Today I made another trip. This time I stumbled upon a road side charger right were I wanted to park in the sweet village of Naarden. And it also worked immediately. Just as a second supercharger on the way home. I did not need this second charge but just wanted to see that my first one was not just working because of me being lucky. The first charger had 12 connections. We were just three cars. The second was crowded with nine out of 12 connections occupied. That was Amsterdam.
By now am convinced that running around The Netherlands in a Tesla is dead easy. I always kept more than 200 km of range in reserve. Looking at the abundance of charger on the streets (where I did need a card to activate charging) and the dense network of free Tesla superchargers, it is just not possible to worry how to get to your destination.
Superchargers in the countries around are by now so many that it makes almost any trip easy without a shred of worry. Germany, Belgium and France are well covered. The network started to expand into Spain, allowing trips along the Mediterranean coast almost till Granada.
And that network is expanding fast.
No idea how easy charging on the street of these countries is, though. Next to chargers being actually there, the question is how to activate the charger and how to pay. A pan-european payment facility does not exist.
There is an ever extending network of so-called destination chargers, though. These are chargers put at hotels and restaurants by Tesla. You pay the hotel for the juice.
I saw dozens of videos of guys taking road trips all over Europe without a problem. One guy went all the way down to Gibraltar and back.
Going forward, this will all become easier and easier.
For my drive profile in Holland and occasional trips into Germany and France, as of today, I concluded: Nothing to stop me.
Some may worry: what about the battery, so expensive? What about the software, imagine my car does not even open the door?
Well, the battery is guaranteed to stay above 80% of original capacity for eight years. So, you just get a new one from Tesla. And there are very few reports of battery failure anyway. If I have another four years of guarantee and need a new one after that, well, it will be half price or less. In the meantime, basically no maintenance costs, what is there to break down?
The software worries me, but no more than on other modern cars. Live with it or buy an oldtimer.
Downside? The car is big, and it is fat. Some roads and parkings require a lot of careful driving.
Want to know more? Ask me!