I got my 2015 Model S 60 about 4 months ago and until this weekend I never took it far enough from my house to need to charge on the road. I went to a supercharger and used a destination charger shortly after I got the car just to see how they worked and such, but I didn’t really need the power from either.
But I took a long weekend with my parents and two boys and we drove down from my house (between Daytona and Orlando) to the Everglades and then the keys.
My parents had done a lot of the trip planning and we didn’t decide to take the Model S until the last minute, so the plans weren’t really made with an electric vehicle in mind. However, I noticed that there were superchargers within 5 miles of the two hotels we had planned to stay at, so we decided to take the Model S and see how it did.
I’ll admit that initially I was definitely feeling a bit of range anxiety as this was the first time my parents had seen my Model S and I didn’t want to run out of power or make a desperate emergency stop somewhere and tarnish their impression of the car. However as I spent a little more time planning the trip and seeing the distances that we would have to travel between superchargers I was feeling pretty comfortable.
Initially I had planned to drive right from my house to the Port St. Lucie supercharger, but at the last minute I needed to go north to Daytona to sign some papers before we headed south to the Everglades. While it only added 15 or 20 miles to the trip it was enough to make me a bit worried about being able to get all the way down to Port St. Lucie on our initial charge, so we made a quick stop at the Port Orange supercharger and had breakfast while we picked up some extra power. It was the first supercharger experience of the trip and it went pretty well. I did get to use summon here as well because initially I didn’t back up quite far enough and the supercharger cable didn’t reach, so I summoned it back a few more inches and plugged it in.
From there we had a straight shot down to Port St. Lucie and got there at about lunch time. By the time we finished eating we had charged up to about 97% (I kept the max charge percentage pretty high over this trip since I only have an S60).
After that we made a stop for an airboat ride through the Everglades, then we got down to the Florida City supercharger arriving right at dinner time. Again, we charged while we ate and wound up around 90% by the time we got back to the car. Our hotel was 4 miles from that supercharger, so we went to the hotel and checked in and discovered that they had an L2 (6kw) charge point there. We had a few problems getting it working (apparently it was new and not actually turned on yet, but the front desk contacted maintenance and they were able to get it going).
The next day we toured the Everglades. Even though the supercharger was only 4 miles away it was really nice knowing that there was a charge point at the hotel so we didn’t have to plan to eat or spend time at the supercharger. For future trips I will definitely be looking for hotels with charge points.
After charging at the hotel overnight we headed down to the keys. We had plenty of power to get to the hotel, so we made a stop for lunch on the way without worrying about charging. The resort we stayed at in the keys was only a few miles from the marathon supercharger and we drove by that supercharger at one point as we made a stop on marathon, but we decided to see if we could charge at the resort before we spent time there. After we checked in we discovered that they had a standard 110V 15A outlet for us. Since we planned to be there for two days and we didn’t really plan to leave the resort I went ahead an plugged in there and about a day and a half later the car was full again, so we never needed to use the marathon supercharger. I also had an opportunity to use the ‘keyless’ driving feature here. The outlet where we could charge was near the pool, but not too close to our room. We drove to the room to drop off our luggage, then we wanted to move the car to plug it in and go swimming, but I didn’t want to bring the fob to the pool with me and risk losing it or anything. I had planned to bring my phone anyway, so I left the fob in the room and unlocked the car and started it with the phone app, drove it over to the outlet, then we walked to the pool and I didn’t have to worry about the fob at the pool.
We drove back home yesterday stopping at the Florida City supercharger for lunch, then hitting Port St. Lucie supercharger after that. This was really the only stop where charging was somewhat inconvenient. Port St. Lucie was the last supercharger on the route and we needed to charge for about 50 minutes for an hour to get enough power to make it home. Unfortunately we arrived there only about 2 hours after lunch, so we really weren’t ready for another meal. We went to Starbucks and had a snack and some coffee, but still wound up waiting 20 or 30 minutes until the car was ready to go. It certainly wasn’t the end of the world and over the whole trip losing 30 minutes to charging isn’t bad. Probably would have lost at least that much time to gas stops anyway since you have to sit and wait while the gas is pumped.
The only other issue I had was on the long drive back from the keys yesterday about an hour from home (and 6 hours into the trip) we noticed that the air conditioner suddenly seemed to be struggling. We were still getting cool air from the vents, but there was very little air coming through the vents, even after turning the fan all the way up to 11. It was hot and humid yesterday (This is Florida after all) and we had been running the AC pretty hard and I suspect what happened is that the coils iced over blocking the airflow. I turned the AC compressor off and left the fan running and we started to see more airflow. We also decided to go ahead and stop for dinner, so we let the car sit for 45 minutes or so as well. By the time we got back from dinner things seemed to be normal again and I didn’t see any issues with the AC for the rest of the trip or this morning.
Overall we went 920.4 miles and used 263.3kWh for an average of 286Wh/mi, which doesn’t seem bad. My ‘lifetime’ average (at least over the four months that I’ve owned the car) was 275Wh/mi (although this trip bumped the lifetime average up to 276Wh/mi). I suspect that the additional power usage came from the fact that we had 5 people and luggage in the car while it’s normal for me to be driving alone or just with the kids.
