Driving a Tesla Across The Loneliest Road in America

May 10, 2019 11:36 AM

(SLYT) Popular YouTuber CGP Grey (lots of previouslies) found himself in San Francisco with a Tesla and 10 days to go to Moab, Utah and then to Los Angeles. These 51 minutes are the way-more-interesting-than-i-thought-they-could-be highlights.
posted by fjom (21 comments total)

Moab is my pitstop.
posted by howfar at 12:38 PM on May 10, 2019 [4 favorites]

... I liked it (never having bothered looking at or inside of a Tesla before) ...

... But, it was giving me battery/range anxiety... A quarter tank of gas or less remaining would for do the same... But this was "more so"... maybe, because, I am used to software battery indicators "lie" (or are at least horribly optimistic) perhaps?)

And then driving at night, or in snow... I was thinking... how much range is being impacted by the heater? Heck - by the cold weather? By the headlights? Could I even crank my music? How much voltage is being consumed by that giant screen? And... no way would I be charging my laptop off the car battery...

/Am old - I like the idea of fully electric, but I have been in the technology sector for long enough that I don't trust a computer on wheels, especially one that can decide to auto-update when the manufacturer chooses to do so...

But, this was a great video.
posted by jkaczor at 1:00 PM on May 10, 2019 [5 favorites]

I've done trips like this many times (Most similarly LV to Fort Bragg, CA in a day, a few years ago). He's very anxious. Seems like the exact sort of person autopilot should most benefit. He keeps talking about bad decisions, but I just see a normalish road trip with a couple of moderately long days.

I guess the only thing I might have done differently is ensure that you have a enough charge to return to the previous charger in case you have a problem with the next charger. He had a chance to do this at one point, and lucked out, but could have been screwed (and have to wait for the slowest charge) if they didn't have the plug he needed ultimately.

Neat car though.
posted by bonehead at 1:08 PM on May 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

Moab is my pitstop.
posted by howfar

eponysterical
posted by otherchaz at 1:26 PM on May 10, 2019 [2 favorites]

This was an interesting video that reaffirmed by decision not to buy a Tesla. I don't have anywhere to charge it at home and would have to go to a charger, of which there are none within a few miles of me and I like being able to go anywhere. I'd have constant charging anxiety.

When deciding between the Model S and an obnoxious Mojito Green Jeep Rubicon, I went the Rubicon route. No charger anxiety and I can go almost anywhere on road or off. It's the funnest vehicle I've ever owned.

(I should mention at this point that I commute via public transit every day and otherwise live a pretty environmentally clean life except for the weekend Jeep adventures).

The guy is overly nervous. Nothing bad happened on his trip except for a little night driving. He got through it safely as does almost everyone. If he has night blindness issues I can see that being a personal problem, but driving in the dark isn't an objectively bad decision.
posted by mikesch at 1:41 PM on May 10, 2019

I don't have anywhere to charge it at home and would have to go to a charger,

Pretty much everyone who purchases a new EV needs to add $1500 for a home charging station. Otherwise, why bother?

My guess is, since you use public transport for your commute, you either rent and therefore can’t add the charger or own in a sufficiently congested neighborhood that you don’t have a place to add the station?
posted by Big Al 8000 at 1:48 PM on May 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

If so many cities hadn't moved from individual meters to centralized meter systems, they could combine parking meters with EV chargers, so anyone could park and charge on a street—and the city could get some parking revenue to boot.
posted by SansPoint at 1:58 PM on May 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

I would have been very interested in seeing how the autopilot handled snow for example. Seemed a perfect chance to try it out. But he seemed not to have done so.
posted by bonehead at 2:45 PM on May 10, 2019

My guess is, since you use public transport for your commute, you either rent and therefore can’t add the charger or own in a sufficiently congested neighborhood that you don’t have a place to add the station?

I rent and have a landlord who would have no qualms with me adding the charger if I had a dedicated space, but my neighborhood is sufficiently congested that most of the owners don't really have functional driveways/garage spaces so they park on the street as well. Most of the newer apartments here have chargers for residents.

I don't think I'd mind waiting 40 minutes for a full charge at a Supercharger if there were one near me and a coffee shop close by, but the closest one is about 10 miles (and 30 minutes) away.
posted by mikesch at 2:56 PM on May 10, 2019

He thinks the superfluous gadgets will "never get old". He's glad to have a car that's more "computer on wheels". He thinks driving after midnight is terrifying. He lets people overtake on the right. He's not used to snow. He's driving something other than a rusting heap of junk. This guy is the anti-me. And yet, we still have in common that we can enjoy a good road trip. Cars are awesome.
posted by sfenders at 3:55 PM on May 10, 2019 [2 favorites]

I’ve been charging my LEAF at home on 120V; you get ~1.4kW on house outlets so each hour of charging returns 7 miles of in-town range @ 5 miles / kWh.

That’s enough for day-to-day use.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 4:11 PM on May 10, 2019 [2 favorites]

We were part of a pilot program when the LEAFs first rolled out. So we essentially got a blink charger in our garage for free...

It also charges our Tesla. Slowly, but...

