What does it mean to take a 1,000-mile trip in a Tesla

In a word, easy.

Last weekend, I had the great pleasure of traveling from Ontario to Indianapolis (and coming back) aboard a Tesla Model S. The car belongs to my uncle and when he learned that my cousin Gillian and I had planned a trip by car to Indy to visit our other cousin, he offered us the car.

I've admired this car since it was purchased in 2014. As an early adopter, it can charge its car for free on the Tesla Boost Network, while newer buyers pay $ 5 for a refill, but this Is still a bargain compared to the cost of gasoline. It goes without saying that Gillian and I were happy to forego this expense, as well as the culpability associated with the burning of gas, in order to move from point A to point B, particularly for the purpose of pleasure.

We left Thursday night to go to the compressor in Woodstock, Ontario, and continue on Highway 401 to Comber, a small town with the last compressor before the border crossing at Detroit. We sat in A & W, eating Beyond Burgers and figuring out where we would spend the night. Our search for a hotel in Toledo was of course entirely dictated by the location of the shipper (as were the food choices I also discovered). The next morning, we conveniently plugged our car before breakfast and leave immediately after.

© K Martinko

Friday's conditions were not good. There was snow in the air and the roads were wet, but as the Tesla is very big and heavy, with the battery weighed down, it seemed solid and safe. We took the time to travel to Fort Wayne, where we exchanged an extra charge and spent an hour at Starbucks.

From there we headed for Indianapolis. We could have gone directly to our cousin, but we decided to reload completely so we would not have to go out. A map on the touch screen of the car shows all the chargers in the neighborhood. It has never been difficult to find the closest and compare distances. At one point, the touch screen froze and had to be restarted, but apparently, it is a symptom of age. my uncle said that he will be replaced next year. In the meantime, we used my phone to navigate, but it would have been stressful if this option was not available.

The return trip was quite similar, although we did the whole trip in one day. The weather was much better, but it still took 12 hours door to door, which included about 2.5 hours of charging time at four locations.

All the experience was fascinating. On the one hand, it was like a completely different way of traveling. Having to take a 45-minute break every three hours or so made the journey slower. We were forced to stop in places we would never have done, to search and kill time, stretch our legs and inevitably come back to the car, refreshed. We were both more alert after these breaks and I suspect that if more drivers had to stop for loads, the roads would be a little safer.

On the other hand, the trip did not seem very different from that of a gas car, which makes it so incredible. We did exactly the same trip, traveling at a relatively high speed in a private metal box, without burning a grain of gas. It is mind-boggling to think that it is possible to achieve this type of trip with less environmental damage. Suddenly, internal combustion engines seem terribly obsolete.

© K Martinko – A few times, a charger was not working and we had to try another bay. We never had to wait for a seat, but we usually saw one or two other vehicles.

Being in the Tesla has forced me to drive more consciously. Not only did I think about the next step, but also about the way I drove. I maintained a normal speed on the highway, but I had to keep an eye on watt hours per kilometer. This digital graph, next to the odometer, indicates the speed at which the battery consumes energy to travel a certain distance. If we get too far from the optimal rate of 186 for our ride, it would affect the accuracy of estimating the remaining distance.

What does this number tell us exactly? As my uncle explained, any object traveling in aerial experiments drags, but the drag increases non-linearly. This means that if you go at a certain speed, the friction against you is of a certain amount, but if you double that speed, that friction will more than double – it will quadruple. So when you drive a car, the faster you drive, the worse your efficiency.

© K Martinko – You can see the number of watt hours per km to the right of the odometer, indicating 163.

What I noticed was that maintaining the optimal rate was difficult because it was affected by external factors that I could not control, such as the outside temperature (the batteries provide the most efficient current at 20C / 68F) and the wind direction. Driving from Ontario to Indiana meant that we were heading for the prevailing southwesterly winds, which hindered our efficiency downhill, but improved when we returned home. The speed of movement has an effect, but not as much as I thought. In fact, sometimes I accelerated significantly and the number decreased, but a difference between 100 km / h and 120 km / h was noticeable.

I went home with more appreciation than ever for what Elon Musk did. The car is a remarkable invention and gives the impression of such a complete improvement over gasoline cars that it is hard to imagine anyone considering an ICE if they can afford to pay for electricity. From free or cheap charges to smooth, comfortable ride to engine power (I could easily overtake anyone in seconds), it seems almost too good to be true. Indeed, as my uncle said, "Part of driving a car like this is to believe that it will work," he joked while saying that he it only took him 250,000 kilometers to be truly convinced. He continued:

"It's hard to imagine going into any of these things in slow motion, where moving the car is a side benefit for the buzzing engine. I mean, only 1% of the power of a gas engine is used to move people. "

This trip in a Model S was one of the most optimistic things I've lived in a long time. For a few glorious hours, I was able to believe that maybe our world would not change so drastically and horribly in the near future if we could come up with more ingenious inventions like this one. I realize that electric cars are not a miracle solution, nor should they replace the much-needed transit systems, pedestrian paths and bike paths, but they can help.

© K Martinko – Yes, I was sad to give up!

I am always disappointed that my husband and I had to cancel our deposit on a model 3 due to a higher final price than expected. This dream is even further thanks to the new Ontario premier who is canceling the electric vehicle rebates. But even if we do not have the means to buy a Tesla, I am more than ever assured that our next vehicle will be fully electric. After this trip, it is difficult to imagine that it would be otherwise.