Mr. Broder,

My name is Peter, and I recently very successfully completed a very long, cross country trip from Portland OR -> LA -> NOLA -> Atlanta -> NYC in my Model S. I am only a Tesla customer, and have no other affiliation with the company.

It was great disappointment that I read your article today. It showed quite a number of missteps that could have been easily avoided, had Tesla done a better job teaching you about the car beforehand, and not repeatedly given you advice that was not only incorrect, but sometimes counterproductive. There is a learning curve to taking long road trips in an EV, especially in the cold, and it is a shame that Tesla did not better prepare you for this. Your article includes a bit of a postmortem on your trip, but that seems like Tesla again dropped the ball on giving you valuable advice on how you could have made the trip an easy success. Almost all the mistakes I have outlined below, individually, would have eliminated your troubles. If I may, here is my postmortem.

One:

You did not fully charge the car at the Superchargers in Delaware. The Model S has two charge settings, “Standard” and “Max Range”. A Max Range setting will charge up the batteries fully (to the 265 EPA range). It appears you only charged to “Standard” with a range of 242. This setting is on the charge screen. This would have given you about 25 miles extra when arriving at the Superchargers in Milford CT. It should also be noted that you were only 14 miles from the Superchargers in Milford when you ran the car below 0 and needed to be towed.

Two:

You should have been advised by Tesla to plug in to something, anything when stopped overnight in temperatures down to 10 degrees Fahrenheit in Groton. Even a simple standard lamp socket would have eliminated your issues on the second day, and you would have started the day with somewhere between 90-100 miles to start with. I never had any issue finding, and being allowed to use, these on my trip. When charging for driving in the cold, charge whenever you get a chance, (i.e. when you stopped in NYC) even if it’s only for the hour that you are there.

Three:

The answer you got about “Conditioning” the battery when cold is completely incorrect, and simply aided to use up your mileage; In my estimate about 20 miles of range. Simply driving it would have warmed the battery and raised the “available” mileage as you drove. There have been a number of times, when very cold in the mornings, that I arrived at my destination with more range than I started with. Had you not done this, it is very likely that you would have been able to drive directly to the Superchargers in Milford.

Four:

Charge longer. I know this sounds silly now, but you should have charged for longer any number of times. You left Norwich KNOWING that you did not have the rated miles to reach your destination, yet you left anyway! Why anyone at Tesla “cleared” you to leave, and why you thought that heading out in the cold, without the rated mileage to get to your destination would have ended in any way other than poorly is beyond me. You stated that you know driving in cold requires at least 10% more energy, then you should have known that when you left the Superchargers in Milford you had approximately 160 miles round trip, add to this %10 for the cold and you need 176 miles of range.  At 185 miles of range you are just setting yourself up for issues making it back, even if you hadn’t stayed the night. Staying just an extra 15 minutes at the Superchargers in Milford would have added almost an extra 70 miles into your car, and eliminated all other issues in your trip even without plugging in that night, and with the cold weather.

Five:

It doesn’t sound like anyone at Tesla informed you of the “Range” climate mode setting on the cars settings page. This would have helped you more than simply turning down the temperature as you did. This along with seat heaters would have done more to keep you comfortable while not reducing your range nearly as much. At the point in your drive that you knew you had real issues, you simply should have turned it off, or stopped by an outlet or EV charger for 20 minutes.

Six:

Don’t run the car down to 0! I don’t understand why anyone at Tesla gave you the impression that you should plan to run the car down to 0 miles left as part of your plan. This is the equivalent to Toyota letting you know that you can keep driving one of their gasoline cars further after you feel some hesitation from the engine running out of gas, “because there really is just a little more in there”. While it might be true, would you ever plan a trip that way?

