An Electric Road Trip

When we got our electric car in early 2013, Wei and I decided to take a long road trip through the country as soon as there would be an infrastructure that would allow us to do so. In September 2016 – even before Tesla’s great 2017 Supercharger build-out -, we finally did it.

What follows is a description of the trip, divided into daily segments that hopefully will make this story, or at least some parts of it, interesting to my friends and family, but also to others who are interested in the concept of a purely electric trip around the U.S.A. It was actually not easy to strike the balance between keeping the personal element my family and friends expect and not inserting too much of it in order to keep it from feeling voyeuristic to those, who don’t know us at all. I hope I got close to that balance.

I inserted some pictures and 20x speed time-lapse videos of some segments. Those videos are also available in real time versions, which, naturally, are very long, but much clearer. They’re useful to skip to certain points. You will find them in the Youtube description if you click on the Youtube logo. (The time of day display on the videos is incorrect for many of the videos, because the camera I used is not smart enough to use the GPS data to keep track of time, and I was too lazy to make the adjustments).

Keenly aware that someone else’s vacation stories and pictures can be mind-numbingly boring, I’ll try to identify the various segments clearly so you can just skip to what you might be curious about. Truthfully: I don’t expect anyone to read the whole thing.

This is a long report – coincidentally about as many words as there were miles in our trip. So, first, here’s the short version:

Pasadena, Utah, Pike’s Peak, St. Louis Gateway Arch, Niagara Falls, Montreal, Boston, New York, Washington D.C., Virginia, Indianapolis, Oklahoma City, Phoenix, Pasadena. It was great.


Now for the long version:

In the first segment, I’ll mention some of the technical aspects that are directly related to doing a road trip in an EV (Electric Vehicle). If you’re purely interested in the trip itself you can scroll down past the following chunk of text to the first detail map of the trip.

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT FOR AN EV ROAD TRIP

For those unfamiliar with the Tesla Superchargers: It is a network of fast chargers set up by the Tesla company that allows cars made by them to be re-charged at an extremely high rate. Depending on how much of a charge is required, the charge time can be between half an hour and an hour. Oh, and the charging is free. Well – some might say we pre-paid when we bought the car, but I prefer to look at it as free. (Note: The policy has now changed: While charging is still free for early Tesla owners, new owners will receive about 1000 miles per year free and pay local power rates for the rest).

The Tesla Supercharger in Lexington, VA


By the time we actually got around to being able to set aside enough time to take this trip in September 2016, the Supercharger network had grown by leaps and bounds, and now there are several routes available by which one can cross the country comfortably. The density is such that the limitations due to range are vastly reduced, but of course, I was aware that there is still a pioneer aspect to taking an electric trip around this massive country.

Driving electric – as of now – is more like the process of hopping from gas station to gas station in the early days of automobility. You can’t just drive until you’re almost empty and assume you’ll have a charging station in the next couple of minutes. There are specific chargers that must be reached, and I prepared the technical aspect of this trip much more carefully than I would have with a gas car. I plotted the route and several alternatives, and made a note of the distance between all chargers, so I knew how much charge I needed before leaving for the next one.

For those uninitiated in EV travel, stopping that frequently might seem like a major hassle. Let me impress upon you that it is not. Most charging stops took somewhere between half an hour and 45 minutes. Only a few times did it take an hour or more. Most of the time, we’d find a place to have a drink and use the bathroom, took a little walk to stretch our legs, looked ahead at the data for the next leg, booked a room for the next night, or, when there were other Teslas charging, we often had stimulating, informative conversations with their owners. By the time we were ready to continue, the car had charged enough. When we knew we needed a longer charge, we’d find a restaurant nearby and ate a meal, which always took longer than we needed to get a full charge. This made for a totally relaxed three weeks, during which both Wei and I felt no physical fatigue or discomfort with the seats at all, because we had all these relaxing breaks throughout the day.

One of the clearest differences between an ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) car and an EV is, ironically, that due to its extreme efficiency, the effect of external factors is much more noticeable with an EV. Look at it this way: If only 20 % of the energy you stored in your gas tank goes into actual propulsion and the rest is wasted in heat, then a 10% loss in propulsion due to wind or elevation change is not very noticeable. Yes, you use more gas, but you only lose a little range, which may be completely unnoticeable to you. With an EV, your efficiency is closer to 60%, and so a loss of 10% is quite noticeable. Combined with the fact that your next Supercharger is in a pre-determined place (unless you want to charge on a different network, which might be a lot slower – more about that later), a loss of 10% range can be the difference between making it there or not.

