The Tesla road trip (conclusion)

Going on long trips with a Tesla in the US and Canada has always been a question mark for me and – I guess – for many Tesla owners. What it takes is to start and break the uncertainty by just doing it, even if it’s a fairly short road trip (ours was around 650 miles). 

What made things easy was the Tesla's Supercharger network, the largest in the country, with less distance between stations compared to Electrify America. The good thing is that Tesla's network is currently only available to Tesla vehicles, also the best selling in the nation. 

The itinerary we picked was sparsely populated, politically not EV friendly and still it was good enough to educate us in simple strategies for planning well and “refueling” smartly. We learned quite a few things in the process. First the connectors that are assimilated with charging stations.

The most common connector is the SAE J1772 EV plug (Charge Point, EVgo and Blink stations all use it). It was been adopted by the Society of Automotive Engineers as the standard plug charging. All electric cars in Canada and in the US can charge using this plug, including my Tesla that just requires an adapter for it and that was provided with my car. 

Then there’s the CCS (Combined Charging System) which is used by Electrify America. That company is the result of VW's $2 billion deal with the US government to compensate for the Dieselgate scandal. This CCS connector resembles the J1772 charging inlet, but adds two more pins below for high-speed charging. I don’t own the adapter that one yet. 

So when I am better at navigating the non-Tesla world of chargers, We’ll be good to go anywhere! Until that time, if you have questions or comments about EV cars, just chime in...