Electric Road Tripping

Whenever we tell people we are heading out on a road trip in George’s new Tesla, the response is the same.

You can do that in an electric car? Don’t you run out of energy?

The short answer is “No”. We’ve done it several times and have started to get very proficient at it, but I thought it might be worth demystifying it for people are on the fence about making the switch to electric.

Range Anxiety and Car Selection

Range anxiety is at the root of the questions people ask “Can you really go that far in an electric car?” According to wikipedia, this is the primary fear or concern that people have which prevents them from going electric. They are afraid they will be stranded somewhere without any option to refuel.

The best way to breakdown this fear is to really pay attention to how you drive and use gasoline. Trust me. Range anxiety is real. I had it in spades when we first got the Tesla. Now I feel almost silly to have ever felt that way.

Every electric vehicle has its own “range”. That is how far it can go on a charge. This depends on its battery capacity, weight, etc. It also depends on the charging network or infrastructure that’s built out along your travel corridors. How fast do they charge, how conveniently are they located, how much do they cost?

For the purpose of this piece, I am solely focusing on driving a 2021 Tesla Model 3 Performance. It has a range of about 300 miles per charge – which is shockingly close to my 16 MPG 2016 Toyota Highlander SUV.

Understanding Batteries and Chargers

One foundational piece of understanding you may want about batteries is – their ability to take IN energy depends in part on how empty they are. When they have less charge, they have less resistance which means they can fill up quickly. As they have more charge, they fill up more slowly because it’s harder to push energy into it. If you think of it like a balloon, that may help you understand the principles at work.

Likewise chargers offer up a variety of different kilowatts hour (kWh) outputs. A home charger will often output up to 11.5 kWh. Tesla superchargers can output up to 250 kWh. The kWh varies based on location but all new superchargers are at least 250 kWh.

For context, charging at 250 kWh adds 1,000 miles of drivable range in an hour to a Tesla. Most of our stops are only about 20 minutes long and we leave with 60-70% charge. If you want really detailed information about battery charging tricks, you’ll have to head over to George’s YouTube channel in the next week or so.

However, there is no need to worry any of this because in a Tesla, the car handles all of these details.

If you want to understand the breadth of the Tesla charging network, check out this page and the map below as of 10.20.2021.

The Trip

We decided to take a weekend trip down to Key West, Florida. That’s about 1255 miles/2020 km from Baltimore, Maryland. It takes us two days to drive down there. George did all of the driving so I could stay connected to work on my laptop. I didn’t have to charge it, but I could have plugged into USB-C ports in the car. The Tesla screen might be bigger than my laptop!

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Charging Stops Day 1

I find that the charging stops generally coincide with my needed restroom/leg stretch breaks. They are usually located near a convenience store and easy access to bathrooms. George likes to get the battery down to single digit percent before we charge so it doesn’t take long. The 20 minutes it takes to charge is shorter than the time it takes me to get into the bathroom and buy road snacks! The Tesla onboard computer projects battery range and will map routes to chargers along the way. It makes it SO easy!

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Stop number one was planned. We went 242 miles before we stopped for a charge top off. The second stop is my fault. I had too much liquid and needed an unscheduled pit stop. We timed both and they came in around the same range – 20 minutes. If you think about stopping to get gas, it takes about the same time, except you can’t pump gas at the same time you use the facilities. With an electric car, you can multi-task!

That night we stayed at a cheap hotel that didn’t have a destination charger. The nice thing about having a robust network of super chargers along the east coast is that one is never far away. In fact, part of our road tripping method with the Tesla is to pair meals with charging.

Charging Stops Day 2

Our morning started with grabbing breakfast and going to the nearest supercharger. It was astonishing how large it was. There were 24 charging stalls! We were solo for the first few minutes, but eventually we had another four cars join us.

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Of course, if you don’t want to eat in your car, there are plenty of other things to do. The car has “caraoke” so you can sing along with songs. There are built in video games (we’ve never had TIME at a supercharger to do more than play a half game of backgammon). You can work from your electronic devices. My favorite is to use the Boombox feature which projects music OUTSIDE the car. We pick a fun dance song and just get a little silly exercise while we are waiting!

