I know you guys don’t typically get into politics, which is great, but I love that you touched on the fact that these cars have become so politicized. I’ve struggled with this a great deal with my own siblings. I’ve had to explain multiple times that I’m allowed to be into electric vehicles, purely out of admiration for the technology and it doesn’t have to be about anything else and guess what? My daily driver is a diesel, F450!

I did a 6K mile road-tripping and my experience wasn’t as bad as this one. All I did was to aim for 3 bolts chargers, use hotel chargers if available and make sure I added the ones that I wanted along the way (using the + symbol when looking at SC if that’s what I wanted to change) - no issues , quick 20 minutes stops enough for a pee break and stretch my legs. Only charged to 90 % once because I was in the middle of nowhere and the leg to the next charger was very far 3 1/2 hrs away.

The road trip limitations are overstated. Unless you drive long trips every week, the convenience of charging at home more than makes up for any additional time you may spend (if any) on the road trips. I'm old enough to need the bio breaks every couple hours though 😂

I got a Tesla three months ago and I’m already convinced that I will never go back.

A disaster because there was no bathroom at the charger-LOL! I would consider it a disaster if the chargers weren't working and I couldn't make it to the next. Guess we have a different definition of disaster. I've done multiple cross country trips, by myself, and have not only had no problems but enjoyed it. I actually appreciate the stops to stretch my legs, use the restroom, shop, eat, or whatever.

I’ve done many 1850-2k miles road trips. If you are serious about doing it in two days, you don’t wait until after 10am to start. You start by around 5-7am to maximize that first day. And that’s with a gas car.

My biggest takeaway from this is that when you need to go across country as fast as possible, don't do what Roman did. Flying is the way to go in that scenario (You go Tommy). It seems to me that most cross-country road trip are made for leisure, usually with more than one person in the car and not done in a hurry. In that case, an electric car would be great.

Road-tripping can be cheaper if you stay at hotels that provide free L2 charging. Just need to arrive at a low state of charge and leave in the morning with a full charge. I just did a 1300-mile trip from Vancouver to Calgary and back, which cost me $64CA.

I know you miss having a screen in the charging station, but you have a giant screen on the car that also displays active charge data, with no sub glare. If you're at the charger you're at the car. Those screens at other charge operators also break all the time because they have to withstand the elements leading to a poor user experience. Reliable factor

This channel never falls, in highlighting situations that affect .08% of the driving population.

I’m a conservative motörhead and occasional track rat, but also appreciate our model 3’s acceleration and unique handling. Just like the house, our garage is gas and electric…works out fine. Great video and insight, thank you.

If you're not canonballing the drive and you can plan ahead a bit, there's only about 15 to 30 minutes of additional time per day to cover the same distance in a good EV like a Model 3 versus a gas powered car. First, because you're planning ahead, make sure you spend the night somewhere that you can easily charge the car up to 90% or so overnight. Also, plan long supercharger stops to coincide with meal stops. Doing this, I've typically found 2 15 minute stops, plus two 30 to 45 minute meal stops will cover a whole day's driving with the same distance covered as in an ICE car. Assuming that you'd stop for two meals and at least one other pit stop in your gas powered car, the result is that you're only adding 15 to 30 minutes to your whole day of driving in an EV versus a gas engined vehicle. Now, if you do want to cannonball the drive, eat while driving, and stop for the minimum time for pitstops to refuel and eliminate, a gas powered car will knock about an hour and a half off your travel time each day.

After owning an enjoying Tesla for over nine years now, I know it adds roughly about 1hr per 400 miles or 8hr of driving in a typical day over a similar trip in a ICE vehicle. I have done many cross country trips. My longest was a 7,500 mile trip from Atlanta to Yosemite and back. My nephew got a summer job as a park range there in 2014. Keep in mind the supercharger network at that time was barely completely across country. THe first day we drove about 900 miles (very long day)….Just no big deal anymore…

Thank you for pulling the EV discussion out of the political arguments and back into the realm of the technology/ease of use arguments.

Imagine how easy it was if there were 10+ chargers at every off ramp like there are pumps. You wouldn’t even have to think or plan. You’d just pull over.

One thing I learned going cross country is, when needing to stop overnight near a large town, always go through the town and stop on the outgoing side of the town, with a "full tank" if possible.

