Tesla Chronicle #3 - Time and Money Saver

(Posted to Facebook 7/10/2021)

So far, after close to 700 miles, I have only charged the car at home or at the home of a member of our family. I timed it today…it takes me about 10 extra seconds to grab the plug and stick it into the car as I a walking into the house….and I have been doing this about 4-5 times a week….. so less than 1 minute per week of my own time has been spent “filling up”. With my Highlander, that would have required about 3-4 fill-ups so far at about 5 minutes each on the low side (I hope to time this sometime soon if I take Susan’s car for gas)…… so I am saving about 5 minutes a week at least….. 260 minutes per year.

Also, so far, my electric costs have been about 30% of the gas it would have taken for my Highlander (18.5 mph was my average). This is slightly higher than I expected because, I’ll admit, I didn’t realize before buying the car, the amount of energy the car uses when it isn’t actually being driven….particularly on very hot days. It was less hot here at the end of the week and that number was much lower. Learning to find shady areas to park, and managing the cars sleep patterns and features to be turned on/off while parked is a little bit of a learning process.

And for those that are concerned about the duration of stops required for longer drives….sure, they will be longer. Sometimes 10-20 minutes longer than one might need for gas and a bio break, but here is the thing. Most of our trips will only require one, maybe two of these stops….. and once we arrive at our destination, we won’t have to go find gas, we’ll just charge once there….. and the number of stops on our trips will unlikely add up to greater than 260 minutes per year.