One of the questions I always get is how is it to road trip in a Tesla? I am not going to lie, but this was one area I was the most concerned with coming from an ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) vehicle. Most notably, my anxiety came around the range of the car, and I would get stuck in the middle of nowhere. This should have been a vlog, but I forgot my GoPro on this day. So, how do you go on a road trip in a Tesla?
Where did we go, and what was our route
We were driving across northern Florida from St. Augustine (home) to Destin, FL.
Our route planning had me taking I-10 most of the way there, approximately 330 miles each way. Along I-10, there are several superchargers, and we stopped at all but one of them during our trip. A map is shown below for reference.
The superchargers we wound up stopping at were:
- Live Oak – 6458 US-129Live Oak, FL 32060
- Tallahassee – 3528 Thomasville Rd Tallahassee, FL 32308
- Marianna – 2070 FL-71Marianna, FL 32448
- DeFuniak Springs – Corner of Baldwin Ave. & 10th StreetDeFuniak Springs, FL 32435
- Crestview – 2670 South Ferdon BoulevardCrestview, FL 32536
The Superchargers
Most chargers were in truck stops or shopping centers and were relatively easy to get to from the highway. One particular will always stick out in our heads, though. The supercharger in DeFuniak Springs was one we did not have to stop at; our SoC was ~40%, and we had more than enough range to get to Crestview, which is where our hotel was. After Googling the area, we decided to stop to see what the town had in store for us. Also, Tesla’s supercharger site had a few places we wanted to see just by the business name.
DeFuniak Springs
Nothing could have prepared us for what we saw when we pulled up. It was a Monday afternoon ~1 PM CDT, and ghost town does not begin to describe this little town’s appearance. All the places referenced on Tesla’s website were closed, and we looked around, wondering what happened. The vibe of the town is something that I can not easily explain. Below are a few pictures I snapped of the town.
We didn’t stay long; we quickly unplugged and left. Shortly after the trip, I discovered this supercharger was one of the first put on I-10. This new information makes me wonder how regularly Tesla updates the supercharging location sites on their website.
Crestview
This being our first trip, I did some reconnaissance. Crestview was chosen to look for a hotel as there was a local supercharger in town. When we got to Crestview, I noticed on the map that there was a light gray wrench icon where the supercharger should be. When clicked, it said that the supercharger had “reduced capacity” but did not expand on what that meant. Taking the drive over, out of the 8 chargers, only 3 were operational. While I had to wait to charge, this wasn’t a big deal; just glad they were somewhat functioning.
I posted my thoughts on PlugShare; this fantastic app lets you know about chargers in your area and what people think about them. Someone responded to my post and asked a few questions. I answered and thought nothing of it. We were leaving, sitting in the Starbucks across the way from the chargers when someone walked in. They call my name to get my items, and the gentleman walks up to me and asks if my gray Model Y is being charged. After saying yes, he responded, “I am the person you have been talking to on Plugshare.” While this was a little creepy, we had a good conversation. He was traveling from Texas to Destin. He was worried about this charger and was glad I answered his questions.
The Drive
Driving a Tesla on Autopilot is one of the best driving experiences ever. The car does all the heavy lifting while you are just scanning the road, always being alert about your surroundings. I paid the extra money for the Full-Self Driving computer, extending Autopilot and allowing one of my favorite features, Navigate on Autopilot. Navigate on Autopilot; when engaged, the car will keep its lane just like with Autopilot. The cool thing is that depending on how the car is set, it will change lanes or alert you when to make a lane change. When the car signals a lane change, it will alert you like:
When set to have you acknowledge the turn, all you have to do is tap the turn signal and stalk in the direction you want to turn, and the car does the rest. If you do not want to turn, you can ignore the request or tap the blue bar that says lane change.
This makes driving the car more enjoyable than I would have thought. Think of it like AutoPilot for an airplane. The plane is centering, ensuring speed, altitude, etc. The car does the same for you, leaving you to focus on your surroundings. Skeptical is the word I would use to describe how I felt about this, and now, every chance I get, the car is in AutoPilot.
The Car is Smarter than you think
One case surprised me and showed me just how smart the car is. The car alerted me to change lanes out of the passing lane. I initiated the lane change, and all is going well. A car barrels onto the highway and is about to side-swipe me. Thankfully, Tesla uses all of its cameras as dashcams, which is good because in the event of an accident, you, as the user, can opt to save the footage, or the car will save based upon specific criteria. The driver just barely missed me, and you are about to see the car maneuvering itself out of the way in the video below.
Not only did the car do what it was supposed to do, but it also reacted faster than I ever could as an everyday driver. Could this have also been the case with standard Autopilot and not the upgrade to Full Self Driving? Seeing all the back and forth around FSD, people are saying, “Why would anyone pay to be a beta tester?” I don’t feel that I am a beta tester. I believe in technology, and this particular piece of technology is why I bought a Tesla in the first place.
Wrap-Up
This was a very different experience from driving a gas car. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised with taking a road trip in a Tesla. Starting, my range anxiety was through the roof. I saw how the car predicted a lot and routed me to superchargers when needed. I am a person who does not like to stop a lot during a road trip. I dreaded this part the most, but it broke up the trip. With this and using Autopilot, I was not tired when we arrived at either destination.
After this trip, I am looking for more trips to take the car on. The one thing I missed out on was the actual cost of supercharging. Because I used a referral code, all SuperCharging stops were free. Another thing I missed out on was drive analytics. There are a few applications out there that will give you car analytics. I recently landed on a free application stack that I can run at home called TeslaMate. I will be blogging on that shortly and why I feel it is better than others in the market.
Would you want to take a road trip in a Tesla? What do you think you would like or dislike about it?