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This article is so hard to read. 'Over 10 hours of charging', seven of those being while plugged-in and sleeping at a hotel, and 1.5h wasted on unnecessarily to

This article is so hard to read. 'Over 10 hours of charging', seven of those being while plugged-in and sleeping at a hotel, and 1.5h wasted on unnecessarily topping up to 100%. She also plays the 'cold battery' card but ends up making it to the destination with battery to spare. Tesla has a trip planner that routes you to a 12-lane supercharger station [1]. This is not a complicated journey at all and only requires one ~30m charge each way. Somehow the author turned it into an anxiety-inducing odyssey. https://www.tesla.com/trips#/?v=MS_2017_100D&o=Paris,%20France_Paris%20Paris%20%C3%8Ele-de-France@48.856614,2.3522219000000177&s=&d=Mannheim,%20Germany_MA%20KA%20BW@49.4874592,8.466039499999965 https://www.tesla.com/trips#/?v=MS_2017_100D&o=Paris,%20Fran...

gamblor956 8y ago
She tried to drive the car like a normal car, i.e., by not specially planning for charging. And in that sense, the trip failed for the Tesla, because trying to drive it like a normal car in Europe was anxiety-inducing. Which was the whole point of the article...
- Fuckyourself 8y ago
  No, she didn't. She mentioned numerous times in the article that shes always worried about the range and complained about calculating the distances in her head as if she was using a paper map. Teslas trip planners do all of this for you and you don't need to "work out" anything. What a ridiculous article.
- gamblor956 8y ago
  Replying to the dead comment: the point of not using the Tesla-specific tools was that she wasn't trying to do a Tesla-specific road trip. She was trying to do a roadtrip in an EV, and just happened to choose a Tesla because it had most range of the EVs available to rent (many of the EVs available to thoses of us in California aren't yet available elsewhere).
  - ricardobeat 8y ago
    That makes no sense. She clearly planned ahead in a way you wouldn’t for a petrol car. The “tool” everyone is mentioning is literally in the car dashboard. You have to go out of your way to _not_ use it by default.
rconti 8y ago
I think the author brings up some fair points. I respect that she tried to make it about electric cars in general and not Tesla specifically, which is probably why she tried to avoid relying 100% on the supercharger network. In that way, it could be more balanced than an article merely about the Tesla world. OTOH, the very first thing I did was bring up the Tesla supercharger map and see 8 superchargers between Paris and Mannheim, with no more than 160km between any of them. It seems like she basically ended up testing the worst of both worlds.
- gvhst 8y ago
  > More balanced than an article merely about the Tesla world. I don't think that was the point given that the article has Tesla in its title.
  - rconti 8y ago
    Agreed, though I think there was a vague effort to make it more about EVs in general: > With 215 miles on a full charge, the 2015 Tesla Model S had the biggest range I could find to rent. The distance was more than rivals like the BMW i3 or the Renault Zoe: cars that are both advertised as primarily for city driving. And although I rented a Tesla, it could’ve been any other make or model: I didn’t care so much about the model as I did about testing Europe’s charging infrastructure.
izacus 8y ago
As most Tesla fans here linking this map, you chose the wrong model with larger battery.

gamblor956 8y ago

She tried to drive the car like a normal car, i.e., by not specially planning for charging. And in that sense, the trip failed for the Tesla, because trying to drive it like a normal car in Europe was anxiety-inducing. Which was the whole point of the article...

Fuckyourself 8y ago
No, she didn't. She mentioned numerous times in the article that shes always worried about the range and complained about calculating the distances in her head as if she was using a paper map. Teslas trip planners do all of this for you and you don't need to "work out" anything. What a ridiculous article.
gamblor956 8y ago
Replying to the dead comment: the point of not using the Tesla-specific tools was that she wasn't trying to do a Tesla-specific road trip. She was trying to do a roadtrip in an EV, and just happened to choose a Tesla because it had most range of the EVs available to rent (many of the EVs available to thoses of us in California aren't yet available elsewhere).
- ricardobeat 8y ago
  That makes no sense. She clearly planned ahead in a way you wouldn’t for a petrol car. The “tool” everyone is mentioning is literally in the car dashboard. You have to go out of your way to _not_ use it by default.

rconti 8y ago

I think the author brings up some fair points. I respect that she tried to make it about electric cars in general and not Tesla specifically, which is probably why she tried to avoid relying 100% on the supercharger network. In that way, it could be more balanced than an article merely about the Tesla world. OTOH, the very first thing I did was bring up the Tesla supercharger map and see 8 superchargers between Paris and Mannheim, with no more than 160km between any of them. It seems like she basically ended up testing the worst of both worlds.

gvhst 8y ago
> More balanced than an article merely about the Tesla world. I don't think that was the point given that the article has Tesla in its title.
- rconti 8y ago
  Agreed, though I think there was a vague effort to make it more about EVs in general: > With 215 miles on a full charge, the 2015 Tesla Model S had the biggest range I could find to rent. The distance was more than rivals like the BMW i3 or the Renault Zoe: cars that are both advertised as primarily for city driving. And although I rented a Tesla, it could’ve been any other make or model: I didn’t care so much about the model as I did about testing Europe’s charging infrastructure.

izacus 8y ago

As most Tesla fans here linking this map, you chose the wrong model with larger battery.