Salt Lake City, Utah to Boise, Idaho

Mmh- great write up thanks.

Had one question... When camping did you turn the AC on while sleeping? If so how did that work? Did you run it 15 minutes with the phone app and wake up every once in a while to restart it? I assume it was a little toasty this weekend.

Cool mmh... I have lots of family in Utah and getting their from so cal is quite easy with the super chargers on I-15. Once in SLC you are pretty limited in terms of super chargers if you want to head west or north. Just curious for when I might have to do the "camping" thing.

I've been wanting to take a similar trip. Thanks for the detailed post!

Great adventuring! There are such great experiences to be had beyond the bounds of the Supercharger network!

I just did this leg myself as part of a big circle trip: BC-WA-ID-MT-WY-CO-UT-ID-WA-BC.

Others passing through the SLC area should be aware that there are a number of Tesla owners with HPWC's posted on PlugShare. I was hosted for a great evening charge by Dax (linux64 here) in Eden, UT just east of Ogden. From there I made a run to the Blue Lakes Inn in Twin Falls, ID which has ONE reservable 14-50, the nicest staff you could imagine, and a fabulous real-food free breakfast-- highly recommended!

Great notes! Thanks. It is too bad there wasn’t an EV-1 to park between your car and the other Chevy’s. It looks like you had a lot of fun with the camping adventure and the car show. I got a chuckle on the comment that you might have needed the air conditioning to stay cool during the night.

During the 4[SUP]th[/SUP] of July long weekend we also drove to Boise, but from the West. The distance from my house in Richland, Washington to Boise is almost exactly 300 miles. We also charged overnight each way in Baker City, OR. I was less adventuresome and spent the night at the Best Western across the street from at the Baker Truck Corral. Shorepower Technologies provides some pedestals in the restaurant parking lot that contain among other outlets a NEMA 14-50. I recall the fee was $1 per hour.

In Boise it was easy for me to leave the car at the airport overnight each night. They have standard J-1772 chargers on the second floor. Overnight parking fee was $11.00.

Superchargers on I-84 between The Dalles and Salt Lake City are scheduled for next year. I can hardly wait.

Thanks for the detailed info. A couple of weeks ago I took a trip from SLC to Ketchum, ID and stopped at Anderson Camp* (Eden, ID) with 60 miles remaining on a 85 kWh battery driving @ 65mph.

I stopped at the same campground on the way back but had to charge up for a bit longer because the battery wasn't drained enough, next time I'll stop at your suggestion of Village of Trees since its a little further east on I-84.

Once the Supercharger goes up in Burley, driving from SLC to Boise will be a super easy.

*Anderson Camp charges a flat rate of $12 for up to 4 hours of charge and there is free Wifi.

I just registered, and this is my first post, but I am way overdue to be here with my Tesla obsessiveness. I’ve been on the forums at TeslaMotors for about a year and a half (same username), and I’ve got my outlet on Plugshare and have hosted out of state people for charging three different times. Also, I first contacted Anderson Campground just East of Twin Falls, worked out the afternoon charging rate in March 2014 and added it to Plugshare. It has been pretty cool to see that one get used several more times.

First off, thanks, mmh, for the great trip write-up. This is my most frequently traveled out of town trip, and I should be getting to know you guys and share some tips back and forth. I live in Boise, and I have done trips to Ogden and to Salt Lake Cty (Heber City). Here are some of the Tesla related bits of information about Boise that might be helpful to some of you.

* Sadly, no HPWCs active anywhere here in Boise yet. I know several of the other owners here, and we all got single chargers and no HPWCs.

* However, there are a couple HPWCs that are here in the city in boxes at a hotel, but not installed yet! They are at the Oxford Suites Hotel, which is very centrally located at the Overland Road exit area off of I-84. I have been by to talk with them, and they did receive two HPWCs from Tesla and have talked with the rep from Tesla, who apparently is going to have someone install them, but they do not have a definite timeframe yet. Yeah, sad that Ontario Oregon and Twin Falls have hotels with at least some form of charging, but still none in Boise.

* Tip on how I accidentally found those hotel chargers. Sun Country Highway is expanding into the US and I was looking at their map. I saw tons of yellow markers, which are “pending installation”, including that one in Boise, which I checked and found was real. They seemed to have a lot of pending ones associated with Oxford Suites and Best Westerns in different cities, so maybe there is a larger deal worked out there. Check that map around your area. I wonder if someone with the Tesla destination charging program was feeding some of that information over to Sun Country to get it on their map.

* Travel charging location I found that was really good. When I went down to SLC, I thought it would be really tight to make Twin Falls to SLC in one shot, so I went from Twin to Farmington, UT to leave some margin. The outlet mall there has two 80A HPWCs along the West side, provided by a business called Pluralsight (listed on Plugshare). Really nice, except they have them for their two company Teslas, and they sometimes leave one or both of those parked blocking the chargers over the weekend. The outlet malls are open, but that business is closed, so there is no one to ask if they could move one of the cars, so iffy on the weekends. Maybe call on a Friday if you want to ask them to leave a spot open on the weekend. It’s a great location to hang out while charging, though, with a movie theater, restaurants, etc.

* And my 14-50 outlet is available on Plugshare at my house in SE Boise if you need. I can run my UMC cable out under the garage door to use if it’s during the day while I’m at work.

