Took my first road trip using a Supercharger this weekend. From Charlottesville to Greensboro NC for the ACC Tournament. Did a full range charge (254miles) and headed down on Thursday, a pretty cold day (upper 30s) and headed straight to the Burlington NC supercharger, about 199 miles. I didn't drive fast, did some hypermiling (putting in N down long hills), and got there with about 20 miles to spare. So got about 219 miles on the 254 mile estimate. Charged there and headed to Greensboro to watch my Hoos roll through the ACC tournament.
On Sunday after the tournament, we headed from Greenbsoro to Burlington, plugged in and went and had something to eat. Temps were dropping and slight drizzle falling. Got charged up to 252 miles, and headed out on the 199 mile trip. Did the same thing, drove slowly (55-60), hypermiling when I could, had to have some defrosting on because everything fogged up without it. Wipers running. I noticed we were losing miles fast --after 80 miles of driving, we had used about 120 miles of range, so we were down to 132 left with 119 to go. I kept doing my best but eventually we were in the negative -- when we had about 75 miles to go, we were down to 70 miles of charge. Weather was getting nasty, snow on the roads, cold (32) and moderately windy. We pulled up Chargepoint and there was nothing anywhere near us. I calculated what we were losing in my head and figured we could make it to the Hyatt Place in Charlottesville that has chargers with a few miles to spare (about 20 miles from our destination). Fortunately we did make it there with 5 miles of charge left, and 20 miles to home. We plugged in, went to a nearby restaurant and had a couple drinks, and came back to 40 miles of charge and headed home.
I was pretty disappointed though that 250 miles of charge would only get me about 180 miles. And this was not driving fast. Yes it was cold (32) and snowy, but that's a lot of mileage loss...
I still love my Tesla.
On Sunday after the tournament, we headed from Greenbsoro to Burlington, plugged in and went and had something to eat. Temps were dropping and slight drizzle falling. Got charged up to 252 miles, and headed out on the 199 mile trip. Did the same thing, drove slowly (55-60), hypermiling when I could, had to have some defrosting on because everything fogged up without it. Wipers running. I noticed we were losing miles fast --after 80 miles of driving, we had used about 120 miles of range, so we were down to 132 left with 119 to go. I kept doing my best but eventually we were in the negative -- when we had about 75 miles to go, we were down to 70 miles of charge. Weather was getting nasty, snow on the roads, cold (32) and moderately windy. We pulled up Chargepoint and there was nothing anywhere near us. I calculated what we were losing in my head and figured we could make it to the Hyatt Place in Charlottesville that has chargers with a few miles to spare (about 20 miles from our destination). Fortunately we did make it there with 5 miles of charge left, and 20 miles to home. We plugged in, went to a nearby restaurant and had a couple drinks, and came back to 40 miles of charge and headed home.
I was pretty disappointed though that 250 miles of charge would only get me about 180 miles. And this was not driving fast. Yes it was cold (32) and snowy, but that's a lot of mileage loss...
I still love my Tesla.