Bay Area to Disneyland road trip (2023 Model Y Long Range)

Day 1 - Trip to Central California

Driving a 2023 Model Y Long Range in Blue. In addition to this being our first road trip, I’m testing a Garmin DriveSmart 66 as a DIY instrument cluster / alternative nav. Lots to cover!

I charge the car to 80% for our trip. Overall, it should be 4 hours and one supercharger stop to Central California where the grandparents are. Now, as luck would have it, Popeye’s chicken is one of my great vices and Merced has a reasonably new supercharger with one in the parking lot at the midway point. So that is our planned stop … 2 hours and then another 2. We leave San Francisco around 10:30 AM.

There is unexpected construction that closes several exits on the freeway and makes us overshoot the supercharger by a few miles. Instead of arriving with 27%, we arrive with 22% after doubling back. Nevertheless, once we get there, all is good. The charger takes us back to 80% as we eat, so I step out briefly to move the car and we're done shortly thereafter.

There are no unexpected detours or slowdowns on the second leg of the trip … but, as bad luck would have it, our kid threw up about 15 min from the house. We gave her dramamine in the morning, but we were near the end of the medicine’s 6 hour window. Our takeaway here was that we needed to redo the medicine a bit sooner.

Other than that, we arrive in relatively good shape. Our car and child seat are covered in protectors, and the wife sits in the back ready for this stuff to happen.

I expected autopilot to do a lot of work for me on this trip, and it did. Definitely one of the best features of the Tesla. The Garmin also ended up being quite useful … better voice directions overall and substantially better lane guidance.

First order of business, after washing up, is to look over the NEMA 14-50 plug install we had commissioned in the garage. Looks good enough … it’s not to the spec I had asked for initially (builder grade outlet and regular breaker), but I knew that ahead of time. Whole other story.

I get to installing an in-use cover for a bit of childproofing … it turns out that it takes some spelunking through reviews to find one that will fit the plug properly, but I found one and now can confirm it works. It’s made by Sealproof (link - Amazon.com). If you intend to use the locking holes, you need a relatively small padlock that isn’t so big it will jam against the wall.

While I had planned to do a more robust install with a wall connector or industrial grade outlet, the amount of remote iteration was proving to be pretty annoying. I ultimately decided on just charging at a very slow rate to minimize any thermal stress. We won’t be there very often anyway, so even for me it felt like overkill to go further.

I set the car to charge at 16A and deal with unpacking, etc. We arrived with 15% SoC … and we’re not expecting to go far the next day, so I set the charge limit to 50%.

Day 2 - Downtime

This is our day to relax for a bit and let the kid and grandparents spend some time together. We do a bit of errand running nearby. It’s truly amazing how little energy the Tesla uses for these tiny trips. We maybe burned 10 to 20% battery and nearly all of that was due to cabin overheat protection or me sitting in the car.

After dinner and just generally hanging out, it’s time to pack up again and get the car ready.

My general charging strategy is to leave the battery at the lowest SoC and charge up for longer trips. I normally do this with a 30A / 200V charger, but at 16A / 240V, it feels like riding the edge. Going from 50% to 100% takes 12 hours.

I set the car to change to 100% for the first time ever just to give it a chance to calibrate. It will be done just a couple of hours before we expect to leave. I also move the car seat to the middle … it’s big, but there’s just enough shoulder room on the sides for some normal sized 5’ 6” to 5’ 8” folks to sit comfortably along with the extra luggage.

Day 3 - Trip to Disneyland

Back in the saddle! The car is showing 322 miles of range at 100%, so I’ve lost 8 miles of range over 6 months and 2500 miles.

Our plan is to stop by the superchargers in Santa Clarita for lunch, then the Citadel Outlets for the women to shop, and finally our hotel near Disneyland.

The drive is all clear to the supercharger. I drop the rest of the family off at Olive Garden down the street and go to charge. The parking lot in Santa Clarita is huge and full of V2 superchargers. I initially made a gaffe and park in a spot that is sharing power with another car. The physical layout does not make this mistake obvious, but I notice the issue when I see the charging speed start at 72 kw and check the numbering on the chargers. Lesson learned. I charge to 90% and get back to the restaurant just as the appetizers are wrapping up.

