2024 Eclipse Roadtrip Supercharger Experiences?

[jsmay311]

Given the highly unusual traffic patterns on and around April 8th 2024 (the day of the eclipse) with people driving to/from the path of totality, I thought it would be valuable/interesting to create a thread for people to share their experiences, particularly any congestion (or lack thereof) that they observed at Superchargers.

Here's my (rather unremarkable) experience:

I took my Model 3 LR from the Chicago suburbs to southern Illinois. I had some concerns about Supercharger congestion on the way back, but my return route after the eclipse had me drive through St Louis first to drop off some folks who had flown in there, so that took me away from the main flow of traffic in IL which went straight back north towards Chicago along I-57, and the Superchargers along I-55 (the route I took back from St Louis) were all wide open.

However, out of curiosity, I was also periodically checking the status of the Superchargers along I-57 via the Tesla app or nav screen every hour or so. To my surprise, I didn't see too much congestion or wait times at those Superchargers either. Most of the time most of those Superchargers did not show any waits. At its worst, I saw 2 out of the 3 Superchargers in Champaign-Urbana with <5 minute waits while the third one still showed a few open stalls. So if that data was to be believed, Tesla drivers along the very busy I-57 route shouldn't have had any serious delays if they needed to stop to charge.

Anyone else have any experiences to share?

(For reference, my route is shown below in blue with a crudely drawn border of the path of totality drawn in orange.)

 

[Tronguy]

Hokay. So the SO and I went from Central NJ to Dallas, arriving on Friday noon before the eclipse, pretty much following I78 to I81 and I40 on the way out, stopping once in Bristol, TN and Little Rock, AK. The return was, starting on Tuesday late afternoon the day after the eclipse, stopping first in Arkadelphia, AK on the way back, then Memphis for a little touristing, then overnight in Nashville, then did a little visiting in Corydon, IN; from there, it was the "southern" route, stopping in Lexington, KY, through WV on I64, then I79, I70, and back to I81 and I78.

We musta hit six SC's on the way out and a similar number on the way back; mostly of the 250 kW variety with an occasional 150 kW thrown in for fun. Didn't see any magic docks. And didn't see any congestion whatsoever. I think the most we say was, say, six stalls out of eight used when we piled in somewhere.

The most notable stops, both going in and coming back, was at the Buc-ees in Royse, TX. My son, who met us out there in Dallas and lives in the LA basin, tells me that at work there's a significant Buc-ees cult, with people wearing all sorts of Buc-ees paraphernalia. I kind of understand that: Roughly a third of the Buc-ees floor space is given over to hats, shirts, onsies, and what-all with that beaver all over all of them. But, honestly, given all the hoopla I've read about the place, I'm a little dissapointed: they don't have a single place to actually sit down and eat, besides one's car. Nice that they have an 8-stall Supercharger there, but, given all the miles, sitting in the MY car seat, I'd prefer practically anything else, up to and including a picnic bench, of which they don't have any, either.

I will say that Buc-ees has a decent selection of food and all; just no good place to eat it. Even the Sheetzes have some tables to sit down at.

The most down SC was in Dallas at N. Westmoreland Rd. We had guests at this point so I went there just to get back up to 80% and spent some time just surfing the web, but was kind of wondering why the whole place looked kind of deserted with few other people there. And kind of figured that out on the way back to the Air B&B: The SC was next to a prison surrounded by barbed wire fences.

The SO and I had been in Western Kentucky (relatives present) for the 2017 eclipse; it was amazing how many church parking lots and the like had signs up stating, "Watch the eclipse from here! $20." Um. Western Kentucky, while nice enough, is Extremely Rural, has roads with large shoulders, and there were plenty of public parks and stuff that weren't charging a penny. So I strongly suspect that a lot of Instant Entrepreneurs were rather disappointed that year.

They may have been disappointed, but, no question, the DMVs in Arkansas and Texas had Watched What Happened Back Then and Took Steps. Arkansas, from the moment one crossed the Mississippi, had signs up stating, "No eclipse viewing from interstate shoulders!!!!" Having now driven both ways through Arkensas, I see why: They mostly don't believe in deep shoulders in that state, so anybody trying to park there is going to be half-flattened by the huge numbes of semis going to and fro at 75 mph.