Luckily the chargers are spaced in a way that even our “small” 60 kWh battery was able to bridge these distances with ease. I know that now, but there were two stretches in this trip that caught my attention during my planning period ahead of the trip, because they were 145 miles. With a maximum charge of about 200 miles, I should easily make it, but that 200 mile range is a theoretical value based on very conservative driving, pretty much in lab conditions i.e. no elevation change, no wind, relatively low speed and moderate temperature. If you drive at high speed, uphill, against the wind and in cold weather, that 200 miles could quickly become 150 – or less. One of these legs was from Goodland, KS to Hays, KS. It turned out that – unbeknownst to me – our country’s Great Plains slightly descend west to east, so with about a 1600 foot drop and a little bit of a tailwind, even driving at 75-80 mph left us plenty of charge by the time we got to the Hays Supercharger.

The second 145 mile leg was on our way home, in the opposite direction, and this one had me more worried: Albuquerque, NM to Gallup, NM. An elevation change of +1300 feet means about a 10 mile loss in range (about 7 miles per 1000 feet of climbing). If there was a substantial head wind, I could get in trouble if I didn’t drive conservatively. As it turned out, even that was a non-issue and we arrived with about 25 miles extra in the battery.

For those, who really want to get into the nuts and bolts of an EV trip, I recommend a site called EVTripPlanner.com, and if you do use it, I encourage you to make a donation to the creator’s college fund, because the site is very good: You input start and destination, and it calculates the anticipated consumption, gives you detailed directions, calculates how much you need to charge at the next Supercharger, all of that based on most significant factors – distance, speed, elevation change. As our trip progressed, I noticed that it is astonishingly accurate. So, when we left home, I had lots of data about distances between Superchargers, elevation changes and other factors that could affect the car’s range, all of it useful, but – as it turned out – not strictly necessary. I mostly used the data to plan how far we wanted to go the next day rather than how we’d make it.

During the trip, at a Supercharger, I learned from a fellow Tesla owner about a site called “teslawinds.com.” This is an app that runs on the car’s browser and pulls info in real time from a couple of national data bases and processes it with the car’s GPS info to display the current local wind direction, the inclination, the car’s ground speed, its air speed when factoring in wind and whether it is head or tailwind. It’s a bit complicated to sign up for, but it is absolutely amazing. You might be driving at 65 mph, but you see that there is a 15 mph tailwind, so your airspeed is only 50 mph, and you’re on a slight inclination downward, all of which explains the extremely low energy consumption, or you might drive at the same speed, but your car is being buffeted by strong gusts of head winds, and you see your air speed as 85mph, warning you to take it easy.

One big realization was: It was nice to have all the data, but overall, the whole trip was easier than I had anticipated, even with my Model S 60. But if yours is a 70 or greater, you can forget all the planning. Just take off. You’ll easily make it.

Of course, if you plan a lot of side trips, you must take that into consideration, but even for us, a spur-of-the-moment decision to add a 40-mile detour through Painted Desert and Petrified Forest before getting the the Holbrook AZ charger was no problem.

Here’s another tip: If you do as we did and record your whole trip on a dash cam (using two chips, swapping them out mid-day and offloading the footage at the end of each day), you can then review your whole trip in an app called “Dashcam Viewer”. It extracts the GPS data from the video and displays the video’s current location and the day’s route on a map, shows you the car’s orientation, GPS coordinates and speed. It’s a fun way to retrace your steps long after you’ve arrived back home. I extracted the segment maps in this article from that app.


NO PLANS, AN OPEN TRIP

While I spent more time planning the technical part and route for this road trip than for any I ever took before, the actual drive was blissfully unscripted. We had identified several attractions along the route that we wanted to see, but we left completely open where we’d spend the nights. By mid-afternoon, we usually had a good idea how much farther we wanted to drive, so we looked at the map, chose a destination and called a hotel to book a room. In the bigger cities, Priceline was very useful in getting excellent hotels at sometimes less than half the price. It was useful to tether the laptop to the phone’s Internet connection. During charging stops, I could preview the charging locations in Google street view, see if there were any restaurants and also find hotels that were close by.


Day 1: PASADENA, CA – BEAVER, UT

Charging stops: Barstow CA, Primm NV, Las Vegas NV, St George UT and Beaver UT


We got a later start from home than we had planned, and since we are quite familiar with the Los Angeles – Las Vegas road we breezed through it while still settling in for what was to be our longest road trip ever.

The leg from Vegas to St. George was new to us, and it was amazing, particularly the Virgin River Narrows in the short piece where the I-15 cuts the north west corner of Arizona. As the road approaches the mountains, there is no obvious place for it to continue, and one drives straight toward cliffs that are way too steep for any road to ascend. Then, a sharply cut canyon appears, and the road winds through it. We got there right at sunset, and it was just breathtaking.

VEGAS – ST GEORGE (4’35”)


Our late start nudged us toward an early and important decision for this trip by the time we arrived in Utah: What’s the point in driving at night, when you’re on a road trip to see the country? We drove the leg between St. George and Beaver in the dark and got to enjoy none of the scenery – a mistake not to be repeated. Within days, this lead to us keeping framer’s hours – up at sunrise, and driving only until sunset.


