Road Trip to Key West, FL

Now from where we live in Savannah, Georgia, the drive is roughly 10 hours but this is assuming going nonstop. We all know we need to stop for gas, get food, and of course the restroom breaks. My tesla model 3 is saying with the 4 supercharging stops that this will add another 1.5 hours to the trip. With each charging stop equating to roughly 25-30 mins each. My Tesla model 3 mid-range gets an estimated 260 miles of range but this varies slightly based on the weather as the same principles apply to any gasoline vehicle. Wind, heat, and rain can and will diminish efficiency. You'll see this later as I drive early in the morning when the temperature is in the 70s compared to driving in the upper 80s and mid 90s.

I just type in the address to where I’m going in this case it's the hotel we are staying at; and the tesla will auto calculate the route along with inputting the supercharger stops creating a flawless navigation process. With our bags packed and the car fully charged up we head out in the morning for our road trip.

We head to our first supercharger stop just south of Jacksonville, FL. A little over 2 hours of driving. We pull up and there is not a single tesla in sight, I plug in my car to a version 2 supercharger providing roughly 590 miles per hour charge. As we can see , it will take about 25 mins to charge to continue on our journey. Surrounded by businesses, we grab a snack and use the restrooms at the gas station next to us. One thing I’d like to point out here is that most if not all tesla superchargers are surrounded by amenities such as restrooms, restaurants, and shops. Many people ask what you do while waiting for 20- 30 mins. Well 10 mins is already used for a restroom break and the remaining time can be used watching Netflix or Hulu on the tesla infotainment center or even play a game. Once the tesla says that there is enough charge to continue on your trip just simply unplug the car and follow the navigation onto the next stop while heading to your destination. The tesla supercharger network is one of the exclusive perks that only tesla vehicles can utilize. It’s also one of the many reasons why people choose a tesla over another electric vehicle manufacturer. You can literally drive anywhere and not have to worry about running out of electricity. There are so many tesla chargers and more and more built every day. Have a look at this link showing where all these tesla superchargers are at, it's quite impressive. We drive another 2 hours further south to Titusville that's right off of Interstate 95. We arrive at the charger stop with 14% remaining on the vehicle and immediately plug in before we stretch our legs and use the restroom. This supercharger happens to be a target parking lot making it really convenient to grab a quick coffee. You'll notice this particular supercharger is a version 3 supercharger providing a faster charging rate at up to 250kw!

Our next stop is in Ft. Pierce, which happens to be in the parking lot of a WaWa gas station. There are less superchargers here as you can see and it's slightly busier. With no charging wait time, I find a stall to back into, plug in and again we are at a version 3 tesla charger providing about 805 miles per hour charge. The car now says we have to wait about 35 mins now to drive even further south.

Finally onto our last stop driving 2 hours further south we arrive at the Pembroke pines supercharger at the whole foods parking lot along with various other businesses. We charged here for about 20 mins which actually wasn't enough time for us to even grab a bite to eat. Walking back to the car it told us we had plenty of charge to make it to our hotel in key west without stopping at the marathon supercharger in the keys.

Excited to get to our destination we took the long drive down US 1 taking in the views of blue water and scenic sky views over the bridge.

Finally arriving at our hotel at 6pm we plug into their EV charging spot for a night's full charge. Notice that we arrived way above the teslas prediction of 9% battery when we are actually at 25% state of charge. I guess it's better to overestimate rather than to be under. So total travel time was just under 11 hours while most of the trip we used autopilot to enhance our comfort of driving. Have you taken your tesla on a road trip?

Also if you ever want to visit Key West, Florida I cannot say enough great things about the place. Awesome nightlife, amazing food, and of course beautiful sunsets. It really is a place to check off your bucket list.