
Elon Musk To Traverse The U.S. Using A Model S In 6 Day Trip - talhof8
http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/05/elon-musk-cross-country-tesla-trip/
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avar

        > At 1.5 hrs/day, we will only ever need to
        > charge when stopping anyway to eat or sightsee,
        > never just for charging itself.
    

I'm all for the development of electric cars but downplaying having to stop at
what's effectively a gas station in the middle of nowhere for 1.5 hours per
day is pretty disingenuous.

You wouldn't get a lot of people buying a normal gasoline powered car if it
took 1.5 hrs to fill it up each time, so electric cars have a _lot_ to make up
for in other features if you're using them for road trips like this, rather
than just commuting where you're charging overnight.

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flexie
It's free. If you could get gasoline for 200 miles for free, would you mind
waiting for 30 minutes? I guess it's $25-30 worth of gasoline, corresponding
to $50-60 per hour of waiting. I could wait.

With the battery swap that Tesla is now introducing, you could also chose to
swap the battery in a couple of minutes.

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vph
charging electric cars ain't free.

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mmelin
No, but using the Tesla Supercharger stations is free for Model S owners.

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Agathos
It costs $80,000 but it comes with a free car.

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ph33t
Wonder if he uses the air conditioning? Wonder how many people are in the car?
Are there places he can't visit specifically because there aren't charging
stations - sorry I don't know his route. I wish him success, but he seems to
gloss over a lot of details ...

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wtvanhest
He should do it in 7 and take some breaks to see some stuff.

Source: I've done it in 6 and 7 days, 7 was way more fun, way more relaxing
and I learned more.

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mrich
That's more than 700km per day. So given the speed limit it means you are
spending most of the week in the car. How is this fun?

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rtkwe
At interstate speeds (~75mph/120kmph) that's just under 6 hours a day in the
car. That leaves a short but reasonably good amount of time to sight see at
either end or in the middle of each day.

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omfg
I was wondering why someone hadn't done this. It's a bit of dangerous press.
If the car breaks down, or runs out of battery for some reason, that's not
going to look good. Bit of a gamble.

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shawnbaden
Most 'normal' people already give electric vehicles a cynical eye. The people
who already believe in them don't need more convincing. The cynics need
convincing. A breakdown will only make them think "I knew it" while a
successful trip will at least add one more argument against their cynicism.
Not much of a gamble in my opinion.

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smackfu
Remember that this answers the question "Can you get an electric car from
coast-to-coast?" and not "Can you use an electric car for your coast-to-coast
vacation?" And that Tesla wants you to think it's the latter.

Clever marketers.

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jared314
It echoes the first coast-to-coast trip by H. Jackson and S Crocker[1] in
1903, except Musk is starting from LA instead of San Francisco.

[1]
[http://amhistory.si.edu/onthemove/exhibition/exhibition_7_2....](http://amhistory.si.edu/onthemove/exhibition/exhibition_7_2.html)

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derekp7
Is there plans on making the supercharge stations available for other
manufacturer's electric cars (although not for free)? The thing that could
really make this take off is if they can standardize this technology. After
all, I don't think gas cars would be as convenient if you had to fill up only
at a Ford gas station, or a Honda station, etc.

Even if there are multiple charging standards, just have several charging
cables at each "pump".

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stcredzero
Most cars come with adapters for the various kinds of station.

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brianbreslin
Anyone know if he is only charging at tesla stations? What's the route he is
planning on taking? Is the idea to get food at each stop? Lastly, doesn't he
have like 5 kids, how will they all fit in the tesla???

Edit: He does have 5 kids.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#Family](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#Family)

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alanctgardner2
One of the design goals with the Model S was to fit Elon's whole family: there
are rear-facing seats in the back that fit an extra two people.

~~~
brianbreslin
ah you are correct, hadn't seen that. no room for luggage then.
[http://www.teslamotors.com/models/features#/interior](http://www.teslamotors.com/models/features#/interior)
guess you can have your luggage for each day fedexed in advance if you're
elon.

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robomartin
I'm surprised they don't develop a really cool looking mini trailer battery
pack to double (or more) your range. It could have some extra room for
storage. It'd be great for longer distance camping trips and such outings. The
other option would be a clean fuel cell technology (hydrogen?).

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stcredzero
How about a pack that fits into the "frunk?"

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lumberjack
It would have been much more impressive if he were to execute a non-stop trip
making use of the recently revealed battery swapping technology. Is there some
reason why they can't yet install them alongside all interstate Tesla
superchargers?

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timdorr
The big question is when he's going to take that trip. They're supposed to
have the cross country capacity only at the end of the year. Why announce it
now and wait 4 months to actually do it?

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slantyyz
I'd love for him to do it during the coldest months of the year in the
Northeast, like February. That will either shut up all the naysayers about
cold weather distance driving, or it will shut him up (unlikely) about how
good the battery is when it's really, really cold.

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shawnbaden
Have the trip details (like route) been released yet? Is he only stopping at
Supercharger location? I'd like to meet him and follow along a while. I'm not
a stalker. Really. :)

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damon_c
It's great that he has that kind of free time with as much going on as he has.

