EPIC Roadtrip

Jul 3, 2024 | Holiday, IT, Photographs, Tesla, Toys | 0 comments

Before we begin

Right, this is going to be a long one, so buckle in for the ride! I’m going to try to blog over the next couple of weeks while we travel from Scotland to Austria, stopping at some interesting places along the way.

Before we begin, a few updates related to previous posts are probably worth mentioning.  We now own Lexee!  What do I hear most of you say?  Lexee is the name of our Tesla Model 3 Long Range, which we leased from Lex Autolease in 2021.  The lease expired last month, and we could buy her, which we did.  She will be transporting us from Scotland down to London for a day at Wimbledon to watch some tennis and then down to Dover before catching the ferry across to Calais.  From there we plan to travel through France, Belgium and Germany to Austria, specifically Salzberg to explore some of the places where The Sound of Music was filmed, before heading back through Switzerland (possibly), Luxumberg and France, to catch the ferry back to Dover and then drive home to Scotland.  If that sounds like a long way, it is!  About a 2000 mile round trip, so a good test of the car and passengers.

They will be me, my partner of 22 years and our 11 (soon to be 12) year-old daughter.  No dog for this trip, who will be enjoying her holiday staying with family at Culzean Castle.  So that’s about it.  We’ll be leaving for London on the 5th of July, and I’ll blog where I can along the way, hopefully with some interesting stories, pictures, and videos from my new drone.  Wish us luck and enjoy the adventure…

In Bruges

So, we’ve already made it to Belgium, and this is the first time I’ve found some time to provide an update on our adventure. Perhaps the blog won’t be as EPIC as the road trip!

The drive down south was fairly uneventful, although I think I’m getting too old to drive between the Scottish and English capitals! We stopped at Tebay Services on the M6 for lunch and electricity before continuing south. Lexee suggested another stop at Keele Services, but by the time we got there, nobody needed to stop, so we thought we’d crack on. P came up with the great idea of stopping in Stratford-upon-Avon to visit the birthplace of Shakespeare and found a charger at the Morrisons for Lexee. We grabbed some supplies and plugged in the car before wandering into Stratford, where we took a few photos and headed back as the heavens opened. Not the first time we’d get wet on this holiday 🌧️

The Premier Inn at Wimbledon was fine, and we found an on-street charger to plug in Lexee. It wasn’t clear if it was for residents only, but we thought we were okay while the car was charging, and I slowed things down to make it longer than required. At 5:20 the next morning, I got up and walked to the All England Lawn Tennis Association, aka Wimbledon, to join The Queue. I probably need to write a separate blog about the whole experience, but needless to say, it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. I’d hoped to get a ground ticket before 11 am and then head back to the hotel to check out with P & K before finding somewhere to park and enjoy the tennis. I was still in a very long queue by 11:20 when P & K found me to switch places so I could check out and sort the car before joining them back at the tennis. It had been a long 5 hours and I was almost ready to go back and watch films in Lexee, but they managed to get a ticket fairly shortly after I’d left (about another 90 minutes). By then, I’d checked out of the hotel, packed Lexee, who hadn’t gotten a parking ticket and found somewhere to park for the rest of the day. I returned to Wimbledon and enjoyed some tennis and football before driving down to Dover for a night in the Travelodge before our early morning ferry to Calais.

We stopped in Dunkirk en route to Bruges, checking into the Radisson Blu just after 3 pm. We were all pretty exhausted and needed a rest before exploring. Still, the hotel was a big improvement from the previous one and was cheaper to boot, so we called reception and extended our stay for an extra night, giving us a full day to explore Brussels before heading to Brussels. We headed in for some dinner and caught the end of Belgium’s largest flea market before enjoying some food and drinks at Heavenly Pizza after a short walk around the tall spires in Bruges. The next day, we returned for a waffle breakfast before a short boat trip along the canals. We headed back to the hotel for lunch and to recharge our batteries (Lexee had been topped up again the day before in the car park under the hotel!) before a final walk into Bruges for dinner at the Frites Bar.

We’d struggled to find a reasonably priced hotel in Brussels for the following day, so we booked something a little outside. We plan to visit the Atomium on our way in and then drive into the centre for a few hours. I’ve registered Lexee so she can drive in the ULEZ, and we’ll head out to the hotel after a brief visit. There are no plans beyond that, but I will provide another update. This blog might look messy as I’ve typed this on my phone using the Jetpack App! It wouldn’t let me edit the Divi blog I’d started the blog with, so I copied and pasted that into here. I’ll sort it out when I have more time to fire up the laptop. I’m sure I’ll have some spelling to fix and can add links and pictures, too!

Charging across Europe

I’m still on the Jetpack App, so excuse the spelling mistakes 😂 We’ve now reached Rothenburg ob der Tauber in Germany 🇩🇪 having passed very briefly through the Netherlands 🇳🇱 stopping for some lunch in Maastricht. Tomorrow, we are planning to make it to Salzburg in Austria 🇦🇹 where we will be staying for 3 nights. It will give us a chance to relax a little from the EPIC road trip.