Our next stop is the Citadel Outlets. I drop the family off and proceed to find a shady spot where I can chill out in the car. This is one of my favorite things about the Model Y … the ability to kick back in a comfy seat with full AC and no one bothering me for a few hours. And it DOES end up being a few hours … the women find plenty of interesting things to do.

While I hadn’t planned on it, I end up using the supercharger at these outlets as well just to get some extra charge in back to 90% before going to the hotel, which I already knew did not have chargers. Outlet malls seem to be a very common supercharger location. I also see a Jeep hybrid pull in and try to charge. The guy is confused … and the girlfriend is laughing hysterically.

We eat dinner there at the outlets, then make it to the hotel and settle in for the night at the Residence Inn Garden Grove. I think it is fine, if a little worn. The women don't love it tho, and I guess I’ll have to move one star up if we go back. The two bedroom layout is absolutely a winner, however … and quite rare among hotels in the area. Everyone gets some much needed privacy.

The Garmin did great with lane previews and guidance on this day. I've turned off nav volume on the Tesla at this point and am generally not missing it. I still double enter our destinations to get some idea of arrival SoC, etc.

"Hope, BC" by SqueakyMarmot is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
Admin note: Image added for Blog Feed thumbnail.

 

[LostVector]

Day 4 - Disneyland

So just our luck … we’ve arranged our trip right in the middle of a heat wave. The high today is 97 degrees.

Parking takes about 45 minutes from entering to getting into the park. Not ideal. I don’t bother with EV charging since I still have a good charge from the night before.

With every decision we make suddenly being dominated by the heat, we’re more keenly aware of the lack of places to go cool off than anything else. We do some rides in Tomorrowland and a train around the park. The train is largely pointless, won’t do that again!

We do manage to find a place to sit down and eat with great AC … the Plaza Inn. It’s a fixed menu, but it’s also fast as a result and we luckily manage to swoop down on a table while others are leaving.

Now comes the not so interesting part of the trip for each park day … our toddler needs an afternoon nap or life gets extremely difficult. I end up sitting with her for a couple of hours in the Lincoln theater, which also has amazing AC and a few benches. With parking being so far, the normal tactic of retreating to the car isn’t a great option.

Afterwards, we resume by heading over to the north end of the park where we do a few classic rides like the teacups, spinning dumbos, etc. The kid enjoys all of these. Our ride selection is quite limited due to her height, but we seek out what we can. We manage to knock out a couple more rides in Adventure Land before we wrap up with dinner at Naples in Downtown Disney. We really shouldn’t have gone to Olive Garden the day before … for the rest of the trip, it seems like many of the appealing restaurant options are Italian.

Overall we did about 1/3 of the park, and it was pretty darned uncomfortable. Returning to the hotel is a welcome relief.

Afterwards, I realize that Galaxy’s Edge was in this park, not California Adventure. Doh!


Day 5 - Universal Studios

This day ends up being a huge bust.

First of all, the rest of the family isn’t ready to go early in the morning despite my warnings … which were clearly not emphatic enough in hindsight. Combined with the horrendous LA traffic from Disneyland to Universal that I’ve failed to account for … which extends our trip to 90 min (45 min without traffic), we only end up arriving around 11:30 AM. Of course, our kid has started refusing her medicine this trip and throws up at the end of the trip. I have a suspicion that the autopilot’s jerkiness in start and stop traffic might have contributed to the issue. But without the delays, we might have made it unscathed.

Second, despite the supposed presence of chargers in two parking garages, the attendants keep telling me to go to the other parking garage. The basement is blocked off in one area, so that set of chargers there is just not accessible. If I had made a concerted effort to search for chargers, I might have been able to find one … but there is no time to keep pressing the issue. This just reinforces that you can’t rely on destination charging until you know the specific location well.

Third, the upper and lower lot are separated by 4 huge flights of escalators. It takes forever to go back and forth.

Fourth, the all important toddler afternoon nap. Parking is closer here, so I end up taking the toddler back to the car to sleep, which we do often at home. This works out very well, as I knew it would, but the nap burns time no matter what.

Fifth … the restaurants are insanely slow. 1.5 hours each for lunch and dinner. Toadstool cafe in Super Nintendo World is a fun theme, but the food is quite basic and service is very ad hoc.

