Category: Lifestyle

Our last car was a 2001 VW Passat. It was virtually the same size as Scarlett except Scarlett is about 6 inches wider. Both cars have a rated trunk space of 15 cubic feet. I had thought this was quite generous, but did a little checking and it’s actually pretty average in a mid-size sedan. We do also have a frunk (front trunk), but it’s not very large.

Regardless, we easily packed two suitcases, three duffle bags, two backpacks, a camera pack, tripod, two pillows, a large box with our french press and coffee (essentials) and our window cleaning kit in the rear trunk. In the rear sub-trunk (below a panel where the gas tank would normally be), we had a 100 foot extension cord, our 110 and 240 volt charging cable/connector  and a very large, bulky 240 volt extension cord (just in case).

We did use the window cleaning kit often. It’s a two-bottle wine carrier where I have a spray bottle of diluted alcohol-water as well as a number of cleaning rags. When you don’t go to gas stations, you have to clean your own windows. Alcohol doesn’t streak and cleans really well.

We also used the 110 charger at our hotel in San Francisco. It was valet parking only, we weren’t driving at all for a few days and Brenda noticed they had parked the car right next to a 110 outlet. Why not? We only got about 3 or 4 miles per hour, but we were there for three days. This allowed us to get all the way to 100% charge when we left. At no additional charge.

We saved the frunk for our sodas and cooler. We took a 12 pack of ginger ale cans (Brenda’s) and about 3 four-packs of Reed’s ginger ale (Bill’s) as well as a soft-side cooler to ice the sodas. The bummer is our cooler died about halfway through the trip and started leaking water everywhere. Frunk got wet and ginger ale cardboard holders disintegrated. We regrouped on that one and actually found a Big Lots, a very nice Igloo cooler on end-of-season sale so we bought it. It fits perfectly in the frunk. And it’s red. Geeky, I know.

Overall, the trunk space worked very well for us. Frankly, it’s about the same as the Passat and the rear seats fold down, if needed, too. The advantage is the frunk, but in reality, that’s almost more of a novelty. We were very happy and impressed with our Passat trunk and Scarlett does not disappoint. Good trunk volume and space.

If you own a Tesla and you live on the Left Coast, there are two places that many owners feel they have to go with their cars: the Kettleman City Supercharger and the Tesla Factory Tour.

In this particular road trip, we were able to do both. We had originally planned on National Park road tripping through Yosemite, but it caught fire, so we cancelled and rebooked through Glacier, then it also caught fire. Frustrated, we decided to do Southern California, Highway 1 and Big Sur. Those placed us perilously close to both the KCSC and the Factory.

On our way down, we stopped at the Kettleman City Supercharger. It is one of the largest in the US with 40 charging stations. It also has a coffee bar and very clean restrooms. This was our first stop of the two. The KCSC is controlled access. The doors are locked and you get a door unlock code on the navigation in the car. This allows it to be open 24/7, although the baristas are only there during daylight hours. We found them friendly and had a couple of mochas during our pause. The mochas were actually, surprisingly quite good.

We had some interesting conversations with them and another couple who had just taken delivery of a new Model X and were road tripping as well. More on the conversation with the barista a bit later.

A few days later on our trip, as we approached our time in San Francisco, we detoured a bit to Fremont and the Tesla Factory. All Tesla owners can have a free factory tour and we had scheduled it in advance. It was probably one of the most fascinating experiences I’ve had. At 4.6 million square feet, the Tesla Factory is the largest footprint building in the US (third largest in the world).

The 60-minute tour takes you through the entire process from start to finish on Tesla production. Our tour guide was very informative and personable. 

Every Tesla in the world is manufactured in this factory. From stamping the frame and body parts to assembly to finish, it was educational to see how the cars are made. The robots and assembly line automation were also amazing. The left side of the picture above is Brenda and me (and Scarlett) in front of the factory. That and inside the showroom are about the extent of the pictures allowed.

Now back to a conversation I had with our 20-something barista at Kettleman City. When we arrived, I mentioned how I couldn’t really decide if this Supercharger or the Factory Tour were the “Mecca” for Tesla owners. I was mostly trying to make conversation.

Her response was: “What’s Mecca?”

Face palm. California, please do a better job of educating your youth in comparative religions.

YOU DON’T NEED TO “FILL UP”

With a gas car on a trip, usually, you will pull in to a station, fill up to 100%, then go on with the rest of your trip. That mindset has been so ingrained in us that when we got Scarlett, we thought we had to always get to 100% when charging on a trip. Old habits.

