I did a road trip from Southern CA (Orange County) to Northern CA (Sunnyvale) with my arcade friend. And wow everytime we had to supercharge he will vent his frustration and anger every time we had to do it. He will say why not do it later I don't want to do it now. But he also doesn't want to help put in some research on good places to stop that have supercharging so I had to do all that work to try get the car charged up every arcade or destination we stopped at. Since we are mostly doing arcades, mostly the big chains like Dave and Busters and Round1 have Tesla superchargers or free level 2 charging because they were in malls. My first plan was to find a home base to charge near our hotel while sleeping that was within a 5 minute E-scooter ride distance, but there was nothing open to the public. So I was forced to hopefully plan a charging route while we stopped at these arcades so we didn't have to wait separately for charging.
On New Years, we went to watch fireworks in San Francisco but I decided we should get a full charge to around 70%-80% on the way back because we would need it the next day as the car was going to be at 20% when we left SF. But my friend started complaining so hard about having to charge at night. But I said it's better to do it at night because it's a little cheaper and there will be less Teslas charging therefore faster charging. He insisted we should just do it next day during day time and said I was being so cheap over it. I got so mad over I started yelling at him because it was either he gets at me now or later. We found a charger that was a 150w, but I sensed it was charging kind of slow because it's a 150w and it was completely full because it was like 8-10 chargers. I decided we should go to a 250w station that was on the way to the hotel, but my friend got so mad about my decision to go to another supercharger, but I kept telling him it should be faster because it's 250w and it had more stations.
Next day we traveled from Sunnyvale, Daly City, Pacifica, Santa Cruz, back to SunnyVale, I successfully got all our charging done while we were doing something. Also charging at night previous day helped eliminate us waiting for supercharging in the day. Like when he wants to go to a chuck e cheese to film a YouTube tour for 10-15 minutes I could go charge since supercharger was across street. Then we got to Dave and Busters Daly City, there was a 72w supercharger but it was fine because we were gonna be there for 30-60 minutes so it got from 70 to 95 percent slowly but worth doing since we were doing something. And that supercharger was kind of far from Dave and Busters, I brought my electric scooter so I could easily go across the mall and not be constrained by a longer walking distance and lock it somewhere. That day he didn't get mad or argue with me because all of our stops had charging while we did something. Topping off in Daly City allowed us to go to Santa Cruz, back to Sunnyvale (hotel) around 50%-60%, then the next day to make it to Modesto CA with 20% left.
Then on our way back from North CA to Southern CA he got a little more annoyed and upset about the supercharging. So I started getting so annoyed by it and all his views about EVs, I started telling him then how gas is making people poor and struggling to pay for gas and they are ignorant to not choose a cheaper source of energy even if it takes longer. And I told him how he should help me plan out the charging route and install the plug share app, he just says that's stupid to find EV charging and gas stations are better. Or that he should choose restaurants next to superchargers instead of an In n Out where we had to wait for 20 minutes with no charging. He didn't mind waiting in long lines at In n Out but he will start complaining so much if we did that same wait at a supercharger.
In the end about arguing about supercharging and how we should plan our restaurant stops next to superchargers, he states "I don't want a car to control my life" so therefore all the places he wanted to stop without supercharging added up to our waiting time. Alot of restaurants he wanted to go to were not along supercharging routes so I was annoyed by it but I compromised because he really wanted In n Out and offered to buy me In n Out because he knew his decision was going to affect our supercharging waiting. Because if he didn't buy me food, I probably just tell him how waiting 30 min at a crowded In n Out (no charging) will mean we will have to wait 30 min at another supercharger later.
He also hates the autopilot when it does random phantom braking or swerves during a lane change. He vents his frustration about the autopilot and says it's my fault for not paying attention although I was paying attention. I am aware if the Tesla autopilot has some errors and I will be ready to take over it something weird happens like phantom braking. But if the Tesla phantom brakes he will get really upset about it. But even though the autopilot has some imperfections, it's a minor inconvenience to have a huge convenience of being to have more energy to drive long distance.
He also has alot of republican style views. He has puts FBiden on the Space Invader leaderboards at all the arcades. Even though Biden is promoting EV and giving tax credits. He refused to get a COVID shot back in 2020-21 and said "I don't know what is in it". Not caring if it meant being refused entry from some arcades like Dave and Busters and me telling him why not just get it if you can get into more places? He won't admit to me if he is a pro-republican but it seems if something is controlling his life he will not have it. He rather have gas prices control his life than an EV. He rather be refused entry to a good arcade that he could profit just to not get a COVID shot. He drives a 2019 Honda Civic that gets 40 mph. Which is decent, but I probably argue that a 40 mph car is less fun to drive and has no autopilot or cool tech features like a Tesla. He is 20 years old but has old man ideas because he hates electric scooters and EV charging. He has very little interest about how to plan the best EV charging route and if I tell him to help me out on this, he will just say it's your responsibility and he has no interest in EVs. So because he wouldn't help me, I was forced to plan everything. And it's also frustrating because he wanted to make many random stops to like Taco Bell or In N Out and refusing to eat at any restaurant next to a supercharger when we had so many options to do so. I think because he is a republican / pro trump kind of guy that thinks EVs are stupid.
But in the end, he never offered to just say "lets drive my Honda Civic because we don't have to charge". He knows gas is expensive so that's why he didn't propose to drive his car and I just end up driving. He offered to pay his half in hotel in prizes he won from key master and I justified not asking him to pitch in for EV charging because he spotted me 5000 D&B tickets and helped me win jackpots on my card. He won me maybe over $100 retail value for $25 (I paid for) at one arcade we visited because they had no games I could win. Since I drove the Tesla, I felt it was cheap enough to not really care how we split it as long as it seemed fair. If we drove my parents Lexus GX which my parents have offered to let me borrow, I may start demanding more out of him and I don't know if he would really be down to split the bill on an SUV that gets 20 mpg. But then it has no autopilot so it make it harder for me to drive so long.