Sixth, the park ends up closing insanely early at 7PM, which we aren’t prepared for.

And seventh … the heat wave is still going with another 97 degree day.

After all that, it’s another hour back to the hotel.

So lesson learned … if we ever go back, stay next to Universal for the day and account for the park closing times. We barely got to see or do anything.

After hours, I scoot over to the Anaheim supercharger. With the day trip today and various battery burning options enabled, I’m at 15-20% SoC now.

This charger is really interesting. It’s completely full at 10PM when the rates go off peak … but only shows a 5 min wait. So I go over anyway and, while it is very crowded, I get a spot right away. Other superchargers in the area are 1/4 to 1/2 full.

Another seamless charging experience. The guy next to me in his Model 3 is clearly having a good nap. Toward the end of the charge, I see another Model 3 come in on a flatbed. Someone flew too close to the sun!

The Disneyland area clearly needs more superchargers … it’s OK for now, but it’s just on the edge of being overcrowded.

Day 6 - Disneyland (California Adventure)

The first thing I do today is drop the rest of the family off on Harbor Blvd and handle the parking myself. Huge improvement.

California Adventure is a much smaller park, more doable, and temperatures are down 10 degrees. Far far more manageable for us. We do most of the rides the kid is allowed on … but honestly, our toddler ends up enjoying the Redwood Creek playground more than any of the rides or activities.

There’s much more shade around this park as well, so we manage to leave the grandparents to handle nap time while we raun off to do the Web Slingers ride. It’s about 35 min of wait and another 15-20 once inside. The ride is not at all efficiently structured … carts sit idle for minutes before being boarded. The ride itself also feels like a victim of modern tech … you basically just move from screen to screen with your glasses on and wave your arms around to shoot spider bots. It’s fine to experience once, but if you want to play a video game, there are plenty of better ones out there. I don’t feel like moving from screen to screen in a motorized people mover constitutes a ride. Not for me.

The sit down restaurants are totally packed, so we eat at Paradise Grill. It’s decent enough.

At the end of the day, we all walk back to the car rather than me picking them up. I had seen a bit of a disaster at the pickup points during park closing before and decided that wasn’t going to be worth the effort.

Overall, this day has gone better, but it's time to get ready to leave tomorrow.

 

[LostVector]

Day 7 - Return to Central California

This turns out to be a really tough day. Our toddler has gotten really determined to not eat any of her medicine no matter what we mix it in. So we try force feeding her liquid Dramamine (called Gravol) for the trip. Ironically, she fights so hard she that she ends up vomiting in the hotel room right then and there… so we don’t get on the road until noon.

Once on the road, we immediately run into traffic, which was expected. But the problem now is that it just keeps on going … even past LA. I honestly get worried when my arrival estimates drop to 20% from the original 40%. But we recover and arrive at the Santa Clarita, CA supercharger again around 2PM with 30% SoC. We proceed to hang out here a bit longer … for about 1.5 hours. We feed the ducks the approved cheerios in the vending machine before getting back on the road. I’m starting to think that, being Labor Day weekend, this was not a good day to drive.

On top of the extra traffic, we pass an apparent 3 car wreck which was one source of trouble … and then the entire highway goes down to 3 lanes … really? On Labor Day weekend? And then we pass a truck blocking the right hand lane, taking the whole highway down to two lanes.

Then we then get routed around CA-99 and further up I-5 to avoid some sort of extra traffic (probably due to another wreck) … which causes further delays. To top things off, we are about 30 minutes from home when the bill comes due and the kid throws up again. If we didn’t have so many delays, we might have made it home … but alas.

We only get home around 6:30PM. We’re exhausted. We unpack, clean up barf, and generally just get ready to go to bed. I set the charge to 80% since it sounds like we'll be heading about 45 min away for some shopping tomorrow.

Day 8 - Night Trip

Our plan was originally to travel back starting around 10AM the next day … but without the option of Dramamine to treat the motion sickness, we decide to try something new and head out around her bedtime. As a bonus, it will give us the day to recover a bit more and an extra day of grandparent / grandkid bonding time.

