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Too Soon For a [short] Road Trip???

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Looking for opinions....

If all goes well, taking delivery on Friday, June 28th at 10am in Bellevue WA. :biggrin:
We are schedule to be in PDX the next day, staying the night.

With an 85kWh battery we'll be able to make it there no problem, charge at the hotel overnight (Heathman, confirmed with hotel valet) and/or WA Square store and head back to SEA.

Being that the car will be less than 24 hours old, would you take the EV or ICE? Would appreciate your opinion(s) and any words of wisdom.

Thanks in advanced!

-Myrissa
 
To put it bluntly: Take the Tesla as I did it with my 60kWh without issue. And don't worry as you have purchased the finest car in the world IMHO :)

Remind service to have the car "Ranged" or "Max" charge completed when you pick up the car to ease your concerns.

Here's our trip if you enjoy a lot of reading: http://teslatrip.tumblr.com/
 
Myrissa,

Seems like a dumb question to me :)

Have you driven an MS? How long have you been waiting for your MS? What is your concern? DRIVE IT! HOW COULD YOU NOT!

Actually no, haven't driven any MS. Not even a test drive. Have never been a passenger. My concern is that I'm not sure if there is a learning curve with the workings of the car. We won't have time to play with our new toy, let alone read the manual. And no, not offended at all. LOL.

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To put it bluntly: Take the Tesla as I did it with my 60kWh without issue. And don't worry as you have purchased the finest car in the world IMHO :)

Remind service to have the car "Ranged" or "Max" charge completed when you pick up the car to ease your concerns.

Here's our trip if you enjoy a lot of reading: http://teslatrip.tumblr.com/

Thank YOU. This is exactly what I was looking for. I'll make a note of it when we pick up the car. And thank you for sharing.
 
Looking for opinions....

If all goes well, taking delivery on Friday, June 28th at 10am in Bellevue WA. :biggrin:
We are schedule to be in PDX the next day, staying the night.

With an 85kWh battery we'll be able to make it there no problem, charge at the hotel overnight (Heathman, confirmed with hotel valet) and/or WA Square store and head back to SEA.

Being that the car will be less than 24 hours old, would you take the EV or ICE? Would appreciate your opinion(s) and any words of wisdom.

Thanks in advanced!

-Myrissa

We went for a little 600 mile jaunt three days after getting ours. On this first trip, the frunk latch failed and would not open, but luckily we had not put any luggage in the frunk. Came back, got it fixed (and learned how to get the frunk open with a broken latch). 2 weeks later took off for a 2500 mile trip. Had door latch problems, inner passenger door liner falling off. But that did not stop us. Showed car off anyway, to at least 50 people.

Last trip had one of the two charge inverters fail. Hey, just takes a little longer at 40 amps, and Supercharging (which we didn't have just a few months ago) doesn't use charge inverters. Got that fixed. So. It's all good. We have had adventures, and we have had fun. I would never have traded the experiences for a drive in the gas car. My wife and I still think it's the best car ever, it's the future, and it's ours.

I would suggest that you take the trip in the S. Mentally prepare for maybe having to call Tesla and have them diagnose your car over the air (how cool is that?), and leave a little wiggle room in your schedule. Leave the stress at home and enjoy!

To your second post, passenger learns about screen, settings, google maps, etc., and driver drives. Later, switch, and learn the other side. Don't try to learn the whole thing while you're driving. Pretty soon it becomes natural.
 
Actually no, haven't driven any MS. Not even a test drive. Have never been a passenger. My concern is that I'm not sure if there is a learning curve with the workings of the car. We won't have time to play with our new toy, let alone read the manual. And no, not offended at all. LOL.

I say, 'Go for it!' You'll be completely at home after the first 5 miles or three stop lights, whichever comes first. :biggrin:

Be forewarned: you will never willingly drive an ICE car again. You'll look for excuses to drive the S: it'll make you smile when you need to go back to the grocery store for that one item you forgot on your first three trips. :wink:
 
You have 10 days to drink in a little info on your new whip. A great palace to begin would be the official Tesla Model S Vehicle Demonstration http://vimeo.com/56110773 with this password: t35la4ALL (I've also seen this on the official Tesla site, I think . . .?)

Then there's another similar demo filmed by forum member Cinergi here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEEegexWG5I

And his general Model S new owner's videos: http://www.youtube.com/goodwinb99

And then, there's also the actual manual for download, too: http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/blog_attachments/ms_owners_guide.pdf

Having some knowledge about the general workings of your new Tesla might be a good thing. Watching the first video could plant some subliminal knowledge for you to recall if there's too much info, but some familiarity might give you some comfort.

That's going to be a beautiful first drive. Will you post a travelogue with pictures? They never get old.
 
No brainer, take the Tesla, you'll learn fast to use the various feedback options and your comfort level will grow quickly. I didn't take mine on any drives of more than ~20 miles one way for almost a month, the first trip of 120 miles I did a range charge b/c of range anxiety! But after 4 trips of over 400 miles round trip I feel much more confident that I can trust the information the car gives me for knowing what my range is and how best to manipulate that range...have returned home with under 10 miles range twice now and wasn't a bit nervous about whether I'd make it.

