuck on the "best" cabinet at a given site, sometimes getting less than 50kw even below 50%, and looking at a 200 mile leg.

 

[Electrified Outdoors]

Wow, so it just straight up worked with your adapter and his car?

Nope didn't work...I suspected it wouldn't but I let him try it so he could learn how it works. He was a nice guy.

 

[Electrified Outdoors]

Works out to about 3-4 cents/mile cheaper than an ice at 20MPG with 3.50/Gal gas...why did you not run I-95 in conserve? range and cost would be somewaht better...

I typically do run in conserve but wanted to see how it would do in all purpose. We went to Clearwater Beach for three days after Disney and so on the way back we did run it in conserve since it was a bit longer drive and we wanted to shave off every second of charging we could.

Left Clearwater Beach, FL at 4:30am and got home at 11pm. Hit a bit more traffic on the way back plus the ladies had two unscheduled bathroom stops.

We stopped at Buc-ee's in Florence, SC on the way back. That place was a mad house on Sunday afternoon! You could barely move inside there and the whole area around it was one big traffic jam. The clerk said ...oh this is normal.

 

[VSG]

Really? Which states have zero superchargers that aren’t magic dock/adapter compatible?

Yes, my statement was slightly hyperbolic. But I've brought up the issue many times before and posted all the details, so I don't feel the need to add all the qualifications and caveats every time this is discussed. I should have more exactly said "there are entire state-sized regions where there are no open Tesla superchargers".

To be specific, Wyoming for example only has 1 open Tesla supercharger, and it's not anywhere near the I-80 corridor that runs across the state from east to west. And since this thread is about a trip from MD to FL, let me just say that Wyoming spans a region covering a third of the entire drive described in the video - it's bigger than MD, VA, and SC combined. So I'm using "states" in a loose manner, and in just this one instance a third of the drive would be without open superchargers.

How about South Dakota? Sure there's technically one open supercharger in one corner of the state. But nothing on the main I-90 corridor. And SD is much bigger than either NC, or GA, or FL - imagine if you only had access to at most one charger in each of those states as you drove through (and none near the highway).

Also Arizona. If you bisect the state diagonally, the entire upper right (the good part ...) and into the lower right of Utah has no open Tesla chargers.

And Nevada. Las Vegas doesn't count. You could lose many East coast states in the desert there, with not an open supercharger in sight.

Eastern Oregon. Try driving I-84 without charging, since there's no superchargers. And then try dealing with the situation when they close the entire I-84 due to wildfires and no superchargers to help you on the detour.

I have driven all these places in my Rivian, and I would not have been able to do that just on the open supercharger network. The CCS network was absolutely essential, and in fact since this was last year I didn't even have a choice of using the superchargers. But even this year, with my brand-new official Rivian adapter, the open superchargers would not help me in the problem areas I encountered on those trips.

We have traveled quite a bit and found the Tesla network is much more reliable than the others. Having had particularly bad experiences with CCS1 in the Southeast. I think that's why we have a lot of excitement regarding the Tesla supercharger access. Especially since we owned Teslas previously and so we know how good the experience can be.

Regardless, this is my main point. A LOT of people have experience driving Teslas and using the supercharger network. But the experience when driving a Rivian and using nothing but the supercharger network WILL NOT BE THE SAME. It's easy for Tesla owners to assume, based on their experience, that they can go anywhere and never have a problem finding a charger, but in reality the places that have a low density of CCS chargers will usually only have V1 and V2 Tesla chargers, which are NOT open. So the supercharger network does not help much if at all in these areas. The people with a lot of Tesla experience are the ones who IMO are most likely to run into problems because they might rely on experience which doesn't apply when driving a Rivian.

There are a huge number of Tesla chargers, even V3 chargers that aren't open. I live in a major metropolitan area yet the nearest open supercharger is 25 miles from me. Not because there are no superchargers, but because not many of them are open. So while I think opening the supercharger network is of course a good thing, it's not helping me too much except to provide a few additional options in areas that already have CCS options.

 

[Electrified Outdoors]

There are a huge number of Tesla chargers, even V3 chargers that aren't open. I live in a major metropolitan area yet the nearest open supercharger is 25 miles from me. Not because there are no superchargers, but because not many of them are open. So while I think opening the supercharger network is of course a good thing, it's not helping me too much except to provide a few additional options in areas that already have CCS options.

Can we agree its good to have more options? I know a lot of folks are annoyed by Elon however I think the Tesla option will also force the other network operators to "up their game". This will ultimately result in better public charging experiences for all EV owners.

 

[Skysurfer]

I humored him. I happened to have two NACS adapters with me. The A2Z and Lectron. I let him try to use the Lectron and explained. It was an EQB and it was actually a nice car. They will eventually get access probably next year sometime

Have you noticed any differences in charging speed/behavior between the A2Z and Lectron adapters? Curious if the different adapter designs have any noticeable impact charging speeds.

 

[Electrified Outdoors]

Have you noticed any differences in charging speed/behavior between the A2Z and Lectron adapters? Curious if the different adapter designs have any noticeable impact charging speeds.

nope. both of them got pretty hot to the touch in direct sunlight and speed was similar on both. highest I have seen with either adapter so far is 215kw.

Sponsored