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[protomech]

The northern branch of the Tesla Supercharger network was just completed, and customer cars have already used it to travel across the US solely on supercharging in about six days. But now a team is going for the record coast-to-coast time, estimated at 3 days.



Presently, Moto Electra holds the cross-country record at 84.5 hours, from Jacksonville FL to Santa Monica, CA. They were supported by a van hauling a generator and supplies, which they used to quickly charge their batteries when stopped independent of the grid.

Terry Hershner has the fastest time for a cross-country record supported only by the grid at just under six days. A later november trip was completed in about 7.5 days, with a mid-trip motor replacement.

[WindRider]

That is excellent!   I wish that Zero could tag onto this effort and give us E Bikers some long distance possibilities.

[Richard230]

An article in yesterday's newspaper, written by Dana Hull of the Mercury News, tells about the first person to cross the country using only Tesla's Supercharger stations.  His name is John Glenney, a 62-year old retired professor of biochemistry who lives in Lexington, Ky and bought four Model S sedans.  He owns a horse farm and uses one of his Tesla's to mow the grass on his property, after installing a trailer hitch on the bumper.     His longest trip between stations was the 200-mile leg between Newark, Del and Somerset, Pa.  He arrived at the station with only 11 miles showing on the gauge.

This Friday Elon Musk says that Tesla will send two teams from Los Angeles on a cross-country trip.  I assume that they will be following the Supercharger station map route shown above (and also printed in the article).  I hope they wear their long john on the trip.  That looks to me like a pretty cold route this time of year.   

[WindRider]

That is an expensive mower tractor

[Blotman]

Looks like they've made it 76 and a half hours!

http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/cross-country-rally-across-finish-line

[benswing]

I went to their celebration at the Tesla store in NYC and discovered some other interesting tidbits:

 - The team drove at the speed limit the entire way since this is an official company sponsored event.  This was no Cannonball run, leaving space for others to attempt and break the speed record for cross country journey to those who don't mind risking a ticket.

 - The longest leg of the trip was an unintended 265 mile leg due to a road closure along I-70 due to winter weather.  At no time did they need to drive slower than the speed limit to conserve energy including this leg of the trip.  The only times they reduced their speed was for safety reasons in the middle of a blizzard or sand storm.

 - They kept the battery at a low state of charge as much as possible without too much risk.  This allowed them to use the superchargers at their full potential.  Since charge rates decrease as the battery, they tried to pull into the supercharging stations with approximately 10-15 miles of range remaining and only recharged enough to get to the next supercharger.

 - At this event, they said the average energy use for both cars was between 350-360Wh/mi (Watt-hours per mile), and the numbers on the Tesla Motors blog calculates to 346Wh/mi, which is even more efficient. 

 - One driver who braved one of the snowstorms in Colorado mentioned that the car drove impeccably in the snow, but having strong regenerative braking would sometimes cause the tires to come loose from the road.  He then tried being more careful about taking his foot off the accelerator pedal, then decided to use a profile with less strong regenerative braking. 

 - One of the two support vans broke down on the journey, giving an ironic twist to the story of electric vehicles crossing the country with no problems, but the internal combustion engine vehicles supporting them having trouble. 

 - They did not intend to complete their trip on Super Bowl Sunday in NYC while the Super Bowl was being hosted in nearby East Rutherford, NJ. 

 - The supercharger network is a high priority for Tesla in 2014 and they intend to continue opening new Supercharger stations at a rapid pace with the goal of 100 miles between stations.  Superchargers recharge a Tesla Model S with 120kW of electrical power as compared to 30-50kW at ChaDeMo stations or 6.7kW at most level 2 car charging stations.

 - Battery swapping is not as high a priority as the Supercharger stations and they are collecting data on the potential use of such technology before dedicating resources to that project.

[protomech]

Thanks for the on-site reporting, benswing : )

Tesla has also mentioned increasing the Supercharger rate to 135 kW .. a full 50% faster than the original 90 kW.

Tesla averaged 45.3 mph for the duration of the trip.

Driving 80 mph w/ charging at 135 kW should result in an average speed of 65-67 mph best case .. likely reduced due to real traffic.

A 2600 mile trip - the same route used by Terry and Moto Electra - would take 40 hours at 65 mph average.