Minnesota To D.C. Carbon Free — The Tesla Road Trip Plan
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Originally published on Medium.
by Leonardo Rapallin
The goal is to get to Washington, D.C. in time for the Citizen’s Climate Lobby (CCL) conference that will be on June 9th–11th.
Here’s the plan: We will drive a Tesla Model 3 Long Range, so we have approximately 250–300 miles of range with a full charge. Considering that on the highway we will likely go at 70 miles per hours, we will stop every ~2.5 to 3 hours for a 10–15 minute rest stop and recharge. We will take longer pauses (~30 minutes) at lunch or dinner.
Friday, June 7th, 2019:
We will leave from Minnesota in the afternoon and drive to the Chicago area. That’s 394 miles and 6h15m, including one rest stop in Mauston, WI and a quick dinner in Madison, WI (maybe we will stop longer and just enjoy the dinner).
To plan, we are using a great site (www.abetterrouteplanner.com) built by a German software engineer (darn … these German engineers are precise). The site allows us to enter all the different possibilities. We will see if the German engineer can account for the innate Italian desire to frequently change plans…
We will sleep at the Homewood Suites by Hilton in Schaumburg, IL because it has 2 Tesla chargers, so we can recharge the car overnight. Fede called the hotel and it confirmed the chargers are in working order. So, here’s a little publicity for our Homewood Suites friends. It is pretty cool and super useful to offer a recharge option.
Saturday, June 8th, 2019:
That’s going to be a long day. Leaving early from Illinois, we will cross Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and get to Washington, D.C. by evening. It’s 742 miles, 12h and 40 minutes, including 5 stops to recharge the car and recharge ourselves with food.
In total this is 1,136 miles, 19 hours on the road. The only question Leo, Elena, and Aryanna have left is this: will Fede speak for 19 hours straight?
Yes, Fede is known for being a talker, sort of like a mostly entertaining radio station that you can’t turn off. Follow our adventure and we will see.
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