Originally Posted by
notquiteaff
It definitely changes the deal. The benefit of not having to stop at a near-airport charger (or gas station) before dropping off the car was pretty important for my two rentals at LAX since we had to drive about 60 miles to the airport early in the morning to catch a flight. Our hotel had a free L2, so I could have just charged to 100% (not good for battery if done frequently) and been okay. But in other situations it could be annoying.
Absolutely! When I've had 24hr trips, these were my goto as I know the car and how fast it can accelerate, etc, so I can drive the wheels off it like mine at home and shave off precious time on a short trip. And then not having to fuel up or charge on the way out was a bonus.
Now, you literally will have to allocate an hour if you're lucky enough to be near to a supercharger or more to drive to the supercharger and then back for the return. No way I'm doing that. Give me petrol and a 5 minute fillup and done.
Originally Posted by
Rhomboid
I plan to rent a Tesla in northern Italy (from Milan, Florence, Venice) with Hertz. The price is just unrealistic (EUR 500/9 days). I only have limited experience with Tesla. I consider myself tech-savvy but I don't speak Italian so difficult to get help when stuck.
Would you guys think this would be feasible? Should I depend on supercharger network, or do I try to get airbnb/apartments that allow level 2 charging? Any inputs will be helpful!
If you have enough time, I would simply book a test drive at a Tesla dealership and have some seat time with the car. If you're comfortable enough with the car after the drive, then you'll be okay driving it.
The next thing will be charging, which you will absolutely need to plan out in advance. A lot of times chargers require accounts or other things like a mandatory stay of xx days so you will want to plan for this. And depending on how you drive the car, the battery can last a lot less. I hit 127mph over this weekend for a short stint of maybe 5 minutes and it sucked out 7% of the battery. That means at that speed, I would use the entire battery in just over an hour. Of course, this is not typical, but highway speeds do use more power than city driving.