Roman: So what you are saying is.... Tommy: No, that is what you are saying. Anyway, back to what I was saying.(got other things to do than re-explain what I just said)Way to stay focussed Tommy. Roman: So it is so much cheaper to do it in an EV than a gas power vehicle. Tommy: Um, no dad. It is not significantly better. Roman: But it is safer than them scary gas stations. Tommy: Um, no dad, the computer has no idea if there are bad people stalking charging stations. Could be just as scary as a gas station. More so in the sense that there may not be cameras monitoring the chargers like there are at gas stations. Because often they are not up close to a building but in the outskirts of a parking lot. There are no "safe" places to refuel/recharge. Only better monitored areas. Once you are out in the open, you are a sitting duck.

I admire Tommy for telling the truth. Ev isn't cheaper unless you charge at home. And for those who don't own a home, you're paying on par with or more than petrol car, and you're left with inconvenience.

At 1:05:51, you plugged in with a 66% charge. As Tommy said, you need to leverage the car's charging curve and stay at low SOCs. With that said, I completely agree the car's navigation system should have a shortest time, but frequent stop option like ABRP does so you don't have to figure it out yourself. It's a huge oversight.

Agree with you on the 3 points. That being said, not sure why you didn't select the three lightning bolt option in the navigation and insist on stopping for quick 15 minute charging bursts. There was a much better way to do this and I'm surprised you didn't figure that out. Obviously a lot to learn. Great video.

I just did a long road trip - we drove over 5,700 miles - starting in Orlando, through Alabama, to St Louis, Kansas, through rural Nebraska, western Iowa, South Dakota (Badlands and Black Hills), through eastern Wyoming (Devil's Tower), to Denver, Rocky Mountain National Park, up and down Mount Evans, Colorado Springs and back to Orlando. Some things I learned along the way: 1. The Tesla nav system _sometimes_ takes odd routes to the destination or chargers. For example, for a charger in Wheatland, WY - it had me pass the exit next to the charger to go to the next exit then drive through town to reach the charging location basically 500 feet from the previous exit. Makes no sense. I recommend double checking the route to make sure it makes sense - sometimes it does (road work/traffic) but often times it does not. 2. Tesla nav will sometimes pick a v2 charger even when a v3 is nearby. Always double check the area for other chargers the difference between v2 and v3 is huge. Of course, if the v3 is full then the v2 makes sense but often times it just picks the nearest charger. 3. Tesla is a bit conservative with estimating charging stops - I sometimes will cancel the route and have it recalculate to see if it gives me other charging locations - or - sometimes I will manually add the charging stop. 4. When traveling with a family, the vast majority of the time, I was waiting on family to finish their bathroom break or getting snacks rather than the car. Even so, there were a few times when we had to stop for a long charge. But, overall, I thought I would be waiting on the car a lot more after 400 miles each day. 5. Use an app (example: Expedia) to find hotels that offer EV charging. Waking up with a full charge is huge. Many moderate-range hotels offer EV charging, much less common with budget options. Even South Dakota has hotels with EV charging - the world is changing. 6. Mt Rushmore offers EV/Tesla charging in lot 2. This was a pleasant surprise - even the parking attendant was aware of this fact and directed me to lot 2. 7. My wife has mastered packing the Model Y. We carried 5 people with luggage the entire trip. 8. We need more/higher speed chargers in the middle of the country. My longest stretch was between Gillette and Wheatland in Wyoming (180 miles) - I left at 95% and arrived with 14% - averaging 80+ mph - I may have passed a truck at 110mph going up hill. 9. Instant torque is an awesome superpower - and it more useful than off-the-line drag racing. 10. Replacing the full set of tires cost me $1300 at Discount Tire in Colorado Springs (same tires as stock). I had 22k miles on my original set. 11. Autopilot and even adaptive cruise have phantom breaking issues at high speed (above 80mph). I had less issues at lower speeds. Apparently South Dakota roads and Autopilot don't mix well, go figure. 12. Sometimes charging is too fast - I had to move my vehicle a few times while trying to eat a meal (dine-in). 13. Superchargers are not always directly off the interstate - especially in them middle of the country. The furthest I had to drive was about 2-3 miles off my main route. 14. Home charging is key to using EVs. We stayed an a VRBO rental that did not have charging available, so I would have to stop and charge a few times while in Colorado Springs. 15. Tesla needs to add an option to customize/tweak tow mode to provide better estimates. For part of the trip, we used a hitch-mounted cargo carrier for part of the trip and the estimates were way off (too conservative while in tow mode and too aggressive with it turned off). Overall, I have no problems road tripping in my Tesla Model Y - but I also understand the quirks/limitations/issues of doing so and I'm ok with this (and so is my family). EVs are the perfect local errands/commuter cars but I think we are still in early adopter phase for road tripping. I'm hoping the rapid adoption of NACS as the charging standard will help with this.