In Texas, there wasn't anything on Friday, but Saturday and Sunday every DMV sign the state owned had the text, "Eclipse - Arrive Early, Don't Drive on the Day, and Leave Late." There may have been something about staying off of interstate shoulders, but I didn't notice: We stayed put at the Air B&B on Monday.

And enjoyed the eclipse: Despite all the warnings from the weather people about how cloudy and rainy it was going to be through the eclipse time, as the exclipse approached and the strength of the sun went down, all the clouds in the eclipse path melted away and were gone a half-hour before totality. And stayed gone the rest of the sunlight time. There was a storm around 2 a.m., but that was it. The weather people have to start putting in some math for Eclipse Shadow Effects; but I guess they have 20 years to get that straight.

 

[ThomasD]

I live an Hour SW of Corydon Ind. Nice town. The Traffic was no more than it usually was around here. I was surprised at the lack of traffic around my area since the Eclipse path went right over us.

 

[threeputts]

My wife and I drove from Minneapolis to Indianapolis on Sunday and returned on Tuesday. We stopped at Black River Falls, Lake Delton, Rockford, Normal, Urbana and Zionville on the way down (hotel was less than a mile from the Zionville location). We got the last open spot at Lake Delton but there were more open by the time we left. At Urbana I thought we may have a wait but someone was leaving just as we arrived. Other than that no issues with congestion. We were fortunate to have clear skies during the eclipse. I'm glad we didn't try to go any long distances on Monday, I could see I-65 from our hotel room and Northbound was jammed packed for hours after the eclipse was over. On the way back we hit Urbana, Normal, Peru, Rockford, then the downtown Madison location as we stopped there to visit our daughter for a few hours, then Tomah and Menomonie. None of them were more than half full.

I have no doubt that had we tried to leave the Indy area on Monday afternoon/evening we would have had to wait at SCs in addition to dealing with heavy traffic. Some folks that drove to Northern Vermont encountered very long waits.

Berlin VT supercharger nightmare

Pulled into the Berlin VT supercharger around 8pm to find about 30 cars waiting in line for the stalls. Decided to take a 3 or 4 hour nap to let things clear out but there were even more cars waiting just before midnight. Cars in line, cars parked in the hotel lot, who knows when that will clear...

teslamotorsclub.com

 

[RTPEV]

We drove from NC to my in-laws in northern NY to watch the eclipse.

I remember the hoopla in 2017 about long waits at Superchargers in the vicinity of the path of totality, so my strategy was to mitigate that risk. First of all, we drove halfway on Thursday and the rest on Friday, giving me plenty of time to charge up while there (they only have 120V outlets). I advised my son who was arriving on Saturday to fill up his gas car on the way up. New York State had plenty of traffic signs stating "Arrive Early, Stay Late", which is good advice!

The up front plan was to just watch the eclipse on Monday and then leave first thing Tuesday morning, but the inclement weather plan was to hop in the car to find clear skies, and if that happened to take us closer to home we would just continue driving home. So I wanted to make sure I had 100% by noon Monday. Unfortunately the weather in the area showed worse clouds the further southwest we went, and it was probably three hours in the wrong direction before we were guaranteed clear skies, so we just stayed put and prayed. The skies had light, high clouds until about 15 minutes before totality at which point some heavier clouds came in...bummer...well, we did get to experience the twilight effect, but only made out a faint blob of the corona. As it turned out, only about 30 minutes away they had a decent view.

So the trip back was uneventful. We had plenty of charge to make it to Kirkwood, NY and while that site was busy, it was not quite full. Traffic was light to moderate for that area. Frankly I was most worried about the line at the Starbucks we go to in Watertown, NY to get the first coffee of the day, but even that was less busy than we normally see it.

Not that these kinds of events happen all the time, but my advice is simple: plan ahead and avoid travel on the day of if possible. But if you have to, make sure you are fully charged in advance. Hurricane evacuees should take the same precautions. If you are unsure whether you will evacuate or not, assume that you are and keep your car at a high SOC and ready to go if need be.

 

[Jim in Houston]

I traveled from Omaha, NE to Cleavland, Ohio for Eclipse and to visit a cousin who just had a baby. I had no trouble finding places to get charged on trip. I took my sister and her husband along on trip. We also went to Niagra Falls Canada after the eclipse. We had a great time on trip. Only downers were that we had two days of rain at end of week in Niagra Falls Canada and FSD kept kicking out on trip back because rain was coming down to fast and kept blocking cameras.