Day 2: BEAVER, UT – GLENWOOD SPRINGS, CO

Charging stops: Richfield UT, Green River UT, Moab UT, Grand Junction CO, Glenwood Springs CO


One thing about driving in the West: The beauty of the landscape smacks you in the face wherever you drive. While no doubt there are equally amazing landscapes in the East of the country, they are generally not visible from the freeway. There, one mostly sees trees, and it takes a side trip off the freeway to enjoy the sights.

Here’s our early morning drive from Beaver to the first Supercharger stop of the day in Richfield UT.

BEAVER UTAH – RICHFIELD, UTAH (2’36”)


Rather than driving straight to Colorado, we wanted to visit Arches National Park, so we veered off the I-70 and drove south toward Moab UT.


Arches National Park

Here’s our drive from Green River UT, looping through Arches National Park and down to Moab. (5’56”)


During a cross-country drive I did with a friend in 1980, we happened upon a little side road that took us through a deep canyon along the Colorado River. All these years later, I couldn’t remember where that was – but I found it! It’s Hwy 128 between Moab and Grand Junction.

Highway 128


If you ever are in that neighborhood, you must drive it! Here it is: (5’32”)


Day 3: GLENWOOD SPRINGS, CO – PIKE’S PEAK – COLORADO SPRINGS, CO

Charging stops: Silverthorne CO, Colorado Springs CO


I’ve been a car buff all my life, and having seen footage of the Pike’s Peak Hillclimb race, I simply had to drive up that mountain.

Before we got there, though, we needed to cross the remainder of the Rock Mountains and get to the other side of the Continental Divide.

Here’s the drive from Glenwood Springs to Silverthorne, CO (4’39”)


Once in Colorado Springs, we headed right up Pike’s Peak. Here’s the video (3’55”):


An interesting Tesla-tidbit: On the way down, there are all kinds of warnings about driving down in a low gear so the brakes don’t overheat. Halfway down, there is an inspection station, where an officer armed with a laser heat sensor checks the temperature of the front brake discs so she could warn those, who had relied an the brakes too much. Regenerative braking in an EV reconverts kinetic energy into electricity, and it is strong enough not only to add several miles of range when descending from the 14,000 foot peak but to make touching the brakes totally unnecessary even on a huge descent like the one from Pike’s Peak.

So, when the officer measured my brakes, she was amazed to see that they were only a couple of degrees above ambient temperature. She asked me if I had come from the top, and I explained the situation which yielded a big smile from her.

We had dinner in downtown Colorado Springs at a burger joint called “The Skirted Heifer”. They have a way to make the burger so it has a crispy cheese skirt, which deliciously enhances the taste of this big, messy meal. For those familiar with cheese fondue – the skirt tastes a little like the “croûte” of a cheese fondue, the golden brown layer of grilled cheese that forms at the bottom of the pot.


Day 4: COLORADO SPRINGS, CO – TOPEKA, KS

Charging stops: Limon CO, Goodland KS, Hays KS, Salina KS, Topeka KS



On day four we hit the flat lands. Through eastern Colorado into Kansas – endless skies. Some friends, who are familiar with that landscape, had warned us that after a while, it could get boring to see the same thing over and over. For us, though, it was new and impressive, and the seemingly limitless expanse left us with a feeling of serenity and comfort. Of course, both of us being life-long city people, I’m guessing we’d be crawling out of our skin after a few days of living there. But it was positively pleasant to drive through.

Driving and charging was a breeze with open roads and open chargers. Our intention was to reach the East as quickly as possible and concentrate our “tourist time” there, and we were going to explore the Plains a bit more on the way back.

by Catharine, KS


One of the things we really wanted to see was one of the little mid-country towns that consists mostly of a busy “Main Street”, with cars parked at an angle, just like we have seen in numerous movies. I figured I could probably choose any town at random and that’s what I’d get. So, after charging in Hays, KS, I looked at the map and saw a town called Catharine, KS a few miles off the freeway. We decided to drive through – but we completely struck out: Far from that quaint town we were expecting, it was a strange place with no discernible town center, big lawns, a very distinct Catholic church, houses spread far apart and NOBODY to be seen, even though we were there in the middle of the afternoon.

Catharine, KS


We didn’t see one soul in the whole town, which made us feel a little uncomfortable. It almost felt like we had driven into a place after a cataclysmic event, so we left quickly.


Day 5: TOPEKA, KS – BLOOMINGTON, IL

Charging stops: Independence MO, Columbia MO, St. Charles MO, Springfield IL, Bloomington IL


The outstanding sight of day 5 was the majestic 630 ft high Gateway Arch in St. Louis.


My brother and I have long shared a fascination for industrial design – and not that of the pretty kind. Some machines and factories are so impressively ugly that they have their own … I can’t really say “charm”, but there’s something about them that I find impressive. The picture below is of the Cahokia power plant across the river from St. Louis and, to me, is reminiscent of the equally ugly plant on the Pink Floyd “Animals” album cover.