Yet, that isn’t the case and isn’t even the best way to go with an EV. So some rethinking and retraining has been occurring in our minds.

First, when charging an EV, getting from 90% to 100% takes a proportionately longer time. So while you may be able to go from 20% to 90% in 30 minutes, it could take another 30 minutes to go from 90% to 100%. And with Superchargers every 100 miles or so along the road, it isn’t necessary.

Second, if you can plan your charging around lunch or coffee stops, as I mentioned in my last post, the time it takes to charge can overlap with the time you would have been parked anyway.

I mentioned how we charged in Ukiah. We stopped, plugged in and went to lunch. By the time we returned, I think we were at 85% or 90% charge with plenty of distance to get to our next stop in Sacramento, just 150 miles away.

Having learned this, on our way home, we had planned to stop again in Eureka. Our lodging this time was not near the Supercharger. After our experience on the way down, we decided to see if there was a dinner spot near the Supercharger. We found a German restaurant across the street and decided to charge that evening while eating dinner. This time, it worked seamlessly AND we found a wonderful restaurant with amazing food at reasonable prices. Thank you, Yelp!

We did the same thing at the charger in Crescent City for lunch and found another excellent restaurant. And it was maybe four blocks from the charger.

I think we are now getting into a change of our habits while traveling and charging. We are slowly getting past the need to “fill up” and shifting our thinking to be more strategic. Now on a road trip, I think we can reduce that 30 minutes extra charging time to 10 or 15 minutes tops.

But for now, we’re back home for a while and charging in our garage during the sunny days that are still left to us this fall with our solar.

This takes zero extra time and costs almost nothing.

One of the many comments I hear about charging our car on a road trip is the assumption that it takes a lot of extra time and prolongs the trip. It is true that a fill up at a gas station may take only 5 or 10 minutes and charging an EV could take up to an hour. But, keep in mind that the 98% of the time we’re not road tripping and are in town, we charge at home, which SAVES us time because we don’t have to go to a gas station at all. Those weekly 5 or 10 minutes aren’t used at all.

With a little planning, however, and a couple of realizations about charging, it can most often not take any more time than filling up at a gas station.

Really. Here’s my logic. Part One Planning.

PLAN YOUR STOPS

Tesla Superchargers are located about every 100-150 miles along most major roads. It’s true that if you want to take back roads in the middle of nowhere, you’ll REALLY have to plan your route. But for the more common road trips, you can usually find a Supercharger every couple of hours along your route. As an example, on the first leg of our recent 2,000 mile road trip, we went from Eugene to Eureka the first day and Eureka to Sacramento the second day.

On the first leg, we had lunch in Coos Bay at a great BBQ sandwich place. No charging there. The charger is in Bandon. So we went a little farther and stopped at Bandon. It’s right by a supermarket and we bought some snacks for the afternoon leg of the trip. Then we continued on to Eureka where our motel was located.

We booked a motel close to the Eureka Supercharger partly for convenience and partly because it was a last-minute booking since we had to leave a day early due to the fire that closed Interstate 5. We decided to plug in and charge that evening and did a little shopping in the adjacent mall. Not much to see and we did just kill a half hour or so. Fortunately, it was a fast charger. But we got bored and decided to top it off in the morning.

The next morning, we plugged in and it was decidedly slower. We should have just done more the night before. But there was a good coffee shop in the mall for us to get a mocha for the trip out. So we walked over, got our coffee, then walked back to the car. We weren’t full, but had plenty of charge to continue on, so we did.

Our next stop was Ukiah, which hit right at lunch time. So we plugged in, walked to a nearby brew pub and had a very good lunch. When we returned to the car, we were almost completely charged this time, so we continued on to Sacramento.

In all of these stops, we spent extra time only in Bandon (partly because it’s a wasteland for much of anything near the Supercharger) and in Eureka (mostly because we didn’t take advantage of our stop better).

Total “extra time” in four “fill-ups” (which should have only been three): probably about 30 minutes. This is 45 minutes total less the 15 minutes we would have spent for two gas fill ups. Had we planned it better, we could have reduced that to about 10 or 15 minutes extra. Not too bad for 11 1/2 hours of driving.

Next: Part Two – You Don’t Need to “Fill Up”

I’ve talked a little bit about battery range and some of the shorter road trips we’ve taken in Scarlett. Most have been just a few hundred miles with limited need for charging along the way. I think our longest road trip so far has been Eugene to Seattle and it went seamlessly; we even found a wonderful Thai restaurant for lunch in Vancouver just a short walk from the Supercharger there.

