Tesla Chronicles #50 - Solar Eclipse 2024 Trip to FLX

We decided about a year ago that we were going to take advantage of the timing and location of the 2024 Solar Eclipse to use it as an excuse to take a nice long weekend vacation in one of our favorite locations, the FLX (that is the Finger Lakes region in central NY for those that don’t know.). We no longer think twice about taking our ‘21 Tesla Model Y LR everywhere, so of course we loaded it up and got on our way Friday morning (April 5th).

So to summarize up front, we had no issues once again on this trip, but for this Solar Eclipse, there have been many cases of EV owners having to wait an hour or longer at EV charging stations that were in the path of totality. Unfortunately, the US EV charging infrastructure is barely sized enough to meet the increased weekend demand in some locations. To complicate matters even more, many individuals chose to drive their EVs into somewhat remote areas that already have minimal EV chargers anyway. Case in point, there were reports of ridiculously long lines at the Plattsburgh, NY Tesla site on the day of the eclipse (https://youtu.be/LCvB476Cj5Q?si=smqHSfMw6XyvrjkE). I am actually going to blame the EV drivers in some of these situations. In many cases, these drivers should have done a better job planning their charging on their way into the region to ensure they had plenty of charge to get back out without needing to use the one and only Supercharger in the region. Some people are going to tell me that "they shouldn't have to plan", but sorry, we just aren't there yet. In fact, I know many people that took their ICE vehicles into the path of totality with at least 5 gallons of gas in a spare tank in anticipation that gas stations would have long lines or worse, out of gas. They planned ahead, and so should EV drivers.

In some situations, the infrastructure could have also been better. The chargers in Plattsburgh are the old 150 kw chargers, which means drivers would need more time on the chargers, making the line even worse. Tesla and others could have attempted to bring in temporary (mobile) EV charging infrastructure (usually run by generators). As a minimum, they could have placed employees at sites for the purpose of managing the queues that were inevitable.

Thankfully, we thought about all of this in advanced and decided that if we were taking an EV into the path of the Eclipse, we would only do that if we could do it over several days and not as a day trip. As such, we had the opportunity to charge up our cars at our AirBnB if we could or at local L2 chargers or the one DCFC charger in Geneva (which I have yet to test out) the day before such that we could depart the region with nearly full batteries, and wouldn't need to charge until we got far enough away from the path, with the hope that the fullness of the chargers would reduce the further from the path you traveled.

The wrinkle for this trip? We were making the journey from SE PA through the west side of Harrisburg (to grab a family member), and up through Williamsport and Corning to our rental location on Seneca Lake just a few miles south of Geneva NY. 318 miles in total plus another 16 miles to go grab dinner after we unloaded. Bonus, just before the trip, I was able to download FSD 12! Our kids took the more direct route in my daughter’s '22 Model 3 LR from SE PA up the NE extension and I-81 several hours after we left.

Neither one of us had any issues with chargers or contested chargers on the way north on Friday. Sadly, there is still a big shortage of DCFC chargers once you get north of Binghamton. Ithaca is an option, but has 8 of the old 150kw chargers that are always packed, so 70-75kw max there on most days can be expected. Both of us planned on getting a deep charging stop at the last possible location such that we could arrive with maximum SOC at our rental since it didn't have any 240V outlets or L2 Charging onsite. The ideal road trips ends at a destination where you can plan on arriving with a nearly empty battery, but if you look at the pictures of the rental property, you can see why we chose the property despite not having L2 charging. We do this frequently when going home or any location that we know we'll have easy access to DCFC or L2 chargers. Unfortunately, our rental didn't fall into that category and as such, a journey to a destination like this is going to add about 20 minutes to your trip at the last charger. Our Air BnB rental did have two 120V outlets that we used to basically replenish what we used while there, but needed to make sure we arrived with more than 30%. Both cars were on the plug there for a total of 72 hours and added the rough equivalent of 125% of the battery while there (about 88 kwh)

