Charging My Tesla Model 3

This week we are in a Tesla Model 3. The mid-range retails around $81,000 and has been updated since last we drove it.

Stay tuned for more about that in our Video Review next week.

Meanwhile I want to have a bitch about charging, the bane of EV owners world-wide. Nowhere is that truer than in Australia. For decades we have seen the electric car slowly coming of age. Tesla is the grand daddy of EV’s, and no matter what the others say, is still king.

But there’s a problem, Superchargers are few and far between. Since Tesla closed their showrooms, only the service depots remain open, and few have chargers for the public.

Other GayCarBoys EV Stories:

So begins my story.

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ABOVE: CHarging my Tesla – Broadway, Sydney, Australia

I ventured to my favourite watering hole in some of the filthiest weather Sydney has seen in a century. The main road south leads to Canberra, and on the way passes pretty little villages. Picton is one such village, and is a place I spend a lot of time.

Sadly, the village is prone to flooding, and my afternoon beverage was cut short by an evacuation order.

Undeterred, and only partially fed and watered, I set off for the 100km trip home.

The biblical storms we are told are once in a century, have continued in a steady stream for two days, with another 3 to come. The 110kph highway was reduced to 15kph with rain so dense you could have cut it with a knife.

I chewed up 300km of my 501km range. You see, the batteries will only charge to around 80% on a supercharger in order to preserve its life. This is great in theory and will be part of the review.

We are unable to charge at home in our strata apartment building. 75% in Sydney live in apartments, and most have the same problem. This makes frequent schlepps to the Broadway Shopping centre 100% necessary. You charge at around 620km range per hour of charge. You pop in and have a coffee, grab some bits at Coles, and you’re done. The difficulty is getting in and out of this badly designed facility.

The chargers are on the bottom level near the exit. You have sit in a very long line to get in, in a long line to make your way around to the exit, then after charging, a line to get out. But you aren’t done because there is another line to get through the roundabout and back on to the main road. I spent longer in the line than I did in the charging station.

Oddly, although 6 of the 8 chargers are available, 3 teslas sat using the “destination chargers” that are available to other EV users. There is something terribly wrong with this picture.

There, bitch well and truly had.