Our second stop was near Daytona Beach. This time we had company, but we got a little respite from the sun. The chargers were near a Target so we could grab – well – anything we might need. We discovered that we were there during Bike Week and the traffic was quite a bit heavier than expected. Our usual plan to get lunch wasn’t an option. We left in search of better food options off the beaten path.

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We pulled off 95S and worked our way to A1A which runs roughly parallel to the coast. We found some good hotdogs for George and charged up at a nearby Wawa. It’s a great pairing. Several local chains on the east coast have embraced supercharging like Wawa, Royal Farms, Target. This means you have common conveniences wherever you go!

While you are certainly not forced to interact with other Tesla drivers, many are very friendly and excited to talk about roadtripping. One young couple from Oregon was driving to visit family in Florida. Wow!

We meandered a bit more on Day 2 since we pulled off the main highway. We still made it to our second night destination – Homestead, FL. We topped off at a near by charging station at a local mall before checking into Tru Hotel for the night. Tru did not have destination chargers but we counted four Teslas in the parking lot. While we could have easily made it to Key West that night, we decided to hit the Keys in the daylight.

Day 3

Day three of our road trip wasn’t about efficient charging and making good time. This was the start of our vacation so we transitioned from charging station and mileage focus to just following our noses. It’s important to realize that in this regard, electric road tripping is no different than gas road tripping. When you have 250+ mileage capacity, you can really get pretty much anywhere you want to go.

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By this time, we were thoroughly tired of busy road side dining. Instead, George found a serene breakfast spot in Key Largo called the Hideout Restaurant. It was lovely to just grab breakfast in their covered porch, watching the clouds float by!

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Our next stop was about 16 miles down the keys in Islamorada. George really wanted to feed the tarpon. These are big fish that can get up to 8 feet long and can jump out of the water to catch prey. They are apparently not very tasty and have an anatomy that make them pretty bad eating. Given that so many tourists show up to shell out $4 to feed them fish, you get other scavangers too. The pelicans are pretty aggressive. This guy above was giving us all the stink-eye. There were a couple of small nurse sharks and one intrepid tuna who circled to catch errant fish. I did not want to participate but I’ll admit it was kind of thrilling to watch!

As we drove off Islamorada FL, we saw a road side attraction that we had to stop for.

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Before we drove the final stretch to Key West, we stopped at the last charger in Marathon. This was one of the smaller charging stations we’ve stopped at with only four stalls.

Just as a matter of etiquette, you have to realize that these spaces are for charging. I mention this only because the Tesla on the far left of the photo was parked and not charging. When we were done charging, there was a line of a cars waiting. The wait isn’t too long but it means you have to be thoughtful of fellow drivers. What this guy did was the equivalent of parking in front of a gas pump and walking away. (The charger is at a local airport so he might have actually FLOWN away!)

We did a little “turn here” exploring of Big Pine Key. We even saw a mule deer or two crossing the road! It’s lovely even though I wish their real estate prices were lower!

The Final Leg

Part of my excitement and trepidation about driving to Key West was the photos of the causeway that connects the different keys (or cays if you prefer). Most of it wasn’t actually that nerve racking because you can’t even SEE the water on either side. It just feels like any other road.

This was one of the few stretches where you really had a sense of how the causeways chained the islands together. It ended up being lovely. Fortunately for us, the rain you see in the distance was long gone before we arrived there.

We picked a hotel (the Gates Hotel) that had destination chargers. This is Level 2 charger just like the one we have at home in our garage. When they are supplied at hotels or other businesses, typically there is no fee to charge from them. If you recall from above, these supply low level energy (11.5 kWh) but it meant that we were constantly topped up so there wasn’t any concern about NOT having a supercharger on Key West.

It was a great road trip. We’ve taken a few so there was very little stress involved with it. We feel like old pros with only four or five trips under our belts. If anyone ever says to you “You can’t drive very far in an electric car.” please set them straight – or head them to my blog.

To START the journey to electric with me, you can check out this video from a year ago when my own range anxiety was in high gear!

If you want a TRULY epic road trip, keep an eye out for George’s solo Tesla adventure from Key West to Canada which will be published soon on his YouTube channel.