This is an edge case of course. I'm 31, and drove the entire ~15 hour drive at once with breaks only for fuel/bathroom at the same time. If I owned a Model S, I'd just fly.
You have to look at the model s like the first macintosh. It does some revolutionary things very well and it's an astounding achievement. It will however take a few years to overtake the mainstream. It would be a little short-sighted to go on about how the Apple II is so much more practical, even though it was at first.
I used to really want a Model S, but I just don't think paying for that much battery is worth it as long as your commute isn't over 60 miles. Instead of a Model S, you can lease a Leaf for city driving and buy luxury gas car for road trips, both combined for a smaller total payment. Plus you now have two cars!
Going on a vacation for us means, the less time we spend getting there the more time we have on vacation since we have to work it in between what work allows.
Still I cannot believe even on this site all the people justifying stopping every couple of hours for thirty minutes. Even traveling with dogs that isn't necessary. Top it off, all those stops extend the trip which means yet another hotel.
Plus my number one issue, the supercharge network governs how you do your trip, which routes you take. That can simply put some locations out of practicality.
[EDIT] I used this website to calculate http://calculator.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx?tab=4
Total cost to offset ~2 metric tons of CO2: ~$20 (http://www.terrapass.com/shop/)
+--------------------------+------+--------+
| Name | Qty. | Price |
+--------------------------+------+--------+
| Littering | 1 | $6.95 |
+--------------------------+------+--------+
| Water lawn in drought | 1 | $34.95 |
+--------------------------+------+--------+
| Let's do this mega-trip | 1 | $19.95 |
| in a sports car! And | | |
| drive really fast too! | | |
+--------------------------+------+--------+
Also I take issue with the logic that fuel savings don't matter if you're spending that much on a car anyway. I don't see it that way at all. Being able to pay like $1k/mo car payment doesn't yet put you in "money is no object" territory IMO.
There is definitely a time penalty at stops. Meals are the only one of those things that takes longer than 10 minutes. You do that maybe a couple times a day.
With the model s you are stopping about every 2.5-3 hours for 30 minutes. Exactly one or two of those stops might involve a half hour meal, where it doesn't make a difference. The rest of the time, it does. To characterize this as not "affecting you all that much" vs. a traditional gas trip is just not accurate.
But you know what? That's ok. I don't get why some enthusiasts feel the need to pretend there are no compromises. It's ok for the model s to have some drawbacks at this stage. It's early. That's how the technology cycle works. Like I said elsewhere, the model s is like the first macintosh. It's the future and it's already pretty cool. No need to pretend it does more than it can. That just polarizes people.
Last year I drove from Florida to San Francisco. We did it over 5 days, my wife and I with our dog.
We stopped as-needed and always more than 10 minutes. Just filling the tank & handling payment takes that long. But in reality, you NEED to clean the windshield to clear off the bug splatter. And you NEED to use the facilities. Probably you and your passengers. And you really WANT a moment to stand up and stretch your legs anyway.
Does it always take 30 minutes? Certainly not. Twenty? Probably more like it.
"Just not accurate"? "enthusiasts need to pretend?" From where I'm sitting your comment here is a contender for A-hole of the Thread award. Congrats, you must be so proud.
I take issue with your accusations. I wrote what I wrote in good faith based on my somewhat recent experience with the cross-country road trip. I don't look politely on somebody like yourself suggesting otherwise.
The first line of the abalone's post was needlessly insulting. I'm not saying that tit-for-tat is OK, but I can see what provoked the outburst.
See comments here for a recent cross-country trip. Where the driver notes his average speed it's around 50-55mph. http://www.teslamotors.com/forum/forums/heading-cross-countr...
(Also of note: planning around cold weather seems to be a significant consideration.)
78.5.
I own a car I would consider sporty, and I can still get over 35mpg when driving on motorways at a sensible speed.
I'm in the UK. Are we using some other metric to establish MPG or are cars in the USA really that absurd that they get your quoted 25mpg on a long journey?
(4.54 L vs 3.78 L)*
*(note how I used the universal 'Liter' measurement to stunn you all! ;-) )
But it's still early days and that should improve with future cars.
LA -> NYC is about 2,800 miles. If you had to stop for 30 minutes every 170 miles, that'd be 16.5 stops, for a total of about 8.25 hours of charging stops.
If you assume 25mpg in a car with a 12 gallon tank, and 10-minutes per gas station stop, the same 2,800 mile trip would require about 9.5 gas stops, or about 1.5 hours worth of total gas stops.
In the real world for drivers not going straight through, you're going to be spending at least a couple nights in a hotel when you could (assumedly) plug your car in overnight, as well as starting out with a full charge and more like 240 miles of range in the mornings. So I expect the real world difference would be about 4-5 hours of additional time waiting around for your car to charge in a Tesla vs. a traditional gas car. Not a huge difference on a 46 hour drive.
However, the mental difference of being forced to stop 30 minutes every 170 or so miles might make it feel like much longer than an additional 4-5 hours.
You'd also save about $365 in fuel costs in a Tesla vs. a gas car, but that's probably not a huge concern when you've already purchased a $75K+ car to begin with.