Some Hard Lessons Learned On A Trip

      Elena and I are back from a real adventure in a rural and out-of-the-way place. We had a great time. But some systems let us down. We relied on the GPS system in the Tesla to take us around. It had two failures. It picked routes that appeared to be the fastest. They caused huge problems. On the first day of the trip, the GPS sent us down California Highway 99 South. It is a highway that goes through Modesto, Fresno, and other interior California urban areas.  It is a never-ending traffic jam with wrecks and other problems. At one point, I had to slam on the brakes at high speed to avoid a rear-end collision with another vehicle due to the stop-and-go traffic. When we pulled off the road to charge up the Tesla, we encountered temperatures that went up to 112 degrees Fahrenheit. We arrived at our destination after 7 hours. The trip should have taken 4 hours.

     The second GPS failure happened when we were driving from Three Rivers, California to Kings Canyon National Park. We were sent on a wild and twisting road. It took us two hours to reach the park. There was an easier road that was straight just a few miles away. We would have made it to the park in an hour. Please do your own research and do not blindly trust your GPS.

       For the first time in all our travels around California, we had problems finding chargers for the Tesla. We were in a remote village called Three Rivers. A hotel in the town had a primitive Tesla charger that would charge 20 miles per hour on the charger. It was only available to hotel guests. We were not hotel guests. I had to drive 43 miles one way to Traver, California to get to a Tesla supercharger. For the first couple of days, it only charged 80% of the battery giving me a range of 280 miles. After I drove 42 miles to the hotel. I was down to a short range of 230 miles. That did not help in parks with large distances. At one point I had to go to a hotel charger and sit for 3.5 hours while the battery was charged to its capacity. If you have an electric vehicle, do some careful planning on chargers!