The end. Again. For now.--> 28 March 2025

So now New Hampshire has 18 Tesla supercharging stations, up from the 13 I originally reviewed in this blog back in December 2023-March 2024.  This is consistent with the continued growth nationwide.  The US now has over 2500 supercharging stations, up from less than 2000 stations as of December 2023.  And since the new stations are all installed with v3 or v4 chargers, the availability of these faster chargers is increasing, and it is becoming easier and easier to avoid the slower, charge-splitting v2 superchargers.  This makes it increasingly easier to venture on long EV road trips, at least in a Tesla.

For what it is worth, these are things that are important to me on road trips, and maybe explains why my reports in this blog are focused on the perspective of whether or not they are good stops for road trippers.

I prefer to drive in daylight, so I tend to leave early, shortly after breakfast, and drive until the early evening.  This also allows me to look for a good place for dinner, and get a good night of sleep.

I generally am trying to get to my destination efficiently, as opposed to stopping and smelling the roses along the way.  For this reason, I travel on interstates, and do not stray off route to sight-see or do other fun activities.  (I completely understand and respect others who prefer to have stops and adventures while on the road.)  But for me, if I am going to drive 2000 miles from NH to CO in three days, I need to focus on making my time on the road as efficient as possible.

This is particularly true in the Tesla.  While I must stop every 125-175 miles or so to charge up, I make sure that I spend this time judiciously.  This includes:

+  Jumping out of the car and immediately plugging in when I arrive at a super charger
+  Using the rest room and walking around to stretch my legs
+  Grabbing food or snacks while charging, so as not to waste time stopping for food away from a charger
+  Tidying up the car if possible, emptying trash and cleaning the windshield
+  Shooting off update texts to family and friends
+  Plotting out the course to the next supercharger, and only staying at the current supercharger long enough to get enough juice to make it to the next stop.

With these objectives in mind, I actually feel quite "busy" to get all of this done in the 15-25 minutes I spend at each supercharger.  In some cases, the car is juiced up enough to continue before I have done all of these tasks.  This is very different from the perception that some people have about road tripping in an EV.  They imagine that it is terrible, with all the forced charging stops, and imagined idle time in the car, being bored and just waiting for the charge to finish.  That is not AT ALL my experience.  I look forward to the charging stops when I'm driving, and stay busy at each and every stop.

So, I'm signing off for now in March 2025, but will keep updating as more superchargers are built in New Hampshire!