In search of better skiing than we've gotten in the Cascades this season, I took my daughter for a skiing vacation this past week at Big Sky resort, which had a week of great snow and a wondrous return to winter conditions. I drove and brought her skis and a couple of my snowboards, plus a big gear bag, two overnight bags, a cooler, some groceries, and a spare tire. One day each for the drive out and back, plus two full days of riding the resort.
Journey: Snoqualmie Valley (hour east of Seattle), WA <---> Big Sky, MT, round trip, with an overnight stay 3 nights slope-side at the resort.
Vehicle: 2019 Tesla 3 LR AWD with snow tires. 71k miles now on the odometer. No full-self-drive (would personally never pay for or trust that myself), but I did use TACC to keep my foot alive. I opted to remove my rooftop box for this trip to save some efficiency, and kept my aero covers on. Skis and boards went in a ski bag in the back with one half of the rear seats folded down. We used the frunk for one of the overnight bags on the way out.
Weather: Temps ranged from a high of about 5ºC/41ºF (in WA) to a low of about -10ºC/14ºF through parts of Montana, much of which was actively snowing. Car was parked overnight 3 nights, outside, in snowy weather and overnight lows in the single digits Fahrenheit. More on this later.
Metrics: 1,416 miles total, average Wh/mi 362. Much of the driving through Montana had an 80mph speed limit. Drive time was about 11 hours, +2 hours charging each direction (average stop time was 20 minutes). Total SuperCharger cost was about $162.
Charging: 6 stops each on the way out and way back, with one mid-trip refresh in Big Sky. The Big Sky SuperCharger, which is just 10 minutes down the road from the resort, is 150kW. Every other stop (with one exception) was at a 250kW station, upon which I got at LEAST 250kW immediately on plug-on. The one exception was Missoula, which has two locations - both a 150kW and a 250kW. The trip routing inexplicable routed me to the 150kW station, so that is the only trip stop which wasn't blisteringly fast. I left a checkin on PlugShare for each location.
Highlights: The trip computer routed me without issue (other than selecting the 150kW station instead of the 250kW station in Missoula), and both drive-time and SoC estimates were spot-on. Zero wait at any of the charging stops, all in operation, accessible (plowed in Big Sky), and at full speed. Car drives awesome in snow, but I already knew this after 5 winters with it. It's also a comfortable car to spend ~12 hours sitting in. With a charging stop averaging 20 minutes every 2 hours, this worked out well for our basic needs of restroom, food & drink, and stretching.
Lowlights: No surprise on this, but at such cold temperatures in a snowy environment, there were some issues with the door handles and the window/door interface icing up. The door handles tended to freeze up (easily cleared up by gently pounding on the handles and just pushing harder). The window/door interface was more a problem, and I finally resorted to just having to crawl into the driver seat from the back door, since the front doors could not be shut from the inside due to the windows being immovable and not clearing the roof frame trim. Big fail on that. The recommended solution on that is to preheat the car for longer, but this didn't work for me in the time I had. There was L2 charging available in a garage at the resort, which I opted not to use, but would next time to avoid the car-encased-in-ice problem. Finally, the TACC phantom-braking is a real thing. It doesn't happen much, but it's pretty disconcerting when it does happen.
Interesting anecdotes: WA has one of the highest-in-the-nation EV registration rates, and particularly in the county I live in, Teslas and other EVs are almost annoyingly common. Montana is nearly at the opposite end of the spectrum, and I saw only a handful of other EVs the entire time I was there. I had one curious gentleman in a full-size pickup stop and ask me "is that electric?" when I was charging at the Town Pump Travel Center SuperCharger in Butte. He had some of the basic questions about the car, like range and charging time - the type of questions I used to get 5 years ago here in Washington state. Also - and most importantly - the snow conditions were outstanding and we had an awesome trip.
Journey: Snoqualmie Valley (hour east of Seattle), WA <---> Big Sky, MT, round trip, with an overnight stay 3 nights slope-side at the resort.
Vehicle: 2019 Tesla 3 LR AWD with snow tires. 71k miles now on the odometer. No full-self-drive (would personally never pay for or trust that myself), but I did use TACC to keep my foot alive. I opted to remove my rooftop box for this trip to save some efficiency, and kept my aero covers on. Skis and boards went in a ski bag in the back with one half of the rear seats folded down. We used the frunk for one of the overnight bags on the way out.
Weather: Temps ranged from a high of about 5ºC/41ºF (in WA) to a low of about -10ºC/14ºF through parts of Montana, much of which was actively snowing. Car was parked overnight 3 nights, outside, in snowy weather and overnight lows in the single digits Fahrenheit. More on this later.
Metrics: 1,416 miles total, average Wh/mi 362. Much of the driving through Montana had an 80mph speed limit. Drive time was about 11 hours, +2 hours charging each direction (average stop time was 20 minutes). Total SuperCharger cost was about $162.
Charging: 6 stops each on the way out and way back, with one mid-trip refresh in Big Sky. The Big Sky SuperCharger, which is just 10 minutes down the road from the resort, is 150kW. Every other stop (with one exception) was at a 250kW station, upon which I got at LEAST 250kW immediately on plug-on. The one exception was Missoula, which has two locations - both a 150kW and a 250kW. The trip routing inexplicable routed me to the 150kW station, so that is the only trip stop which wasn't blisteringly fast. I left a checkin on PlugShare for each location.
Highlights: The trip computer routed me without issue (other than selecting the 150kW station instead of the 250kW station in Missoula), and both drive-time and SoC estimates were spot-on. Zero wait at any of the charging stops, all in operation, accessible (plowed in Big Sky), and at full speed. Car drives awesome in snow, but I already knew this after 5 winters with it. It's also a comfortable car to spend ~12 hours sitting in. With a charging stop averaging 20 minutes every 2 hours, this worked out well for our basic needs of restroom, food & drink, and stretching.
Lowlights: No surprise on this, but at such cold temperatures in a snowy environment, there were some issues with the door handles and the window/door interface icing up. The door handles tended to freeze up (easily cleared up by gently pounding on the handles and just pushing harder). The window/door interface was more a problem, and I finally resorted to just having to crawl into the driver seat from the back door, since the front doors could not be shut from the inside due to the windows being immovable and not clearing the roof frame trim. Big fail on that. The recommended solution on that is to preheat the car for longer, but this didn't work for me in the time I had. There was L2 charging available in a garage at the resort, which I opted not to use, but would next time to avoid the car-encased-in-ice problem. Finally, the TACC phantom-braking is a real thing. It doesn't happen much, but it's pretty disconcerting when it does happen.
Interesting anecdotes: WA has one of the highest-in-the-nation EV registration rates, and particularly in the county I live in, Teslas and other EVs are almost annoyingly common. Montana is nearly at the opposite end of the spectrum, and I saw only a handful of other EVs the entire time I was there. I had one curious gentleman in a full-size pickup stop and ask me "is that electric?" when I was charging at the Town Pump Travel Center SuperCharger in Butte. He had some of the basic questions about the car, like range and charging time - the type of questions I used to get 5 years ago here in Washington state. Also - and most importantly - the snow conditions were outstanding and we had an awesome trip.