Seven:

When running low on charge, driving 11 miles in the wrong direction isn’t the smart move. It’s very unfortunate that you were sent 11 miles in the wrong direction to charge when running low. Since it’s the wrong direction, that now becomes 22 miles out of the way round trip, which as it turns out is a greater distance than you where from the Superchargers when you were picked up by the flatbed tow truck (14 miles). Better advice would have been to stop at somewhere like the Old Saybrook Inn which has an EV charger and was on your way, or any RV park many of which were on the way, any of which would, with that hour of charging you took, saved you from the tow truck.

Again, it’s a shame that a lack of knowledge and poor information turned your otherwise easily enjoyable trip into a nerve-racking drive and the need to be towed. I would like to extend you an offer to take another trip with me. We can take the same route, charge at the same locations, and I promise you won’t need your gloves inside the car.

Sincerely,

Peter

We readied to head out from Lake Charles with a decent charge, but not the full range charge we would have liked. Unfortunately, we have discovered that charging on most public EV chargers doesn’t quite fit our time line. If we get into a hotel at 10PM (a very early night for us), and get the car on the charger by 10:30PM, then charge at the standard 30A (200V typically), by the time morning comes and you pull the car off the charger at about 8am, you have just under 200 miles in the tank. This varies a bit, as some chargers are 240V (and by 8am you would then by just about full), but there isn’t any good way to know this ahead of time right now, and we found very few of these… Anyway, back to the story:

We headed out knowing that we would need just a quick stop on the way to New Orleans and charge for just an hour or so rather than wait the multiple hours the EV charger would take. After a quick stop over at the McDonald’s to make sure to purchase something as a small thank you for having the EV charger, we where on our way!

Tina was at the helm, and the day was overcast turning to rain. The automatic wipers started wiping as the rain started to fall, and immediately we noticed that there was something a bit strange. Something was under the wiper blade that made it’s way across the windshield with each swipe. First though was we had picked up a parking ticket somewhere along the way, and it was now literally flapping in the breeze. Then just as the next swipe came and a gust of wind lifted it away we noticed the McDonald’s logo! A couple of calls and we were able to find out that it was the owner of the McDonald’s who had left his card with us and wanted to find out a little more about the S!

While had we been able to pick up a full charge overnight we would have simply had a strait drive over to New Orleans, having only a bit under 200 along with a desire to enjoy the power the S has to offer meant a quick stop by an RV park. As we have now begun flying by the seat of our pants a bit when it comes to charging our steed, we pulled up our RV park finding app RV Park Finder we saw we where only a few miles from Frenchmen’s Wilderness Camp with highly rated bathrooms and 50 amp hookups. Minutes later we were pulling in, explaining that we where looking to plug in for less than an hour, and we where charging away. And yes, their bathrooms fully deserved their rating.

The trip into the city was easy, and we where quickly downtown and to The Saint Hotel. As with most places we have been, no-one at the hotel had seen an S before, but they where very happy to work with me to find the best way to charge. I spent about 30 minutes with hotel staff looking including the building engineer looking for the best and most accessible plug to charge from. Unfortunately, all of the 240V plugs where located in underground areas that where unacceptable, and we ended up with only a 120V plug that supplied us 4 miles of charge per hour. We probably should have looked for a better place to charge, but the 120V would get us well outside the city the next day, and we where excited to get out into the city exploring! Off we went to explore Bourbon street, Cafe Du Monde, and amazing live music

Peter

The first day of 2013 caught us oversleeping, but who can blame us, we did revisit our 20s last night. Although it was already later than we would have liked, we couldn’t leave Austin without having some BBQ. So our gracious hosts, Sarah and Chris, took us to Rudy’s. I’m not a huge meat eater, but that place was awesome! First they let us sample all their meats, from brisket to jalapeno sausage. When they give you our order it comes in a plastic basket with plastic silverware and top it all off on wax paper instead of plates. It was the best meal we had so far on this trip! And lunch for the three of us only cost around $20. With what little time we had left, we went up to Mount Bonnell for a great view an some pictures.