For us, coming up through the center part of the state, presented an interesting “challenge”. Once you get north of Harrisburg on HW-15, there are currently no DCFC chargers until you get to Williamsport. That stop was about 190 miles into our journey. On a good weather day, we probably could have made it there if we left home with 100%, but conditions were not perfect. Not only did we have a fully loaded vehicle with 3 adults and food for 7 for 4-5 days, we had rain, sleet, and snow with temps in the upper 30’s and low 40’s. This means we had to make our first stop on the East side of Harrisburg at a non-optimal 50% SOC. We added 18% there in the 9 minutes it took us to walk to the restroom and back, unplugged and got on our way. We then made the short trip from there to pick up a family member where we added another 5% using their NEMA 14-50 outlet and my Tesla Travel EVSE while loading up the car. We ended up using 109% to get to Williamsport from home, so that 25% was very needed. But... good news... Sometime later this year, a new Supercharger is being installed in Selingsgrove, PA, a spot just a little more than half way between Harrisburg and Williamsport, which would allow us to do this same trip in the future with only two stops, maybe even one if we rent a house or stay at one of the few hotels that have Level 1 charging.

After grabbing lunch and a 30 minute charge (mostly because we had to wait that long for Wendy’s, not because we needed that much of a charge), we plotted our course to our next planned stop in Corning, NY, only 76 miles away. For reasons that I cannot explain, there are two additional Tesla charging locations between Williamsport and Corning (at Trout Run and Mansfield) despite being in some of the remotest areas of the state (this is the way things need to be by the way, a charger every 20-30 miles no matter where you are!).

Our third and final charging stop of the day in Corning NY was uneventful. Although the chargers there are only 150 kw max, we managed to get one that wasn’t shared (even though it was pretty full) and charged from 37-80% in 24 minutes. If it would have been a 250 kw charger, it may have only saved us a minute or two because we arrived at such a high SOC. We stayed longer than we really needed to (until 80%) which allowed us to drive the next 52 miles which used 25% to arrive with 55% at our rental.

Over the next 5 days and 4 nights, we drove another 190 miles or so locally, and every second we were not driving, we had the cars plugged into the L1 charger. By doing so, I managed to nurse the Model Y up to nearly 100% SOC before our departure on Tuesday morning. We had a 15 amp max (12 AMP continuous) and 20 amp max (16 AMP continuous) outlet to utilize so we moved the cars back and forth between the two depending on which one needed more energy.

My daughter ended up arriving at 30% but due to the better spacing of chargers, they managed to do that with only two stops. Unfortunately, she did a bit more driving locally and could only got to 80% before her departure on Monday afternoon. This is important for two reasons. They left within an hour of the eclipse being over, which means that the closer to the area of totality you were, the more crowded the roads, and by extension, the superchargers were going to be. They had a minor issue in Binghamton where they had to wait about 5 minutes or so for a charger to open up. If they would have had 100%, there is a chance they could have skipped that stop and made it all the way to the first charger in PA near Scranton, which would have not been full. After that, they had smooth sailing and no issues at their second stop at the Hickory Run turnpike rest stop.

Our return drive on Tuesday was nothing spectacular to report. Charging stops at Mansfield (only 4 chargers there) was fine despite 2 of 4 being ICEd when we arrived (gave a clueless woman an education on not parking in EV parking spaces). We had lunch in Williamsport again for a longer stop (Wendy's again!). We got one of the last charging spots but had a great charge there because the site is a V3 (250 kw stalls with power sharing across the site). We unplugged before we were even done eating our food so that others that were waiting could jump in and charge. Our final stop of the day after dropping family off back at their home, was at the Denver PA restop on the PA TP. 2 minutes to add 13%. I was projecting roughly 0% on arrival at home and was thinking about trying it, but the wife wasn't exactly on board with that plan. We had one place we could have bailed out close to home if we thought we weren't going to make it, but it is hard to pass up this stop as it literally takes 30 seconds to get off the HW to plug-in.

Trip Data:

https://www.teslafi.com/sharedRT.php?roadtrip=kI2VSRRPgtA4Ldo