Trippin in the Tesla: Using a Supercharger vs Gas Station

It can be scary at first driving all over the place knowing if you run out of battery you have to find a charger instead of the many many gas stations around. When you are driving on your daily routine, of work to home or to dinner or the store, it isnt as anxiety ridden since those trips only take a small percentage of the charge in your battery. Long trips are the biggie here and here is my experience on a longer trip using only superchargers.

Before leaving the house on a trip you want to make sure your charged for a trip. I like to have around 90% before leaving on a trip. Obviously on regular days I dont keep it charged that high since that will reduce the battery life over time.

So I set out on my trip and my navigation tells me I will need to stop in Santa Fe NM at the Tesla supercharger. This is one of my favorite features, the car tells you what percentage the car will have when you arrive at your destination and what percentage you will have if you were to go back to your starting point. As you can see I could go back to my starting point “round trip” and I would still have 17% left. Since Ill only have 36% when I reach the supercharger, that wont be enough to get me into Colorado so I have to stop.

Since the Tesla automatically includes Superchargers when you are using the navigation, it knows when you are about to arrive. 30 mins prior to arriving at the supercharger it began preconditioning my battery to get ready for supercharging. . way cool!

Right before I took the exit I wanted to make sure there were stalls available not to mention a bathroom and some food. So I clicked on the icon on the map and it shows me that 5 out of the 8 stalls were available and there not only was bathrooms and food but shopping and coffee and even a hotel if I needed to stay the night.

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So I finally arrived at the Supercharger! Now, you always have to back into these superchargers and luckily Elon gave us some guiding lines to help. Thanks Elon! Because let me tell you this girl is not the best at backing in! Also notice that the car was correct in my battery estimation upon arrival. . . 36%.

Next I just got out of the car, opened up the charging port and unhooked the charger just like at a gas station and plugged in.

The Tesla app on my phone will alert me when the car is almost done charging so I can come back. So off I go to check out the area. Oh and also pee 🙂

There is an outlet in the same parking lot and Im super excited to do some shopping while I wait. Look how beautiful with the southwestern style. I love it!

This little chocolate shop and cafe is right next to the bathrooms so I went in to see what they had and boy was I surprised!

Look at all that chocolate!

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I bought some Dia de los muertos chocolates and some chile pecan brittle mmmmm. It was a little pricey at about $8 for the two things, but it was really good and unique.

After that I shopped around a little and had a great time waiting for the car to charge

after about 20 mins the Tesla app alerted me on my phone and said it was almost done charging. So I headed back to the car. (if you leave your Tesla parked at a supercharger longer than 5 minutes after its done charging, they start charging you by the min for taking up a space)

Once the car is done charging you just unplug the charger and hang it back on the hook. When you return to the car, the screen tells you how much it cost and it is automatically charged to the account you have on file with Tesla. So easy and quick!

After a $4.90 charge I was back up to 88% and back on the road!

So I settled in for the last leg of my trip into Trinidad Colorado. (There is a Tesla Supercharger in Las Vegas, NM but I didnt need to stop there)

Right after you pass through Raton Pass you come across the Trinidad Tesla Supercharger. Its not as cool as the Santa Fe one since theres no shopping but it does have a gas station, Wendys, and Marijuana dispensary (it is Colorado guys!).

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And thats it! Just a short trip up to Colorado and back. Each charge cost about $5 so it was $20 round trip. Not too shabby and I never encountered a busy Tesla Supercharging station as you can see by the pictures. Now that gas station, on the other hand, was pretty packed 😉