I started a short thread on Twitter/X and Bluesky recently after leaving the Tesla at home recently. A few people asked me about it, so I decided to do a short update, as this is my computer on wheels.
A Busy Weekend
A few weeks ago, we traveled to Greeley, CO to coach in a tournament. My wife and I coach two teams this year with our daughter and it’s very busy. This particular weekend, we were coaching the afternoons on Saturday and Sunday and Monday morning in Greeley. The catch was our second team had a Sunday morning tournament in Golden.
We had booked a hotel in Greeley and decided to take two cars as we knew the Sunday morning event might run long and we needed to be back in Greeley. Our schedule of places, times, and drives was:
- Saturday 11am – practice (17 miles from home)
- Saturday 2pm – Greeley (72 miles from the gym)
- Sunday 7am – Golden (64 mi drive from hotel)
- Sunday 2pm – Greeley (64 mi from Golden)
- Monday 3pm – Leave Greeley for home (83 miles)
Around this, there likely are a few short trips of a few miles. Dinner, etc., so these are estimates.
The other caveat on this weekend was the weather was predicted to be in single digits (in the F scale) overnight. Either positive or negative, but cold. The highs were 11F Sat, 15F Sun, and 8F Mon.
Planning the Trip
We already knew we needed two cars, so the question was: is the Tesla one of the two cars?
Some snow was expected, and I didn’t worry, but my wife had a bad experience heading to the mountains one weekend in heavy, wet snow and the Tesla defroster didn’t work well. Neither did the wipers.
That was a minor concern for me, especially as I learned how to get hot air rather than the default cool air for the front defroster.
The bigger issue was time. In trying to get up to Greeley, we would be tight on time. I’d be asking to go over 200 miles without a charge in very cold weather, across 2 nights.
Or we’d be looking to stay up late one night to charge at the Loveland supercharger, which is a 20 minute (each way) drive from Greeley. There are some chargers in Greeley on a map, but when we tried them last year we found:
- 1 didn’t work
- 1 was very slow (level 1 slow)
- 2 were busy
These were separate locations in the town, where businesses had set up fast charging. This isn’t a knock on Greeley, it’s just the reality of EV charging in some places. This is an unfamiliar place and I don’t trust most charge stations owned by various companies.
At least not when time is a factor.
The Final Decision
I didn’t want to be stressed about charging, so we decided to leave the Tesla home. It wasn’t that important, certainly not to worry about charging time or having enough charge in a very cold environment. I took our old Suburban and my wife took her diesel truck.
There ended up not being much snow, just a few flurries, but it was very cold, and we were racing from place to place. In coming back Sunday to Greeley, we had a 10 minute cushion according to Google Maps and lots all that trying to get a cup of coffee and some lunch from a stop. Even if we’d have aimed for the Supercharger for 10 minutes, they don’t have food service nearby. There is a hotel at the supercharger, but they’re a) slow and b) expensive.
I’m happy with the decision. I missed driving the Tesla, but it made sense to skip it for this trip.