I think we all wished that we could stay in Austin, but alas the road beckoned and so did Houston. After a top off at a scenic RV park with plenty of deer around, our plan was to charge up at the Tesla store and we arrived to what we thought was near the location right around 6:30 (the store was closing at 7pm). And what followed then was one of the more annoying and looking back, kind of funny parts of the trip. The Tesla store was the Houston Galleria, a fancy shopping mall. We couldn’t find the Tesla store. Peter had called the store and was told that it was in the Green garage we kept circling around and seeing orange, yellow, but no green. Time kept ticking, the mileage kept decreasing and we still couldn’t find Green. We got our phones out in an effort to find a map of the mall but all the links seemed to be broken. I finally found one that showed that the Green garage is right next to Orange. So Peter thought that maybe the Tesla employee meant orange instead of red. But alas, orange was just another maze with no way out. By that point the situation was not looking good because it was past 7pm and mileage was down to about 6. I didn’t really want to be blogging about how after driving from Oregon to Houston in an electric car we ran out juice in a parking garage at at a mall, somewhere less than a mile from the Tesla charge. So I made Peter do the unthinkable, call the store and ask for directions.

The Tesla employee walked us through the directions (and yes there really was a Green garage) and we finally arrived at the charger. But alas it was past 7pm and the store was about to close and the employees were worried about leaving the charging cable overnight. But Peter did his magic and we were allowed to charge as long as we wanted (Thanks, Tesla!). We ate dinner at the sushi place at the mall, it was kind of nice to spend a couple of hours in civilization actually, even though it was between Forever 21 and the Gap.

The next leg of our journey took us to a magical McDonald’s in Lake Charles, LA. It’s not just magical because their McMuffin is only 300 calories and they have pretty good coffee but because this one had the only public EV charger in all of Lake Charles. The McDonald’s employee were actually excited to see up pull up and plug in, apparently they have never seen anyone use the charger before. Peter happily told them all about the car, like he already had many times on this trip and they said that they would keep an eye on it for us. And they did! We were ready to go the next day.

Luba

Day 8 started easy enough with a simple goal, make it to a friends New Years Eve Party in Austin.

By day 8, we have really started to relax our charging planning. After getting nearly a full charge over night at the local RV park in Clovis NM, we headed out with a simple plan; Drive until we have only 30 or so miles left of range, find an RV park, and charge once more. That would take us to the mid-point of our drive, from there it’s just one more leg to Austin and we should just make it into town with time to freshen up, and start the party with everyone at about 10pm.

Everything was perfectly on plan, we drove we where down to 10′s of miles, found an RV Park, where we started charging up. We watched everything for some time, and with everything looking perfect we decided to take the three quarter mile walk to the local rest stop and sit down for a good meal while we waited for the car to charge. We checked what time the car would be finished, and timed our meal to finish just before the car was done. Of course you know what happened; About an hour and a half before we returned to the car, the circuit breaker on the outlet at the RV park had tripped (well below it’s rated current limit). Because of the use and exposure of these circuit breakers, this seems to be a semi-normal occurrence. Quick calculations were done and it looked like it would be close, but we might still be able to make it to the party before the stroke of midnight. The circuit was reset, and we watched the miles slowly add on. We carefully calculated out the amount of margin miles we wanted for the trip, and triple checked the distance and we concluded just what we originally had, we would need a full range charge for this leg. Finally the charge current slowed as we reached full, we disconnected, collected all of our cables, and we were off.

For those that have not driven and EV, and speak of “range anxiety”, I want to be clear that there never has been a point that we have been driving that any of us were concerned about getting stranded. Everywhere I go there are thousands of outlets everywhere, any of which I can plug into. Some are great, such as a 240V 14-50R at campgrounds, and some are slow like the lamp socket in your house, but all of them will work. Another thing that takes some getting use to when driving an EV, it’s generally very easy to stretch your mileage and go further than the “Rated Range” you have left, all you have to do is SLOW DOWN. This was clearly shown when another Tesla Model S was driven a good bit past 400 miles on a single charge, through not at highway speeds http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1081000_how-far-will-a-tesla-model-s-go-one-owner-did-405-miles.

