We chose hotels with chargers (by checking PlugShare), but these hotels were in the towns we wanted to stop in, so we didn’t have to go out of our way to find these overnight charges.Įach overnight charge was “free,” insofar as it was included with the hotel, and it was nice to leave in the morning with a 100% charge (rather than ~80% which is the usual state of charge to leave a supercharger at).
Charging is available, fast, and pleasantĬharging was never a problem during our electric roadtrip. The coastal route would have added about two hours (of driving, not charging), along with sightseeing time, and we had a dinner to get to – though charging in Bandon and Lincoln City on the coast would have been just about as easy as our charges in Grant’s Pass and Harrisburg were. Unfortunately we had to end our side-route adventure the next day, turning in through the mountains towards Grant’s Pass, due to the time loss associated with our medical adventure. We thought that was odd, since at no point on the trip did we feel restricted by charging concerns (and we did see other EVs, but maybe not as many as we saw on the main roads or near the cities). At one stop, a man in a truck remarked, “You’re the first Tesla I’ve seen in four days,” presumably suggesting that Teslas mostly stick to the main roads and don’t get out to the more empty regions. We continued on and drove through the Avenue of the Giants, an area of coastal redwoods, the tallest trees in the world, which were breathtaking to behold and only made better by the silence of driving with electric propulsion. The car’s ultrasonic sensors were not happy with me for this
After a couple hours through mountains and trees, we got to Fort Bragg, which along with urgent care facilities, also had a supercharger despite being quite far from anything that might be considered a main road. Turns out there’s no urgent care in Williams, CA, so off we went on twisty roads towards the coast. Restaurants near the Tejon Ranch charger Say “take me to Portland”and the car shows you thisĮverything was straightforward until the second morning of the trip, where right before setting out towards the coast from Williams, CA, I sustained an injury which needed urgent care (I won’t bore you with the details of how badly my insurance company, Oscar, dealt with the situation, but they deserve mention for being unhelpful). And if you’re new to this whole thing, you can ask the car to route you to your destination, and it will tell you where to charge and for how long (you can modify the plan, if you’d like, and we usually did). In the car’s navigation system, it’s easy to pull up a list of chargers, see what services exist at each stop, and search the map nearby for restaurants, hotels, bathrooms, and so on. We didn’t plan our route ahead around charger availability, merely left in the morning and charged where we wanted to, once we got hungry or needed to take a driving break. Most chargers are along main routes which see the most traffic – smaller routes have fewer chargers, or slower ones, or don’t have any at all. It has been said many times that electric roadtrips are doable, as long as you stick to the plan and don’t deviate at all. In other words, time spent charging that would have otherwise been spent driving if we weren’t charging. If we were getting a meal, that was “free” charging time, since we need to eat anyway. Both of us have plenty of experience driving and charging electric cars, though this is the longest electric roadtrip I personally have been on.Īnd that 25 minute number – that counts the amount of time spent waiting for charging and doing nothing else productive.
#Zombie highway 2 problems drivers#
We had two drivers in the car, along with luggage for three, and didn’t bother to plan the route ahead of time, except for the goal of getting a little time on the Northern California/Oregon coast and seeing some coastal redwoods along the way.
The roadtrip included a mixture of heavy driving days on interstates and lighter days on state routes with side routes and sightseeing. Though I typically do enjoy those sorts of details, I didn’t actually think to keep track of any of them during this trip, since they’re all sort of unnecessary at this point, because electric roadtrips are easy. There are many travelogues and YouTube channels that go into deep analyses of efficiency and charging speed, with lots of detail on how exactly to plan an electric roadtrip. The total distance was around 2,200 miles, with the bulk of the driving happening over the course of five days (three up, two down), and I only “spent” about 25 minutes waiting for the car to charge, total, over the whole trip. Recently I drove a Tesla Model 3 on an electric roadtrip from Southern California to Portland and back.
0 kommentar(er)
