Today was my first Tesla trip outside of home base. I departed from Greentown, PA just before noon for The 2015 Open Minds Technology & Informatics Institute. I arrived at the Omni Hotel in Washington just past 6:30 PM. I learned a lot about the Tesla during the trip. The AutoSteer beta feature is impressive but far from perfect.

The cameras look for the white or yellow lines on the left and right. I noticed some of the lines were not painted straight or in some cases not painted at all. Some of the lines have worn off of the road. When there is an exit from the highway, the lines are sometimes obfuscated. Where construction blocks line the side of the highway, there were white lines painted perpendicular to the road. Any of these conditions can confuse the software in the Tesla and require the driver to take control away from the car. Nevertheless, the AutoSteer feature is impressive and demonstrates where the future of cars will be.

I stopped in Newark, Delaware for a charge. The Supercharger adds roughly 180 miles per hour of charging. My earlier post saying it would take 5 minutes was incorrect; it was 50, not 5. I could have made it to the Omni Hotel with one charge, but I wanted to make sure I would leave the hotel for CT on Wednesday with a full charge, so I stopped in Bethesda for a second charge. The superchargers for this stop were in the parking garage at a huge shopping center. They had eight superchargers. In total, I drove nearly 300 miles today. Total cost of fuel = $0.