Tesla Chronicles #13 – First 5000+ Miles

(Posted to Facebook 10/10/2021)

Our adventures this weekend to get a Uhaul trailer to move Emily to Lancaster, PA has thrown us over the 5000 mile mark, so what better time to reflect. If you don’t want to read this whole thing… the take-away is that I am never going back to a gas car… the convenience of home charging and the acceleration are game changers. The “inconvenience” of slightly longer stops for charging while on road trips is oddly not inconvenient at all. These stops have made me realize that stopping and stretching out your legs is actually needed. Not doing this in a gas car just makes me very tired and sore (back and tailbone), almost to the point where I hate long trips. I don't think this way any more. So much so that we are not hesitating at all to take the Tesla to Florida in the spring for a really long road trip.

The Stats (like a good engineer):

• 5276 miles

• 2237 kWh of electricity for charging which cost $213. 1550 kWh used during driving… so about 30% of the electricity used has gone toward other things like the in-efficiency of charging, cabin overheat protection, battery temp management, and sentry mode. Gas Savings - $654 (or $13 per 100 miles…and going up as gas prices continue to climb)

• Longest Drive (without stopping to charge) – 171 miles from State College to Home – 65% battery used (nice downhill help for the first portion of the trip)

• Longest Road Trip – 250 miles – Home to Deep Creek MD. We stopped twice going out and coming back to charge…but we had a Kayak on the top which hurt our efficiency. Charging with a STD outlet while there was better than expected…but you have to basically charge all the time when not driving the car.

• 300 miles pulling a Uhaul trailer (100-120 miles of range depending upon your speed … drafting a Semi makes a huge difference)

• 550 miles with a kayak on the roof (range impact not as bad as I expected…but speed really matters)

• Maintenance Costs - $0

Extra Costs: Home Fast Charging Setup – gas savings for first 5000 miles has basically covered this. I have found this totally worth it to pay for this extra convenience. We changed over to Time of Use electric rates, and my scheduled charges always fall into the 6-hour overnight super cheap rates. This is not possible with a 110V outlet charger…not to mention I have found the 110V slow charging requires about 12% more electricity to add the same amount to the car…for reasons I haven’t figured out. Winter Tires/Rims – I could have saved myself this expense if I would have better understood that the 20” wheels were summer only tires…. Couldn’t find 20” winter tires, so went with a 19” rim and tire… at least I can easily swap them out myself each fall / spring.

Accessories!!! I do this for every car, and this one is no exception. Regrets – NONE. I am never going back to a gas-powered vehicle. I have driven our other cars these past 3 months and I hate it every time.

Mistakes – I cracked the roof glass…. Totally my mistake…. Got a power cable between the glass and the rear hatch, when we were on vacation… didn’t realize it moved on me (the cable wasn't long enough, so I had it going over the top of the car), auto closed it…. And it didn’t sense it had resistance and it just kept going and cracked it. I used a DIY glass repair kit for now which seems to have re-enforced the glass enough…. It is only cracked on the outside, not the inside, so for now, just going to wait and see. Might replace it someday if it gets worse ($1600 from what I have read...ugh).