The early trip will help the learning curve dramatically.
 
Definitely take the Model S. Bring the UMC (charge cable that comes with the car) on the trip and all the adapters. Have them show you the J1772 adapter and how it connects. You probably don't need a range charge on delivery but do a range charge before you leave. Good luck!
 
Do you already have the charger outlet installed in your garage? You may receive the car half charged so this is very important. 110v won't do in that amount of time.

Yes! Already installed and passed inspection. For sure we'll plug it in the night prior. Thank you for the heads up! :smile:

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Take the ICE and leave the MS with me! I will look after it and take good care of it. When you get back you will have a nicely run-in Model S!

Sure, thing! Only if you promise to take REALLY good care of it. LMAO. Thank you for the offer. LOL.
 
Hey Myrissa,

I'm going to go a bit against the grain for a second and suggest that you might not want to take the S.

How high is your tolerance for risk and how well do you roll with the punches? From what you said it doesn't sound like you will have a lot of slack in your schedule. Since it's a new car (and this is true for anything new) there is always a greater chance that something, anything, might go wrong. If where you are going is on a timeline that you can't miss, or be late to, and you can't leave a some buffer in there to deal with your learning curve and the unexpected, then an old ICE might be the way to go. I have also found that charging the car can take much more time then expected both because the average 1772's suck, and because when you stop and charge somewhere people come over and want to talk about the car.



Peter
 
Hey Myrissa,

I'm going to go a bit against the grain for a second and suggest that you might not want to take the S.

How high is your tolerance for risk and how well do you roll with the punches? From what you said it doesn't sound like you will have a lot of slack in your schedule. Since it's a new car (and this is true for anything new) there is always a greater chance that something, anything, might go wrong. If where you are going is on a timeline that you can't miss, or be late to, and you can't leave a some buffer in there to deal with your learning curve and the unexpected, then an old ICE might be the way to go. I have also found that charging the car can take much more time then expected both because the average 1772's suck, and because when you stop and charge somewhere people come over and want to talk about the car.



Peter

Hi Peter, Thank you! Appreciate your thoughts. Our schedule is fairly flexible, but it would suck to be stuck in the middle of nowhere. My husband is leaning towards "no", however I think that once he drives the car for the first time he'll say what the heck. :)
 
Within 10 days of having our car we did a winter trip through Donner Pass with a 4 month old, so I'm in the "yes" camp. :)

http://jurrasictest.ch/GR/ shows that even with fairly high speeds and having some fun on the drive, it should be pretty safe with the 85kWh

My recommendations to minimize anxiety:

- Have multiple chargers at your destination (sounds like you already have that)
- Check with the app right before bed and right after you wake up to make sure the overnight charge is going as expected
- Have a few known good chargers on the route
- Set thresholds based on projections and if you're below that, slow down. For example, if less than 166 mi rated at Centralia on the way down, you're behind the curve and should slow down

Once you've done the trip once, the anxiety should be basically gone.
 
At first I thought, "I don't even have a Tesla (yet), who cares what I think?" . . . So here's what I think :rolleyes: Some of the most enjoyable times in my life have been on the "shakedown cruises" of trucks & boats & an RV or two. In a couple of cases the maiden voyage turned out to be the most extensive trip we ever took in that vehicle. Maybe not the recommended procedure for the cautious, but an adventure - time you don't get back.

I would ask myself "why did I buy this car?" Fun & performance? take the Tesla! To not burn so much gasoline? Tesla! How about- we now own "The BEST CAR" take the Tesla!!! ML
 
Within 10 days of having our car we did a winter trip through Donner Pass with a 4 month old, so I'm in the "yes" camp. :)

http://jurrasictest.ch/GR/ shows that even with fairly high speeds and having some fun on the drive, it should be pretty safe with the 85kWh

My recommendations to minimize anxiety:

- Have multiple chargers at your destination (sounds like you already have that)
- Check with the app right before bed and right after you wake up to make sure the overnight charge is going as expected
- Have a few known good chargers on the route
- Set thresholds based on projections and if you're below that, slow down. For example, if less than 166 mi rated at Centralia on the way down, you're behind the curve and should slow down

Once you've done the trip once, the anxiety should be basically gone.

FANTASTIC list, Banahogg. And to think you did a road trip with an infant. Wow!
 
@Banahogg +1

Myrassa, you won't get stuck. At worst, you will have to slow down a bit, or take a bit more time to stop and charge. I took a friend up to Paradise, Mt. Rainier and back (from Seattle) on a single charge, a distance of 242 miles and a lot of elevation gain. I didn't worry because as soon as I got within 50 miles of Seattle on the return trip, there were plenty of public chargers, even though I didn't need to use them. I arrived home with 18 rated miles remaining.