Cahokia power plant


We “pricelined” a luxury hotel next to the Bloomington IL Supercharger and spent the night there at half their regular price.


Day 6: BLOOMINGTON, IL – DETROIT, MI

Charging stops:Bloomington IL, Country Club Hills IL, Mishawaka IN, Angola IN, Maumee OH


Up until the last moment, we had planned a couple of days in Chicago, but as we started out in the morning, we decided to bypass it, because we both had spent some time in Chicago in the past, and we wanted to cover as much new territory as possible on this trip. So we did one of the few days where we only stopped at Superchargers, trying to advance eastward as much as possible. We reached Detroit just about at sundown, and once more had very effective help from Priceline in getting “champagne accommodations” at a beer price.


Day 7: DETROIT IL – TORONTO ON

Charging stops: Comber ON, Woodstock ON, Grimsby ON


A week had passed since we had left Pasadena, and today we were going to enter Canada. One of my fears ahead of the trip was that it might start to feel unmanageably long just when we approached the point when we were farthest from home, and the drive home would take at least a week. Those fears had completely dissipated by now. We were easily going to make it, and then some.

We got an early start and got to the border early. The GM building is right next to the tunnel to Canada!


Upon entering Canada, the customs official was very curious about the car and had all kinds of questions about it. He decided to send us over to his buddies for a random inspection – I have no doubt it was mainly to let them have a close-up look at the car. It was surprising to me, that with as much press as it has had, the car was still a total novelty in much of the country, and of the ones who knew what it was, most had never seen one up close. The officers did a thorough search of the car and sent us on our way. One thing they completely missed, though, was the trunk at the front of the car. They just assumed that’s where the engine is. It could have been loaded with contraband, but they never even thought to look.

There is not so much to see from the freeway on the drive along the north shore of lake Erie, so we took a little side trip to a quaint little town called Morpeth. It is a bit of a mind twister to see a lake without a visible opposing shore. Most of the time, that visual is paired with ocean water. So, Wei needed to go down to the water to check out some things. Not only did she taste the water to confirm that indeed it is not salty, but she also learned that the waves are faster than she. Luckily she had plenty of dry socks in the car.

Drive through Morpeth, ON (57”)


And, since I was driving a Model S60, this picture called my attention:


There was, however, much to see once we got to Niagara Falls! I had heard that the Falls are more impressive when seen from the Canadian side, and I have to agree.


We charged at the Grimsby, ON Supercharger, from where Toronto is visible in an impressive way:


We drove there to spend the night.


Day 8: TORONTO – MONTREAL

Charging stops: Toronto ON, Kingston ON, Cornwall ON


The drive from Toronto to Montreal, while very close to the lake, provides no view of it from the freeway, so we took a couple of side trips south, one to a city called Port Hope, and one to a place called “Thousand Islands” – the place that gave the salad dressing its name. It is a group of islands in the mouth of the St. Lawrence River. Here’s the drive and ferry ride to Howe Island (2’11”).



The Tesla Supercharger map lists “Destination Charging Locations”, mostly hotels or restaurants that have a Tesla Charger on their premises. We chose one of those hotels close to the center of Montreal, and when we arrived late in the afternoon, I plugged the car in and left it there over night which made a visit to the local Supercharger unnecessary.


Day 9: MONTREAL – NEW HAMPSHIRE

Charging stops: Burlington VT, West Lebanon NH, Hookset NH


In the morning, we took a long walk through old town Montreal, and it confirmed the description I heard many times before: A picturesque mix between old Europe and America.

Montréal


We then headed back to the U.S. Here’s the video as we crossed from Quebec into Vermont by the eastern shore of Lake Champlain and stopped by a little town called St. Albans, at the appropriately named St. Albans Bay.


We had hoped for some more color in the foliage, but we were there just a couple of weeks too early to enjoy the full beauty of the legendary New England autumn leaves. Nonetheless, the drive was beautiful. Here’s the stretch from Burlington VT to West Lebanon NH via I-89:


Just before reaching our hotel for the night, I was reminded that driving on the East Coast is not the same as on the West Coast: Here, we take it for granted that we can easily get off the freeway and turn around in the opposite direction if needed. That is not a given on the East Coast.

I had just pointed out to Wei that the next Supercharger was going to be the most convenient one so far, because it was located in a “Travel Plaza”, a rest area directly (and only) accessible from the freeway. So, while chatting with her and enjoying the scenery, I missed the exit.

I got off at the next possibility and embarked on an odyssey that added about 45 minutes to our drive. While there didn’t seem to be any access to the northbound lanes of the freeway, which would allow me to backtrack a little on the freeway and turn around again, there was a side street that paralleled it. It didn’t just parallel it, but it lead us sooo tantalizingly close to the rest area, where only a guard rail separated us from the Superchargers (on the right of the picture).