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Oh, one other tip of a charging location in Boise. There are a few charging locations around town, but most are limited to during business hours, or I think the ones at the car dealerships probably close their lots at night, so I know of one place that is always accessible and available 24/7. The Sierra Club downtown has a Clipper Creek 32A unit on the outside of the building that is freely available all the time, so if you ever need a backup plan, that is there.

Hello Rocky, welcome to forums. Like yourself, I travel from Utah to Boise often and feel your pain trying to get to your destination as 'fast' as possible without feeling range anxiety. I was extremely disappointed that Tesla scrapped the SC route on I-84 last fall in favor of putting them in Montana- which in my opinion makes zero sense.

For me, I drive slowly (60-65mph) to Anderson Campground and charge for an hour to get enough juice to drive to Ketchum for the evening, then drive to Boise the next day. When in Boise I use the Sierra Club and every 110 outlet that I can find while parked....which can be problematic - a downtown parking garage called the police for "theft a utility" - no joke. Thankfully, I apologized profusely and no charges were pressed. I tend to follow the same route back, Boise-Ketchum-SLC. I've only done the Boise to SLC direct once but waiting for 2.5-3 hours in Twin Falls to get enough power to make it to SLC was too unbearable to do that again.

I agree, Plursight's HPWC's are handy but unreliable. It's fantastic that they made them available for public use but one should only try to use them during non-business hours.

We are all hoping within the next few months SuperChargers will start to pop-up on I-84. I spoke with an electrical contractor last week, who was working on the Tooele location said, the Tremonton location was going to be under construction soon. I should have pried more on what he defined as "soon". At a minimum, once the Burley SC is in (with an 85kWh battery) we shouldn't have an issue road tripping between the two points.

Hey Scott, I was at the Sierra Club for an electric vehicle show and tried out their charger that day when they had just gotten it installed, and I think that was your checkin on Plugshare a week or two later. I've seen a couple of your Plugshare checkins on some other ones around Boise, too. I would be totally glad to meet up with you and go to lunch or dinner or something while your car charges at my 14-50 when you're in town. My outlet is just inside the garage door, so it's easy for me to leave my UMC cable running out from under the door. Then maybe when you get in town maybe your family can meet you to drop your car off at my place. Then you can hook your car up to charge whether I'm there or not. Higher power than a 120V, and I certainly won't call the police on you.

Do you have dual chargers? There is a Model S owner (Cleve) in Twin Falls who has a HPWC, so that could cut your time down to maybe under two hours, which might not be too bad. It is nice, though, that Blue Lakes Inn will let non-guests charge for $8 anyway. It's right on the main drive, so there is at least the mall and plenty of restaurants in walking distance. Also, an alternate place there in town is a dentist's office in the Northwest side of town, where the dentist is a Model S owner who installed a 14-50 at the office. He offered it free on Plugshare, just asking that people not using it during the M-F business hours. I've used it a couple times visiting a friend in Twin on a Saturday.

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Since I'm just figuring out these forum tools, is there a way to edit a post to fix a spelling or wording problem? I noticed I had an extra "maybe" in there.

Rocky, yes those were my check-ins on Plugshare, we seem to travel in the same circle. I'm also originally from Boise, we probably have a lot in common. Thank you, I'd be happy to take you on on your offers, if we do dinner we'd drink well; I'm a wine broker/importer. I didn't opt for dual chargers, it would have been nice but it's one upgrade I don't regret not choosing. Have you seen or heard about Southern Idaho's confirmed supercharger locations, it looks like they are going to be placed in Mountain Home and Burley?

It seems typos can be fixed for a limited time not sure when they become set 'in stone'

Scott said:

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We are all hoping within the next few months SuperChargers will start to pop-up on I-84. I spoke with an electrical contractor last week, who was working on the Tooele location said, the Tremonton location was going to be under construction soon. I should have pried more on what he defined as "soon". At a minimum, once the Burley SC is in (with an 85kWh battery) we shouldn't have an issue road tripping between the two points.

Click to expand...

The contractor doing work on Tooele was pulled off Tremonton to do the SLC Supercharger.

Scott said:

Rocky, yes those were my check-ins on Plugshare, we seem to travel in the same circle. I'm also originally from Boise, we probably have a lot in common. Thank you, I'd be happy to take you on on your offers, if we do dinner we'd drink well; I'm a wine broker/importer. I didn't opt for dual chargers, it would have been nice but it's one upgrade I don't regret not choosing. Have you seen or heard about Southern Idaho's confirmed supercharger locations, it looks like they are going to be placed in Mountain Home and Burley?

It seems typos can be fixed for a limited time not sure when they become set 'in stone'

Click to expand...

Oooh, a wine merchant--my wife will want to meet you. I actually do not like the taste of wine or beer, but I was introduced to hard cider at an English-style pub in Rome years ago, and love it. So that or mixed drinks are my thing.

I hadn't seen or heard anything about the Idaho locations, but I haven't actually contacted anyone locally to ask. How do you hear about this? Contractors mention something? My friend Kunal (first Tesla in Idaho--VIN is like 300 or something crazy low) was speculating Burley, to be not quite in Twin Falls so it's more of the "traveling" usage, rather than "local charging" usage, and it makes more sense for the distance--160 Boise to Burley. Doesn't help my round trip to visit my friend in Twin, though.

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Oh, duh--you said Mountain Home. If that's there, Twin is easy, who cares about Burley?

Anyone have Cleve's number?