However, now we are planning our vacation. It will be a two-week 1,700 mile jaunt  from Eugene to Southern California then back up Highway 1 all along the coast and home. We decided since both National Parks we wanted to visit were on fire, we’d hug the coast and revisit Hearst Castle, Big Sur, San Francisco and the Napa Valley.

Math has always been a passion of mine (you can see that from some of my previous posts) and so planning a 1,700 mile trip in an electric car does take a bit more planning. There are not yet chargers at every freeway interchange (as there are gas stations), but with 310 miles of range on a charge, as I planned out our trip, I discovered a few nuggets I want to share.

First, Tesla planned the Supercharging network impeccably well. All along our route, there are Tesla Superchargers about every 100 to 150 miles. A Supercharger will gain us about 180 to 200 miles in about 30 minutes. And a coffee or lunch stop about every two to three hours is a driving tactic we have done for a while. I can’t physically do long driving stretches without a break. I’ve never been able to and thought it was just me; now I’m learning it’s actually healthier.

From the website Driving Tests:  “Take frequent breaks. Never think that you must make a long drive in one stretch. Take a break approximately every two hours. If you are driving on an interstate highway, state sponsored rest areas will provide you with a great place to stretch your legs, grab a snack, and use the restroom. Other great places to take a break from a long drive include gas stations, local restaurants, and parks.”

Taking a 15 minute coffee break or a 30-45 minute lunch break matches not only the recommended rest pauses, but the timing for charging as well. It’s almost like someone thought that through at the front end.

There are Tesla Superchargers conveniently located at every needed point except one. As we head up the coast, deciding to stay on Highway 1 instead of 101, we will need a slight boost in charge on our trip from Petaluma to Eureka (almost 300 miles via Highway 1). But our planned lunch stop is about halfway at Fort Bragg. And Fort Bragg has just installed several Level 2 chargers (240 volt, gaining about 40-50 miles of charge in an hour). Two are at City Hall, right across the street from our planned lunch stop. In the time we will eat lunch, we will be able to boost our charge enough to easily make it to Eureka, where there is a Tesla Supercharger. Plus, the first hour is free.

Which brings me to Sabbath. My wife and I have been trying to slow our pace of life and truly rest a little more and not be so driven to accomplish a task, do way more things than we need to and simply chill. We find we are much more comfortable about life and our demeanors are much more relaxed. It’s a little better understanding of the scriptural principle of Sabbath rest.  And it’s changed our lives for the better.

This has been a little longer post than normal, but I wanted to set the stage for my next series of posts. I plan on blogging about each day or two of our trip and evaluate how it goes; from the pure relaxing vacation aspect, and also how Scarlett performs on very long trips and charging.

One added benefit of Supercharging has been the conversations we’ve engaged in and the people we have met at the charging stations. Tesla owners are a tight-knit community and it’s fun being a part of something that is revolutionizing the way we travel. Tesla’s Mission Statement fits our lifestyle choices and sums it up well:

“Tesla’s mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.”

We were at an EV meet-up recently. It was at a public park and a woman walking through the park stopped to see what was going on. As the conversation turned to sustainability, her question was “but what about the batteries and the carbon footprint related to them?”

That’s a good question and one that often comes up when talking about EVs. From the concerns over mining the lithium to disposing of spent batteries, it’s a valid concern. However, no manufacturing process or mechanical activity is without some footprint.

Unless we all go back to walking (without shoes), there will be SOME environmental impact from what we do. The goal is to minimize that as much as possible while still living our first-world lifestyle. You may disagree with that last sentence, but really, I don’t think very many of us want to give up the perks of a first-world culture, so how can we maximize our sustainability and minimize our footprint?

In the chart above, you can see how electric cars over their life have a much smaller carbon footprint than ICE (internal combustion engine) cars. While electric cars have a higher manufacturing impact and a significantly higher upstream impact, they are much lighter on the earth than ICEs. (Upstream is the very beginnings of the entire process, which includes the mining and sourcing of the raw materials: lithium for the batteries included).

However, we never should only look at the initial cost or impact of anything. For example, WHERE you live has a far greater impact than the efficiency of your home. A relatively inefficient home in an urban, walkable area, actually has a smaller carbon footprint than a very efficient home in the suburbs. But that is another post for another time.

