By Roy L Hales
According to recent tweets on their blog, Peter Soukup, Tina Thomas and Luba Roytburd slept in Athens, Georgia, last night. That’s point G on the map above. They have driven over 4,000 miles and should arrive in New York city on Sunday (or Monday, at the latest). Their trip shatters any misconceptions about taking road trips with an EV, at least in a Tesla Model S.
The first entry in their blog was made by Peter, who caught a 3 Am flight from Washington, DC, to Portland, Oregon, on Christmas eve. He picked up his Tesla Model S at the local dealership and met Tina up at the airport. They didn’t leave until the following day, had Christmas dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Corvallis, then drove on to Ashland on the California border.
They had driven close to 600 miles by the time they drove into Folsom, CA, the next day. Peter wrote, “I finally arrived at Folsom with 3 miles left, and somehow managed to bring it down to 1 as I slowly hunted for the Superchargers. When we did find them, using them could not have been easier. We pulled in similar to how you pull up to a gas pump, walk over to the cable is easier to handle than a gas pump handle, push the button on the handle which causes the battery door S to open, and you plug in the Supercharger cable to the S. I took a video of this, but as it was taken in the middle of the night I’ll have to clean it up some before I post it. Just about this time, the local security guard, who had apparently been watching a suspicious car slowly meander it’s way around the closed outlet center, came over to see why we were there. He had never seen an S use the Superchargers before and by the time we finished showing him and with the follow-on discussion, the car had already charged up to 65 miles. Charging progressed at almost 300 miles for quite a few minutes until it slowed it’s charge rate down (to protect the batteries). We only charged to ~180 miles, as that was plenty to be able to make it over to Fremont …”
Tesla’s factory is in Fremont. They were immediately invited to join a tour. Tina, who writes she is “far from being a car enthusiast”, spent thirty-spell-bound minutes observing the assembly line. She added, “At the conclusion of the tour, Peter’s eyes widened when our guide whispered to him, ‘Next time, don’t risk reaching a range of 1 mile.’ Apparently, the guide had been following our trek along with dozens of others which was both flattering and intimidating as we looked to not only ensure a successful trip, but to supply entertaining feed.”
They had been on the road five days when Luba came onboard, just outside LA. They drove around 330 miles, at the end of which Luba wrote, “… We pulled up to an RV park in Kingman, AZ at about 8:30pm, but then magically it was 9:30 due to that silly thing called time zone change, which we forgot about completely. And that’s when the fun really began. It was dark, it was cold, and the 14-50R plugs (or 50 amp hookups) where we going to plug in the car were too far apart …”
So the search for plug began. It ended at a Motel 6 where, “Tina and I got a good laugh from watching Peter just walk into the laundry room of the motel without actually checking in and inspect the plug for the washer and dryer. It would be even more funny to watch him explain this to the motel stuff. Luckily, after another MacGyver operation, Peter pulled one the pins out to make the plug fit. The great people at Motel 6 let us use the plug to charge the car. It was just in time too because my battery much like the car’s was pretty low on charge. I haven’t slept so well in a while. Although Peter and Tina tell me that that is the earliest night they had so far (we passed out around midnight) so I guess I’m still a lightweight electric road tripper.”
The following day someone, Tina maybe?, wrote, “Back on the road again. When road tripping, you learn to appreciate simple things, like egg McMuffins and McDonald’s coffee. We’re almost in Flagstaff, where things are snow covered, what a huge change from LA just a day ago. And another cool thing about this car; I usually can’t read or write in cars because I get sick. But I typed day 5 entirely in the car and doing fine so far …” Their online blog entries presently end in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
A series of tweets track their subsequent progress. They drove into Austin, Texas, in the last minutes of New Years Eve, and drove across the Mississippi on January 2. Around 10 pm, Central Time, January 4, “Cheers were heard in the S as we finally crossed over to an Atlantic touching state after a long day.” They spent the night in Athens, Georgia, haven driven over 4,000 miles in the past nine days. An earlier tweet says, “The car seemed to do very well in the snow; especially after we switched to all-season tires.”
Tweets from January 5:
9:31 am: Eastern Time (photo of a door, with a blanket stuffed into the cracks) “Charging at a great friends place in Athens GA, had to keep the cold out somehow brrrrr.”
11:22 am: “South Carolina just welcomed us!”
8:40 pm: “A shout out to Monsoon Noodle House for much needed delicious soups and a free EV charger in a public garage in Spartanburg, SC!”
8:54 pm: “North Carolina! Only 5 teeny tiny states and 1 district till NYC!”
This is essentially their victory lap. They already crossed the United States. If they stick to their original plan, the trio should spend the night at North Chapel Hill, North Carolina (H, above) and arrive in New York City (I) on Sunday.
I sent the trio an email wishing them a good morning and letting them know that a number of Green web magazines are now following them: Green Car Reports; Treehugger; Green Optimistic. They have also been reported on a number of CBS websites: CBS Los Angeles; CBS Atlanta; CBS Denver; CBS New York; CBS DFW News; CBS Philadelphia etc. They are making history and opening up a great number of people’s eyes in the process.
There will be more stories like theirs, as we continue to explore the potential of green transportation. One of the most exciting is coming next May, when a Swiss solar plane will take off from the Bay area for the first trans America solar flight. It is supposed to be an easy journey, almost a training flight for their proposed trip around the Globe in 2015.
Image Credit: map from the Model S roadtrip blog.