After our shopping trip, we get back with about 40% battery. While I've preferred the slower charging rate at my in-laws, it's time to push the charger to the max to have some range for the trip. I set it to 32A and let 'er rip.

Choosing a supercharger for a night time trip as it turns out, is a bit of a challenge. There isn’t an easy way to filter by 24 hour restrooms, stores or others amenities that will actually be open when you get there. So I spend at least an hour diving into yelp pages, youtube videos, and some supercharge.info links back to forum threads on this site to get a feel for where we can stop. As best as I can tell, the fastest way to start narrowing down options is to use the web map and look for hotel bed icons ... which will likely have a clean 24 hour restroom. Tesla's trip planner is also oddly terrible ... maybe I'm missing something, but I can't even find out the expected amount of charge loss between two specified locations. This makes it difficult to experiment with different trip variations.

At any rate, I end up finding that all the good nighttime stops are apparently on I-5 and basically none are on HWY 99. I choose to go to Harris Ranch since they make a point of mentioning clean restrooms and a 24 hour store ... plus it's a famous Supercharger stop anyway.

By the time we're ready to go … around 9PM … the battery is at 75% or so. At 32A, I find the plug is uncomfortable for just a split second when I touch it ... and the cord is noticeably warm. It felt to be room temp at 16A ... I didn't even know it could get warm. Interesting, but seems to be within spec, so no worries. The last thing I do is unplug ... and off we go.

Autopilot seems to have limitations on 2 lane highways, so I have stick to manually driving for a while until I get to I-5.

In one section of the highway, there are zero lights. The Tesla starts complaining that different cameras are blocked because it's literally pitch black everywhere but the headlights. Vision only FSD my ass!

We roll into the Harris Ranch superchargers in Coalinga at around 38% at maybe 10:50 PM?. It is, of course, nearly empty when we pull in. As a rest stop, this is nearly ideal … it’s a massive supercharger install, has a clean bathroom and a medium size convenience store … all open 24 hours. The signage isn’t great at night and I sort of meander past the 250kw install and end up charging on the wrong side relative to the store and restrooms. The only downside otherwise is the poopy ranch smell! Curiously, the smell doesn’t penetrate the car or the indoor store area, so it’s quite tolerable since you can easily escape it.

I buy some beef jerky, if only because that’s what you do at one of these ranches. Of the various options, this supercharger is a bit earlier than the halfway mark, but I want to bomb the rest of the way to San Francisco in one go. The car wants me to charge to 90% to arrive with 20%, but I decide to leave with 83% and manage my speed a bit to compensate if things get dicey. Given trip time is 2 hr 35 min and we leave around 11:25.

The rest of the drive is pretty uneventful. Autopilot is amazingly helpful as expected once we are on a normal highway … and equally as helpful is a big iced Yeti cup full of tea and energy drink. I notice that the autopilot seems to be giving trucks extra space as I pass them now ... is that new? I like the change. Also, I use the Garmin again for nav and the better lane guidance and voice prompts are again appreciated.

I drive for 78 for a good portion of the way, then eventually settle in around 70 mph to keep my arrival SoC estimate around 10%. I’ve gotten used to the idea of managing speed in the 60 to 80 mph range, and now I find range anxiety becomes much less of a thing.

I’ve never noticed how nasty some of the bumps on I-580 are, but I notice them now. Terrible compared to the rest of the trip, and I’m especially sensitive to them with a sleeping barf factory in the back seat.

We arrive home at around 2:05 PM … no barf and 11% SoC. Success! The night trip is now definitely a hugely useful option to have in our tool belt. It’s a bit hard on the wife since she’s a light sleeper, and it’s typically not great for me since I really need to get rested for a drive. For me, autopilot now adds a crucial layer of safety on top of a good supply of caffeine … and the lack of barf outweighs most of the other negatives.

 

[LostVector]

Misc notes

The wipers don’t wipe off bug splats on the windshield at all. You have to clean them off by hand. Keep some rags and cleaning fluid handy!

Scheduled charging acted very strangely upon my return. It failed completely to have me ready at at 50% charge by 8AM … instead blowing way past to about 1PM before finishing. Good thing we weren’t going to drive. The controls for this suck badly and really need to make sense.