I tried to see if I could get close enough to charge, but the cable was just about 2 inches too short to reach, so I had to abandon that attempt and drive to the nearest southbound onramp, which was about 5 miles north. There, I got on the freeway but missed an immediate turn and wound up going in the opposite direction, which lead to another bunch of offramps, turns and onramps until we finally made it to the “most convenient Supercharger so far”. This announcement and the ridiculous attempt to charge across the guard rail made the event more of a source of intense amusement rather than annoyance.


Day 10: NEW HAMPSHIRE – WARWICK, RI

No charging stops.


Ignoring all warnings against driving into Boston we decided to just drive into the center and see what happens. What happened was that we breezed right down to the Waterfront and found a parking garage with an EV charger. It suited our style of tourism perfectly, because it set us up for a walking tour through Old Boston. And the charger was an additional bonus, because it allowed us to skip the Superchargers for the day.

Quincy Market, Boston, MA


Boston native friends had told Wei she should taste the local clam chowder, which she did on our walk through Quincy Market.

Boston was the easternmost point of our trip, and from now on we’d be gradually heading back west. First, though, we drove south to visit the daughter of good friends of ours who is at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Daven gave us a tour of the university’s lovely campus.


Day 11: WARWICK, RI – WOODSTOCK, NY

Charging stops: Hartford CT, Newburgh NY


We had scheduled several visits with friends once we were on the East Coast. The next one was with my long-time friend Jerry Marotta in Woodstock, NY. Jerry is a drummer with an illustrious career with all kinds of big name acts (if you were alive in the 80s, you’ll definitely remember his work with Peter Gabriel and Hall And Oats), and he now has a studio that was built into a church from the 1880s. I also finally got to meet Jerry’s son Diego – the only person I know whose name was inspired by mine.

Dreamland Studio


We had dinner and spent the night at Jerry’s cozy house in Woodstock, a community which has a long history of being home to many famous musicians and artists.

This was the only time throughout the trip, I plugged the car into a regular 120V outlet. Even though I had plenty to reach the next Supercharger, I thought, for good measure, I’d leave it plugged in overnight. At 120V, it charges very slowly, adding about 4 miles of range per hour it is hooked up. Nonetheless, it was nice to have that extra buffer, since we drove around that pretty area quite a bit.  A few days after we left, a brand new Supercharger opened just a few miles from Woodstock.

The city was, by the way, not the actual location of the famous 1969 Woodstock Music Festival. While it had originally been planned to be held there, the city quickly objected, and an extensive search for an alternate location ended up about 50 miles away, with a dairy farmer in Bethel, NY by the name of Max Yasgur offering to allow the festival to be held on his property.


Day 12: WOODSTOCK, NY – NEW YORK CITY

Charging stops: Newburgh NY, Paramus NJ


Early in the morning, we said our goodbyes and left for New York City. It was a bit overcast, even drizzly. About an hour south of Woodstock, Jerry texted a picture of a cell phone and asked “Is this yours?” Yes, it was Wei’s. So, this could have been a two-hour round trip to go get it, time we much rather spent walking around in Manhattan. Luckily, Jerry’s friend Peter was going to NYC the next day, and he would bring it to us.

We drove into New York via the George Washington bridge, and rather than driving right to the hotel, we decided to drive around the perimeter of the island, down Hudson Parkway, through Battery Park and up FDR drive to our hotel a block down from Carnegie Hall. I somewhat hesitantly left the car for the valet to take to the garage, but in Manhattan, there are no good alternatives.

Later that evening, I went to retrieve something I had forgotten in the car, and the attendant asked me if I’d like him to plug the car in overnight. He had a Tesla charger. Of course I said yes, since that saved me another Supercharger stop.

We checked in and then immediately left for our tour of the city. We took the subway to the South Ferry Station and hopped on the Staten Island Ferry, which to our surprise is free. It passes right by the Statue Of Liberty, and we had been told that this was among the best ways of seeing the monument short of actually going there. It was perfect – except that the weather could have been a little better.



Once in Staten Island, we immediately boarded the return ferry, and when we were back in Manhattan, we started walking north, past Wall Street to the deeply moving 9/11 memorial.



This was Wei’s first visit to New York City, and she got to enjoy all the amazing New York-specific oddities for the first time. Of course there are the astoundingly tall buildings and the extreme level of activity all around, and innumerable other experiences unique to the New York phenomenon. Among those is the New Yorkers’ habit of not making any eye contact with anyone on the street or in the subway. I fully understand that this is an absolutely necessary protection mechanism, without which it would be impossible to live in a place in which so many thousands of persons cross one’s path every day. Since it is a subconscious habit, though, it proved to be relatively easy to pull someone out of that self-imposed isolation by just looking at them a few seconds longer than is usual. Often – to our surprise – that yielded a smile from people, who had previously seemed to be totally unapproachable.

