First Model 3 Road Trip Recap/Review

My baby…

I received my beautiful blue Tesla Model 3 (I named her Bullet the Blue Sky) on My 30, 2018. I took it for an extensive hub and spoke road trip starting on June 18th as my niece from Michigan came out to visit and so sight seeing with her and my son was on the agenda. The trip encompassed:

• A one day trip between Roseville, CA and San Francisco, CA for sight seeing.
• A two day trip from Roseville, CA to Santa Cruz, CA (beach boardwalk), then down to Monterey, CA for the night, (next day visiting the Monterey Bay Aquarium), then back to Roseville, CA.
• A one day trip between Roseville, CA and South Lake Tahoe to do some hiking and/or a Waverunner on the lake.

This trip was going to involve usage of Tesla superchargers for the first time. Prior to the trip, I charged at home except for a brief test at a local mall to make sure I knew how to use the superchargers (it was easy, duh!) I also did one other test at another area in Roseville, where I attempted to use a ChargePoint station and the adapter supplied with my Model 3, which failed spectacularly (adapter didn’t fit), and thus convinced me to not even bother trying anything but the SuperChargers.

First Trip (San Francisco)

For the first trip to San Francisco, I charged up to 90% full at home the night before. I decided not to go full 100% charge because I felt there was a decent chance I might have to charge anyway (depending on how much traffic I hit, how “aggressively” I drove, and how much of the air conditioner I used). So, I decided I might as well keep the battery as “healthy” as possible, and not use the “trip” mode of filling to 100%.

This trip was fantastic. It got me very familiar with EAP (enhanced auto pilot for all you non-Tesla normals out there). I found that EAP works great in two scenarios — one, when traffic is moving nicely (such that you aren’t passing many cars to the left or right and they aren’t passing you), and in full-on stop-and go, where you are just inching along. I decided I couldn’t trust EAP if I was in the carpool lane and the lane to the right of me was mostly stopped. This isn’t so much that I think EAP is going to somehow throw me into the mostly stopped cars in the next lane, but rather that a lifetime of defensive driving has taught me to not trust the other meat popsicles driving in the lanes next to me. I began to feel like EAP was only truly concerned about what was directly in front of me, and it didn’t make me feel like it was paying that much attention to a driver in a side lane doing something stupid.

Anyway, the drive into SF was nice and uneventful. I felt more relaxed on that drive thanks to EAP. While I was still paying attention to the road at all times, not having to constantly adjust within the lane by steering and using my feet to control acceleration/deceleration made me feel “fresher” by the time I was done.

The final bonus was I decided to park in a garage with valet parking, and the garage knew exactly how to deal with a Model 3. I know these garages have been parking Model S and X’s for a while, but I think the 3 is different in how it does valet (no key fob), so seeing that they were already completely familiar with what to do was a pleasant surprise.

On the way back from SF, I kept checking the car’s estimate for range, and it was telling me that I would arrive home with about 7% left on my battery. This was enough to induce some minor range anxiety. It clearly should be enough to get me home, but priot to the trip I decided to treat 10% as if I’m on the “E” in a gas car, and given that there are not nearly enough superchargers in the Sacramento area, I decided to stop in Fairfield at the Solano mall to do a quick charge. I wasn’t looking for a full charge, but just something that would reduce my anxiety — say, just long enough to add 50 miles or so of range.

To my pleasant surprise, the chargers at the Solano mall are right near the mall’s food court, so we took advantage of that to run in and grab a drink and stretch our legs. That made for a nice break of about 20 minutes, which gave my car about 100 miles of range (something like 89 miles to just under 200). This is clearly not as quick as “fill-er-up” at a gas station, but I found that I actually preferred a slightly longer break. My previous car was a Toyota Prius, and I could go down to Santa Cruz and back on a single tank (I’ve done as much as 470 miles on 10.5 gallons), and I’m thinking that this actually isn’t all that great in hindsight. Sure, you get where you are going quicker by not having to stop as often, but I think being cooped up in a car that long is actually more exhausting than just taking a short break.

Second Trip (Santa Cruz, Monterey Overnighter)

For the second trip, I already knew I wouldn’t be able to do a full round trip on a single charge and would have to charge up in Monterey. As such, I again saw no reason to put the car into “trip mode”, but this time I debated it a lot longer. This was because while I knew I could make it to Santa Cruz with no problems, there are no Superchargers in Santa Cruz — I’d have to either stop before going over Hwy 17, or make it all the way to Monterey before charging. But, I figured I’d play it by ear and see what happened — if it looked like i was using more energy than I would like, I’d stop somewhere in the south bay (extensive chargers there!)