Summary

As far as the Tesla goes, the car itself did great, providing extra space above and beyond a standard ICE car, punchiness at all times during the trip, and autopilot keeping me less fatigued and providing a genuinely safer experience on the road. I’ve also had the car tinted … and while I suppose I’m taking it for granted now, I’m positive it helped a ton on this fairly hot trip. I ended up at about 980 miles driven and 303 Wh/mi.

The supercharging experience was every bit as seamless as I’d heard and expected … but only on the actual charging level. The unexpected downside to me was the relative ambiguity of the surrounding amenities at night and how to pick stops after hours. Tesla needs to do better here. The trip planning is also great in the car, but only for charging. If you need to be pickier about where you stop, it gets really messy and difficult very quickly as the web/app/in car nav all have different features and planning experiences. I’ve tried ABRP and it’s trying to do much of what I need, but the UI is extraordinarily complicated and for me, it’s been glitchy.

Destination chargers tho ... eh. Unpredictable and how do you know they'll even work or be open? I'd rather stick to the certainty of a supercharger and treat any destination charger as a bonus if it ends up in my immediate vicinity.

Keeping a safe margin of range is definitely important for these trips. Unexpected traffic and construction caused some of my estimates to be way off.

The Garmin GPS as instrument cluster proved its worth. I wouldn’t necessarily double enter a destination into it for short trips or areas you already know well, but on longer and more ambiguous trips, it’s better in many respects. Lane guidance comes helpfully early, voice instructions are less ambiguous and use landmarks, and prompts near a turn confirm that you’re about to do the right thing. I’ve also gotten used to looking down for the info it provides as opposed to the Tesla’s main screen … namely, the map and speed indicators. It’s just a more natural place for certain important information. I also discovered that it has a trip history section that is much more interesting. It's a product that, while certainly clunky in many respects, has also been around long enough to cover more ground if you dig around the interface.

Now … as far the vacation itself … well, to be honest, it was a bit difficult and even a bust as far as the others in the family were concerned. The waiting in traffic, unexpected vomit issues caused by our kid’s sudden refusal to take medicine, and the heat wave made everything much less fun overall. My wife’s family are especially the type where that will swing their opinion of the trip regardless of the entire experience.

On the bright side, I enjoyed myself because I enjoyed seeing new things and working thru the road trip process ... and the little one enjoyed herself because she’s young and just wired to be a trooper. And despite the grandparent grumbling, they got to spend a lot of time with their grandkid, which is something I know they wouldn’t have given up no matter how hard the trip was, even if they won’t say it directly. What they did say was … just drop the kid off next time, and you can go do whatever you want after that. OK, we might just do that.

 

[Watts_Up]

Lovely trip !!! Any map or Pics?

 

[LostVector]

Lovely trip !!! Any map or Pics?

So many, but just a few here!

 

[Watts_Up]

Which App is this one? Can you display the average consumption too?

 

[Watts_Up]

The unexpected downside to me was the relative ambiguity of the surrounding amenities at night and how to pick stops after hours. Tesla needs to do better here. The trip planning is also great in the car, but only for charging. If you need to be pickier about where you stop, it gets really messy and difficult very quickly as the web/app/in car nav all have different features and planning experiences.

Finding a restroom in the wee hours near a Supercharger is often an issue, I woul recommend using a Rest Areas App to find a restroom location.

Keeping a safe margin of range is definitely important for these trips. Unexpected traffic and construction caused some of my estimates to be way off.

I always try not going below 25% of range when selecting the next Supercharger to stop y, because the pre-heating will not work,
and also in case of a detour if there was a freeway closure or an accident, and also the expected consumption increases in windy situation
or when driving at a higher speed than planned.

The Garmin GPS as instrument cluster proved its worth. I wouldn’t necessarily double enter a destination into it for short trips or areas you already know well, but on longer and more ambiguous trips, it’s better in many respects. Lane guidance comes helpfully early, voice instructions are less ambiguous and use landmarks, and prompts near a turn confirm that you’re about to do the right thing. I’ve also gotten used to looking down for the info it provides as opposed to the Tesla’s main screen … namely, the map and speed indicators. It’s just a more natural place for certain important information. I also discovered that it has a trip history section that is much more interesting. It's a product that, while certainly clunky in many respects, has also been around long enough to cover more ground if you dig around the interface.