I’ll spare you the rest of the typical tourist pictures that probably everyone who has ever visited NYC has. Oh, of course we took them. You have the same ones, just with your faces on them instead of ours.

I did thoroughly enjoy the inscription above the entrance to Rockefeller Center – particularly since I was reading it in context with the excruciating 2016 presidential campaign:


Day 13: NEW YORK CITY – WASHINGTON D.C.

Charging stops: Newark DE, Laurel MD



After another half day of tourism in New York City during which we saw Grand Central Terminal and walked a stretch on Broadway we met with Peter to retrieve Wei’s phone.

We checked out of the hotel, got our fully recharged car and left New York via Lincoln Tunnel and headed toward Princeton, NJ to visit Sam, a junior player from our table tennis club, whom we had seen grow up among us and who now studies at Princeton University. He, too, gave us a comprehensive tour of the campus. There is definitely a feeling of “gravitas” on these Ivy League campuses.


The rest of the day was spent on a rainy drive to Arlington, VA where we would spend two nights to allow for more than a fleeting visit to the capital.


Day 14: WASHINGTON D.C.

No driving.

We took the subway under the Potomac River into town and walked through much of the National Mall, first around the White House, then along the Reflecting Pool to the Lincoln Memorial, through the war memorials, then back to the Washington Monument. Unfortunately, the weather was less than splendid.

But the weather did not dampen the impression the National Mall made on us. We had been to several places, in which the greatness of a country can be felt. Be it the Forum Romanum that still clearly bears witness to the greatness of ancient Rome, the Maria-Theresien Platz in Vienna that still exudes the power of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, or even the Forbidden City in Beijing which recalls China’s great past, they all are quite impressive. But nowhere else but in Washington have I had the overwhelming feeling that the massive power represented here is that of the people, not of some authoritarian despot.

And yet, while that impression was confirmed everywhere I turned, I could not help but look at the sight below and remember the scene of Jenny wading through the pool yelling “Forrest!”


After a brief lunch break, we went into the Museum of American History and then the Museum of Natural History. We completed the walk through the National Mall at the Capitol and headed back to Arlington for dinner.


Day 15: WASHINGTON D.C. – VIRGINIA – HAGERSTOWN, MD

Charging Stops: Strasburg VA, Lexington VA, Strasburg VA, Hagerstown MD.


As had become our habit, we got an early start. We drove to Strasburg, VA and from there took a side trip along the valley of the south fork of the Shenandoah River, which lead us to the Luray Caverns. We took the memorable 1-mile walk through the caverns, which reportedly were discovered in 1878, when someone noticed a stream of cool air emanating from a two-inch crack in a limestone formation and started digging.

Luray Caverns, VA


When we left the caverns, we visited the adjacent car museum that houses an impressive collection of antique cars, including this 1892 Benz, one of the first cars that was produced in quantity. And, as all the other cars in this museum, it still runs!

1892 Benz


After crossing over to the Shenandoah River’s North Fork Valley, we headed south to Lexington, VA.

Our original plan was to drive home to California via Nashville, TN. From there, we’d have to head north, because as of this writing, there is still a gaping hole in the Supercharger Network that currently still stretches from central Tennessee through Arkansas to Oklahoma City.

While sitting in the car at the Lexington Supercharger, I noticed that the Knoxville, TN Supercharger, one of our crucial charging stops on the way to Nashville, showed up as “off line” on the car’s real-time map. I called Tesla, but they had no estimate as to when the problem would be resolved. All they could say is that it might take “several days”.

Now, I must mention that there are other options to charge the car. There are many chargers installed in garages and other public places, and there are tools like Plugshare.com that identify dozens of alternative charging stations in Knoxville alone. But they all are much slower than Superchargers, and the ones that are a bit faster still only reach about half of the Supercharger performance, which can reach up to a staggering 120kW. This outage knocked us a bit out of our comfort zone. So far, using the Supercharger had been so quick and easy, and we didn’t want to spoil the comfort of the trip by heading into an unknown situation and perhaps having to wait six or more hours for a full charge. So we decided on an alternative route home, which would provide us with different sights. We did drive south a bit further to see the Natural Bridge a few miles south of Lexington.

Here’s the scenic drive: (56”)


Natural Bridge, VA


After that we turned around and drove north to Hagerstown, MD.


Day 16: HAGERSTOWN, MD – DAYTON, OH

Charging stops: Somerset PA, Triadelphia WV, Columbus, OH, Dayton OH


Now, our trek back westward started in serious. It would be an almost straight shot west, mostly on I-70 all the way to Topeka before we would veer off again. On our first leg from Hagerstown to Somerset, we wanted to drive through Amish Country in Western Pennsylvania. So we stayed on I-68, which gave us the unexpected bonus of enjoying a gorgeous view, looking east from Sideling Hill into the sunrise over the fog-filled valleys of the Appalachian Mountains we had just driven through.

