Maybe still a honeymoon period but I’ve never had to wait for a charge to finish

[Mrklaw]

Today I took the SR+ to stoke on trent and back. On the way up the car started out saying I’d arrived with 5%, but slowly that increased to about 15%. I stopped at Warwick services anyway for a coffee, plugged in and was maybe 15 minutes getting a coffee and drinking it. That was enough to add around 25% to the charge and I arrived with 40%.

On the return leg we hadn’t had lunch yet so dropped into Trentham Gardens which was really nice. My daughter spent some time in a soft toy shop looking for presents, and we had a fairly brief lunch at Pieminister. Service was quick and we didn’t take long but I still got a notification from the car that it was nearly finishing charging (I still hadn’t changed from 100% from the morning). When we unplugged we were at 98% surprisingly and I didn’t have to stop again until I got home a little while ago

This is the third long trip where I’ve needed to charge, but I’ve tried to always base it on my needs first - eg I need a coffee in the morning or a stop for lunch, and while I’ll try and time that to somewhere with a supercharger for convenience, thats the only consideration I make. And so far I’ve never been kept waiting - its always me thats the bottleneck, not the car. I’m not even waiting for charge to be low - today both top ups were with my battery at 40% and around 70% so not efficient curve-wise.

Anyone else found similar? or is this just a run of good luck for me?

 

[slacker775]

I’ve had similar situations lots of times. I guesstimate if I might need a charge somewhere and make plans to stop for food or restroom break accordingly. Even on long drives, charging has only been about 20-30 minutes and of course, you don’t need to charge until ‘full’. Just need enough to get where you are going with a good buffer. Once home, I can charge there easily enough. I don’t miss gas stations at all.

 

[Dilly]

Car’s always finished feeding before me!

 

[Yachtsman]

I’ve had similar situations lots of times. I guesstimate if I might need a charge somewhere and make plans to stop for food or restroom break accordingly. Even on long drives, charging has only been about 20-30 minutes and of course, you don’t need to charge until ‘full’. Just need enough to get where you are going with a good buffer. Once home, I can charge there easily enough. I don’t miss gas stations at all.

+1

 

[15Peter20]

Similar. Charging is a 5-10 minute event for me. Hardly worth getting out of the car.

Coming from a Land Rover Defender the lack of frequent fuel station visits, ( almost always having to queue because I seemed to be the only person in the world who could work out how to use Pay at Pump, ) has been a big improvement.

 

[bangtidy]

I've had very few experiences of using Superchargers but the ones I've had so far have been excellent and definitely makes me glad I have a Tesla EV.

 

[LukeUK]

Car’s always finished feeding before me!

Definitely this. I can't get through the services as quickly as the car can charge on a supercharger.

When we're travelling as a family, I have at times had to go and move the car because we're not ready to go yet.

 

[melduk]

Yeah agree, I thought charging might be a pain. Actually the biggest pain is moving the car when I am not ready due to idle fees.

 

[pgkevet]

Yeah agree, I thought charging might be a pain. Actually the biggest pain is moving the car when I am not ready due to idle fees.

This really comes down to whether you would have bothered having a meal if it'd been a simple splash and dash at a petrol pump or indeed if you would even have needed to stop at a services 'cos you could have fuelled your car at cheaper non-motorway pumps or with enough range to have done the trip without stopping. My kids have grown up so I carry snacks and a thermos on long trips with no wish to pay silly money for junk. In the future there may well be many more convenient fuel stops, but I'm often sitting in the car for 30 mins finding some way to entertain myself while it fills up after making detours off the direct route to get to a fuel stop. The reality is that unless running along motorway networks, a 300-mile range really means 120-mile radius from home to allow for safety margin, breakdowns, cold weather or a lack of chargers.
Tesla's network is generally good. I've never had to wait, but I have rocked up with one car just leaving, so I could slot into the last place and charge slowly on a shared pair or been at a set of chargers with only one other free.

 

[Yachtsman]

I agree with almost every comment on here. I’ve only stayed at a supercharger for more than 6 or 7 minutes for a splash & dash twice, once when on a long weekend in north wales so needed to fill up due to the scarcity of superchargers and again recently to use up some of my free supercharger miles.
Never had to queue or share a tombstone, currently a superb facility & another reason I’m so pleased I chose a Tesla.