On our first-ever road trip, it seems that everything keeps turning out better than I could expect.
- We charged at the Ganonoque KOA RV park. What a great experience. The people were very friendly and the charger worked perfectly. One of the workers lent us a car (!) so we could go get a very nice lunch at a golf course a short distance down the road.
- Our second hop was at close to maximum range. I figured out what Wh/km target I needed to meet based on Tesla's specifications, and then figured my target speed from Tesla's range/efficiency spreadsheet. The Roadster performed exactly as expected; in fact I'd say the spreadsheet is slightly conservative. I simply drove to maintain a certain Wh/km target, and found I could go slightly faster than expected. In the end we arrived at our destination with reserve range very close to what I predicted. Despite getting pretty far down on the charge, I had zero range anxiety because by then I was fully confident in the performance of the car.
- My brother-in-law installed a NEMA 14-50 in his garage so I could charge up upon arrival in Toronto. We stayed a few hours and got a good half charge.
- The hotel downtown was great and devised a way to let us plug into 110V in their parking garage. It seemed as slow as molasses but in fact we got significant usable range during our two-day stay. Despite driving the car a bit, we left with nearly a full standard-mode charge.
- We decided to stay an extra day and do more family visits, and attend the second Model S preview event (we did both the Roadster owner's and the reservation holders events -- great fun meeting everyone). The folks at Tesla Toronto let us use their HPC to fill it back up so we can get an early start tomorrow.
- For the extra day we went to a different hotel. They let us park our car right at the front door, in a valet spot, with a 110V plug!
- Once we got inside the hotel, we were positively floored to discover that we knew the woman at the front desk! Needless to say we got a very nice room.
- We were really lucky we didn't try to go home as originally planned. The massive thunderstorms that went through Ontario yesterday caused a huge blackout in the Ganonoque area, including at the KOA where we need to charge! We would have been stranded part-way home.
Yes, you do have to do a little more planning when taking an electric car on a road trip, but we've gone places we wouldn't have otherwise seen, met lots of nice and very helpful people, and generally had a lot of fun. Definitely looking forward to the drive home tomorrow!
- We charged at the Ganonoque KOA RV park. What a great experience. The people were very friendly and the charger worked perfectly. One of the workers lent us a car (!) so we could go get a very nice lunch at a golf course a short distance down the road.
- Our second hop was at close to maximum range. I figured out what Wh/km target I needed to meet based on Tesla's specifications, and then figured my target speed from Tesla's range/efficiency spreadsheet. The Roadster performed exactly as expected; in fact I'd say the spreadsheet is slightly conservative. I simply drove to maintain a certain Wh/km target, and found I could go slightly faster than expected. In the end we arrived at our destination with reserve range very close to what I predicted. Despite getting pretty far down on the charge, I had zero range anxiety because by then I was fully confident in the performance of the car.
- My brother-in-law installed a NEMA 14-50 in his garage so I could charge up upon arrival in Toronto. We stayed a few hours and got a good half charge.
- The hotel downtown was great and devised a way to let us plug into 110V in their parking garage. It seemed as slow as molasses but in fact we got significant usable range during our two-day stay. Despite driving the car a bit, we left with nearly a full standard-mode charge.
- We decided to stay an extra day and do more family visits, and attend the second Model S preview event (we did both the Roadster owner's and the reservation holders events -- great fun meeting everyone). The folks at Tesla Toronto let us use their HPC to fill it back up so we can get an early start tomorrow.
- For the extra day we went to a different hotel. They let us park our car right at the front door, in a valet spot, with a 110V plug!
- Once we got inside the hotel, we were positively floored to discover that we knew the woman at the front desk! Needless to say we got a very nice room.
- We were really lucky we didn't try to go home as originally planned. The massive thunderstorms that went through Ontario yesterday caused a huge blackout in the Ganonoque area, including at the KOA where we need to charge! We would have been stranded part-way home.
Yes, you do have to do a little more planning when taking an electric car on a road trip, but we've gone places we wouldn't have otherwise seen, met lots of nice and very helpful people, and generally had a lot of fun. Definitely looking forward to the drive home tomorrow!