Cool that you filmed this ride and kept your personal frustrations in. But this also proves that education is key. You definitely overthought the whole charging and preconditioning thing. The car will precondition when you navigate to any SC station. So you could have gone to bed and navigated to a SC and the car will pre condition again. Also the car has a pretty beefy buffer (between 3 and 5%) so arriving at a station with 0% is really not a big deal at all. Last note is about FSD/Autopilot. Autopilot is great on road trips, FSD beta on the other hand is next level on road trips. Latest version is pretty spectacular! Drove 600 miles and only actually did anything for maybe 10 miles out of the whole trip.

He summed it up perfectly. Stopping 30 minutes for every 2 hours driving, is why you don't do long trips in EVs.

Thanks for the video. I feel like you did a good job of showing the state of long-distance driving in a Tesla. When I first bought our Tesla I had many of the concerns others had but like a lot of families we are a 2 car household. Over the 5 years I have found that not going to the gas station every week, not needing oil changes or going to the dealership has more than made up the extra time on long distance drives for us. It is a shame you couldn't find hotels with chargers as I find them extremely helpful. I look forward to more superchargers and more hotels with lvl 2 charging.

You don’t need a phone to supercharge. All the info is on the screen of the car. Why would the stall need a screen?

I have done many cross country trips in various Model 3s and Model Ys over the years. Its a different kind of road tripping. As many have pointed out, its different than a balls-to-the-wall blast with only splash and dash stops. For the experienced and educated long haul EV driver, none of this is new or unexpected. When you plan for an EV trip, you do it differently and it makes life much easier. Roman's experience is, whether intentional or not, indicative of a lot of novice EV drivers despite his broad automotive knowledge and experience. And, frankly, his experience is likely even more spot on for the older generation just stepping into EVs for the first time. Out of Spec Dave has a much different perspective but he's much more focused on and experienced with pur EVs. I'm not meaning this in any insulting way, but for those of us who are 30+, this is the experience our parents would have on an EV road trip with all the same fears and frustrations. I'm not sure that was the intent of this video but it definitely painted an accurate picture for that experience for specific groups of people.

I think what I’ve learned from this video is that while cross country travel is possible and more convenient than in recent years, it’s still a bit of a pain because you have to make considerations you just don’t have to make in an ICE car/truck. I still think the ideal electric car experience at the moment is if you can charge at home and your family owns another (ICE) car for longer trips. I have a Pathfinder with a V6 that I’m very happy with but would consider an EV to replace our CX-5 that my wife commutes in when the time comes.

That was an enjoyable and informative video. I just bought a Tesla model 3. My first EV. I use to drive tractor trailers on long trips and understand that road trips are always challenging. Clearly EV's are not ideal for 2000 mile road trips, but unless you like to take long trips in a car, most of us will not be doing trips that long very often.

Definitely a conservative here. But, I’m also big into tech (digital investigator) and understand that you can actually make your own energy off grid at your home and have an indefinite amount of energy as long as the sun shines. That is incredibly self sufficient that you cannot do with gas vehicle locally and crazy to ignore. I own a Bronco Badlands and an F-150 Lightning with a camper on it.

Your charging times are way too long. Just went NC to Vegas and back, 8k miles. Only had one 30 min charge (from OKC to Arkansas). This was in a LFP with slower charging and shorter range. Your experience is a good example of level novice for tesla road tripping.

Can you imagine what this trip would look like with two teenagers, two toddlers and a wife? Road trips are hell on wheels with diapers and small bladders, I can only imagine how awful it would be with the lack of chargers and time to charge as well as no bathrooms or food near by. I don't see any electric road trips in my near future.

Traveling long distance the price using EA vs gasoline is pretty close. To do a 3000 mile round trip in our ionic 5 it would be within $50 of a gas crossover if you do the math. It would be a bit cheaper to use a fuel sipping hybrid than to use most EVs. Charging at home is where EV ownership is cheap day to day, definitely not road tripping at this point.

I’m a conservative and I love EV‘s for the three main reasons you mentioned and including the brilliant acceleration and the one pedal driving

I think VERY few people would want to do 2000 miles in 2 days. Your drive in this video was a lot closer to a solo EV "cannonball" than it was a "road trip home from FL." If you'd set out to road trip the way "average" drivers do (perhaps 400-600 miles per day) Tesla is a lot more of a "dream" vehicle.

I don’t want to make my comment into a gun rights discussion but one of the reasons why I have a concealed carry permit is so I don’t have to live in fear while charging my vehicle in isolated locations with sketchy people/vehicles nearby.

I just took a trip from SC to Disney in Fl in a rented Tesla model Y. We stopped at all the recommended charging locations and charged to 80-90% each time. We spent a total of $46 for charging costs. We would never have been able to drive that distance in a gas car for the same money.

At least you don't have to worry about getting the charge started, Everytime you plugged in , it started, that's like half the battle lol

Your mistake in Nashville was not using the Tesla Nav to find a hotel with a level 2 charger. In the SuperCharger nav window, Superchargers are ⚡️⚡️⚡️ , destination are ⚡️⚡️. Your entire day would have gone better - and maybe made it home.

If your hand position allows, you can roll either scroll wheel instead of torquing the wheel to pass the auto pilot attention check.

Normally love the TFL videos from all the presenters. This isn’t the best effort. Road tripping with a Tesla isn’t perfect but it’s not nearly as awful as Roman makes it out to be either. He was too grumpy, at least for the first half. It ain’t that hard. And finding a hotel with a destination charger in Nashville? C’mon man…. They’re out there. Doing 1200 miles in a gas car is a massive day. It’s nearly impossible in an EV. So I think expectations need to be changed slightly. Just my $.02

You referenced having to do everything through an app on your phone to charge a Tesla. You don’t. Once it’s set up, you only need to plug in. You can leave your phone at home and monitor on your screen in the car

1) Your software settings probably are set to encourage fewer stops as opposed to fastest time. 2) You should do a cross country cannonball with the Model Y, the Ram TRX, and some average sedan. See the time difference.

If you are in a hurry, as it appears that you were, road-tripping an EV can be frustrating.

Another thing they don't tell you about the Tesla is you have to spend $20 a month after 8 years if you want an internet connection for the car. And I think if you have a long commute you would also want to spend a $20 now so you can get traffic on The navigation map. Although traffic doesn't waste your battery like on a regular car, It's still something you might want to consider when you're running out of power and looking for a station.

To be honest this is the worst case for any ev, Typically driving less than 200 miles per day you never need to visit a super charger, But some good points being raised here, there needs to be way more super chargers, and destination chargers for overnight charging,

If you traveled with your son, he would have gotten you home in 2 days, with all the time saved being from optimizing charging stops, and planning your overnight stop for the far side of whatever city you were near to avoid morning rush hour traffic. Also if you plan your overnight stop ahead of time you can select a hotel with L2 charging.

FYI. You can go into the app and have it precondition for a specific time in the morning.

I enjoyed this video, great realistic take! I agree a touch of planning would have made this a lot more enjoyable. Just prebooking hotels with level 2 chargers would have likely saved a couple hours by charging overnight. As for locations, not every Supercharger is in a perfect location, but neither are gas stations. Again, a touch of planning and you can stop at a Supercharger that has good options around it. I have actually found many good restaurants that I may not have otherwise stopped at because it was near a Supercharger. In my (limited) experience, many of these best locations with options around have 150kw chargers, not the newer 250kw, because they were some of the first Supercharger locations.

I've planned my road trips in a gas car too including where I'll get gas. I love planning.

Tips for road tripping in an EV: Prebook your hotel/motels and ensure they have onsite charging so you leave with a full charge each morning; plan for about 600 miles/day. If you prebook the hotels you have a target destination for the route planning software and an ETA for the end point of each day's drive. Skip breakfast at the hotel, drive for a few hours and have breakfast, while you charge; ditto for lunch and supper (Always try to combine meals with charging and if you have a CCS1 to NACS adapter you'll have more options when in a Tesla) and if the hotel doesn't have charging combine your supper with charging prior to bedding down for the night. With planning, you should be able to drive 600 miles in 10-11 hours. BTW the difference in charging time between a 150 and a 250kw charger is negligible because of the ramp down on the charging curve. A Better Route Planner (ABRP) tends to be better than the Tesla route planner, if you want to arrive at chargers with a low SOC and you can tell it that you can use CCS1 chargers, if you have the needed adapter. You can add ABRP to the car's web browser, along with Plugshare.

Hey neighbor! I am a long time dinosaur burner and still own a Gen 3 Raptor 37 and a built JKU Hard Rock. I recently accepted a new position that will necessitate significantly longer commutes from Palmer Lake up to the Fed Center. I just wanted to say how much I appreciated the non politically driven perspective of a "car guy". I recently sold my Gen 1 Raptor to make room for the new Model Y Performance that we have owned about 6 weeks now. As a motorsports guy and a consumer, I have ZERO regrets. The EV has a use case and I will capitalize on it. I really didn't expect to enjoy the Tesla as much as I do. I have been watching the TFL channels since right after we bought our 2014 Raptor and about 3 years before we moved to CO from the east coast. Keep up the great work!

For a daily driver to work and home i think electric is great. The one think I would like about road tripping is the quiet. Sometimes I feel like all the noise of prolonged driving wears me out. As far as the app not working I have to cut off my VPN Sometimes for my apps to recalibrate and or restart my phone

Two things - you can adjust the distance to the vehicle in front using the right hand scroll wheel pushing left or right. And you are supposed to drive with your hands at the junction of the horizontal arms where they are supposed to be for safety (near the buttons), there's more lateral torque on the steering wheel because of gravity. When I learnt to drive it was 10 to 2 but if you watch a professional driver they always have their hands just above the 9 and 3 position.

Thank you for letting us know about your experience and frustrations. I don’t mind seeing you rant because it shows how you feel about it, is a reality that everyone will go through in a road trip on this kind of mileage ! Good to see what’s involved in this situation. The 1,000 mile Aptera is looking great for this type of adventure .

A Better Route Planner is a good way to study and plan a long road trip.

Don't be afraid of a hard reset in a Tesla. I've done 2 because the screen locked up. It took about 30 seconds and everything was fine after that.

your guys presentation of evs has improving dramatically. still remember tommy called 6kw lvl 2 fast.....

Would be nice if Tesla let you customize the nav settings where you could allow arrive SOC to be as low as 5%, and a max SOC of 60%. Charging stops would be much quicker and it would be nice if you could rely on the system to calculate your stops based on your personal preferences. I stop when at 5% and can add about 120 miles in 10 minutes.

I live in MN and have taken my Model 3 LR to Yellowstone, Lake of the Ozarks, Chicago, Sturgis, and next week to Kentucky. It was really no problem. I was marginally slower in terms of travel time compared to gas vehicles. Every time I stopped to charge, other people travelling with me needed to stop anyway and I was done or near done charging by the time everyone used the bathroom, food, etc. Plus when I was tired, being forced to stop every ~2.5 hrs kept me awake. The middle of Wyoming was a bit rough, I had to slow charge for an hour to get to Jackson, but it was a nice stop so I wasn't really bothered. My alternative was to go all the way around on the freeway that was 2 hours longer. So charging that hour saved me an hour total. I've found supercharging cost is also close to ~$2.50/gal in terms of cost/mile. It's fine for road trips.

I plan my trips which I do every weekend. I put all of my stops, including Supercharger stops, into Google Calendar which is automatically synced to the car via the Tesla app. I pick my Supercharger stops based on their amenities or convenience. Usually we do 15 minute stops which is the time it takes us to go to the bathroom. The exception is if we want to have lunch, in that case we will pick the stop based on food choices. For example there is a Supercharger in Tilton NH that has an excellent Thai restaurant, we call ahead and order takeout and when we get there we plug in, get the takeout and eat our lunch. Eating takes longer than a full charge. Another example is our Maine trips. There are a couple of excellent Dim Sum restaurants in Portland that are about a mile from the Supercharger. We order takeout, pick it up, go to the Supercharger and eat and then use the bathroom in the supermarket. Last Saturday I ended up charging to almost 100%, which is a bad idea, but we had a lot of food and I didn't want to get out of the car to unplug and I didn't need to because the Supercharger was mostly empty.

As I can see on this great video or many others EV videos, finding a SAFE location chargers can be a problem late at night. The costs of snacking and hotels stay can be expensive. Again, life safety is rather important on my list.

I think people have to be a little more patient because this electric revolution is basically just started. And also as far as charger stations being in weird places, It's my guess that some locations, some business owners may not have wanted those there for some reason or another. Maybe you could talk to someone at tesla and find out why they're put where they are and then there would be a better understanding of what's going on here instead of just criticizing the whole system. And you can use the right button to follow closer to the car in front of you.

Ok, I have a M3 Long Range. I just drove over 3,100 miles starting from San Diego, stopping through Denver Colorado, and then all the way to Jacksonville Florida. I don't agree with what is said in this video. When I charged I always charged for longer than what it wanted me to and many of the times I spent the extra time eating and charging back up to 90-95%. This saved me a few times by letting me drive longer and the system was able to have me drive further to a less busy supercharger rather than waiting during peak times in some of the cities I stopped in. Also, if you are driving at 70 mph or above, you will not get good efficiency and your range will be worse. We can't change physics people. So charging a little longer will help account for the fact that most of us drive above 70 mph. Another thing, stop treating road trips in a Tesla the same as you would a gas car. Take advantage of the charging stops and enjoy the break. It's not good to power through hours and hours of continuous driving. If you want to take a trip fast, just fly. Lastly, there's a buffer beyond 0 but I never got below 10% during my entire 3,100 mile trip. If you run out of battery that is on you. Stop blaming the car... unless it's not a Tesla. In that case it's still your fault for buying a subpar EV. Safe travels!

Last week, I completed a 3300 mile road trip in my Tesla Model Y LR. I traveled round trip from Oklahoma City to the Canadian border (near Shelby, Montana). It cost me $362 in supercharge fees. Overall, the trip was a blast except for the following: (1) I experienced phantom braking, which was unnerving on several occasions; (2) I continued to have my wipers activate when there was no rain, especially when auto pilot was engaged; and (3) some of the supercharge locations were in less than ideal places, especially when you arrive at midnight or beyond to charge, i.e. Wichita, Kansas for example. I should note that the navigation system was spot on.

Charger hoping is the way to go, just charge long enough to get to the next 250 kw supercharger. You should only deep charge if you are about to face crazy headwinds or elevation.

I generally agree with you. I rarely go from point A to point B; I often end up taking unplanned side trips just because I saw a sign on the side of the road. Sometimes this is not the thing to do in an EV. Even planned side trips ad stays off the beaten path often require lengthy drives to a DCFC.

So, my recap: 1) Roman sets off on a road trip and doesn't remember to reset the trip meter, 2) Roman complains about the lack of superchargers, while finding plenty along his route (so many he is perplexed by the number of options), 3) Roman complains about the planner trying to make him charge above 80% while he has his system limit set at 100%, 4)Roman complains that driving/charging an EV is way different, and harder, than an ICE after formerly calling anyone who suggested such heresy a dinosaur who didn't want to protect the planet and embrace the future, 5) Roman argues with Tommy on the podcast when Tommy suggests EV networks are in the Model-T stages of development despite Roman using this same argument repeatedly in the past, 6) Roman whining about a well lit supercharger parking lot that was only 150Kw and had a car parked suspiciously in it and an evil pickup truck (right beside what looked to be a load of lumber) only to go to a Walmart parking lot with several cars parked in it to go all the way up to 173Kw, 7) and every charging station should have a playground and amusement park next door, just like Europe! Just a few of the highlights. Honestly, content with Roman is nearly unwatchable/listenable anymore, at least in my opinion. His ridiculous rant on the podcast about going into the gas station bathrooms WHILE the hose was in his car pumping gas was insane. I've never seen anyone do that and if Roman looked at pretty much ANY gas pump, he would see the warnings about remaining with the vehicle AT ALL TIMES while pumping flammable liquids into it. Regardless, this is such a common sense thing, my wife and I were shocked he was going on about that. More Tommy, Andre and some of the younger guys. Leave Roman, and Nathan to a large degree, in the office, please.

I appreciate the honest take. Personally, I wouldn’t road trip an ICE or an EV for longer than about an 8-9 hour drive. I’m just at an age where it holds zero interest for me. I’d rather fly if I have long distances to cover. For my use, just an around town vehicle with a very occasional 8 hour drive thrown in, an EV works great.

Hello Roman, I had the same issue with my Tesla and the Hard reset does fix the issue. It’s not with your phone and the Car needs the reset and the software engineers at Tesla have a few years advantage over GM and I do recall the Hummer Issues you had.

Great point Roman! We must go through growing pains when it comes to electric infrastructure.

Don't put your entire trip in the map, just charger hop and it will be more accurate and the charger information tells you what is happening at each stop - each stop you should be planning your next charger...

Realistically though, anyone traveling half way across the US is doing it for the experiences along the way. Stopping at sites; taking their time. If you weren't fetching a car, you'd have flown.

@tflev Doesn't want to stop at a creepy gas station to fill up with gas yet you would have to sit in an empty parking lot for 30 to 60 minutes.

You’d be better off unplugging at a lower soc and ride the curve to maximize higher charging speeds at lower soc.

FYI this car’s charging peaks at 250 kW. When you see 251 to 253 kW that extra 1-3 kW is for HVAC and other non-battery components. Tesla, unlike some other vehicle manufacturers does not divert charging from the battery to power AC but will instead give the battery all the power it needs and pull extra from the charger for AC.