Not having a plan does offer lots of flexibility. Still, you also tend to spend a fair amount of downtime planning the next day or two, including driving, accommodation and fuelling the body. Luckily, we haven’t had to give too much thought to charging Lexee, which I was referring to in my ‘Charging across Europe’ heading!

I was a little worried about how things might work across Europe, having not tried it before and knowing that the UK isn’t as easy to navigate as North America, which we’d done on a road trip around New York, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Toronto, Montreal and Boston last year. I needn’t have been as we’ve been fortunate enough to find destination chargers at most of the places we’ve stopped for the night, and there’s been plenty of Tesla Superchargers and other destination charges en route. We’ve not needed to go out of our way once, and the only real challenge has been the multitude of new Apps I’ve needed to install, accounts to create and payments to make. Some of them have been toward the prices I’d normally drive away from in the UK, but the approach has been to charge to full when we can overnight and start each day at 💯%

The Tesla chargers have all been super fast (some pushing the 250kWh max), the cheapest (around €0.33 or £0.28) and easiest to use (connect and you’re off). The destination chargers have been a bit more complicated, more often than not requiring an app to be downloaded and an account created to use. Some just require payment on a webpage, and some use Apple Pay, which is probably the easiest. There was only one that wouldn’t work with either method (after frustratingly downloading the app and creating an account), but the hotel had an RFID card that could be used instead. That was also the most expensive, almost competing with gasoline ⛽️, at €0.71! I’m sure we’d have found a Tesla charger, but the convenience of starting the day with a full tank’ was worth the extra cost and was probably only about £7-8 in the context of a £?000 trip!

I’ll try to pull together some more detailed stats once we’ve made it back home. I have a Teslamate account connected to Lexee, which tracks her every move, and a Grafana Docker container where I can access lots of wonderful information about trips, charging, costs, efficiency, etc. When I eventually get some time with a laptop rather than a mobile phone, I’ll add some screenshots with some details.

Anyway, that will do for now. We’re about to go and eat at a traditional German restaurant, which I’m not sure my Daughter will approve. Still, we had takeaway pizza last night while watching the Netherlands v England EURO2024 semi-final, as my partner wasn’t feeling too good. It’s great to see lots of the world on a road trip, but it does take it out of you! A new country for all of us tomorrow, though, and a few days in the same place, so we should get some time to relax a little….

Drone home…

I’m writing this from the Hotel Castel Jeanson in France on my laptop after trying to tidy up the previous blocks! I’m not sure how well I’ve done. Since the last update, we’ve visited a few castles in Germany and many sights from the Sound of Music in and around Salzburg. I’m going to post some pictures to a gallery below and some drone footage I’ve taken in a few places, which I’ve uploaded to YouTube.

I was quite surprised at how many places specifically ban the use of drones, outside of the usual restrictions for using drone assist. I can understand why, but we’ve visited some spectacular places which can’t be fully appreciated from the ground. Anyway, I might provide a more detailed update should I find time before we arrive home, but for now, it was a quick update to fix things and add some pictures and video!

There’s no place like home.

We made it home last night after 2890 miles through 6 countries using almost 900kWh of electricity. Lexee did us proud and never missed a beat. We all need another holiday and have agreed to leave the next road tips for at least 2-3 years! It was a great adventure, but at times, it didn’t feel like much of a holiday moving between so many hotels. I was going to try to wrap this blog up with a detailed analysis of our EV charging, but I think I’ll save that for another blog. My Teslamate service has all of the data, with the Trip summary shown below. I need an updated credit card statement to double-check the conversions from € to £, so watch out for that in the coming months. I might also provide a bit more detail about the places we stayed, but for now, our EPIC trip has ended!

Screenshot

To buy or not to buy

Mar 11, 2024 | IT, Leisure, Tesla | 0 comments

Or more accurately, to buy or to lease again, that is the question!

Back in May 2021 I blogged about a Tesla Model 3 test drive, which very shortly afterwards became a Tesla Model 3 delivery day and led to a Tesla road trip blog later that year.  Almost 3 years later, our Tesla Model 3 lease is almost up, and we must make some future motoring decisions.

