12 charging stops and $333 later, I’m home from an amazing 26 day vacation. I worked for parts of it, but largely had time off and attended a conference as well.
Going from Spokane to Santa Cruz, CA, then back via Napa, CA and Portland, OR was a breeze. Tesla’s network of superchargers continues to grow (17,000+ in the US, 70,000+ globally), and the greater availability provides more flexibility when needing to stop to charge along the road. Supercharger | Tesla
I spent the most time in Santa Cruz, then Napa. During these stays, my fiancée and I drove around and needed to charge on occasion. The $333 and 2500 miles includes this extra running around.
Cost Comparison
I chose the 2023 Mercedes-Benz C 300 Sedan as the closest analog in terms of performance and form factor for the Tesla Model 3 Standard and the following tables represent my costs and the projected cost of the C 300. The C 300 requires an oil change every 10,000 miles, so I’m ignoring 25% of the cost of an oil change in these calculations.
Tesla Model 3 Standard (2023)
| Distance Traveled (miles) | 2500 |
| Cost of Charging | $333 |
| Cost Per Mile | $0.13 |
Mercedes-Benz C 300 Sedan RWD (2023)
| Distance Traveled (miles) | 2500 |
| Fuel Economy (mpg) (hwy/city combined) | 29 |
| Total Gallons of Premium Fuel | 86.21 |
| Avg. Cost of Premium Fuel (equal split between WA, OR, and CA) | $4.99 |
| Total Cost | $430.17 |
| Cost Per Mile | $0.17 |
The results show a $97 savings on the road trip.
Stopping
Leg 1: Spokane to Klamath Falls: 2.5 stops (stopped in Ritzville for a 3 minute charge to get a boost to make it to Boardman, OR)
Leg 2: Klamath Falls to Capitola, CA: 3 stops
Leg 3: Capitola to Napa: 1 stop
Leg 4: Napa to Harris Beach State Park: 3 stops
Leg 5: Harris Beach to Portland, OR: 2 stops
Leg 6: Portland, OR to Spokane, WA: 3 stops
Charging stops can range anywhere from 3 minutes (shortest) to 11 minutes (average) to 29 minutes (longest). 29 minutes was an outlier since we let it run long to get food. This longer stop also eliminated a later stop as well.
Personally, I find stopping every 180-200 miles or so fairly reasonable. It’s an excuse to stretch the legs, get some air, and use the restroom (provided one is available).
Of our 12 stops, only 1 did not have restrooms available.
Navigating
Easy as pressing the voice command button and saying “Directions to Capitola, CA”. Tesla Navigation takes care of the rest. Powered by Google and informed by the supercharger network, Tesla Nav gives you your route, where you’ll stop along the way to charge, and allows you to specify the battery level you’d like to arrive with at your destination.
For example: “Navigate to Portland” will pull up the navigation information. You’ll probably arrive with about 20% of your battery charge (~54 miles of range). You can then modify your arrival charge level to say 80%, and Tesla Nav will automatically recalculate where to stop to charge and for how long along the route in seconds.
Speed
For legal reasons, I like to obey the speed limit. If you like to go 10-15 over in a 70mph zone, your range will decrease slightly due to additional wind resistance. The range decrease is notable because Tesla calls shows you how and why your range decreased, and because of the energy conversion efficiency in an EV is so high compared to an internal combustion engine driven vehicle.
Side Note on Energy Efficiency
Electric has an 85-91% energy conversion efficiency (DC to 3 phase AC), and internal combustion engines convert fuel to power at about 20% (think heat waste, and mechanical waste, unburned fuel, etc.)
Final Thoughts
This is the first 1000+ mile road trip in my Tesla. I never feared for running out of energy, autopilot (not full self driving) took care of most of the work. I didn’t feel too much stress from the trip aside from sitting for so long.
I’d do it again 🙂