Here’s that drive from Hagerstown: (1’44”)


and the view – still and video pan



Then, we turned north on a tiny road, into Somerset County, Pennsylvania. Alas, we didn’t see even one horse and buggy. We did, however, muse over how deliciously embarrassing it would be if we ran out of charge and had to ask the Amish for electricity.

The beautiful drive to Somerset: 4’33”


From Somerset, we crossed into that little sliver of West Virginia which is its northern tip, and in Triadelphia, we ate the best slow cooked ribs either of us had ever had. It was at a place called “Cheddar’s”, about a five minute walk down the hill from the Supercharger.

We got to Dayton, OH early enough to take a little drive through town. Surprising to us throughout this trip was how small the centers of many cities are, whose names we’ve known for years, but had never visited. Here’s a nice example of old architecture we drove past just south-east of Dayton’s city center.

Dayton, OH


Day 17: DAYTON, OH – COLUMBIA, MO

Charging stops: Indianapolis IN, Terre Haute IN, Effingham IL, St. Charles MO, Columbia MO


Up early in the morning and on the road toward Indianapolis (4’20”)


In my imagination, Indianapolis, too, was also much larger than it turned out to be. It was a couple of days after race day, and there was a display of the race cars around Monument Circle.


I was taken by the unique construction of the Indianapolis Artsgarden – a building seemingly hovering over the intersection of Washington and Illinois Street.



From below, it struck me a bit like this scene from a famous movie, just without all the lights:


Of course we had to visit the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. I was hoping that there might be a possibility to drive on the track and thus be perhaps one of the early electric vehicles to do a lap, but there was no such program. So, we took a bus tour of the track instead, which – by now not so surprising to me– was much narrower than I had thought. Imagine barreling down this little path at 380 km/h with another car on either side. These guys are nuts!


After a visit to the race track’s museum, we continued west on I-70, and crossed back into the Central Time zone. We made it all the way to Columbia MO. Here’s the drive from St. Charles, MO to Columbia MO.


Columbia is a cute university town that seemed quite lively here, on Broadway:

Columbia, MO


The Columbia Supercharger is conveniently located in the parking lot of the hotel in which we spent the night.

Day 18: COLUMBIA, MO – OKLAHOMA CITY, OK.

Charging stops: Independence MO, Topeka KS, Wichita KS, Perry OK


We decided to have breakfast in the next little town we found, and so we started out on I-70, but turned north a few miles later and headed for a town called Boonville. Once more, the decision to veer off the straight path was rewarded with pretty much exactly what we had hoped for: A midwestern town by the Missouri River, with buildings dating back well over 100 years, and a “main street diner” that served us a hefty breakfast.

Boonville, MO


We stopped at the Independence, MO, Supercharger twice – once eastbound and now westbound. Notable for that charging location is the Bass Pro Shop in the parkling lot of which the charger is located. If you ever charge there, I recommend taking a stroll through the store, even if you’re not a fisherman or hunter. It is a sight to behold! Many stuffed animals, and a pond in the middle of the store, from which ducks and fish seem to share food in a symbiotic relationship (video below). It is highly entertaining, and by the time you’ve toured the place, you car will be charged.


Pushing farther westward, we took a little detour through Kansas City


and then onward, into the vast plains again. This is what our location looked like on the car’s map:


These were all the Superchargers in the US in operation at the time, with our location marked and the chargers that were within reach highlighted .

From Topeka, we cut southwest toward Wichita KS on I-335/I-35, and shortly before reaching Oklahoma City, we requested, and were granted, another good deal by a nice hotel through Priceline. It was within walking distance of downtown OKC.

After checking in, we took what turned out to be one of the stranger walks of our trip. Walking toward the center of town we were surprised not to see a soul ! Not one person, at 8pm in the midst of this slick city center. In Catharine, KS, maybe. But Oklahoma City!?


So we soon returned to the hotel. We stopped in at a convenience store next to the hotel, and I asked the clerk :”Where is everybody?”. His answer: “Oh, it’s Wednesday. There’s more action on the week ends”. There is, apparently, much we coast dwellers don’t know about the rest of the country!


Day 19: OKLAHOMA CITY, OK – ALBUQUERQUE, NM

Charging stops: Weatherford OK, Shamrock TX, Amarillo TX, Tucumcari NM, Albuquerque NM


We were up early again and saw a beautiful sunrise while charging just outside of OKC.


Then we took another side trip through El Reno, just to absorb a little more of the small town atmosphere we both like very much. Then, we drove on to Weatherford, OK, where we had breakfast in a 50s style Route 66 themed diner called Lucille’s Roadhouse – again conveniently located just in front of the Supercharger.

Lucille’s Roadhouse


Now on I-40, our path crossed into the Texas Panhandle, and we charged at the Shamrock Supercharger, which is in the parking lot of a nicely restored 1930s style gas station called “U-Drop Inn” on Route 66, which now contains a cafe and a little museum.


