I-5 was recently covered with Superchargers. I've taken a Supercharger trip before (last January I used them from San Jose to Death Valley - see my signature for a link), and I was at the opening in Burlington WA. But there are still several of them in WA and OR that I have not seen. I have a trip planned next January, but I'm impatient and curious. Which ones are near good restaurants and/or hotels? Are they 90kW or 120kW? Is the spacing as planned - can you always make the next one without doing a max charge? I've taken a lot of long L2 trips and had to do a lot of planning. With Superchargers, can I really just get in the car and and drive and have everything work out fine? Can I make it to San Jose in one day now, instead of two?
I was probably not going to get around to actually doing anything (especially with my wife thinking I was a complete idiot and not wanting me to take her car), but Buzzbuzz said he wanted to visit a bunch of them too. So he picked me up on Friday morning (in his Model S, which has firmware 5.6) and we headed South. We stopped at Superchargers in Centralia WA, Woodburn OR, Springfield OR, and Grants Pass OR. Then we headed back home. When he dropped me off that evening, we had already covered more than 900 miles, and he still had to get home. Everything went as planned; this is really a simple, inexpensive and easy way to travel. And yeah, 900 miles in an electric car in one day is no big deal. I didn't write down the exact time, but it was under 18 hours.
We had considered driving up to Burlington and back just to make it over 1,000 miles; but we'd both been there so there didn't seem to be much of a point. We weren't trying to set any speed records; we only went a few mph over the speed limit, we did the trip in fairly cold weather, and more than once the car was ready to go while we were still lingering in a restaurant.
We both liked Elmer's in Woodburn, OR
The whole trip took us a little under 18 hours. Less than 4.5 of those hours - so a little less than 1/4 of the time - were at Superchargers. That included 3 meals and a four other restroom stops/email checks. In rough numbers, take your driving time and add 1/3 to determine Supercharger trip time.
The good news:
- Over 1,000 miles is clearly doable in a long day (leave very early in the morning, get back before midnight). In fact it looks possible to visit both the Peace Arch park in Canada and the Jefferson Davis Historical Monument In CA and still get home - a 1200 mile trip - in under 24 hours. While you will be tired from all the hours, remember that driving a Model S is not fatiguing like most gas cars. Less noise and vibration. We were in pretty good shape when we got home. (At least I was; buzzbuzz did all the driving. Thanks for that, buzzbuzz, and for being good company).
- Finding food while you charge is really easy; there was plenty of stuff (including restrooms) nearby at every location. I think there was a Denny's visible from every charger, so bring your High-Cholesterol Club Card.
- No waiting! Things may be different on a weekend, but we only saw two other Teslas the whole day. One at Grants Pass, and on the way back we talked to epley in Centralia.
- It really is easy to travel this way. We pretty much just jumped in the car and headed out without any planning (I had done a spreadsheet just to verify we would get back at a reasonable hour given that we both had things to do the next day, but to just drive a reasonable distance you don't need to do anything). At each stop we just used the nav system to determine the miles to the next stop, then made sure we had 50% more miles than that before leaving. (The weather wasn't bad and we could have cut it closer, which also would have made our charging a little faster. But again, we weren't going for a speed record - we were more interested in avoiding drama. And indeed there was none; we arrived at each Supercharger with somewhere between 38 and 106 miles of charge. Never any worries at all).
The not-so-bad news:
- All of the Superchargers we visited gave us a max of 90kW, so things didn't go as fast as they could have. [Note added later: I think most of them are 120kW chargers; but buzzbuzz has a sig, so it's limited to 90kW]. We spent a total of 4 hours and 23 minutes (including a little time in a restaurant after charging stopped, so we could have done it with less) adding 853 miles of rated range, for an average speed of 196mph. I guess this is kind of good news though - when they get upgraded to 120kW (or 135kW?!) things will go even faster.
- None of the Superchargers we visited yet have covers or solar panels. There was no rain or sun so it really didn't matter to us, and Tesla has said those things will trail by many months, but I just thought I'd throw that out there.
- Quality restaurants seemed hard to find (though fast food and mid-level were generally very nearby). Not a big deal to me; I usually go for the mid-level options. The mid-level Black Bear Diner in Grants Pass had several good qualities; but we vegetarians have few choices.
