Tesla Chronicles #16 - Road Trip to FL

(Posted to Facebook 4/9/2022)

We just came back from a round trip from SE PA to Walt Disney World (via I-81 / Harrisonburg to pick up my niece) in the Tesla. The trip went very well from an EV perspective. It rained cats and dogs on our return drive so that wasn’t fun at all. I’ll attach photos of the data from the drive.

Having an EV added about 60-90 minutes to the drive each way based on how we like to travel. Other people would say the impact was closer to double that. We generally stop often to use the bathroom, stretch our legs, and grab meals. We managed to time our charging stops well with these breaks along the way. Other families prefer fewer and faster stops and eating in the car, etc. For those people, an EV on a long road trip is going to “slow you down”.

The drive was generally 10% longer than I expected it would be, not because of charging stops, but because I over estimated how fast we would be able to drive between stops. Doing 10 mph over the speed limit was just not possible most of the way due to traffic volume (trucks mostly in left lanes doing the actual speed limit).

We had one leg where I was pushing our speed to make up some time, and as I did, I watched our estimated charge % at our next charging stop drop from 8% down to 1%…. But we only had about 30 miles left when this happened, so I slowed down a little a drafted behind some trucks and arrived with 5% I think. For those with range anxiety or if you are ever in an EV and think getting to the next stop might be an issue…. Draft and slow down….you will use 50% less power.

We had a free charger at our resort that we really only needed on the last day to get a full charge before we left. Hotels along the way didn’t have destination chargers or they were blocked by idiots in gas cars (bummer). That would have saved us a little time (and $) but not much.

The travel charge fees totaled about $230… which is about the equivalent of driving a car that gets 50mpg with current gas prices.