Electrically Speaking: First Road Trip!

Road Trip to Saratoga Springs!

Our first road trip with Val was a long-awaited one - a visit to my parents in Upstate NY! Other than 20 minutes in their garage in early December, separated by 20 feet, I haven't seen them since the last weekend of February, 2020. So it was with much anticipation that we set out on Friday, April 9 to visit them!

I had planned to charge to 100% on Friday - 95% overnight and then 'top off' Friday morning. But when I started charging Friday morning, it said it would take well over an hour to go from 95% to 100%, so we ended up leaving at 96%. Tesla Navigation advised we should stop at the Kingston NY Supercharger station (located at a QuickCheck) for a few minutes, and we did, as it was a good stopping point for bio break and lunch. We arrived at about 45% State of Charge (SOC) and were asked to charge for about 6 minutes to 65%, which would have us arrive at my parents at 21% SOC. We ended up charging a little longer (about 20 minutes) while we ate lunch, so left there at 89%, arriving in Saratoga at 45% - using 44% of the battery in that stretch. If I did not have free Supercharger miles, that charge would have cost about $7.79*.

I had brought my charging cable with me, as I wanted to plug in to my parent's 110v garage outlet just to see how long it would take to charge using that method (vs my 240v plug at home). I plugged the car in Saturday night at 32% SOC at 7:30 pm, and the power barely registered on the screen (see pic #4 below)! It would have taken 24+ hours to charge to the set limit of 95%.... When I unplugged at 9:30 am on Sunday, I was at 52% - so over the course of 14 hours, the battery add 20% of charge. Not very good - so I'm glad I decided to upgrade my outlet at home. My Dad said he'd send me the bill for the charge. 😏

As noted, we left their house on Sunday morning at 52%, with a planned stop at the Guilderland NY Supercharger station (Crossgates Mall). It wanted me to charge for 25 minutes and get to 90%, which would get us home with 12% SOC. I wasn't really comfortable with the buffer, as this was our first road trip, so we charged to about 85% there (after walking around the Mall for about 20 minutes) and planned to stop at the Kingston Supercharger station again for bio break and lunch at QuickCheck. When I plugged in there, I received a notification on my phone that they were only allowing charging up to 80%, as the SC station was busy (about half the 10 stations were currently in use). No big deal as 80% would easily get us home. Sure enough, after we got back in the car, it predicted we'd be at 31% when we arrived home. We actually went a slightly different way than the Nav sent us and got home at 30%. Cost of the 2 charges would have been about $10.67* + $2.90*, respectively.

In terms of my free Supercharger miles, I was charged with using 202 miles between the three stops. Total cost would have been about $21.36* without the freebies.

Ok, the * next to the charges - these are estimated, as I won't receive a monthly statement from Tesla until early May. The on-line billing statement just indicates these are free charges, using my 1000 free Supercharger miles I got when I used a friend's referral code when buying the car. I'll update this when I can see what the actual charges would have been. I'd expect them to be slightly less. Unfortunately, you can't make a direct comparison to this and the amount of gas I would have used, as I have no cost of charging at home (the initial 95%) or the 20% I did at my parents yet. However, just to give a sense - using our 2014 Mazda CX-5, I would have filled my tank at home prior to leaving which would have cost me approximately $33 (15.3 gallon gas tank, filling it from 1/4 tank to full, gas current price of $2.89). I would have used about 3/4 of a tank on the drive).Assuming the same going home, another $33. So $66 based on today's prices - using 3/4 of a tank twice.

Enough of the numbers - how was the car? It drove beautifully! I found the ride to be very comfortable, and the seats are excellent - soft but very supportive. At speed, you do get wind and road noise, probably similar to our previous car - actually, probably a bit less as we have no roof rack on the Y and the drag is probably less. You might just notice it more because there is no engine noise. The Traffic-Aware Cruse Control is really great - it maintains a set distance from the car in front of you (you can adjust it) and then goes back up to speed when you pull out to pass. And it works down to zero so can be used in stop-and-go traffic! It did brake sharply when the cars in front of us did at one point, then went back up to speed as they did. Very neat.

I did use the Autosteer function on some stretches of the NYS Thruway. It does a great job of keeping between the lines, so with that function and the TACC, the drive is pretty effortless (you are required to put a little torque on the wheel every 20 - 25 seconds or so, to indicate you're paying attention). I did not use it in heavy traffic as Autosteer does keep you planted in the center of your lane and if someone kind of drifts over to the edge of their lane, it made me a little nervous - especially if it was a truck.. I'm not sure whether it would adjust by moving you to the opposite side of your lane. Will have to test that out.

We did run into some raining heading home and the auto wipers are great, although they do jump into high-speed mode a little sooner than I prefer. But I also liked that the headlights come on automatically with the wipers. Since that's the law in many states, I don't know why all cars don't do that.

In summary, I'd have to say the trip was pretty much effortless - a little longer than with our previous gas car, but probably more relaxing due to stopping and eating. There are accommodations to be made when traveling in an EV but only very small ones - and frankly, if I'm not in a hurry, what's the big deal with an extra stop? I'm looking forward to our next trip! It may be a trip to visit family in the Boston area in May.