- Few of them were near quality hotels. Though some (like Springfield - and Burlington WA, even though we didn't visit that one today) are. However, I live in Seattle and the Superchargers make the trip so fast I don't care; I will be in CA before I need a place to stay. Not to mention that Supercharger speed means you don't have to spend the night by a charger anyway. I'm just kind of stretching for downsides to list.
I was probably not going to get around to actually doing anything (especially with my wife thinking I was a complete idiot and not wanting me to take her car), but Buzzbuzz said he wanted to visit a bunch of them too. So he picked me up on Friday morning (in his Model S, which has firmware 5.6) and we headed South. We stopped at Superchargers in Centralia WA, Woodburn OR, Springfield OR, and Grants Pass OR. Then we headed back home. When he dropped me off that evening, we had already covered more than 900 miles, and he still had to get home. Everything went as planned; this is really a simple, inexpensive and easy way to travel. And yeah, 900 miles in an electric car in one day is no big deal. I didn't write down the exact time, but it was under 18 hours.
We had considered driving up to Burlington and back just to make it over 1,000 miles; but we'd both been there so there didn't seem to be much of a point. We weren't trying to set any speed records; we only went a few mph over the speed limit, we did the trip in fairly cold weather, and more than once the car was ready to go while we were still lingering in a restaurant.
We both liked Elmer's in Woodburn, OR
The whole trip took us a little under 18 hours. Less than 4.5 of those hours - so a little less than 1/4 of the time - were at Superchargers. That included 3 meals and a four other restroom stops/email checks. In rough numbers, take your driving time and add 1/3 to determine Supercharger trip time.
The good news:
- Over 1,000 miles is clearly doable in a long day (leave very early in the morning, get back before midnight). In fact it looks possible to visit both the Peace Arch park in Canada and the Jefferson Davis Historical Monument In CA and still get home - a 1200 mile trip - in under 24 hours. While you will be tired from all the hours, remember that driving a Model S is not fatiguing like most gas cars. Less noise and vibration. We were in pretty good shape when we got home. (At least I was; buzzbuzz did all the driving. Thanks for that, buzzbuzz, and for being good company).
- Finding food while you charge is really easy; there was plenty of stuff (including restrooms) nearby at every location. I think there was a Denny's visible from every charger, so bring your High-Cholesterol Club Card.
- No waiting! Things may be different on a weekend, but we only saw two other Teslas the whole day. One at Grants Pass, and on the way back we talked to epley in Centralia.
- It really is easy to travel this way. We pretty much just jumped in the car and headed out without any planning (I had done a spreadsheet just to verify we would get back at a reasonable hour given that we both had things to do the next day, but to just drive a reasonable distance you don't need to do anything). At each stop we just used the nav system to determine the miles to the next stop, then made sure we had 50% more miles than that before leaving. (The weather wasn't bad and we could have cut it closer, which also would have made our charging a little faster. But again, we weren't going for a speed record - we were more interested in avoiding drama. And indeed there was none; we arrived at each Supercharger with somewhere between 38 and 106 miles of charge. Never any worries at all).
The not-so-bad news:
- All of the Superchargers we visited gave us a max of 90kW, so things didn't go as fast as they could have. [Note added later: I think most of them are 120kW chargers; but buzzbuzz has a sig, so it's limited to 90kW]. We spent a total of 4 hours and 23 minutes (including a little time in a restaurant after charging stopped, so we could have done it with less) adding 853 miles of rated range, for an average speed of 196mph. I guess this is kind of good news though - when they get upgraded to 120kW (or 135kW?!) things will go even faster.
- None of the Superchargers we visited yet have covers or solar panels. There was no rain or sun so it really didn't matter to us, and Tesla has said those things will trail by many months, but I just thought I'd throw that out there.
- Quality restaurants seemed hard to find (though fast food and mid-level were generally very nearby). Not a big deal to me; I usually go for the mid-level options. The mid-level Black Bear Diner in Grants Pass had several good qualities; but we vegetarians have few choices.
- Few of them were near quality hotels. Though some (like Springfield - and Burlington WA, even though we didn't visit that one today) are. However, I live in Seattle and the Superchargers make the trip so fast I don't care; I will be in CA before I need a place to stay. Not to mention that Supercharger speed means you don't have to spend the night by a charger anyway. I'm just kind of stretching for downsides to list.
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