What was left for us was an optimization problem (perfect for me!), go slow enough that our single charge would take us all the way to Austin without needing to stop and recharge, yet go fast enough to make it there before midnight.

As we rode along we closely watched out energy usage screens, the number of “Rated Miles” left in the battery (similar to a gas gauge on a car but much more precise), and the number of miles left till Austin. Every few minutes adjustments where made depending on terrain, rain, and time. Every time we we hit a patch of rain that slowed us down we began to doubt we would make it in time but then the shower would pass and then suddenly a large downhill would come where we made back the time and energy that the rain had taken from us. As the miles ticked down things really started looking up, we were going to make it! Makeup was applied, comments were made about the visors not being up to the task, and even though in the last few miles the rain really began to pour down, we had the margin to spare and we pushed on. 20 miles, 10 miles, 5 miles… Finally we cheered our own arrival just as the sky really opened up on us, with 15 minutes to spare, and 11 “Rated Miles” still in the tank we walked into the party and the Electric Road Trip S team celebrated the New Year with friends like we hadn’t done in almost a decade

Peter

My tour of Albuquerque consisted of a 10 minute walk from the hotel downtown to the car. It looks like a pretty cool town but is pretty dead on a late Sunday morning. It’s going on the list of places to visit when we have more time. Following Albuquerque was another first on this trip, me driving the Model S. I haven’t owned a car for the past eight years and rarely drive now a days. Although luckily I have never been in a major car accident, I did back a borrowed car into a pole a few years ago. I also remember the last time I drove Peter’s car was when we were freshmen in college. We went up to Chicago for a weekend from the University of Maryland. Peter’s car was a stick shift and he taught me how to drive it in the parking lot of Safeway before the trip. I got out of driving pretty much the whole way until we were coming back Monday morning trying to make it to our classes. Peter and our other friend were really tired and asked that I drive. It was all fine until we got to a toll when after paying I couldn’t get the car to move again. A few minutes later a cop came up behind us and after listening to my rather pathetic explanation of what was happening told me that the “highway was not a practice lot.” After that Peter drove us all the way back to Maryland.

So… you can imagine why I was pretty nervous about driving my good friend’s new and expensive car; however, some things are more important than fear (actually most things), so behind the steering wheel I went. After a short lesson from Peter about how everything works, I was off down a New Mexico highway. One of the cool things was that the car saves your seat settings so that when you switch drivers it automatically adjusts the seats for you. Needless to say, it was easy to drive the S and not really different from a regular car. Being on cruise control felt kind of weird, but that has to with the fact that I don’t think I ever actually used cruise control before. Other than that it was a smooth ride and it was tempting to go really, really fast. I got us into an RV park in Santa Rosa, NM safe and sound.

The RV park was almost completely empty. The desert scenery was pretty cool especially for someone from the east coast. My hat goes off to Tina, who went out for a run even though it was freezing. I made due walking around the RV park to work off those wasabi peas that I’ve been constantly snacking on somehow. We then headed off down the road in another stint of something we called “urban hiking” (AKA walking down the side of a major road to get something to eat). We ended up at Silver Moon, a Mexican-American restaurant recommended to us by the RV park employee. The place was definitely worth the hike. The food was amazing and the atmosphere very homey, just what we electric road trippers needed. My huevos rancheros with the green chili sauce were the best I ever had. Apparently, we were not the only ones who thought the place was great as it had autographed pictures from the likes of Angelina Jolie and Linda Carter. Soon the road beckoned and we were back on our way.

Our stopping point for the night was Clovis, NM. Although Apple maps showed two hotels in the town, neither of these really worked for us or had/were close to a charger. After some loops around town we came across some more motels and started circling them to see if we could find an easy access to a 240v plug we could use. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the adapter for the dryer style that the hotels had.

