Supercharger Traffic around Thanksgiving Holiday down I5 Corridor

[rfmurphy81]

Hi everyone,

I'm planning to travel from the Santa Ana area to the Santa Rosa area for Thanksgiving. I've done the trip once before in early April successfully (minus a 30 minute wait for a stall in Dublin around 2pm on a Friday). However, I have yet to travel around a holiday so I'm hoping to get some recommendations and tips from the experts here to make this trip as successful as the last one.

I'm planning to skip Burbank in any way that I can, given its recent reputation. And hopefully I can skip Dublin to avoid repeating the experience I had last time, but I guess that all depends on whether Santa Nella is open or if I want to detour slightly to Gilroy.

My thought was to leave around early afternoon (maybe 2ish) on Tuesday 11/22 with the hope that I'll get into town just before midnight. Then I was planning to leave pretty early on Sunday 11/29 like maybe 530a or 6a to get a jump start on what I imagine would be a fair amount of regular holiday traffic anyway. Are these times a little crazy?

Any other tips or suggestions for my first holiday road trip in a Tesla?

Thanks!

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

Whatever you do, try not to visit a supercharger at an outlet mall on black friday in California.

That was a ridiculous mess.

 

[ecarfan]

With the addition of the Buttonwillow Supercharger which went live early this year, traveling I5 in the Central Valley became much easier. We are about 6 weeks away from the Thanksgiving weekend but I would not assume that the new Bakersfield and Santa Nella Superchargers will be open by then.

The Dublin Supercharger appears to be quite crowded based on reports by users. If I were you I would go via Gilroy and Fremont. But don't plan your trip in a way that requires you to charge at Gilroy because that location is a zoo on busy shopping weekends. If you get there and it is full then make sure you have enough range to go on to Fremont.

Once Santa Nella is live your trip will be much easier as it is less than 200 miles from there to Santa Rosa.

 

[rfmurphy81]

Whatever you do, try not to visit a supercharger at an outlet mall on black friday in California.

That was a ridiculous mess.

This sounds like a fun story.
If any Black Friday shopping does happen, you better believe I'll be at 90% SOC.

With the addition of the Buttonwillow Supercharger which went live early this year, traveling I5 in the Central Valley became much easier. We are about 6 weeks away from the Thanksgiving weekend but I would not assume that the new Bakersfield and Santa Nella Superchargers will be open by then.

The Dublin Supercharger appears to be quite crowded based on reports by users. If I were you I would go via Gilroy and Fremont. But don't plan your trip in a way that requires you to charge at Gilroy because that location is a zoo on busy shopping weekends. If you get there and it is full then make sure you have enough range to go on to Fremont.

Once Santa Nella is live your trip will be much easier as it is less than 200 miles from there to Santa Rosa.

I'll be definitely keeping my eye on the construction progress in Santa Nella. However, I thought the Bakersfield location was already open.based on supercharge.info. Great idea with the Gilroy/Fremont suggestion! I'll tinker with EVTripPlanner a bit more to work out all the possible scenarios to be best prepared.

 

[ecarfan]

I thought the Bakersfield location was already open.based on supercharge.info.

Sorry, my mistake, Bakersfield is open. See Supercharger - Bakersfield (LIVE on 09-29-2016)

 

[S'toon]

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving.