We took our first road trip in Nick—driving to Martinez for a bit of business1. We then decided to head up to Vacaville for lunch. We wanted to visit the Vacaville supercharger station. We really didn’t need to charge, but the whole idea was to try it out.
This was our first supercharger experience.
It’s free. It’s blazing fast. You can see the miles start going up very quickly! I was rather surprised.
You have to back into the charging parking space because the thick2 electric “cord” is short—which is just as well because the cable would be really heavy if it were the length of the car. Additionally, I’m sure someone would leave it on the ground. Though rarely, it does rain.
The station had 8 charging bays. When we arrived, only one car was charging. When we left, 2 other cars were charging. You could absolutely charge to 90%3 from just a few miles range in 30 minutes.
We had lunch at Tahoe Joe’s Famous Steakhouse4, which is there in the strip shopping plaza, while Nick charged. About half way through the meal, I remembered that it was hotter than hell this far inland. So, I turned on the AC in the car using the Tesla app on my iPhone. Running the HVAC system while the car is plugged in uses the electricity from the supercharger to cool the car, not the car battery.
While we ate, the car’s interior temperature went from 84º to 68º.5 Ahhhh! Much better.
Our first road trip was a blast.
[hr]An Aside: Between both electric cars, we have now driven over 15,000 miles on sunshine (and, now, a supercharger)!
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