During one of these circles of a hotel, we were befriended by the most adorable dog that had apparently been abandoned by its previous owners. Tina spearheaded the rescue effort, first talking with the hotel which was giving the dog food and some shelter, then eventually with a few local animal shelters and animal hospitals about having the dog scanned for a chip and finding a home. Eventually, I’m very relieved to say, she found a home. Unfortunately, given the circumstances related to driving an electric car, we could not transport the pet; however, I’m sure that Tina would have adopted the dog on the spot had we not been on this trip.

The hunt for a high power charger continued. It wasn’t looking good there for a while but than a switch to Google maps showed that there was a new campground (K C’s campground) close by. We were able to score a charging post a walking distance from a hotel for a tent fee charge! Granted the walk was through some sort of strange field and it started snowing, but hey, this is an adventure after all. Actually, even after all that we were asleep earlier than any other day on the trip so far. And so ends the next to last day of 2012 for Electric Road Trip S.

Luba

Back on the road again. When road tripping, you learn to appreciate simple things like McDonald’s coffee and egg McMuffins. We were almost in Flagstaff where things were snow covered. What a huge change from LA just a day ago. Another cool thing about this car: I usually can’t read or write in cars because I get sick but I typed day five entirely in the car and am doing fine so far. Flagstaff actually looked like a cool place, but because of the time constraints of our trip we didn’t have a lot of time to explore. After an unsuccessful attempt to plug in at a battery store we went to a nearby RV park to charge. One of the biggest surprises so far has been how nice RV parks are. I was fully expecting a bunch of tattooed guys in leather jackets, but actually all the places so far had really nice clean bathrooms, Wifi, laundry rooms and people that are happy to accommodate us charging for a couple of hours. This place even had a steak house with a very high rating on Trip Adviser! Alas, we didn’t get to sample it because it didn’t open till later. After a short walk next to a very scenic highway and a bunch of fast food joints (I think we were the first pedestrians that area had seen in years) we ended up at Outback Steakhouse. Now, I’m not a big chain restaurant fan (except for the Melting Pot, of course) but for $10 that perfectly made medium rare steak and baked potato were scrumptious. A shout out goes to that waiter who let us hang out for over two hours while waiting for the car to charge!

The next leg of our trip took us to another RV park in Gallup, NM. It was cold and I mean cold as a witch’s tit cold, 16F. As a result of the weather, the car took much longer to charge than anticipated. As you can imagine, nobody really wanted to frolic outside in this weather and I was glad that I wasn’t the person who had to set up the car to charge. One of the things that we learned on this trip is that the US is really cold at the end of December. Who would have thought? I’m telling you, you haven’t lived till you sat in a car for over two hours, late into the evening, eating a turkey sandwich made on a paper towel in the backseat watching your favorite movie, (mine is The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind on an iPad placed on the dashboard.

Unfortunately, there is no other way to describe the last leg of the trip other than painful. It was late, my back and head hurt and I wasn’t even driving. We got into our hotel in Albuquerque, NM past 3AM and Peter still had to drop off the car at a charge spot about eight blocks away. Luckily, it was an easy plug-in that worked. The general consensus was that driving from midnight till 3AM is not a good idea when you spent the whole day driving as well.

Luba

A Note about charging at 16 degrees F from Peter…

I had not taken into account the amount of energy that the car needed to spend keeping both the battery and us warm in this type of cold while charging. Normally, I would expect to be charging the car just over 60 miles in an hour (80A at 244V) but we where charging at about 45 miles in an hour. This wasn’t the best time for us to realize this, but we were comfy and warm in the car, and Luba got to watch a little extra of her favorite movie

This was my first day on Electric Road Trip S, but day 5 for Tina and Peter. After leaving Erin and Dave’s (thanks again, guys!) we headed out to Tesla’s supercharger at Hawthorn CA for a quick charging “top off.” A supercharger charges up the battery to full in about an hour as opposed to about 8 hours on a regular 50amp stove outlet. So I started out the trip pretty spoiled. While charging Peter got so excited about talking to Larry (a very friendly navy pilot who flew F14s off of aircraft carriers, now flies commercial planes and incidentally graduated from University of Maryland, like us) and a fellow Model S owner that didn’t plug the car all the way in. After about 40 minutes, we realized that we hadn’t charged at all. Oops. On the plus side, we were still in sunny southern CA and the nice person from the Tesla facility made us coffee. In the lot on the way out, Peter showed me how the car accelerates. I’m not a car person, I haven’t owned one in eight years, but that was awesome. It takes off like one of those super fast roller coasters!

