Tesla road trip 2018

Written on 1 September 2018, 11:53am

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Here are a few notes on the road trip I recently took through the Central Europe with my Tesla Model S 75D.

The route along with the superchargers data points
The trip segments – 2992 km in total
  • The Tesla superchargers infrastructure is ready to support road trips through the Central Europe (Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, France, Luxembourg)
  • Free supercharging is awesome 🙂
  • In order to avoid waiting times to pay road tolls, I highly recommend alternatives like this 
  • Trip segments longer than 2-2.5 hours are really difficult to manage for families with kids, which makes it perfect for stopping and re-charging
  • The Supercharger locations are really nice. Ranging from nice hotels to commercial centers, they completely change your long trip experience (no more crowded and dirty toilets in gas stations)
  • Supercharging is really fast. It happened several times that the car had to charge more than needed to continue because we were not ready
  • The Superchargers are conveniently located along the highway. 5 to 10 minutes is the average detour
  • The Superchargers are not clearly marked, and that’s one of the few annoying bits. The Tesla navigation brings you in front of the hotel / commercial center, but I only saw indication panels on few locations. Maybe it’s on purpose to avoid non-EV to occupy the space?
  • Still on negative points: the Arlon supercharger was marked as ‘Reduced capacity’, making it unclear if I should use it or not. Fortunately a phone call to the hotel cleared things up
  • Charging your car on top of the Grossglocker road is awesome
  • Seeing your range increase when you come down the mountain is  satisfying
  • The luggage load does not have a big impact on the autonomy. But going 170km/h in Germany certainly does 😀
Charging at 2369 meters, on top of the road offering a view to the spectacular Grossglockner peak
After coming down the mountain – negative consumption for 42 kilometers!

Overall, I was really impressed with the trip. I had to spend more time planning, but I enjoyed a completely changed road trip experience, with smooth and silent driving and no range anxiety.
The future of transportation is here, and I am happy to be part of it!

Tuscany sunset

PS: In case you plan to order a Tesla, you can use my referral code … 

8 December 2018: scratch that. I cannot recommend buying a Tesla. Not for the moment at least.

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