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Tesla Road Trip - Good Karma

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Doug_G

Lead Moderator
Global Moderator
Apr 2, 2010
17,888
3,421
Ottawa, Canada
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!
 
Quick follow-up... just got home. Charged for 3 hours at 1000 Islands KOA (less a spin for the owner) and arrived home with 64 ideal km remaining.

Funny thing happened in the last three km. An oncoming car drove me off the road trying to pass. Good thing there was a paved shoulder. I pulled back onto the road only to have to pull over again for the oncoming police car. Not sure if those two events were related...
 
Sounds like it was a great trip! Any photos?

I wasn't very consistent about taking pictures, but here's a selection of what I did get...

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First charge was at the 1000 Islands KOA - with a side trip to the nearby golf course for lunch.

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After half-filling at my brother-in-law's garage (NEMA 14-50), we went to the Cambridge Suites Hotel downtown. The staff was great and figured out a way to charge my car in the parking garage. Only 110V but over two days (less some side trips for family visits, etc.) it actually managed to complete a standard mode charge.

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Some of the customer's cars lined up outside the owner's preview event. The blue one is for sale (customer leaving the country and can't take it), the red is mine, orange belongs to Wendy, and Jaff owns the white one.

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Rear of the Model S prototype.

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Another view; this shows the beautiful color a lot better (at least on my monitor).

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Panoramic roof opened. Sarah from Tesla in the Background.

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Close-up of the prototype grille.

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Second day - reservation holder's preview. Four Roadsters present, including two previously-unseen cars that couldn't make it the first day. This is my car and the Toronto demo car.

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On the last day we changed to the Westin Harbor Castle. Great view from the room. Again the hotel staff was great in finding me a place to charge, right by the front door. I was told by the staff that their customers were constantly photographing the car.
 

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Ottawa to Toronto trip. Started out with a full Range Mode charge, showed 382 km available. Started out conservatively on Hwy 416 at 103 kph on cruise control, then tried drafting a truck for a while, 2 seconds out. After 131.3 km stopped at KOA to charge on NEMA 14-50. Resumed longer 273.6 km leg mostly drafting trucks 2 seconds out. Had a bit of a headwind going, though, and consumed 171 Wh/km averaging about 108 kph. Arrived with reasonable margin despite Garmin GPS leading us astray (there's no ramp here!) resulting in 5 extra kilometers.

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Toronto to Ottawa trip. Significant traffic early on, but otherwise a bit faster with a tailwind so I could go a little faster. After a stop for lunch I found an inter-city bus, which drive a little faster than the trucks (Ontario law now requires a speed limiter on trucks). I held in a little closer and was able to maintain 110 kph while using significantly less energy than before. End result was an average 163 Wh/km over 269.4 km.

Stopped at the KOA to recharge, with a pause to give the owner a spin (he gave me free charging, but I would have taken him anyway). My wife and I waited in the KOA's movie room watching The Green Hornet with a bunch of kids (what a bad movie - two thumbs down!).

Competed the trip to Ottawa without drafting. I had more charge than I really needed, it was too busy on 401 to draft, and there were few trucks on the 416. So I set my burn rate a little higher and ran 128.8 km at mostly 112 kph and averaged 183.9 Wh/km. Got home with 64 ideal km to spare.
 

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General comments:

My wife enjoyed the trip but had two nits about driving electric. First was the long stopover at Ganonoque, combined with a slightly slower average speed nearly doubled the trip time compared to using an ICE car. It was a beautiful day the first time, and we enjoyed the stay. The second stay was in the evening, the weather was so-so, and the only thing to do was watch a tedious movie!

Tesla has arranged to put an HPC in Kingston, which is closer to half-way and will make for a more balanced trip. It will also charge a lot faster. Both things will reduce our trip time and probably allow us to burn more juice on the highway for a little more speed. It just isn't there yet.

The other was some inconvenience in Toronto. The hotels were fantastic about allowing us to charge but 110V was pretty slow and that somewhat limited our activities. A few hotels with at least NEMA 14-50 would make all the difference; they'd definitely have our business!

Personally I had a blast the whole time.