After picking up Tina, the Electric Road Trip S was pretty smooth and uneventful until our arrival in Barstow, CA a couple of hours later. The outlet mall where the supercharger was must be doing something right, because every fast food restaurant was packed to the gills. First prize goes to In-N-Out Burger, a must stop for me every time I’m in CA. The pandemonium going on in there reminded me of the line to get into Lolapalooza in the mid-90s, so unfortunately no In-N-Out for me. Not to worry; I’ll be back for that deliciousness next time. Speaking of In-N-Out, thanks to the awesome supercharger we were in and out of Barstow in an hour and back on the road. The weather was cooperating with us, it was a beautiful sunny day and we could enjoy the great view of the desert and the mountains, something us east coast dwellers don’t see every day. We even got a thumbs up from a car on the road. Apparently, some people know what a Tesla is I’m not going to go on about how beautiful the moon was over the desert because you just had to be there.

We pulled up to an RV park in Kingman, AZ at about 8:30PM, but then magically it was 9:30 due to that silly thing called time zone change, which we forgot about completely. That’s when the fun really began. It was dark, it was cold, and the 14-50R plugs (or 50 amp hookups) where we were going to plug in the car were too far apart (Peter needed to use two of them because of the device he made that allows him to cut down the charging time from eight hours to about four hours). For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, don’t feel bad. I already had to ask Peter about the names of these things about three times and I think if I ask him one more time he’s going to throw something at me. Basically, they are big outlets like the ones that you use to plug in a dryer or a washing machine. Peter pulled out his tools and in a very MacGyver move made an extension cord right there on the spot all while chatting up some lady that was so enamored with the car that I think she already put in her order with Tesla. Alas, after the extension cord was made we still could not charge the car because it was 3 phase power (no idea how to explain this in plain English, please ask Peter). So off to an RV park down the road we went. At that point, it was pretty clear that we were not making it to Flagstaff, AZ tonight as originally planned. What followed was a tour of the local motel chains (I’ve never seen so many motels as I have in Kingman, AZ) in search of a 240v plug to charge the car overnight. Luck smiled down us at Motel 6. Tina and I got a good laugh from watching Peter just walk into the laundry room of the motel without actually checking in to inspect the plug for the washer and dryer. It would have been even more funny to watch him explain this to the motel stuff. Luckily, after another MacGyver operation, Peter pulled one of the pins out to make the plug fit. The great people at Motel 6 let us use the plug to charge the car. It was just in time, too, because my battery, much like the car’s, was pretty low on charge. I haven’t slept so well in a while; although Peter and Tina tell me that that is the earliest night they had so far (we passed out around midnight) so I guess I’m still a lightweight electric road tripper.

Luba

Jeremy Collins is quoted as saying “Sometimes the best journeys aren’t necessarily from east to west, but from heart to head. Between them we find our voice.” As Peter and I began the forth day of our journey our souls reawakened in anticipation of the adventure ahead.

Tesla Factory – Fremont, CA
It was a brand new day overflowing with warmth and sunshine as we set off for Fremont, CA to visit the Tesla Factory. Just as my expectations of the car were exceeded, so too were those of its birth place. Our timing was perfect. We were greeted with an engaging group of Tesla loyalists who invited us to join their tour led by the knowledgeable Tesla team member, John H. After only a few minutes, I was witnessing the wonderment and exaltation of Charlie Bucket exploring Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory on an episode of Discover Channel’s How It’s Made. Far from being a car enthusiast, I found myself just as fascinated by the size, scope, organization, teamwork and technology. In fact, at one point we as a group were fully entranced for about 30 minutes as we witnessed the assembly line in action. It was clear, Tesla’s competencies spanned a multitude of areas and all of its stakeholders were deservingly proud. I was sold. At the conclusion of the tour, Peter’s eyes widened when our guide whispered to him, “Next time, don’t risk reaching a range of 1 mile.” Apparently, the guide had been following our trek along with dozens of others which was both flattering and intimidating as we looked to not only ensure a successful trip, but to supply entertaining feed.

