This weekend we embarked on a long road trip from St. Louis to Virginia to see my family. I’ve taken this trip many times in my old Camry, and it’s a doozy. My body doesn’t like sitting for 13 hours.
I now have a Tesla Model 3. I was curious to see the impact of the self-steering mode on my mental state for the long trip, but I was also worried about the extra 2 hours required for all the charging stations.
Having completed the trip (both ways), I can now report on both aspects of the experience and more.
The Good
- I appreciate the car’s ability to self-steer whenever there are clearly marked lanes, especially on the highway. But that appreciate is now at an entirely new level, as I felt considerably safer during this long trip than on any other trip to Virginia. Let’s face it: Your mental capacity to stay alert, focused, and safe decreases the longer you’re in the car. It’s tough to do anything for 10+ hours, much less operate a complicated piece of machinery at breakneck speeds. But a self-steering car doesn’t get tired. It is just as capable of staying in the lane and watching other vehicles in Hour 1 as it is in Hour 15. Meanwhile, I’m acting as the backup driver, and I’m a lot less tired in Hour 15 than I would normally be in Hour 13. I really felt this difference later in the trip as it got dark.
- Have you ever gotten caught in a torrential downpour during a long trip? Whenever that’s happened to me, I find myself on high alert, hunched over the steering wheel, trying to see the lanes. In the Tesla, I was certainly concerned, and I regulated the car’s speed accordingly…but the car’s ability to see in the rain far outweighs the capabilities of my human eyes. The rain really seemed to make no difference to it. I kept an eye on the other cars on the road, knowing that they were at a severe disadvantage–they were the greatest danger to me in this situation, not the rain.
- When I’ve taken this trip in the past, I typically try to make 2 or 3 stops at most, each of which is a bathroom break and the quickest food option available. It adds up to around 30 total minutes over the 3 stops. The Tesla required much longer stops at superchargers (which it automatically steered us to)…and I have to admit that it was actually nice to not rush through a stop. We’d stretch, walk around, go to the bathroom, find a restaurant within walking distance, and get something to go. At shorter stops we still ate while driving, but at longer stops we ate in the car while it charged, allowing us to order things that would have been impossible to eat on the road. Oh, and I’d definitely recommend Heine Brothers coffee at one of the supercharger stops in Louisville. Their pastries are amazing.
- Electricity is cheaper than gas. The round trip would normally take around $300 in gas; the superchargers charged me around $50 total (though it’s possible some were free for reasons I don’t understand but am fine with).
- Simply being in a 2021 Tesla Model 3 is a lot nicer than a 2003 Camry. I could get everything from the Camry that I get from the Tesla–music, podcasts, air conditioning, etc–but I can’t avoid saying that they’re easier to access and control in the Tesla.
The Bad
- There’s no getting around the fact that 15 hours is longer than 13. I definitely would have preferred to arrive in Virginia at 8:30 pm instead of 10:30 pm (my parents would agree).
- As helpful as the self-steering is, it tends to remain at a constant speed if there isn’t a car ahead. So on winding West Virginian roads, it enters curves at the same speed it leaves them. So while I let the car steer on the highway, I frequently adjusted the maximum speed with the scrollwheel near my thumb, slowing down a bit entering curves and speeding back up as upon emergence.
- We encountered something peculiar during multiple stops in West Virginia: Dudes defiantly parking their gas-guzzling trucks in the supercharger parking spaces. Is this going to be a thing now?
Overall, if took the same trip again and had the choice between 15 hours in the Tesla vs 13 in a Camry, there’s no question that I’d choose the Tesla. Hands down. The only caveat is that if I had extra time, I’m more likely to break up the trip into two days into one the next time, maybe stopping at a nice bed and breakfast along the way.
What do you think?
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