Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

Charging Options on the Central West Coast of Florida

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
We are planning a 10 day trip to Weeki Wachii, Fl from Long Island. The SC network is well distanced all the way to Port Orange. At that point we plan to cut across the state. My concern is that there are almost no charging options, according to Plugshare in that part of the state (Route 19 about an hour north of Tampa). I have written to Tesla about a future SC station that appears to be near Orlando on their "coming soon" tab, but have not received an answer. I have written to an RV park near my in-laws house where we plan on staying, but have yet to hear from them. I messaged the only 2 residential J1772 homes listed on Plugshare, and have not heard from either of them. Have any of you had any experience charging up in that part of Florida (the intersection of rtes. 50 & 19)? We plan on fully charging up at Port Orange, but will not have enough range to return, even if we don't use the car during our visit. I hope to be able to add some range with a 110v outlet at my in-laws, but will that provide enough range to get back to the East Coast? Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated!.
 
"back of the envelope" shows that you arrive at in-laws with 100 miles showing. Utilizing a 5-15 at 12a (approx 3mi/hour) should give you 100% in 2 days, a 5-20 at 16a (approx 5mi/hr) will shorten the charge time to approx. 30 hrs., a window a/c (6-20) will give you approx. 12mi/hr., a dryer (10-30, 14-30) will typically (assuming it is a 30a branch circuit) give you approx. 18mi/hr.

Good-Luck!

Btw, I travel with every Tesla UMC adapter, assorted speciality adapters, various lightweight extension cords, and a donut spare.
 
Last edited:
Thanks Linkster! We plan on leaving tomorrow morning at 5am. I plan on plugging in to my in-laws 110v outlet, but I am not sure where it is located. I know that their dryer would be unavailable to the car. I am going to bring a heavy duty extension cord, but I thought that Tesla says to not use one when charging. Have you used one with good results? Chris
 
Thanks Linkster! We plan on leaving tomorrow morning at 5am. I plan on plugging in to my in-laws 110v outlet, but I am not sure where it is located. I know that their dryer would be unavailable to the car. I am going to bring a heavy duty extension cord, but I thought that Tesla says to not use one when charging. Have you used one with good results? Chris

Tesla says to not use an extension cord, and if you do so, you are not using the Tesla guidelines.

However, I have had good luck with a heavy duty extension cord. A #12 AWG cord works well. Keep the length relatively short. Hopefully, you will only need 25 or 50 feet.
 
To add on to Cottonwood's points, also note that you might need to reduce the amps in order to successfully charge. I had to use an extension cord when I visited my in-laws, and they're in an older house, so voltage would drop or fluctuate and periodically stop the charge. I had better luck after reducing the draw from 12A to 10A. Newer firmware will probably limit the current automatically, probably to 9A, if it detects a problem.

Anyway, it's important to keep an eye on your charging status (maybe check the app or the car every few hours) if you're relying on the charge. When I was in NJ this winter, I had to supplement the 110V at my in-laws' house and hotel with a couple hours at a public J1772 to make it back to the DE supercharger on my way home.
 
One thing to note when charging on 110 in FL in the summer... If the ambient temp gets high enough charging will stop as there isn't enough juice to charge AND handle battery temp mgmt. This happened to me in Miami last year. I'm surprised out that way there aren't more RV parks. You should try the free app, RVPARKY.
 
Did you have a good charging rate at the Delaware SC? I have read that it has had some issues.
I've used that supercharger 4x (two round-trips) so far. I've seen it go as high as 97kW (330mph). I thought others have gotten higher numbers though. Frankly, it hasn't mattered because once we stop for a snack and bathroom break, the car has more miles than we need.

I'll be heading up there again in about a month and will plan to measure again; here are the details from last time:
Northern VA to central NJ: adventures in destination charging - Page 3

Good luck on your trip!
 
Tesla says to not use an extension cord, and if you do so, you are not using the Tesla guidelines.

However, I have had good luck with a heavy duty extension cord. A #12 AWG cord works well. Keep the length relatively short. Hopefully, you will only need 25 or 50 feet.

+110v :biggrin:

Unfortunately, I can not recommend a good extension cord since performing any activity outside the Tesla guidelines could result in serious consequences including property damage and personal injury. If you decide to use an extension cord, you are doing so at your own risk.

Today I experimented with various configurations/combinations of extension cords reaching up to 310' total length just to get some real world values on the voltage loss on my equipment.

Personally, i have had the same luck as the above quoted maven. I also try and locate receptacles that are close to the load center with the fewest inline unused devices on that particular branch circuit and like the other poster stated, I check for functionality of the operation frequently along with reduced amperage settings for safety or necessity.

My trunk is typically packed with "goodies" before any road trip:
 

Attachments

  • image.jpg
    image.jpg
    184.8 KB · Views: 138
Last edited:
I want to thank everyone who has responded to this thread, and to the member who has also contacted me privately. We are currently in Florida. We arrived early afternoon on Sunday. The trip down, beginning 5:30 AM on Saturday, was pleasantly uneventful. The weather/EV driving conditions were nearly perfect. There are a few points that I think will be helpful to mention, and other things that I can comment on if there are any questions about the trip in general. First, pertaining to the subject of this thread: my concerns about the lack of a Supercharger in this part of the state were unfounded, given the scenario under which we are travelling. We left Port Orange, on the East coast with a full charge so as to arrive on the west coast (about an hour north of Tampa) with as many miles as possible. We arrived at my in-laws with about 120 miles of range remaining.
That was certainly enough range to do reasonable driving in the area, but not enough to get back to P.Orange, even if we never drove the car while here. I was going to wait until Monday to see how the charging went using my in-laws 110 outlet, but when Btrflyl8e commented on the problems they experienced charging up using 110 in hot weather, I decided not to wait. The way the car was positioned in the driveway, I had to use a heavy duty ext. cord that I had brought with me. After dialing down the amps to 12, I plugged in the Tesla Mobile Connector, and the charging began. To my surprise, it worked. To an even more pleasant surprise, I was getting 4 miles of range per hour. We all know that that isn't much, but when you are staying someplace for many hours, most people will get sufficient range to do what they need to do and get where they need to get. We have done several day trips in the MS and have had no limitations on where we wanted to go. As a result of this, we are planning on taking a more direct route back to Long Island by bypassing Port Orange and stopping at the St. Augustine SC as our 1st stop. That's about 160 miles away. Something that I found interesting about charging at 12 amps is that the 4mph rate is constant all the way through to a full charge.

BTW, Tesla did respond to my request about the proposed SC in Orlando. All that they said was that it was in the beginning stages of development. I assume the same is true of the SC in Tampa. If one has a full day or two of visiting, where a 110 outlet is available, then the current locations of the SCs are sufficient to get most places in the state. When Orlando, Tampa and Miami come on-board, it will obviously be a no brainer, even under the worst conditions.

One thing I wanted to mention, which is slightly off topic, is that the 4 stalls at the SC at the Newark, DE rest stop will be woefully inadequate in the not too distant future, especially when Model X rolls out. I do not see anything on the SC map that shows any new locations (thru 2015) on the I-95 corridor in Maryland. That means that many people are going to need to use the Newark SC on their way to Potomac Mills, VA!