Which device are you using and would recommend?

On the bright side, I enjoyed myself because I enjoyed seeing new things and working thru the road trip process ... and the little one enjoyed herself because she’s young and just wired to be a trooper. And despite the grandparent grumbling, they got to spend a lot of time with their grandkid, which is something I know they wouldn’t have given up no matter how hard the trip was, even if they won’t say it directly. What they did say was … just drop the kid off next time, and you can go do whatever you want after that. OK, we might just do that.

Because of the Covid situation, I started making long trips by car instead of flying. By using the AutoPilot and and making a stop every 200 miles,
I felt very relax and didn't needed to take an extra day to recover from driving compare to trips that I made previously using an ICE car.

 

[Watts_Up]

Destination chargers tho ... eh. Unpredictable and how do you know they'll even work or be open?
I'd rather stick to the certainty of a supercharger and treat any destination charger as a bonus if it ends up in my immediate vicinity.

Finding a charger at or near a tourist spot, like when visiting a National Park
(like Glacier National Park, Banff National Park, San Juan Island National Park...)
is always a big issue. Very few hotels provide a charger or finding a public charger
close by to charge overnight, is still a big limitation when travelling with an EV.

 

[LostVector]

Which App is this one? Can you display the average consumption too?

This is one of the trip report screens in the Garmin. It's quite interesting. You can see how for the last leg of my trip, I sat at the supercharger for a bit, then ran a little faster earlier in the trip before settling to a slower speed. At the end I start hitting the city, so average speed falls off dramatically. Here's the overview screen of the same trip report.

Finding a restroom in the wee hours near a Supercharger is often an issue, I woul recommend using a Rest Areas App to find a restroom location.

Is there a recommended app that will filter by supercharger locations?

I always try not going below 25% of range when selecting the next Supercharger to stop y, because the pre-heating will not work,
and also in case of a detour if there was a freeway closure or an accident, and also the expected consumption increases in windy situation
or when driving at a higher speed than planned.

Does preconditioning not work at low state of charge? I didn't know that.

Which device are you using and would recommend?

The Garmin DriveSmart 66 is the only one that is fully visible within the mounting system I've used. The 76 (with a 7" screen) might work, but you would have to be perfectly positioned to see the entire screen thru the wheel ... IMO you need a bit of slack space around the display since as a driver you do slightly change positions every so often. The 86 is appealing but is just flat out too large. If you were to switch to a yoke, then you could use the biggest options like the 86 or the RV 895/1095.

Because of the Covid situation, I started making long trips by car instead of flying. By using the AutoPilot and and making a stop every 200 miles,
I felt very relax and didn't needed to take an extra day to recover from driving compare to trips that I made previously using an ICE car.

Nice! I thought it was reasonably comfortable for me ... especially autopilot, but for the wife and kid it's probably mostly a question of how prone our kid is to barfing.

The next experiments on my list are finding a good seat cushion and pairing a garmin wireless camera on the front license plate as a workaround for a front parking camera.

 

[Watts_Up]

>> Finding a restroom in the wee hours near a Supercharger is often an issue,
>> I woul recommend using a Rest Areas App to find a restroom location.

Is there a recommended app that will filter by supercharger locations?

Looking for amenities opened and located near a Supercharger,
is something that I search in advance when preparing a trip.
And A Better Route Planner and Google are my complementary tools.

I often prefer driving at night, but since the Tesla Superchargers don't always offer restroom 24/7 open,
I often stop to a gas station or a Rest Area BEFORE going to a Supercharger.

 

[bmah]

Thanks for sharing your story!

Bruce.

 

[fholbert]

Day 1 - Trip to Central California

Driving a 2023 Model Y Long Range in Blue. In addition to this being our first road trip, I’m testing a Garmin DriveSmart 66 as a DIY instrument cluster / alternative nav. Lots to cover!

I charge the car to 80% for our trip. Overall, it should be 4 hours and one supercharger stop to Central California where the grandparents are. Now, as luck would have it, Popeye’s chicken is one of my great vices and Merced has a reasonably new supercharger with one in the parking lot at the midway point. So that is our planned stop … 2 hours and then another 2. We leave San Francisco around 10:30 AM.

