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The Road to Haleakala Crater - Maui, Hawaii

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"The Road to Hana" gets most of the publicity here on Maui, but as far as I'm concerned, "The Road to Haleakala Crater" is a lot more fun for Model S owners. As part of testing my LTE upgrade in my "Classic" Model S, I did the drive on Saturday, August 22nd, 2015 to test out the map loading and signal reception. It was fantastic, by the way, with a strong LTE signal all the way from Kihei to within the National Park boundary (~10 miles from the summit). I then had 3G until about 1 mile from the summit. One pedal driving makes the experience amazing, but having instant power and acceleration goes a long way as well. I took several pictures along the way, including my energy usage, which follow.
Near the top, at about 9,000 ft, looking towards the North West.
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West Maui Mountains in the background.
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The last 30 miles of my energy usage, while ascending, an average of 826 wh/mi.
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My rated miles remaining was 82, while parked at the summit.
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A couple of shots from the summit parking lot, including one with a Haleakala Silversword plant (which many know only grow on Haleakala on the entire planet).
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Pictures of the crater, from near the crater Visitor Center.
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Here is a fun one, that very few Model S owners will ever get to see. The trip energy estimator showing that for a 36 mile route, the starting SOC is 31% and the ending SOC is 36% (a gain of 5%). The route is from just below the crater Visitor Center (at ~10,000 ft elevation) to Kahului (~50 ft).
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More scenic pictures of the crater, from the view point roughly 2 miles down from the summit.
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Last two pictures. The first showing that I averaged -246 wh/mi for the last 30 miles of the descent, and the second showing that I had 111 rated miles left (a gain of 29 over the 82 rated miles I had at the summit).
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I know that there are a few owners here on Maui (about 50, as of August 2015), so I'm surprised that I'm the first to really document this drive and share it on the Forum. I don't mind!

Feel free to comment, folks!
 
Polly Wog, Comment? How can we comment? There's only two words we can use. 1) Amazing, 2) Wow.

I noticed your car says it needs Service and Call Tesla. Hmm, I guess they realize you went so high, they calculated you are in orbit. Now go back to the summit and ask for Ranger service - (just kiddin', Tesla).

Very cool. Very. Thanks for sharing. wow. I wanna do that !
 
I noticed your car says it needs Service and Call Tesla. Hmm, I guess they realize you went so high, they calculated you are in orbit. Now go back to the summit and ask for Ranger service - (just kiddin', Tesla).

@Akikiki, when the MCU was replaced, the odometer got off by a few miles, so Tesla pushed a "Service" warning to the car. It'll be fixed next week. I like your reasoning better, though!
 
"The Road to Hana" gets most of the publicity here on Maui, but as far as I'm concerned, "The Road to Haleakala Crater" is a lot more fun for Model S owners. As part of testing my LTE upgrade in my "Classic" Model S, I did the drive on Saturday, August 22nd, 2015 to test out the map loading and signal reception. It was fantastic, by the way, with a strong LTE signal all the way from Kihei to within the National Park boundary (~10 miles from the summit). I then had 3G until about 1 mile from the summit. One pedal driving makes the experience amazing, but having instant power and acceleration goes a long way as well. I took several pictures along the way, including my energy usage, which follow.
Near the top, at about 9,000 ft, looking towards the North West.
and did you notice the loss of horsepower and fuel economy as you went to higher altitude and lower air density? :scared:
Oh that's right electric vehicles don't suffer those losses like ICE vehicles.:biggrin:
 
Did that drive a couple years ago, and it was one of my favorite all time drives ever! It was stunning! We just used a putt putt rental car though that struggled the whole way. As I was doing it I couldn't help but wonder the whole time how much more fun it would be in my S (which was only 2 weeks old at the time )- but it was way back home in my garage. My wife kept closing her eyes worried that we would drive off the cliff and the kids were laughing the whole way. Thanks for documenting the drive and bringing back some great vacation memories!
 
I wondered about that trip when we were on Maui a couple weeks ago. I wasn't sure if that much elevation gain would prove to be too much. Thanks for sharing!

Sorry to say that even if I did have my Model S on the island, I'd have to make the drive alone. I found out the last time I tried to make the drive with my family that they have an operating ceiling of about 7,000 feet -- just past the visitor's center at about that elevation my youngest "shared his breakfast" with us. While scrambling to clean him and everything else up, all the rest of my passengers decided to tell me that they didn't feel well either. If any of them had mentioned that just a little earlier, I might have avoided that particular roadside adventure.
 
Great pics! It would be great to do a Hawaii island hopping road trip...maybe they'll bring back the super ferry someday...

I completely concur! Most of my family lives in Washington State, which has lots of ferries on Puget Sound. They can't believe it when I tell them (and my friends) that Hawaii doesn't have a ferry system. Maui has some great drives, but I would love to get to drive my Model S on the other islands as well.
 
Terrific pics, thanks for sharing them.

I've had the opportunity to visit the summit 3 times.

My impression of my best visit was we arrived very early, probably around 4 to 4:30 am and admired the cloudless spectacular fully lit night sky and then watched the sun rise over tops of Maunaloa and Maunakea peeking through the clouds on adjacent Big Island while we huddled under blankets.
Finally, as the light
grew stronger (long before the sun actually appeared), the Crater slowly came into view.


My most memorable sunrise ever...
an almost spiritual experience.


Lastly, we rode bikes down the mountain to the North Shore, (stopping to have breakfast along the way) almost never having to pedal.
I heard that the rental bike rides were suspended for a while, hope that more people have a chance to ride down as part of a group, stop, view and take some outstanding pictures.
 

Lastly, we rode bikes down the mountain to the North Shore, (stopping to have breakfast along the way) almost never having to pedal.
I heard that the rental bike rides were suspended for a while, hope that more people have a chance to ride down as part of a group, stop, view and take some outstanding pictures.

@purplewalt, the bike companies let things get out-of-hand, so the rules were changed, somewhat. Now, the "bike down the mountain" starts outside of the National Park boundary, at around 6,500 ft. However, most of the bike companies take the bikers (sans bikes) all the way to the top to start with, so that they can experience the summit. From there, they take them back down in the vans until they are outside the National Park, to start the ride portion of the experience. If an individual has the means and determination, you are still able to bike down from the summit - you just have to do it on your own.