But I took a long weekend with my parents and two boys and we drove down from my house (between Daytona and Orlando) to the Everglades and then the keys.
My parents had done a lot of the trip planning and we didn’t decide to take the Model S until the last minute, so the plans weren’t really made with an electric vehicle in mind. However, I noticed that there were superchargers within 5 miles of the two hotels we had planned to stay at, so we decided to take the Model S and see how it did.
I’ll admit that initially I was definitely feeling a bit of range anxiety as this was the first time my parents had seen my Model S and I didn’t want to run out of power or make a desperate emergency stop somewhere and tarnish their impression of the car. However as I spent a little more time planning the trip and seeing the distances that we would have to travel between superchargers I was feeling pretty comfortable.
Initially I had planned to drive right from my house to the Port St. Lucie supercharger, but at the last minute I needed to go north to Daytona to sign some papers before we headed south to the Everglades. While it only added 15 or 20 miles to the trip it was enough to make me a bit worried about being able to get all the way down to Port St. Lucie on our initial charge, so we made a quick stop at the Port Orange supercharger and had breakfast while we picked up some extra power. It was the first supercharger experience of the trip and it went pretty well. I did get to use summon here as well because initially I didn’t back up quite far enough and the supercharger cable didn’t reach, so I summoned it back a few more inches and plugged it in.
From there we had a straight shot down to Port St. Lucie and got there at about lunch time. By the time we finished eating we had charged up to about 97% (I kept the max charge percentage pretty high over this trip since I only have an S60).
After that we made a stop for an airboat ride through the Everglades, then we got down to the Florida City supercharger arriving right at dinner time. Again, we charged while we ate and wound up around 90% by the time we got back to the car. Our hotel was 4 miles from that supercharger, so we went to the hotel and checked in and discovered that they had an L2 (6kw) charge point there. We had a few problems getting it working (apparently it was new and not actually turned on yet, but the front desk contacted maintenance and they were able to get it going).
The next day we toured the Everglades. Even though the supercharger was only 4 miles away it was really nice knowing that there was a charge point at the hotel so we didn’t have to plan to eat or spend time at the supercharger. For future trips I will definitely be looking for hotels with charge points.
After charging at the hotel overnight we headed down to the keys. We had plenty of power to get to the hotel, so we made a stop for lunch on the way without worrying about charging. The resort we stayed at in the keys was only a few miles from the marathon supercharger and we drove by that supercharger at one point as we made a stop on marathon, but we decided to see if we could charge at the resort before we spent time there. After we checked in we discovered that they had a standard 110V 15A outlet for us. Since we planned to be there for two days and we didn’t really plan to leave the resort I went ahead an plugged in there and about a day and a half later the car was full again, so we never needed to use the marathon supercharger. I also had an opportunity to use the ‘keyless’ driving feature here. The outlet where we could charge was near the pool, but not too close to our room. We drove to the room to drop off our luggage, then we wanted to move the car to plug it in and go swimming, but I didn’t want to bring the fob to the pool with me and risk losing it or anything. I had planned to bring my phone anyway, so I left the fob in the room and unlocked the car and started it with the phone app, drove it over to the outlet, then we walked to the pool and I didn’t have to worry about the fob at the pool.
We drove back home yesterday stopping at the Florida City supercharger for lunch, then hitting Port St. Lucie supercharger after that. This was really the only stop where charging was somewhat inconvenient. Port St. Lucie was the last supercharger on the route and we needed to charge for about 50 minutes for an hour to get enough power to make it home. Unfortunately we arrived there only about 2 hours after lunch, so we really weren’t ready for another meal. We went to Starbucks and had a snack and some coffee, but still wound up waiting 20 or 30 minutes until the car was ready to go. It certainly wasn’t the end of the world and over the whole trip losing 30 minutes to charging isn’t bad. Probably would have lost at least that much time to gas stops anyway since you have to sit and wait while the gas is pumped.
The only other issue I had was on the long drive back from the keys yesterday about an hour from home (and 6 hours into the trip) we noticed that the air conditioner suddenly seemed to be struggling. We were still getting cool air from the vents, but there was very little air coming through the vents, even after turning the fan all the way up to 11. It was hot and humid yesterday (This is Florida after all) and we had been running the AC pretty hard and I suspect what happened is that the coils iced over blocking the airflow. I turned the AC compressor off and left the fan running and we started to see more airflow. We also decided to go ahead and stop for dinner, so we let the car sit for 45 minutes or so as well. By the time we got back from dinner things seemed to be normal again and I didn’t see any issues with the AC for the rest of the trip or this morning.
Overall we went 920.4 miles and used 263.3kWh for an average of 286Wh/mi, which doesn’t seem bad. My ‘lifetime’ average (at least over the four months that I’ve owned the car) was 275Wh/mi (although this trip bumped the lifetime average up to 276Wh/mi). I suspect that the additional power usage came from the fact that we had 5 people and luggage in the car while it’s normal for me to be driving alone or just with the kids.