There is unexpected construction that closes several exits on the freeway and makes us overshoot the supercharger by a few miles. Instead of arriving with 27%, we arrive with 22% after doubling back. Nevertheless, once we get there, all is good. The charger takes us back to 80% as we eat, so I step out briefly to move the car and we're done shortly thereafter.

There are no unexpected detours or slowdowns on the second leg of the trip … but, as bad luck would have it, our kid threw up about 15 min from the house. We gave her dramamine in the morning, but we were near the end of the medicine’s 6 hour window. Our takeaway here was that we needed to redo the medicine a bit sooner.

Other than that, we arrive in relatively good shape. Our car and child seat are covered in protectors, and the wife sits in the back ready for this stuff to happen.

I expected autopilot to do a lot of work for me on this trip, and it did. Definitely one of the best features of the Tesla. The Garmin also ended up being quite useful … better voice directions overall and substantially better lane guidance.

First order of business, after washing up, is to look over the NEMA 14-50 plug install we had commissioned in the garage. Looks good enough … it’s not to the spec I had asked for initially (builder grade outlet and regular breaker), but I knew that ahead of time. Whole other story.

I get to installing an in-use cover for a bit of childproofing … it turns out that it takes some spelunking through reviews to find one that will fit the plug properly, but I found one and now can confirm it works. It’s made by Sealproof (link - Amazon.com). If you intend to use the locking holes, you need a relatively small padlock that isn’t so big it will jam against the wall.

While I had planned to do a more robust install with a wall connector or industrial grade outlet, the amount of remote iteration was proving to be pretty annoying. I ultimately decided on just charging at a very slow rate to minimize any thermal stress. We won’t be there very often anyway, so even for me it felt like overkill to go further.

I set the car to charge at 16A and deal with unpacking, etc. We arrived with 15% SoC … and we’re not expecting to go far the next day, so I set the charge limit to 50%.

Day 2 - Downtime

This is our day to relax for a bit and let the kid and grandparents spend some time together. We do a bit of errand running nearby. It’s truly amazing how little energy the Tesla uses for these tiny trips. We maybe burned 10 to 20% battery and nearly all of that was due to cabin overheat protection or me sitting in the car.

After dinner and just generally hanging out, it’s time to pack up again and get the car ready.

My general charging strategy is to leave the battery at the lowest SoC and charge up for longer trips. I normally do this with a 30A / 200V charger, but at 16A / 240V, it feels like riding the edge. Going from 50% to 100% takes 12 hours.

I set the car to change to 100% for the first time ever just to give it a chance to calibrate. It will be done just a couple of hours before we expect to leave. I also move the car seat to the middle … it’s big, but there’s just enough shoulder room on the sides for some normal sized 5’ 6” to 5’ 8” folks to sit comfortably along with the extra luggage.

Day 3 - Trip to Disneyland

Back in the saddle! The car is showing 322 miles of range at 100%, so I’ve lost 8 miles of range over 6 months and 2500 miles.

Our plan is to stop by the superchargers in Santa Clarita for lunch, then the Citadel Outlets for the women to shop, and finally our hotel near Disneyland.

The drive is all clear to the supercharger. I drop the rest of the family off at Olive Garden down the street and go to charge. The parking lot in Santa Clarita is huge and full of V2 superchargers. I initially made a gaffe and park in a spot that is sharing power with another car. The physical layout does not make this mistake obvious, but I notice the issue when I see the charging speed start at 72 kw and check the numbering on the chargers. Lesson learned. I charge to 90% and get back to the restaurant just as the appetizers are wrapping up.

Our next stop is the Citadel Outlets. I drop the family off and proceed to find a shady spot where I can chill out in the car. This is one of my favorite things about the Model Y … the ability to kick back in a comfy seat with full AC and no one bothering me for a few hours. And it DOES end up being a few hours … the women find plenty of interesting things to do.

While I hadn’t planned on it, I end up using the supercharger at these outlets as well just to get some extra charge in back to 90% before going to the hotel, which I already knew did not have chargers. Outlet malls seem to be a very common supercharger location. I also see a Jeep hybrid pull in and try to charge. The guy is confused … and the girlfriend is laughing hysterically.

