We picked up our Tesla Model Y Long Range April 19th 2022 and have now driven it over 67000 miles in 2 years. This is not a very typical use pattern for people driving over 30000 miles per year. We have been on several long road trips staying in hotels, AirBNB, and tent. Travelling long distance means in most cases leaving your home charging station behind and relying on public DC chargers. The Google Maps below has both the RV location (Red) and DC Fast Charging (Blue).
Overall has the car been charged 24.6 MWh, 68% of the charging has been DC Fast Chargers for a price of $6210. AC charging is possible on road trips, but for longer distance driving is the only option to DC Fast Charge during the drive. We have the Tesla CSS Adapter and can use other charging networks. 91.5% has been using the Tesla Supercharger network that is the easiest and most convenient.
When we use other charging networks is it mainly to fill the caps between Tesla Superchargers. The Prescott and Williams EA has been very useful when driving to Flagstaff from Salome.
Our latest Road trip was 7300 miles and included skiing in Big Sky, MT, Banff, AB (Lake Louise, Sunshine and Norgay), Steamboat, CO and Copper Mountain, CO. Then we went to the Solar Eclipse in Arkansas and Big Bend National Park in Texas.
We charged a lot of places during the trip as the map below shows. We crossed the Navajo reservation and Wyoming that both required us to stay at a hotel with overnight charging. But the hotels worked out well for the driving.
The full trip of 7300 miles ended up costing $721 for the 2022 kWh we charged. For that price is it not possible to fly any part of this trip and we would need a rental car for seeing anything. We spent many days driving and enjoying scenery, The first part of the trip from Salome, Arizona to Banff, Canada, we was intentionally avoiding Interstates. We managed to do the complete trip to Canada with less than 50 miles of interstate in places where no reasonable alternative existed.
The tesla Model Y is an amazing Road trip vehicle, it have room for two people sleeping inside the car with Campmode maintain the temperature day and night. With camping and skiing equipment is the car pretty much only a 2 person vehicle.
The trunk is also filled with the ARB fridge and all the other equipment like ski booth and tent. The sub-trunk under the floor always have our sleeping bag, air mattress and freeze dried food for a week, you never know when you want to go car camp.
Our packing has gotten down to a very efficient principle. We pack most things in small duffel backs. 1 duffel pack for each persons cloth, 1 duffel pack for toiletries, 1 duffel pack for food and everything else packed in smaller packs. When we arrive at a location can we grab 4 duffel packs and our 2 computer backpacks from the back seat and go into a hotel.
If the Sentry mode is left on in the Tesla is the 12 Volt outlet in the back of the Tesla powered and the ARB fridge stays on all the time. The Sentry mode typically use 3-5% of the battery overnight but keeps the car safe and the beers cold.
We also have a EcoFlow Delta 2 that can provide up to 1 kWh of energy. We use that for boiling water and running the ARB Fridge if the car is not around when camping. It is also very nice to bring in the tent for charging phones and flash lights overnight. I still wish Tesla would add a few 120 Volt AC outlets in the car.