Compare energy and other costs: Tommy, doing the math with my Tesla Model 3 experience: For the past 29,901 miles I’ve used a total of 7,830 kWh of energy, or averaged 262 Wh/mile. Using $0.43 ave Supercharger cost per kWh that’s $0.1126 per mile. Compare to gas where the US National average today for regular is $3.65 (down 25.6% from last year) you would need to get a trip average of 32.43 miles per gallon of gas to break even. My Tesla Model 3 has actually averaged 129 MPGe (Miles per gallon equivalent) over the past 29,901 miles (using the standard 33.7 kWh of energy in a gallon of gas). Over the 61,628 miles I have driven my ONLY maintenance costs have been one new set of tires, windshield wipers, washer fluid, and car washes. I recently did a battery health check and degradation is 11%. Of that 11%, approximately 10% of it happened in the first 20k miles. This is consistent with what I’ve read on line from other Tesla owners. That’s in line with a projected / reported 30% degradation over 300k miles. We’ll see…

You touched on the cost savings at the beginning. I agree with your son that it is not cheaper to road trip an electric car. It looks like the model 3 you were driving was using about 300 watt hours per mile. This means that to drive 1,000 miles, you used about 300Kwh. At $0.40 per Kwh at the Superchargers that means it cost about $120 in charging for 1,000 miles and $240 for 2,000 miles. There are several vehicles available, like Toyota Prius, Toyota Camry Hybrid, Elantra Hybrid and Honda Insight that get more than 50mpg. That means that if you were driving one of those and getting 50mpg, the 2,000 miles would use 40 gallons of gas. At a price of $3.23 mentioned in your video, the cost would be about $130. It also means that you could take this trip driving a vehicle getting 30mpg like a newer Toyota Sienna using 67 gallons of gas and the cost would be $216 for the trip and this is less than what the cost driving the model 3 was over the same distance. You also would have saved the price of the hotel room for one night. The extra bonus as you pointed out is that the trip would not constantly revolve around finding the next optimum charger.

Great education video & good tips! re altering charge stop plans, eg @8:56 : you CAN tap a supercharger , and "add stop" to the route... or Edit route, and add stop (then find charger)... this should update the planner. Or, as noted, you can just keep driving :) and do your own thing, and it will auto-replan. Agreed unsure why it sends you to slower 150kw V2 chargers (especially if they are full and you split to 72kw), vs nearby V3... sometimes those are more full... sometimes deep / long charges are good, eg when you are eating... normally food stops are closer to 45mins at least anyway, 20mins is barely enough time to grab something plus potty break, let alone eat it...

Your son tried to give you the best advice before your trip, and you did not heed it. Now you (should) know that more frequent stop for shorter charge times is much better than stretching out the legs of each stop.

When I first bought my Model S a few months ago, and I posted the purchase on Facebook, the first thing I stated was that it wasn’t for political reasons. My reasoning was because of the technology behind them. Also, after being retired and not really driving too much, it just simply made more sense to own a car that doesn’t cost me gas or oil changes or any other kind of maintenance that an ICE vehicle requires. My Chrysler had 180,000 miles on it when I sold it to my stepson who is completely happy with it and my wife loves her Cadillac and so for me making the switch was a no-brainer. I love it that I don’t even have to charge the car to a high percentage on some days and that when I get home, I simply plug it in and forget about it.

At first I was thiunking the same saying that the charging suck but after experieding it for a few times I actually grew to appreciate it. With the Gas car I feel obligated to go from A to B non-stop so I would get tired putting myself and others at risk....I know I am not alone on that but the Tesla is like a passenger whom has to go to the rest room every few hours forcing you to step out of your car to streatch, rest, take a breather for a bit and I find that after arriving at the destination I am more relaxed compared to high on caffeine so its quite nice IMO. Yes it does add additonal time to your travels but its a relaxing travel, less stress and more importantly you are more alert given you are not stress from feeling rushed.

You could have skipped Marietta GA and went to Acworth for a better charger. Same for Monteagle as Kimball was 20 miles further north with a faster charger and hotels, but best of all, a Cracker Barrel for breakfast! Just drove my Y from north Atlanta to Nashville so experience of where the best chargers are and other accommodations is something that gets refined the more you do it or take a few minutes to research.

Your 3 points missed three points. The better car turns my two day road trip into 3 days each way. So I lose 2 days pay, two motels, 2 days of hash houses. If there are two of us in the car, that EV may add $400-500 in room and board, and 32 hours of wages or vacation days, which could be another $500-$600. Making the trip in an ICE car could save the two of us a thousand dollars. I checked Tesla's planner for a trip, 26 hours versus 21 for AAA's ICE planner. Two long days becomes three. Asuming no charging delays. Range and recharging, that's the roadblock. 500+ miles range in a 5 minute fill, like my ICE car gets. And charging stations every 30-40 miles across the whole country. That's all it lacks.

