Tesla Spain Road Trip - Adrian Mardlin

Introduction

I live in the south of Spain, and we just had a family holiday in a charming village in the far north called Ventalló. Here’s an account of my road trip as far as Barcelona (we continued on after spending a couple of days in the city). Hopefully it’ll provide useful information and ‘comfort’ for those with EVs planning a long road trip, and help for those considering whether an EV is for them or not.

My car is ‘Angelina’, she is a Tesla Model 3 in Blue, dual motor edition with acceleration boost. Just over 2 1/2 years old, she also has the benefit of free supercharging on Tesla superchargers for the first 3 years. This does affect my decision making, and I’ll try to make reference to it where this is the case, as those decisions wouldn’t make sense if I didn’t have it.

I also own a property in the Alpujarras, which are on the southern slopes of the Sierra Nevada, and sort-of on the way, so I’ve taken advantage of this to stretch my trip over 3 days instead of 2.

Rules that I follow:

Don’t drive for more than 2 hours at a time if I can avoid it. My back thanks me for this, as does my bladder.
Go deep. Don’t be afraid to arrive with 10% or less. The gauge is very accurate, and you can always slow down a bit if you’re not going to quite make it. My record is 4%. The lower you go, the faster it’ll charge.
Drive normally. Don’t ‘hypermile’ it because it’s electric.
Use Tesla Superchargers if you can. Not just because I get it for free right now, but because there are always lots, they are reliable, fast and cheap.
Enjoy the journey, not just the destination.

Day 1

Mission on day 1 is to get to my mountain home. A drive of about 3 hours. As I have free supercharging (and can’t actually get the Tesla to the mountain house to charge), I start off with just 66% battery which is enough to get me to Torre del Mar charger with 26% left. I set the max charge limit to 100% (I always do this on a road trip because charging slows down dramatically as the battery gets ‘fuller’, and I’d rather charge more for free than pay the idle charges or have to rush back to unplug the car).

Anyway, this gives me time for a lovely Thai street food lunch, and to pop to the Mercadona supermarket next door for a pizza for my dinner later.

When I return, Angelina has 97% battery, so I am able to complete my day’s journey and arrive at my mountain house with 51% left.

Day 2

On day 2 I had an appointment to meet an old friend at a golf course just outside of Benidorm, so after an early breakfast, I headed down out of the mountains to my first stop at El Ejido. This place is a sea of plastic as it has the most sunshine each year of pretty well anywhere in Europe, so there are greenhouses galore, mostly staffed by Moroccan immigrants.

Anyway, just a quick 13 minute stop needed here to get enough electrons (42%->69%) for my second stop. Time enough for a pee break and to pop into Carrefour to buy some much-needed mouthwash.

My next stop is at Totana, just south of Murcia. Lots of lovely new chargers but not a whole lot to do there, so another quick pee break, and charge from 12% to 65% in 21 minutes and I’m good to go.

I arrive at the Melia Villaitana golf club, just outside of Benidorm with time to spare, so have a bit of lunch and wait for my friend, Roger to turn up. I haven’t seen him for years, so time for a quick selfie before we embark on a cutthroat competition that ends up all square.

After a quick drink, time for my final stint with one last charge. I’m tired and hungry after golf, so make my way to the Tesla chargers at Ondara, and I may or may not have consumed a Big Mac. I have a quick wander around the shopping mall, look at my phone for a bit, and before I know it, Angelina has charged from 13% to 90% in 45 minutes.

My final stop is a Hotel on the outskirts of Valencia that I chose because it has a Tesla Supercharger in the car park. As I arrive tired and with 66% charge, I don’t actually need to use it.

Day 3

Mission today is to collect my wife, Katie from Barcelona airport (she’s far to sensible to come on a road trip with me when she can just get me to pick her up instead!), and then on to our accommodation.

I have plenty of time, so headed out at around 10am. First stop is at L’Aldea. This proved to be quite interesting. There were around 20 Tesla Superchargers, and 4 ‘other’ chargers. While I was charging, a Range Rover development car showed up on UK plates, and a whole bunch of English guys spent about 20 minutes scratching their heads and their credit cards trying to get one of the other chargers working. I questioned this madness, and suggested they just plugged into Tesla, but apparently they couldn’t or weren’t allowed to. They might still be there… Anyway, 17% to 65% in 20 minutes, and on my way after the usual pee stop.

With time to kill, I headed to the seaside at a lovely town called Salou, had some lunch, and then went to charge up. I had a long time to wait for the flight, and some Netflix to catch up on, so was able to load up all the way to 100% at Vila-seca, which took an hour. There I found an interesting Wine shop that sold my favourite rum, so that charge wasn’t so free after all.

Then on to the airport to pick up my wife, Katie, and start our holiday.