Reposting because first posting pictures didn't all display. Moderator, please remove first posting.
Thanks all for the input, our trip was wonderful and without any major issues with the MS, one item I was not prepared for was the inclement weather. It rained pretty hard when we were going through the pass from Silverthorne into Denver and I had TACC on. Big mistake, I didn't heed the TACC warning not to use in inclement weather, needless to say, I started to hydroplane and I felt TACC take off with increased speed. Luckily I disconnected TACC quickly. I used the NAV Trip exclusively and found ourselves stopping more frequently than the Trip planner notified us to, not because the car was low on energy, but we had to take biological breaks more frequently. What does the NAV use for an algorithm for the energy used? I found that if I went the speed limit (in Utah it was 80) the estimated and actual energy used were way off.
Twice the Trip planner did tell us we had to stop at an SC, but charge for 0 minutes, that was a little confusing, then later on that particular SC was removed from the route. I hope that future updates will allow us to remove specific SC from the route as well as add in other waypoints. Only once did I have to wait for a SC, that was in Denver, Lone Tree, but only had to wait 10 minutes. That particular location I understand is temporary and they are working on a permanent location with more SCs. For the most part, I was the only MS charging, kinda lonely, because driving up to San Francisco from San Diego there were other MS charging and had a chance to chat with other owners.
Trip Details: 2824 Miles, 888.4 kWh used, Sea level to 14,115 Feet, 4 States
Notable quotes:
Coming down from Pike's Peak summit there is a ranger that stops you to measure the car's brake temperature, ranger "Your brake temperature is only 82 degrees, whatever you're doing keep doing it, that's the lowest temp I've ever seen. Today we've had car's with temps of over 500 degrees."
We met quite a few people on our trip, a foursome from Australia said that "Australia has a lot to see, but the U.S. has them beat". I have to agree.
While in Moab, father "That's a Tesla, an all electric car", son "How did it get all the way here?". Thanks Tesla and Elon for putting a SC in Moab
Sure could have used Autopilot on some of these long stretches of road. Elon, I volunteer to be a Beta tester!
Here are a few pictures from the trip
Barstow SC, 4a/b weren't working, but within 10 minutes there was a technician out fixing the breaker (Tesla should provide a used MS for the technicians working on the SC rather than letting them drive an ICE). Only two other cars charging
Primm SC, only one other car charging
St. George SC, seemed to be the furthest from freeway at 3 miles, only one there charging
Beaver SC, only one charging
Richfield SC, Spent our first night at the Holiday Inn Express Richfield. Nice accommodations and again, only one there charging
Green River SC, again, only one there charging
Grand Junction SC, only one there charging
Glenwood Springs SC, just needed to top off before heading into Denver, again, only one there. The SC are in the Marriott Residence Inn parking lot, across from the Courtyard. We liked it here so much, we spent a night on our trip back and visited the Glenwood Caverns.
Rest Stop on the Vail Pass
Denver Lone Tree SC, only one other MS. This one still had it's Zero Emissions license plates on and must have been in the recent hail storm because the hood and sides had a bunch of dents in it. Unfortunately the pictures I took didn't capture the dents.
Pike's Peak Summit, I was worried about making it from Lone Tree to Pike's Peak and back, but had no problems, gained 10 kWh on the way down the grade. Drove to Catamount Lake on a 3-5 mile dirt road, thank goodness for Air Suspension, just jacked it up as high as it would go.
Just so that I could, I did stop at Colorado Springs Utility to charge for free, but only got 3kw/hr out of it and only stayed for a short time since we had to visit Trinity Brewery before heading back to Denver.
We drove out to Estes Park the next day and found a free public charger (70amps) in the Library parking lot.
We didn't have a very pleasant experience at the second Denver hotel we were at so we decided to drive to Glenwood Springs for the night after having dinner with our niece in Denver. So from Estes Park we drove to the Denver SC by the airport to charge, only one other MS charging. We were able to make it to Glenwood springs with this charge, but needed to take a biological break at Silverthorne. We didn't bother to charge there, but drove by the chargers which were in a darker unlit area than SJC is.
After spending the night at Glenwood Springs and visiting the Caverns we made it to Moab, again, no one there charging. We did see someone charging when we left.
We were able to do Arches National Park not once but twice on a single charge. We got caught in a downpour and had to go back the hotel for some dry clothes and headed back to the park.
We charged at all of the same SCs on the way back to San Diego in which we stopped at going to Denver, we could have made it all the way home from Barstow on a single charge, but had to take a biological break in Rancho Cucamonga which had 12 SC and no one else was charging there.
Then charged in San Diego the following day
