I got back driving solo from Washington to my parent’s house in Iowa. The total drive was almost 4,000 miles, and I really enjoyed it. I’ve wanted to take a road trip with the car since I bought it, both because I like road trips and I wanted to test what the experience was in the Tesla.

The short version: awesome.

I Promise I Had a Plan

Initially I thought I’d have to plan every stop, but as I drove I realized I didn’t need to. There were two main websites that I used to plan the trip. Tesla’s Trip Planner, and A Better Route Planner. Tesla’s website gives a good idea of how frequently you’d need to stop. A Better Route Planner shows competing chargers, and also includes ones that are at hotels.

I was thinking I’d Supercharge during the day, and charge at a hotel overnight. I also had a backup CHAdeMO adapter (man that’s a dumb name and spelling). In the end, I didn’t need to overthink the journey, because I only did Supercharging. Specifically stopping at a hotel that would let you plug in didn’t really work, because they were difficult to find, more expensive, and inconvenient. It was easier to plan around Supercharging and find a hotel when I got tired. My hotel in Iowa City (The Graduate, which is awesome) did have an overnight (and free!) charger in the garage, so that was a nice bonus.

My parents live in very remote Iowa, but I could pull an extension cord from their house and trickle charge. Since I was there for a couple days it didn’t matter if it literally took 48 hours to finish. It’s one of the cool things about an electric car - it charges in the garage while you’re sleeping.

Driving and Charging and Driving and Charging

I love driving this car. It’s fun, zippy, quiet, comfortable, and the autopilot is amazing. I went out via the north route through Minneapolis, and came back through Nebraska and Wyoming. I went a different route because I wanted to see more of the country, but I always forget that however long and flat you think Nebraska is, it’s actually 3 times longer.

I tended to have pit stops at supercharger stations. The car’s navigation will give you a route that includes all the Supercharger stops you’ll need, and tells you how long to charge at each one. I wouldn’t classify the supercharging stops as long, but I would call them “Longer than a pee, shorter than a meal.” It was usually nice to stretch my legs a bit and walk around, but plenty of people just sit there and zonk out or watch Netflix while they’re waiting. Most of the superchargers are near a gas station or Target, but some of them were more desolate and clearly positioned because they needed to be every 125 miles or so. My car goes 300 miles on a charge, and I think the closest I ever came to running out of go-juice was when I rolled into the supercharger in Billings, MT with 5% battery.

I probably drove 95% of this trip on autopilot, and it’s so nice. It basically only needed to be overridden in extremely minor ways, like construction zones. I have it set to recommend lane changes but not perform them automatically, and that works well for my style of driving. There’s really no comparison to driving with and without autopilot, as it removes so much micromanagement driving stress.

Safe and Secure in COVID

After six months of working from home, I was ready to travel. Hotels seem like they’ve got a good plan for enhanced cleaning and felt pretty safe in most circumstances. While I was making plans to see her, my sister’s whole family tested positive for Covid. I stopped by with a care package and waved through the glass, 2020 style. Her family is fine and has recovered.

The Country Gets Flat

Making the video was fun. I like how it turned out, and was trying to show how the landscape changed from the mountainous west coast to the midwest plains. I now have so many pictures of superchargers I could make them their own page.