We’ve done 17,747 miles in Lexee (yes, you get to name your Tesla and it was leased through Lex and my daughter is called Katee).  Other than some inconsiderate Mercedes driver putting a large dint in the rear wing in a car park (which was repaired at the beginning of this year) we’ve had almost 3 years of trouble-free, and incredibly cheap motoring.  Lexee was serviced by Tesla after 2 years, but that was done exactly as shown in the picture, on our drive, where a Tesla Service Technician visited and replaced the pollen filter and carried out some minor checks.  The tyres are still fine, although I’m hoping we might get them replaced before the lease ends if we do decide to buy.  We’ve spent around £600 on electricity, which is crazy compared to how much we spent on petrol in the previous car(s).  Some of that is down to free charging, both locally and at work for the first 18 months.  We also have a home charger, and an ‘agile’ tariff which allows us to pick and choose when to charge based on the cheapest rate, so only £130 of the total.  Most of the £600 is when we’ve taken Lexee on holiday, travelling down to the Northeast of England quite often, down to London and Yorkshire a few times, and around Scotland more frequently.  During the last 2+ years, we’ve had countless software upgrades, which have added new functionality to the car and fixed some minor issues.  I can honestly say, that the only thing that still irritates me about Lexee is the automatic windscreen wipers, which are hopeless, but given some of my previous cars didn’t even do this, it’s a small price to pay.

I’ve owned cars (I blogged about them here) that have all done one of two things better than Lexee (apart from perhaps the acceleration) but as an overall package, nothing comes close.  The Tesla Model 3 is an incredible car and one I’m more than happy to continue driving.  We had another test drive in a Model Y back in 2022 when they first came out, and it’s a very similar driving experience.  My conclusion was that from a driver’s perspective, the Model 3 is a better car, but from a passenger perspective the Model Y probably edges it.  We also hired a Model Y on a road trip around the Northeast of America and Canada last summer.  We flew in and out of JFK, and travelled down to Philadelphia and Washington DC, before heading up to Niagara, Toronto, and Montreal, swinging back via Boston and Stamford.  We (I) drove almost 2000 miles and the experience couldn’t have been better.  We never waited for a charge.  We generally needed to stop before the car, and it cost $140 including tolls (excluding the $1,200 for the car)

As you might know, Tesla has just updated the Model 3 (the aptly named ‘Highland’ project) just in time for our lease ending in June.  After reading and watching far too many reviews, there was only one thing for it.  Another Tesla test drive!  It was just me and Katee last weekend when we headed down the M9 to Edinburgh trying to take in all the noises and bumps, so we could compare on the test drive.  We had the choice of a red or grey standard-range version.  Katee picked red before I’d even had a chance to think!  She drove in the front for the first half of the journey and then switched to the back for the return leg, although was a little disappointed the rear screen wasn’t working.

 The biggest difference is the lack of stalks behind the steering wheel.  My Model 3 has 2 stalks – the left one for indicating and a wiper button, the right one for selecting drive and cruise controls.  The Highland version has these controls on the steering wheel and the drive controls on the screen and above your head by the courtesy lights.  Selecting drive wasn’t a problem as we did this once on the trip.  I think you can set it, so it tries to select this automatically too.  The indicators were more of an issue, and while I’m sure it’s something you’d get used to, I can’t help feeling it would alienate some non-Tesla drivers from switching.   Every car I’ve owned had stalks for indicators, so it does feel strange and unnatural, even though it never felt much of a problem.  The only area where the Highland model didn’t feel ‘a little better than my Model 3 was the acceleration, although given that the test car was a standard-range single-motor version and we have the long-range dual-motor version, it’s a bit of an unfair comparison.  The standard range is still more than fast enough for a family saloon, but the ~4-second 0-60 time of the LR model never tires.  

But yes, everything else was just a little better.  It was a little quieter.  It was a little more comfortable.  The screen and responsiveness was a little faster.  The interior trim felt a little better and the seats a little more comfortable.  It has a nice interior light around the car (which you can change the colour) and the seats are heated AND ventilated.  The screen in the back would have perhaps sold it for Katee, but even she felt it wasn’t a compelling enough improvement to retire Lexee.  And she is absolutely right!

I’m hoping we might get to buy Lexee for around £25k.  Similar spec and mileage cars are selling on Autotrader for over £28k, so it seems like a reasonable offer, and we know the car has been looked after (I clean it every 2-4 weeks). Leasing a new one looks like it would cost more than the previous deal, which worked out around £500/month after the salary sacrifice and tax implications.  Another long-range would be at least £125/month more and even a standard range would be around £40/month more.  We’d have to factor in things like insurance, road tax, maintenance, etc. if we bought Lexee (they were all covered in the lease) but it’s probably not that much more than the monthly lease costs when you add in the cost of the car.  We’d still own Lexee in 3 years, whereas we’d be back in this same solution if we leased again.

We still have another few months to decide, and a few longer trips to do.  I’m heading down to Banbury in a few weeks to see friends and we’re back down to the Northeast for Easter.  We’re also considering a European road-trip holiday for the summer, which might be more difficult in a new lease car than it would our own Tesla.  I’ll let you know what we decided to do over the summer, probably as part of a road trip blog…

Tesla trip to Skye

Sep 2, 2021 | Holiday, Leisure, Photographs, Tesla, Whisky | 0 comments

It’s been almost a month since our first Tesla trip to Skye, and while I had good intentions of blogging about the experience while I was there, I really didn’t have the time or inclination. So this is going to be a kind of flashback, with some of the highs and lows of our first long Tesla trip to Skye.

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