We eat dinner there at the outlets, then make it to the hotel and settle in for the night at the Residence Inn Garden Grove. I think it is fine, if a little worn. The women don't love it tho, and I guess I’ll have to move one star up if we go back. The two bedroom layout is absolutely a winner, however … and quite rare among hotels in the area. Everyone gets some much needed privacy.

The Garmin did great with lane previews and guidance on this day. I've turned off nav volume on the Tesla at this point and am generally not missing it. I still double enter our destinations to get some idea of arrival SoC, etc.

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Why did you go with a Garmin GPS? WAZE is free and would have done a much better job, especially with the off ramp closures.

 

[LostVector]

Why did you go with a Garmin GPS? WAZE is free and would have done a much better job, especially with the off ramp closures.

Long story short, I have no connectivity where I park so starting trips is annoying at best. I also don’t want to tie up my phone, I wanted something in the dash area, and I was also interested in understanding what the Garmin can do (I have discovered a few things like trip planning, trip logs, and camera support that are quite interesting).

 

[Peter N]

Misc notes

The wipers don’t wipe off bug splats on the windshield at all. You have to clean them off by hand. Keep some rags and cleaning fluid handy!

Scheduled charging acted very strangely upon my return. It failed completely to have me ready at at 50% charge by 8AM … instead blowing way past to about 1PM before finishing. Good thing we weren’t going to drive. The controls for this suck badly and really need to make sense.

Summary

As far as the Tesla goes, the car itself did great, providing extra space above and beyond a standard ICE car, punchiness at all times during the trip, and autopilot keeping me less fatigued and providing a genuinely safer experience on the road. I’ve also had the car tinted … and while I suppose I’m taking it for granted now, I’m positive it helped a ton on this fairly hot trip. I ended up at about 980 miles driven and 303 Wh/mi.

The supercharging experience was every bit as seamless as I’d heard and expected … but only on the actual charging level. The unexpected downside to me was the relative ambiguity of the surrounding amenities at night and how to pick stops after hours. Tesla needs to do better here. The trip planning is also great in the car, but only for charging. If you need to be pickier about where you stop, it gets really messy and difficult very quickly as the web/app/in car nav all have different features and planning experiences. I’ve tried ABRP and it’s trying to do much of what I need, but the UI is extraordinarily complicated and for me, it’s been glitchy.

Destination chargers tho ... eh. Unpredictable and how do you know they'll even work or be open? I'd rather stick to the certainty of a supercharger and treat any destination charger as a bonus if it ends up in my immediate vicinity.

Keeping a safe margin of range is definitely important for these trips. Unexpected traffic and construction caused some of my estimates to be way off.

The Garmin GPS as instrument cluster proved its worth. I wouldn’t necessarily double enter a destination into it for short trips or areas you already know well, but on longer and more ambiguous trips, it’s better in many respects. Lane guidance comes helpfully early, voice instructions are less ambiguous and use landmarks, and prompts near a turn confirm that you’re about to do the right thing. I’ve also gotten used to looking down for the info it provides as opposed to the Tesla’s main screen … namely, the map and speed indicators. It’s just a more natural place for certain important information. I also discovered that it has a trip history section that is much more interesting. It's a product that, while certainly clunky in many respects, has also been around long enough to cover more ground if you dig around the interface.

Now … as far the vacation itself … well, to be honest, it was a bit difficult and even a bust as far as the others in the family were concerned. The waiting in traffic, unexpected vomit issues caused by our kid’s sudden refusal to take medicine, and the heat wave made everything much less fun overall. My wife’s family are especially the type where that will swing their opinion of the trip regardless of the entire experience.

On the bright side, I enjoyed myself because I enjoyed seeing new things and working thru the road trip process ... and the little one enjoyed herself because she’s young and just wired to be a trooper. And despite the grandparent grumbling, they got to spend a lot of time with their grandkid, which is something I know they wouldn’t have given up no matter how hard the trip was, even if they won’t say it directly. What they did say was … just drop the kid off next time, and you can go do whatever you want after that. OK, we might just do that.

You're a brave and patient man. Odysseus had an easier time getting back to Greece.