Elon Musk Plans Cross-Country Road Trip In Electric Tesla Model S


The man behind the electric vehicle company Tesla Motors (and the recently hyped Hyperloop idea) tweeted that he, his five kids and network of superchargers are ready for a cross-country road trip. The trip — stunt, if you like — could be another milestone in the viability of electronic vehicles.

Autoblog Green has the background:

Musk first proposed this trip back in May when Tesla announced an expansion to the Supercharger network. At the time, Musk said he wanted to retrace the route of a college road trip, but this time with his five children in the car. With the optional rear-facing seats installed the Model S can seat 7, if some are small enough. On Twitter, Musk said trip planning is done, and the six-day, 3,200-mile trip should only require nine hours of charging. He added, “At 1.5 hrs/day, we will only ever need to charge when stopping anyway to eat or sightsee, never just for charging itself.” But we assume he’s not including overnight charging in that time, since six Supercharger fill-ups – which can each provide three hours of driving – will not be enough for the entire coast-to-coast trip.

Interesting timing on Musk’s tweet: It came 56 years to the day that Jack Kerouac’s epic road trip novel “On the Road” was published.