So the third category in the chart is lifetime emissions from the tailpipe. Since EVs have no tailpipe, they have no emissions. ICE cars, however, emit more greenhouse gases just from their tailpipes than the entire impact of manufacturing and upstream costs of an EV.

We have been trying to “walk the talk” in this regard. That is why we committed to buying an EV. That’s why we committed to living in an urban, walkable area AND building an efficient home. Did that cost more money initially? Absolutely. But what are the benefits?

First, the economic ones: our electric bill last month was negative. Even with charging Scarlett and running the AC in the house. Our environmental impacts are also much lower by not using as much electricity (we are an all-electric house). We are using no fossil fuels. We live in an area where much of our errands can be done on foot. I bike to work every day. We only have one car (which reduces our monthly costs for fuel, insurance, maintenance, etc).

Back to the batteries. All indications are that the Tesla batteries will outlast the car.  If Scarlett’s  doesn’t hold at least 70% of a charge by the end of 8 years or 120,000 miles, it will be replaced under warranty. So replacing the battery is probably not in the cards.

Assuming the car goes away at the end of its life, I’ve been hearing of people tossing around the idea of using the battery as a home battery to supplement their solar. This would give it many more years of use.

In short, the carbon footprint of EV batteries and, for that matter, EVs in general, is far better then ICE vehicles.

On March 31, 2016, Day 01 of the Tesla Model 3 reservation, we had some friends who were able to get in on the ground floor of this game-changing car. Knowing they would have to wait around two YEARS to take delivery, they opted to purchase a Model S.

Knowing we had committed that our next car would be all-electric and that the 2001 VW Passat we had owned for 12 1/2 years (at that time) was getting older by the day, they gave us a call and asked if we wanted to assume their reservation.

We, of course, said “yes.”

When we built our new home in 2015, we had pre-wired it for two car chargers in the garage (future-proofing) and I had our electrician come back in December 2017 to wire in the NEMA 14-50 plug and breaker. This will give us about 30 miles per hour of charge. With the 310 mile battery, we could easily charge from 0% to 100% over night. But we probably won’t be charging at night; more on that later.

Fast-forward to January 2018. Tesla has been slow rolling out the Model 3. They started with employees of Tesla. Our Passat was now approaching 17 years old and we’ve had it for about 15 years. The last new car we purchased was my Beetle, also in late 2002. We felt it was time for a new car. Our friends called again and said they received the email that we could now configure and order our car.

This part was easy because Brenda and I had been immersed in the details of the Model 3. Well, truth be told, I had been immersed (watching every video out there on Teslarati and Youtube) and had relayed every tidbit of information to my very very patient wife.

We had by this time decided on red (I hadn’t had a red car since my first car, a 1974 Chevy Nova SS) with the nicer wheels. We also knew that for the onboard computer, you have to “name” your car when you configure it. So after a pretty extensive Google search for an appropriate name for a red car, we are 90% sure we will name her “Scarlett.” We ordered her on January 27, 2018.

Because our friends are currently out of the country and they have to be there when we take delivery (Tesla won’t allow them to simply transfer the reservation; I think to minimize “scalping”), we won’t be able to actually take delivery until close to the end of March when they return.

That really isn’t too much of a problem. Since we have been waiting two years, what’s another week or two?

There are so many things about this car that intrigue us (well, me for sure). An EPA rating of 130 mpg equivalent. The idea that we can drive on a full charge 310 miles for about $5 of electricity (at retail). Our idea is that with our solar on our house we can charge during a sunny day and only cost us a net of about $1.60 for a “full tank” from empty. This is what our friends do since they also have solar panels. $1.60 from empty to full. Mind blown.

I will blog more after we get the car with our impressions. I know virtually every review from people on line has been largely positive. I also would, at this point, just be repeating all of those comments.

But I believe this is the future of autos. Tesla is a 7-year-old company that has turned the auto industry upside down. As of December 2017, Tesla was more valuable than Ford. In seven years! VW lost us in about 2007 when I asked when they would be coming out with an all-electric car and received a terse response then of “we have no plans for an all-electric car.” Things have certainly changed in the last decade. Now most every major manufacturer is working on an all-electric car option. Even VW. Too little, too late for us.

I do think I will resist doing the “we’re-taking-delivery-of-our-Tesla-Model-3-today-live-video-blog” because I want to enjoy the experience and not be distracted by a camera.

There you have it for now.

Bye bye Beetle. Hello, Scarlett!