As long as nothing goes wrong, and/or you don't have an accident, they are amazing pieces of tech. If it does...

Tesla is super incompetent at being a company, let alone an automobile manufacturer.

That being said, furthest we've tried to road-trip in it is to southern Oregon, (450 miles on the i5 corridor, lots of superchargers).
posted by Windopaene at 4:16 PM on May 10, 2019

Teslas are cool & all, but I live in the Triangle area of North Carolina - there's an estimated 2.2 million people in the area but even if I could afford one, there's one (1) Tesla supercharger in the area. It's also 30 miles away, which if you're lucky is a 45 minute drive. I've never had a landlord/property manager that would be okay with me installing a Powerwall, maybe I could run a 15A extension cord and trickle charge it? Not in a complex, though.
posted by sysinfo at 7:27 PM on May 10, 2019

Who thinks that roads are all lighted up? That seems a weird assumption to make.

And very lucky he wasn't shot at Cisco. Clearly marked signs saying No Trespassing and well why honor that?
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 8:12 PM on May 10, 2019

I'm starting to feel like people saying "EVs work for me, I have a charger and charge at home/I can charge at work" and people saying "EVs won't work for me, I have no place to put a charger/I have too far to drive in a day" might consider letting that all gracefully go; EVs work for some and not for others, just like bikes or buses or scooters or gas cars or pickups or walking, and we'd all get a little further each day if we just enjoyed the fact that there are so many options to choose from, that let us pick something better than whatever we are stuck with when there are no choices.
posted by davejay at 9:01 PM on May 10, 2019 [5 favorites]

One of my communards has a Model S. My experience is that before one buys an electric car, the range is all they can think about. After they buy one they never think about it again. Very occasionally they will be annoyed because they forgot to plug in the car, but it rarely matters much.

It's not like we live next to the Supercharger either. We're up in the mountains. The closest one is more than an hour away in either direction.

One Monday last month, after finding out the launch of the Falcon Heavy had been delayed long enough he could make the trip and still be able to pick up his credentials the day before as required, on a whim he decided to take his daughter to see the launch. They left from the school, a half-hour in the wrong direction. He did not start the trip with a full battery.

The closest he came to having a problem was when he made it to Titusville. There were so many Teslas there he had to ask somebody sitting on the charger to let him get some juice since he was below 10%. The guy let him in since he was there with his daughter for the launch too.

One time they gave him an X as a loner and he towed a trailer over the mountains to Asheville and back. Didn't even take a coat, let alone pack a bag. I have no doubt that if the navigation said there were places to charge, he'd take off down US-50 without even a moment's hesitation.
posted by ob1quixote at 9:59 PM on May 10, 2019 [2 favorites]

We bought a Tesla about two months ago and have gone through the stations of the range and charging anxiety cross, which basically means trading money for convenience, peace of mind and decreased environmental impact. We travel a lot, and at first we got anxious on road trips whenever we dipped below 50 percent and plotted our charging station stops using the most conservative assumptions about range. We carried a giant extension cord in case we needed to run it out the window of our hotel room to the car (never happened). At home, we charged it on the regular 110v service, but we were always dealing with low level anxiety about whether we'd be ready for longer trips if we did a lot of running around the day before, since our closest supercharger is 50 miles away and on the inconvenient side of that city. So we decided to spring for 220, but saved a bunch of money by running the conduit ourselves and paying the electrician just to hook it up at both ends, a trick learned from my brother who did the same with his family's two Volts and new Clarity. Now we're getting additional solar panels to support the car so that we don't have to feel guilty about the source of our electrical power.

Just yesterday the car downloaded an update that now allows the driver to let the auto-pilot determine whether to change lanes without requiring any human input. I can't imagine how freaked out that feature would make this guy. He's right about the fabulous acceleration though; it really does throw you back in your seat, and it's as smooth as turning the rheostat on your dining room chandelier.
posted by carmicha at 6:48 AM on May 11, 2019 [4 favorites]

And now I want to take a road trip. Moab was a frequent choice, 30 years ago, before jobs and kids and cities and too many responsibilities. Dry, red dust blowing in the uncaring desert, no expectations.

Thanks for the post.
posted by cowcowgrasstree at 8:36 AM on May 11, 2019

Also, I take a summer road trip the last few years, from Seattle to Atlanta and back. Not in my tesla, but...

Moab has become a frequent stop. A day spent hiking at Arches is always a day well spent.
posted by Windopaene at 11:15 AM on May 11, 2019 [2 favorites]

Tims of MeFi unite?
posted by phlyingpenguin at 3:34 PM on May 11, 2019 [2 favorites]

Yes he was anxious....probably because it was just about the first time he had driven a car in 8 years after having been in a traumatic car accident.

Taking a Tesla on long desolate roads without any Superchargers is quite the way to get over your fears!

To Big Al 8000: Tesla cars come with a 240V charger, so you don't need to spend any money on another charger, though you may need to have a 240V plug installed. CGP Grey uses that charger at the RV stations.
posted by eye of newt at 10:00 PM on May 11, 2019 [4 favorites]