Our next goal was Cadillac Ranch just west of Amarillo, TX. I remembered the iconic picture of the 10 Cadillacs sticking out of the ground from years ago, but it turned out to be a massive disappointment. Apparently it had become a target for spray painting jackass tourists (do I sound bitter?), and the owners of the monument just gave up. Spray painting the cars now is a “thing”, and the carcasses of the cars are caked inches thick in paint. I wish it wasn’t so.

Cadillac Ranch


Back in the Mountain Time Zone, we drove through to Albuquerque NM.


Day 20: ALBUQUERQUE, NM – PHOENIX, AZ

Charging stops: Gallup NM, Holbrook AZ, Flagstaff AZ, Cordes Lakes AZ,


As mentioned at the beginning, the first leg of the day was going to be the one I had most worried about when planning. Since we spent the night in a hotel right by the Supercharger, we lost no time charging the car full, and we took off with about 196 miles of range to cover the 145 miles, uphill, to Gallup NM.

At first, I drove very gingerly, at or slightly below the speed limit, trying to keep the consumption to no more than 350 Wh/mile. When I got to about a third of the way, I noticed that the buffer had decreased only very slightly, and so I felt at ease speeding up a little more, and after another third I saw there was no problem at all and drove freely, arriving with about 25 miles of buffer.

After a few days of flat lands, it was nice to see the wild, red cliff formations of the Western United States reappear.


Halfway between the charging stops at Gallup, NM and Holbrook, AZ we decided to drive a 35+ mile loop through Painted Desert and Petrified Forest. Even though it was unplanned, the charge level was no issue. And what a drive it was!

Painted Desert


Petrified Forest


Looks like wood, used to be wood, except all the organic materials have been replaced by minerals sometime during the last couple of hundred million years,


We could have continued directly westward on I-40 and gone home via Kingman AZ and Barstow CA, but we weren’t quite done sightseeing yet. So we headed south from Flagstaff, AZ toward Slide Rock State Park and Sedona. For a while, Hwy 89A meanders between pine trees and then it suddenly plunges into a canyon and reveals a landscape for which one runs out of descriptive superlatives. Luckily, there’s video (6’42”):


Our last tourist stop for the day was at Montezuma Castle, located in a quiet valley farther south, off Hwy 17. It’s an astonishing glimpse into a prehistoric society that leaves one wondering: Why did everyone suddenly leave?


Priceline placed us in the Phoenix Hyatt, and we took a stroll through downtown which was buzzing with activity in stark contrast to Oklahoma City.


Day 21: PHOENIX, AZ – PASADENA, CA

Charging stops: Buckeye AZ, Quartzsite AZ, Indio CA


On the last day of our trip it started to sink in how far we actually had driven. As the landscape gradually turned back into the familiar Western Desert we looked at the car’s map, and it struck us that we had actually done this in an electric car.


There was one more little kink in the trip, more of a novelty than a hiderance: For the first time in the whole trip – on the 72nd Supercharger stop and at the very last Supercharger of the trip -, we saw more than two cars charging. When we got to the Indio Supercharger, we found it full. We learned that it was the week end of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, and the names on the bill were legendary: The Rolling Stones, The Who, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Neil Young and Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters – so, pretty much the music that the bulk of Tesla owners’ demographic grew up with, and all of this happening within easy reach of the world’s largest or second largest concentration of Teslas – the Westside of Los Angeles.

Still: We got onto a charger within about 10 minutes, but then the line grew to about three or four cars. Aware that this might be the status at the two Superchargers between Indio and Pasadena, I made sure we’d get just enough charge to make it home.


The trip was – in one word – epic. Wei had never crossed the country by land, and I hadn’t in 36 years. We saw a lot of the country and got a renewed sense of its majesty. We logged a total of 7,970 miles. It was the greatest road trip either of us had ever taken.

Due to the relatively relaxed pace and plenty of rest periods, we felt no fatigue and we could probably have continued for a while. But after three weeks in hotels, it was nice to be home.

EV-RELATED EPILOG

The car’s performance is best described as “transparent”. There were no surprises. The consumption behavior is very predictable and controllable. The faster you go, the more it consumes – on a curve that very closely parallels the increase in air resistance. Once you drop below, say, 60mph, you are already close to “hypermiling” territory, where the car goes well beyond the rated range. So if you’re on a country road, going the speed limit, the range increases substantially. As I said: Range was not an issue with my Model S 60, and will certainly not be one with any bigger battery.

At this point, I’d like to thank Elon Musk for his tireless effort in not only promoting electric mobility, but actually doing something about it by building these cars.

Coincidentally, as I’m writing this, the Obama White House released an action plan which, in private/public partnership, will build 48 National Electric Vehicle Charging Corridors throught the United States.

The EV is coming, folks. If the auto industry is prepared, it will perceive it as a flood, if it isn’t, it will feel it as an avalanche.