Tesla Dealership – Menlo Park, CA
Our next stop was the Tesla dealership in Menlo, CA where Peter was to switch to all-season tires allowing for better traction, control and thus more efficiency during our cold weather precipitous inclines. I took this opportunity to indulge in a much desired and deserved meditative run through Menlo Park. This cathartic outlet was food for the soul and what was supposed to be a 2.5 mile jog turned into 4 miles of pure bliss. I returned to find Peter chatting with another electrical engineer who recently purchased a Model S while he waited for Sunrise to finish her bath (the dealership insisted she not exit the service door until her coat was as shiny as the day she was born).

Final Destination – Los Angeles
With all three of us refreshed (Peter, Sunrise and I) a couple of IPAs were in order so we hit up Menlo Grill adjacent to the dealership in preparation for the next venture to Gilroy en route to our final destination. In Gilroy, we devoured In-N-Out burgers (which I had not yet tried) while the car super-charged next to SIG1058. We returned to find another local owner #1459 charging as well. After a quick charge followed by a strawberry milkshake at Harris Ranch we arrived in the City of Angels around midnight. In just a couple more days we will have traveled almost 2,000 miles powered by about 20 hours of charge time!

Apx Miles Traveled/Charge Time Since Day 1: 1000 mi /19 HRS
Song of the Day: Equestrian by US Royalty

Rock on,
Tina

My body still on East Coast time, I happened to wake up a bit before 6AM today.  Remembering a story from Steve and Jesse, I decided that I should check on the car to see how charging was going.  It was a good thing that I did, as it wasn’t.  At some point, the charger had decided to stop supplying power to the car .  A quick call to AeroVironment (who I must say was there to answer the phone again, this time the day after Christmas at 5 something AM) and they restarted a new charge session.  Perhaps there is a time limit on charge sessions?

In the end, the delay in charging was a secondary delay for the day.  A quick check of the weather ahead showed a snowstorm still raging in the mountain passes which wouldn’t be lifting for a few hours. With the summer-only performance tires still on the car, I decided it was time to go back to bed.

A number of hours later and a minor modification to my EVSE identified (which was easy to work through in the warmth of the hotel room) and we were packed and ready to go.  At this point, we had been moving bags in and out of the S for three days, mostly in rain. I have to give the designers of the rear hatch a shout out: Every time I opened the hatch, the water covering it was perfectly funneled to the sides and off into channels below waiting to be whisked to the ground rather than on my belongings.

We made it through the passes easily as front loaders cleared the black pavement ahead.  After making it through and into California we found our next RV park. The owners were happy to have an EV charge there and didn’t mind us plugging into two 50A outlets.  This time the EVSE came up without issue and after a number of final checks I gave it the command to combine input sources and feed them to the S.  Almost instantly the relays clicked and the S escalated charging up to 80A at just over 240 Volts.  Charging was going by so quickly that we went ahead and charged to a full range charge. We determined that we should just be able to make it to the Superchargers at Folsom.  The drive was smooth, but as I’m still dialing in my ability to arrive at my destination within my desired margin, the 10 mile margin I had calculated gradually slipped away.  I finally arrived at Folsom with 3 miles left and somehow managed to bring it down to one as I slowly hunted for the Superchargers.

When we did find the Superchargers, using them could not have been easier.  We pulled in similar to how you pull up to a gas pump, walked over to the cable (which is easier to handle than a gas pump handle), pushed the button on the handle which causes the battery door S to open and plugged in the Supercharger cable to the S.  I took a video of this, but as it was taken in the middle of the night I’ll have to edit it before posting.

