Photo: Tesla
Any electric vehicle owner has at some point wondered if they’d have enough range for a longer distance trip. The most important questions that arise are: Is there enough infrastructure for charging, and how convenient will it be to stop and recharge? Mike Olson, interested in these questions, took a 3,857-mile drive in his refreshed Tesla Model S to visit eight U.S. national parks for a real-life experience. The trip took place three months ago.
Overall, Olson is very pleased with the results, especially considering that significant savings were achieved compared to driving a petrol car. He said that there are many Tesla Superchargers on major highways. The car's navigation system will itself schedule recharging stops on long journeys, or the owner can determine when they’re likely to need bathroom and meal breaks, choosing recharge stops as desired.
Olson notes that typically he stopped for about 45 minutes to recharge the car every 3 or 4 hours. Also, many hotels have slow chargers in their parking lots, so it was convenient to stop there for an overnight stay, and the car simply charged overnight. Another nice thing is that the “destination” chargers at hotels are usually free of charge, so this brought in further savings.
In addition to long-distance travel in the Tesla being comfortable, Olson was also impressed with the financial side. An estimated $330.70 was spent charging on the road. This means that the car was able to drive 11.7 miles for every dollar spent. Driving past gas stations, Olson noticed that the modal price of a gallon on that trip was $3.50 or so. Thus, Olson got the equivalent of 40.8 mpg on the trip in his comfortable Model S sedan. As of the end of November, the average price for a gallon of gas in California is $4.71. At this price, it would equate 54.9 mpg. Furthermore, the costs of maintaining a Tesla electric car are much lower, since there is no internal combustion engine or transmission to maintain.
© 2021, Eva Fox | Tesmanian. All rights reserved.
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Article edited by @SmokeyShorts, you can follow him on Twitter
About the Author
Eva Fox
Eva Fox joined Tesmanian in 2019 to cover breaking news as an automotive journalist. The main topics that she covers are clean energy and electric vehicles. As a journalist, Eva is specialized in Tesla and topics related to the work and development of the company.
