Charging while on vacation

[Xray]

We are in the process of planning a week long vacation to Asheville, NC with hopefully the 3 to be delivered soon. Unfortunately, the place we are staying does not have any charging available. We probably have to plan to be able drive around 30 to 45 miles a day, and I am not excited about parking the new vehicle at some random lot overnight.

Any thoughts on how to deal with charging during the week? I'm not too excited about supercharging such a fresh new battery, but that seems like the only viable option at some point in time during the week.

Excited to be a part of the revolution soon... but it does create an interesting dilemma. The electric motors should eat the mountains at least. And, hopefully I'll get enough regen on the way back to not have to leave with a full charge!

 

[blue thunder]

What’s wrong with supercharging a new battery? Never heard of that concern

 

[Frank99]

I agree with Blue Thunder. I took my car to the Supercharger the very first day, just to understand how it all worked. Supercharging is a feature of the car; don't be afraid to use it. Remember that charging when nearly empty is much, much faster than when nearly full, so if I were you I'd run the car down to 40-50 miles of range remaining before hitting the supercharger again - that's mostly to make it more convenient for you.

 

[Dangermouse]

There’s a supercharger in Asheville too, so it’s a good chance to try it out

 

[PNWmisty]

We are in the process of planning a week long vacation to Asheville, NC with hopefully the 3 to be delivered soon. Unfortunately, the place we are staying does not have any charging available. We probably have to plan to be able drive around 30 to 45 miles a day, and I am not excited about parking the new vehicle at some random lot overnight.

Are you staying somewhere without electricity? Even a lowly 15 amp 120V outlet will give you about 4 miles per hour. So if you are plugged in at least 10 hours/night you should be able to maintain your level of charge just fine during your week-long stay. Please be aware that most 120V extension cords are not designed for EV charging and could get warm. I found a nice heavy gauge extension cord at a marine supply store just for such purposes. It works a lot better than the standard orange ext. cords I bought for use with power tools. It doesn't get warm and only cost about $26 for 50 feet.

 

[SoFlaModel3]

Download the ChargePoint app and see if there are any around the area.

 

[bradkeller]

Hi. I'm currently on vacation, and picked up my Model 3 exactly one week before leaving. Here's how I solved the problem.

First, set the charging level at 100% for the vacation. The car will yell at you, but for a week or two a year won't make much difference in the long run.

Second, make sure that the superchargers on your route are working. I stopped by one and all four were out of service. Luckily I had enough charge to get to the next supercharger, but if I hadn't planned well, I would have been up a creek. You can supposedly get supercharger status from the car's nav system, but in my case that didn't work. So you can call ‭+1 (877) 798-3752‬ and they'll give you status on any superchargers on your route.

Third, plug into a level one charger at your destination, as PNWmisty suggested. That will give you some charge, and will be enough in most cases.

Fourth, in my case, I couldn't do level 1 charging where I'm staying, and the nearest supercharger is about a 2-hour round trip (including charging). So I looked at all of the apps I've downloaded over the recent months to see if there were any hidden chargers nearby. (Not all charging apps have the same data; there's a lot of overlap, but they're not the same.) I found that plugshare had a ton of charging options in my area that the others didn't have. And one of them is a local Public Library. So I've been taking my car there to charge overnight every few days, and it's been fine. I've also learned the local bus system, and it costs me all of $3 to get to and from my car. The whole process takes about an hour (of travel), because I'm charging while I'm sleeping. I drop off the car around 10 and pick it up around 8AM, and as soon as I wake up, I can see on my app that it's still there and what the charging status is.

I know all of this won't necessarily help, but wanted to share my ideas in case some of them help you figure it out.