Tesla Road Trip Travel Tips
So you’re taking a Tesla on a road trip… congratulations! Get ready to kick back and actually be able to enjoy the scenery as you destination-hop from the comfort of your driver’s seat.
An ominous sign at the Tesla supercharger in the middle of the desert in Baker, California.
There are a few small tips that I found absolutely invaluable on my own Tesla road trip adventure:
Plan overnight stops based on Supercharger locations.
For those Tesla newbies out there, Superchargers are the main plug in stations that as a Tesla owner you are constantly scoping out on road trips. Superchargers are great because they can give you a full charge (aka 200+ miles) in an hour or less, depending on the speed of the charger itself, how much battery/mileage is left on your car, if you’re trying to “fill it up” to the max mileage, etc.
I planned my sleeping stops strategically so I could get to the general area, charge the car fully for the next day of travel, and then go only a short ways away to the hotel. That way, the next day I could wake up, maybe grab some breakfast or a fun snack, and not have to worry about killing an hour of the day charging the car. Having some time at each destination was also helpful since it gave me a chance to search out a place to eat dinner that night, look up the times things are open until in the area, and pack my clothes for the night (yes, I literally packed a tiny bag every damn night of this cross-country road trip with a single outfit for the next day so I didn’t have to lug around a giant bag everywhere).
The main Tesla website has a map of Supercharger locations that I found beyond helpful to plan out sleeping stops in advance (like in Kansas, for example, where I had no real ‘city’ that I absolutely needed to stop in). Some chargers, however, do not seem to be on the map, in which case the car itself will suggest whatever is most convenient along your route.
Pin Supercharger locations in Google maps.
Teslas united at the supercharger just outside Salt Lake City, Utah
And make sure those locations are saved in an offline map in case you lose service. You will thank me when you find yourself in the middle of nowhere Northern Indiana and suddenly both your phone and the car loses service and can’t see where the next closest Supercharger is. I found it easiest to create a separate List of Saved Places in Google maps that I aptly named “Tesla Charging Stops” so I could hide the pins from cluttering up my regular map with a click.
Download ChargePoint app.
ChargePoint chargers are for sure not Superchargers, but they’re the better solution than being towed after you run out of battery. ChargePoint chargers are general EV car chargers (read: not just for Teslas) and they are slow af as a rule. Luckily I did not need to use a single one of these slow-as-hell chargers on my journey, but I still recommend having access to the app as a ‘just in case’ for when all of a sudden you see your estimated remaining battery left at your destination starts plummeting.
Stick to the highways.
I cannot overstate this enough. There were adequate Tesla Superchargers across the US, but ONLY along main highway routes. From East to West I basically took I-80 through Pennsylvania, I-90 straight from Ohio to Montana, I-15 South through Idaho, and picked up I-80 again until I reached San Francisco. The return trip I took a few off-the main path detours and took Highway 101 to Southern California, picked up I-15 until about halfway through Utah, stayed on I-70 until Illinois, then briefly used I-64 to Louisville, I-71 to Cincinnati, and I-70 again to Pittsburgh, where I picked up the tail end of I-80 again to end in New York. (Of course, keep in mind that I was driving a Tesla Model 3 short range, which allegedly can make it 250 miles, which means it can really go an absolute maximum of 200 miles between charging stops on a road trip.)
The Tesla supercharger in Skokie, Illinois.
There are some places where ChargePoint chargers could supplement, but again, those are the watching-grass-grow slow ones, so I would not recommend relying on those unless one happens to be in your final destination (or a place where you plan on visiting for a few hours).
Flat tire preparedness in a Tesla is for sure unique.
There is no spare tire or donut in the trunk of Teslas because surprise! Tesla’s use special tires. This means two things: one, in the event of a complete flat tire-induced blow out incident, it’s most likely going to be an absolute royal pain in the ass to find a Tesla mechanic with a spare tire on hand in the middle of bumblefuck; and two, in the event you run over a nail or something similarly pointy and annoying, you are going to need a special tire repair kit.
Also, non-Tesla-specific road trip tip - it’s just good practice to try and avoid the shoulders of highways, entrance ramps, and busy roads in general. These are the places where loose nails and piles of shit collect from the road traffic, thus you’re substantially more likely to get a nail or something dumb in your tire if you are a shoulder-hugger.
Keep an eye out for Tesla-related geocachers!
A very nice older man that I struck up a conversation with at a Tesla Supercharger in the middle of Indiana gave me a geocacher that had been making its way around the US by way of Tesla Superchargers. For someone who loves maps and loves traveling, it was the coolest little find!
Gifted a geocacher named ‘Hornet’ at a Tesla supercharger in Mishawaka, Indiana.
TeslaCaching are the creators of this particular one that I found. And I have to say, it was super cool to see all the Tesla charging stops I logged on my journey through their weekly update emails. Of course, as a solo traveling woman, I totally did not log my stop at each Supercharger until I was well past it, because that just sounds like it has the potential to be hella creepy and potentially really dangerous in the wrong hands.
Get ready to make small talk with lots of strangers.
Depending on the state you’re in, people can be incredibly chatty at Supercharging stations. Sometimes you might even make a friend and convince them to join you on the literal mile walk in search of a bathroom in a truck stop (which may or may not have happened at the Murdo Supercharger in South Dakota). Some friendly person might even ask you to get in their car (which I for sure did not do, for the record) so they can show you the falcon-wing doors in action on their Model X which they are only moderately overexcited about. Or, you might even connect with a couple from California while commiserating about charging stops in weird places and end up hiking with them around some National Parks in Utah.
And most importantly, don’t panic if it looks like the Tesla is going to run out of battery!
Based on my experiences in the car thus far, I am confident that if the car says you will make it to your final destination - you will. You just might have to go 62 miles per hour on a highway with a speed limit of 80 on occasion…
On one particular stretch from Montana to Wyoming I was hella concerned. Not only was the mileage distance just under 200 (my car’s maximum threshold), but we were going through the mountains, gaining 10,000 feet in elevation, and it was pretty windy at times; which means the car uses more battery and there were for sure no ChargePoint chargers around even in a just-in-case scenario. On that trip I watched the battery meter at my final destination like a hawk. It did get to around 6% at a point, which made me seriously concerned since usually 10% is my panic threshold and we were still traveling upward at the time. But luckily it turns out the car had a clue we were dealing with some serious elevation changes and we gained back enough charge on the downhill to make it to the next charger.
