If you followed the news in the past few days, something big happened in the auto industry: a Tesla Motors team left from Los Angeles to New York in a speed road trip using only Tesla’s Supercharger network as their source of power.
Well, 5 hours ago, Elon Musk tweeted: “Tesla LA to NY Supercharger rally just completed in 76 hours across northern route in dead of winter thru heavy snow!”
This is a little over three days of all-electric, high-speed driving, in extreme weather conditions. The absolute record for doing this trip belongs to a gas car who did it in 29 hours, but anyway, nobody did it on electricity, for free, so far (maybe except for John Glenney and his daughter Jill, who were actually the first to do the same trip earlier in January, but slower).
Quoting the Tesla blog:
By normal standards, most people would have considered the conditions that the Model S cars faced for the rest of Day Three as extreme. Heavy snowfall turned to sleet; morning ice gave way to afternoon slush; fog restricted visibility. In Ohio, the cars sped on in driving rain. In all cases, the Model S prevailed with ease, as did the newly installed Superchargers along the way in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Ohio. Since getting through the storms of Colorado, the cars have met all their time goals and have never been short on charge. They have continued to drive across the country for free.
I liked the last two words. This is a signal that it’s possible, for the first time in the history of mankind, to travel more than 3,400 miles on electricity alone in record time. This will start changing people’s preconceptions about electric mobility and maybe the number of those who mistake true electric cars for golf carts will drop significantly.
Kudos, Elon!
image (c) Tesla
