Last fall I had really nice road tour at southern Germany and Austria with a friend and Tesla Model S. Then the plan was to test not only the car and Tesla Supercharger network, but also the local Smatrics operator. Sure there was some issues, but everything went well. The lesson we learned was clear: In case you really want to travel long distances with Model S, specially with kids, you need to be able to rely on Superchargers. So no Superchargers – no roadtrip.
This time I’m actually travelling with kids. This brings the special flavor to driving: We simply cannot take 12 hours leg from A to B. We cannot charge in the middle of nowhere for hours. There needs to be breaks, ice-cream, playgrounds, Lego’s, zoos and so on.
For electric driving experience I’m testing the other operators too. The Finnish Liikennevirta has done a roaming deal with Intercharge (there’s a post for this too, In Finnish), so I should be able to charge at Type2 chargers in Germany. Addition to this I have also ordered a Plugsurfing RFID-tag to charge in some parts of Germany but essentially in Netherlands.
Netherlands also has very own Fastned network. It’s really interesting intercity -charging operator with multiple CCS and Chademo fast chargers at one charging station. They do have Type2 too, so it makes sense to check them with Tesla. Fastned don’t have their own RFID-tag, but a mobile software and free WLAN available at their charging stations. So we’ll see how this goes.
All of the route is covered with Superchargers, but it’s interesting to see how others have done the trick and how Centeral European charging operators handle the case compared to Finnish counterparts.
The route begins from Berlin, Germany, 2nd of May. For the first night we’ll stay around Münster (Germany), and then we’ll continue to Amsterdam. One night there and then back to Berlin. So it’s four days altogether and about 1400 km on the roads.
There’s no mountains this time, but very interesting scenery and roads ahead! Stay tuned, follow the trip at Twitter, with hashtag #TeslaToDam