Camping with the Tesla Y (EV)

So, it turns out… Going camping with the EV is great. Better than I’d expected, and I expected a lot.

This past weekend I took it out to Ike Kinswa State Park and stayed in a cabin. Basically, you get a roof over your head and a mattress to sleep on, but that’s all – cooking is still outside, and we all still took our sleeping bags. Cabin rentals are handy for April, when the weather is unpredictable here, and for taking a bit less gear.

I did find that with 4 sleeping bags, pillows, cooking gear, the cooler for all 4 of us, other food, kids toys, and assorted gear, we filled the car up to the limit without the roof rack. 

That means that next time we go camping with our tent, I’ll need to make use of the roof rack. Thankfully, I’ve got the roof rails installed, which you can see in the picture.

What about charging? Turns out, it was no problem. 

As it turns out, the cabin was set up for an RV electrical hook up outside. All I had to do was plug my mobile charger into the center outlet and charge overnight. Yes, any RV campsite will work for RV charging, though in some cases you may need an adapter. This is something that actually I find rather frustrating. Why is getting the EV charging network so “difficult” when all it takes is just a 240V outlet in a parking lot wherever you happen to be staying? But I digress. If you own a Tesla, the supercharger network will get you along the highways, and your home charger will do the rest.

One other advantage I noted from using the Tesla was the ease of taking compost home. Few places have composting service for food scraps like Seattle Public Utilities does. Whenever I travel, I feel rather bad about putting food scraps in the trash. Thanks to the frunk, I don’t have to. I got a couple of collapsable camping trash bins and some very sturdy 50 gallon compost bags, and all our food scraps for the weekend came home with us.

In an ordinary car, this might smell bad, but the frunk is fully separated from the cabin. I double bagged the compost with a plastic trash bag just to be on the safe side, which I reused when I got home.

Bottom line, everything worked out quite well and so far the car has been a big success when it comes to camping, just like everything else. I’m turning into a Tesla fan boy. No more gas, no more emissions from operation – just a quick smooth ride on the road.