I have driven my Tesla MYLR all the way from Jalisco,México-Texas-Los Ángeles and Jalisco-Texas-Vail,Co and in 1 month I’ll be doin Jalisco-Texas-Denver-Seattle-Vancouver, all of them a complete dream In charge stops and reliability of the MY! I have recorded all of them on my YT page! Greetings from Mexico!

It doesnt much matter electric vs gas, I need to stop every 2-3 hours anyway and typically take 25-35 mins, as i hate ot eat while drivinb, and it isnt safe anyway . I usually do 600-700 miles a day now, but in my 30s would have done the 1000 miles a day, but arrived exhausted and reallty wannt safe anyway

Electric cars are like sports cars and pickup trucks, they a great for certain task, but not every task (although few if any cars are) They certainly have their place moving forward.

On your initial comments on if we are just talking cars...I would like to add that you have car that can drag race, offeoad, carry 7 ppl, safest car, comes with 100k+ warranty and can drive you wherever. For the other folks, it's always the "a treee inside the firrest" viewpoints.

People don't road trip everyday. They typically drive about 40 miles. An electric car makes sense for the majority of the population. Even on road trips people are generally not driving across the country. I have taken my Tesla on road trips without issue. You are also overstating the need to precondition the battery. You can charge, it will be slower but you don't have to wait. You are right, it's not as fast as ICE but it's still early and I'll take the road trip downside for the daily upside. 7-11, shell, love's, circle k are all adding chargers already so it will make it easier. You can adjust following distance with the right wheel control.

As an ev owner I try to let people know that owning an ev isn’t a compromise, there are a lot of benefits. There is a lot of misinformation out there in ev’s. So I appreciate this video. Good job Roman

Wondering if Roman understood Tommy’s points about short sprints to maximize charging speed as opposed to charging deep.

Just took delivery of my 2023 Model Y recently and noticed the weird bug with the app “Last Seen” not updating. To fix it, I just did a reset by holding the 2 scroll wheels down on the steering wheel until the screen goes black then let it go, once it boots back up the app started working and updating. 👍💪

As a second car for someone who has a garage with 230 v 50 amp power the electric makes a lot of sense for commuting and grocery getting, however, until electric cars get standardized and chargers get standardized, I don't think the electric is ideal for someone who lives in an apartment or for long distant travel.

Great initial point. I will say after taken many road trips including a 1500 mile one, you sometimes do just need to leave the station for another one. Get below 150 kw spore, move on. You typically charge 15 mins drive 1.5-2 hrs then another 15 mins. Easy peasy.

Roadtrips are fun and all but an airplane wins every time. A boeing 737 can cover that distance in a few hours.

It is annoying when the car stops communicating with the phone. I've found that when your phone is on the fringe of bluetooth range, the system gets confused and times out. Remember: you can use the NFC on your phone to unlock the car by tapping where you tap the keycard if the bluethooth/app isn't working. And yeah, if the car communication has timed out, restarting the car will work. Worst case if the screen doesn't come back, the drivetrain will still work and you can use plugshare to find chargers and google maps as Nav/speedometer.

From my experience driving my Tesla Model 3 (Long Range), trips of up to 500 miles/day are essentially the same exact time as a gasoline car assuming that you take normal bathroom and lunch stops. Beyond 500 miles/day it starts to add about 10 minutes/hour. For a 500 mile trip on a 300 mile EV, you only need to fast charge 200 miles which is about 15 minutes. Those 15 minutes are combined with normal bathroom breaks and therefore add no time.

How many people actually do this??? I drove from southern Ontario, Canada, to Florida twice in my life. I am sure there are some people that Road trip frequently but how far and how often are these trips?

Thank you, I learned some tricks. I typically drive 700-750 miles in a 14 hour day. My trip tricks might help. Identify your charging motel before leaving for best rates. Getting a good night sleep while on a L2 charger improves cross country driving and saves money. Also, before going to the Supercharger, first stop at a 24x7 bathroom. You can stretch, eat a snack, or take a cat nap at the Supercharger. Longer meals like a lunch or dinner, use Plugshare to find a restaurant with free, L2 charging.

Tip: When navigating to a destination touch the 3 dots (…), menu, at the bottom of the Tesla screen and choose the “energy graph” icon. You will get aa extremely accurate graphical representation of your energy usage to your destination. It now shows (recent software update) an analysis of how the energy is being used and predicted energy level at the planned destination. Once a message appeared for me stating a ‘tail wind’ had extended my range. Pretty useful and cool.

"No way around it...". The technology is certainly impressive when it's all working correctly, but for road tripping there is a level of inconvenience that makes an EV less attractive.