First Tesla Roadtrip

Over the course of two days we went from Los Angeles to Tucson and onto Las Cruces. It was the first foray into electric road tripping and went generally well. Stopping more frequently and for longer durations meant we had some time to rest and eat. Overall we found the trip to be less tiring.

However, we had a couple of things go wrong to make it feel like an adventure. On day 1 we had the car charged to the max and stopped 3 times during the journey. The last stop had us waiting a little while for an open stall at a supercharger. Luckily it was only about 5 minutes but there were 2 others in front of us. Then on day 2 we had the perfect plan. The car was around half charged so we planned to stop on the south side of Tucson and get a charge. From there we had tickets to see some caverns around lunch time. There were plenty of open spots at the charger but only 2-5 minutes in there were some loud noises nearby. There were some huge sparks and crackles. You can imagine that we just witnessed the power going out. So no charging for us and no telling when it would be restored. We couldn’t make it to the caves and to another charger with what we had onboard. So after a bit of a debate we decided to just drive to the next supercharger. We gave a nice donation to that park.

Driving to the next supercharger was a little stressful because the estimate to get there left us at 7% charge. Elise drove and used the cruise control most of the leg. I was getting anxious in the passenger seat as we continued along. Tesla is pretty optimistic with its range estimate because we started a 60-ish mile leg with over 110 miles of range but made it to the charger with only 27 miles remaining. A close call but we made it!

The rest of the trip was smooth, no issues to Las Cruces.