Once again, EAP was awesome. It could just be psychological, but I feel like EAP gets better the more I use it. As before, I didn’t use it when there is too much passing of cars going on (stupid meat popsicles), but I also found I just didn’t like using EAP when there is a narrow shoulder. There are places on I-680 where the HOV lane has maybe 12 to 18 inches between the yellow line and the concrete divider, and I just didn’t feel comfortable trusting EAP there. As the road curves to the right and the concrete barrier becomes ever “bigger” in your front view, I just felt more comfortable being at the wheel. This is not an knock on EAP, it’s just a “I learned to drive this way, so I’m taking the wheel and you kids can get off my damn lawn”.

It was a pretty warm morning, and with three people in the car, you pretty much had to run at least the vent all the time, and I found we were using the AC pretty quickly. This meant I was using more energy than I would have liked. Having never having gone up a hill like Hwy 17 before in the Tesla, I just wasn’t sure how much energy that would take, and very unsure how much I’d regenerate going back down the mountain. And again, there are no superchargers in Santa Cruz or in Scotts Valley!

As luck would have it, fate intervened. My niece had to go to the bathroom (early teen girl bladders, FTW) so I had to stop somewhere. I ended up stopping at the Tesla factory to use their superchargers. I’d never been there before (just drove past on I-880), but is sure looked like it was humming with new cars spewing out of all the factory orifices. I again didn’t want to charge to a full charge, just enough to make sure that I felt safe getting all the way into Monterey without severe anxiety. I pulled in with 134 miles of range left, and we left at 205 miles of range. I also took the opportunity to sit inside an S that was on the showroom floor, and, uh… I’m not sure I would actually want one. They seem awfully big to me now that I’ve had my 3, and I have grown to love the extreme minimalism of the 3’s dash. The S looked “busy” to me, lol. (Note, if somebody were to offer me a P100D as a free gift, I would happily toss my 3 aside… I’m just saying that in spending my own money, I think I like the 3 better).

Tesla Factory Store reception area — “Tesla Blend” coffee. I don’t drink coffee, so no matter how good it is, I would have hated it.

With range anxiety averted and bladders freshly emptied, we headed back out. I was so eager to hit Hwy 17 with this car to see how it performed, and it… was… a… dream. I loved how quickly it accelerated uphill, I loved how it handled. I just… god I love this car. Now, to be fair, I’ve driven on 17 a lot in my past, and the cars I drove on it were a 1998 Saturn station wagon, a 2008 Prius, and occasionally a 2003 Pontiac Montana mini-van, so It’s not like I have extensive experience on this hill with a nice car. But… I don’t care. The 3 was great. I had such a grin on my face going up and down that hill.

We had a great day at the Beach Boardwalk, and I turned on the climate control on the car from my phone before walking back to the car so it was nice and comfortable when we got inside. Holy hell I love that feature. No more getting into a 120 degree F car after going somewhere. Yes, yes, yes! The kids got burned out on the rides by 3:30pm, and so we decided to just head on down to Monterey. Anybody who lives in Santa Cruz/Watsonville knows what Hwy 1 is like starting at about 4pm, so… yeah. Bumper to bumper. But this is again where the EAP was amaze-balls. You just let it do it’s thing during stop and go, and you are so not exhausted. Clearly, you don’t want to be in bumper-to-bumper traffic, and I wouldn’t go out looking for bumper-to-bumper traffic, but man, if you have no choice but to be stuck in it, praise the gods for how EAP works in it.

Once we got to Monterey, I decided to charge up after we checked into the hotel so that we would be all full when hitting the aquarium, and could just head back for home. I decided to go to the Tesla store in Marina as it was closest to the hotel we were staying at. This was a little disappointing because the Tesla store there isn’t super close to food and drink, and also, it was 8:30pm, so the store was closed. I was pretty much stuck being in the car or standing outside of it during the charge cycle.

I also decided to go full on “trip” mode for the battery. The reason for doing this was looking at where the Superchargers are. While there are plenty in the I-680 to I-80 corridor, that would mean driving back home through the bay, and most likely hitting rush hour traffic. I decided I wanted to go inland and take I-5 up and… well… there just aren’t many places to charge on I-5. There’s Hollister, and then Tracy (where I-5/I-580/I-205 meet), and then not again until you hit Sacramento. Tesla predicted I should be able to make it back to my house with about 10% battery without needing to charge up, but… well… I wanted to see if I could make it all the way home without charging again, so I decided to let it go to max.

This of course took a bit longer to charge, but no big deal. What I had forgot to consider was that when you do this, regen braking is limited, so suddenly I had a car where I needed to use the brakes and not “1-pedal” it. I had yet to experience driving the 3 on a 100% full battery, so it was kind of spooky to feel the car “coast” and not automatically regen. Not that it was hard to get used to or anything, it was just different.

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