At just about this time, the local security guard, who had apparently been watching a suspicious car slowly meander its way around the closed outlet center, came over to see why we were there.  He had never seen an S use the Superchargers before and by the time we finished showing him and wrapping up our discussion, the car had charged up to 65 miles.  Charging progressed at almost 300 miles for quite a few minutes until it slowed its charge rate (to protect the batteries).  We only charged to ~180 miles, as that was plenty to be able to make it over to Fremont and on to Menlo Park. Having substantially filled up, we zipped over to a hotel that split the difference between Folsom and Fremont and called it a night.

Today was quite a day.  We went from charging on the generally available J1772 Charger at 19 miles/hr to charging on my custom EVSE at 65 miles/hr to charging on a Supercharger at almost 300 miles/hr!  What a day!

Peter

Some days just suck for traveling and Day 2 definitely was one of those days.  When we walked out of the hotel it was raining steadily and just above freezing.  It’s that wet cold that just chills you down to the bone.

We made the best of it and explored just a little bit more of Portland by taking a rainy hike in Forest Park before heading south out of Portland on our multi-day trek to San Francisco.

Just before heading out we decided to try out one more charging network with the S, this time ChargePoint. I expected that it, like the others, would just take a swipe of their card and plug into the S with the handy J1772 adapter; however, this we quickly received an error message informing us that we needed to call Chargepoint. Being Christmas Day, I didn’t expect anyone to answer the phone, but I was quickly proven wrong as my phone call was answered and a simple issue of a zip code miss match was cleared up. The issue turned out to have nothing to do with the S.

We headed south on I-5. Between the my driving after the mountainous terrain in Forest Park, we quickly found ourselves ready for a charge by the time we were at Corvallis. Fortunately, the rain stopped for a few moments as we pulled into the local RV park, and I decided it was the best time to test out my custom designed EVSE (Technical details in the Multi-Input EVSE blog post).

I started slowly as this was the first time attempting to plug my EVSE into a Model S. I had only a week before brought my system up to the point that it was ready to charge a car. I had a close friend who was willing to let me plug into their Leaf and therefore, only knew it worked with that model. I was very pleased to have the Model S immediately communicate with my EVSE and initiate a charge. I slowly increased the current eventually charging at 50 Amps and 240 Volts!

By this point the rain had started again and it was about 35 degrees out so we decided that we would take a break from the RV park. We ventured to Corvallis for a warm meal and according to Plugshare, a free J1772 system to plug into just a block away. My EVSE was quickly unplugged and off we went to dinner. Just as Plugshare had shown, a free J1772 (240V 30A) was available, and we walked a block to a Chinese restaurant for Christmas dinner.

After dinner, back to the RV park we went where I began phase two of my test plan by plugging into two 14-50R’s at the same time allowing for a charge up to 80A/240 Volts. This would essentially reduce an eight hour charge time at the RV parks down to four. I plugged the power in and nothing… Out came the tools and I quickly determined that power was entering my box just fine, but it wasn’t powering up. Just as I discovered that my fuse had blown, the rain started again and it was starting to get dark. It was quickly decided that retreat was the better part of valor in this case and we watched Dumb and Dumber in the car while waiting for to charge using the standard Tesla EVSE.

Once charged up enough to make it to our next planned destination in Ashland, OR, we headed south. The weather took a turn for the worse and reports showed that the mountain passes were experiencing blizzard conditions.  We quickly found (again, using Plugshare) a nearby hotel that had an AeroVironment charging station in its parking lot.  I was skeptical. It was Christmas night and my attempts to acquire a fob to use at the charging stations had been rejected because I do not live in OR. I was promised by AeroVironment that their 24/7 phone number really was 24/7.  Sure enough, at almost midnight on Christmas night they answered the phone and after a short discussion on why I would want to enable the L2 charger when there was a faster L3 sitting there ready, the free charge was started!

To bed we went as I began to ponder the problem that occurred when I unplugged my EVSE as well as its solution.

Peter