Driving a Tesla across the country and back

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Unlike the last time we drove across the country we didn't keep any detailed stats on each day. In general we probably averaged 6 hours in the car each day, with 2-4 charging stops. The longest we needed to stop was 35 minutes and the shortest I saw was 7 minutes, the average was probably around 15-20 minutes. I looked up our charging history and a few things seemed interesting:

  • Even though this was a longer trip by about two weeks we charged almost exactly the same amount of times, about 80 stops at superchargers both times
  • The total cost of charging was actually slightly less, about $600 vs $670 last year, and the cost per stop was slightly less too
  • Last year we stopped at about 6% of all the superchargers in the US, but there's way more now, we only stopped at about 4% of them this time. I took a look at our route from last year, and there's already a few more chargers along our past route. Tesla is increasing the number of charging areas by 20-30% per year, and the new ones have more chargers and faster chargers too
  • Last year we never had a situation where we couldn't charge. We did show up to one supercharger and there was a Tesla tech doing maintenance on two of them and another time two were out of order and there was a short wait to use the other six. This year we didn't have a single time where any supercharger was out of order, and we also never had to wait to plug in. According to Tesla the up-time for chargers was 99.75% in 2020 and now it's at 99.95%
  • We ended up doing about 25-30% of our charging at slow chargers, either a little extra at airbnbs, or at places we were staying for awhile. We were able to find some charging in every national park, and all the places we stayed at for more than a few days either had a regular outlet we could use, or even a decent level 2 charger. In Seattle we were able to charge at Steve & Kate's neighbor's house the night before we left. Each little stop didn't add up to much, but it made everything a little more convenient (and it was all free too). 
So charging was basically perfect, but it's still a car, and there's other stuff that can go wrong. This time we got a tiny little rock chip at some point, and then one morning in Oregon we woke up to find a huge crack had spread right across the driver's side of the windshield. It felt like it was going to be a huge pain in the ass to get it taken care of while on the road, but it actually was surprisingly easy:
  • The insurance company was super easy to deal with, and getting our claim paid was fast and easy
  • The Tesla service center in Seattle was amazing and went above and beyond to get us in before we had to head back east
  • Even when we got back and had to replace all the stickers we lost with the old windshield, it was fast and easy. Somerville's parking office in particular is the kind of place you imagine will be a huge pain in the ass, but it was fast and easy
The whole thing was barely any work at all, and literally everyone I had to deal with at every step was friendly and helpful and got everything squared away super quickly.

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Day 1 - Syracuse, NY

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  We left Somerville this morning and are ending our day today in Syracuse, NY. We were on the road for about 6 hours and made tacos for dinner - delicious, tacos never disappoint. The audio highlight of the day was listening to the latest This American Life episode, Must Be Rats on the Brain  - it's us against them. And the visual highlight of the day was crossing the Hudson River - an impressively big river. Our destination tomorrow is Cleveland, OH which will be a similar amount of time on the road, but we don't have to worry about cleaning and packing up so it will be a piece of cake. States traveled Massachusetts New York
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Halfway

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After leaving Olympic and heading south along the Oregon coast, it's really starting to feel like we've finished the trip to the Pacific. We've seen a lot of the coast the last couple days. It's rocky and beautiful and windy . But also we've been on the road for about 3 weeks, visited four of the six national parks we're going to see, and driven through 14 states. Soon we'll turn around, spending the next three weeks first up in Portland, then Seattle, then Glacier, and then driving east for a week. Route 20, which starts in Kenmore sq. Boston is the longest road in the US at 3,365 miles, and we've spent a lot of time driving parallel to it (on rt 90, the longest interstate highway in the US). In fact, our cabin by Yellowstone Lake was right off of 20, near where the road originally ended before they extended it all the way to the west coast. Yesterday was July 4th, which time-wise will be almost exactly the halfway point of our trip. Depending on when w...
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Day 2 - Cleveland, OH

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We started our day in Syracuse, NY and are ending it in Cleveland, OH. We ate our lunch on the shores of Lake Erie and enjoyed a walk around Evangola State Park. Some neat rocks by the shore. A close up of the rocks. I'll let the geologists following this blog comment on what we are seeing here. You know who you are. At our last charging stop we met Mary who was also driving a Tesla on a road trip and doing yoga while charging. She was headed in the opposite direction to teach a yoga workshop in upstate New York. We became fast friends.   We were on the road for about 6 hours again today. It was great driving weather with bright clouds, not too sunny, not too hot. We got to our place before the rain started where I got in a real yoga practice outside before dinner (with a mat and everything and not a single Tesla charger in sight!). What was dinner you ask? You guessed it. Tacos again! Still delicious. The visual highlight of the drive was all the vineyards in upstate New York. Who...
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