Tucumcari, NM, Amarillo TX, to El Reno OK – 346 miles.

Tuesday, March 5th.  Rise & shine.  8:00AM, we walk a few blocks from our motel over to the KTNM1400AM & KQAY92.7FM radio station for a live interview with the morning radio show host, Tom Even Jr.  Tom coincidentally is the owner/mgr. of the Kiva RV Park where we charged the Tesla at 240V 40Ah.   Upon arriving, Tom greets us and gets us settled.  Juan records most of the interview on his iPhone, so we will make it available here as soon as we figure that out.   The interview is a lot of fun and afterwards we’re off to breakfast.  45 minutes later we return to the radio station with the Tesla for a photo shoot and a drive around town in the Tesla.  Both Tom and Karen Alarcon, the station’s Sales Mgr.  join us for the ride.  We show off the Tesla’s strengths and speed, then pass by the town’s auto dealer to for a meet and greet with their friends.  We show it off a little more and everyone is simply fascinated by the Tesla.   Back to the station we head and after goodbyes and farewell we are off to Amarillo TX.

In Amarillo, we exit on the outskirts of town and pull into a Ford dealership to try out their recently installed EV charger.  It’s blocked by a few vehicles.  We ask permission to plug in and a service mgr. willingly moves the cars out of the way.  We are surrounded by half a dozen Ford employees, checking out the car and watching as we connect up to charge.   It’s possible, we are the first customers of this EV charging station.  We take a short walk to a sandwich shop with free wireless and camp out for the next few hours catching up with work.

We decide to shoot for El Reno OK and make plans to stay at a Howard Johnson’s which manages a small RV park next door.   During our drive the temperature falls quite a bit in the later evening.  We are monitoring closing our remaining juice and we feel comfortable with our projections to arrive We project a small surplus of battery upon our arrival.  Pulling up to the hotel we have around 5 miles left on the battery.   The hotel clerk takes an usually long time to check us in and somewhere in the back of my mind a small what if scenario hits me- what if the battery runs down while stopped out front of the hotel.  Not too worried, we grab the hotel keys and make it out to the car.  It’s 2AM, 30 degrees out, we hop in the car and the battery is now reading zero miles.  We are speechless.  I try to put the car in Drive and it just stays in Park.  I turn off the headlights to conserve power.  I jump out to size up the distance and grade. Perhaps…somehow to size up  pushing a 4,800 lb car several hundred yards.  I’m thinking we won’t even be able to put her in Neutral without battery power, let alone push the car up a slight grade and then onto a gravel road.

Juan jumps in the driver’s set and suddenly the Tesla edges forward a few feet!!!!  He’s managed to get the car into Drive and with zero miles reading on the battery, the car is moving!!!   I don’t even bother hopping in.   I start running down the driveway, directing Juan over in the direction of the RV park and to scout out the only open 240V 50Ah space which we reserved for us earlier by phone.  Juan is right behind me in the Tesla coaxing the car along the driveway.  To my surprise, we make it to our charging spot, plug in within seconds and the car starts juicing.  Close call to say the least!!!  We are extremely relived,  we empty the car of our luggage and happily wheel our bags a few hundred yards back to our room.    It’s not the best of hotels, but when traveling in an EV, how can you beat a hotel with an RV park.

Moments after we registered at the front desk, two crack head women are dropped off by a police officer claiming their house burned down.   Upon arriving to our room, we learn the crack heads are now our neighbors in the room adjoining us.  Into the wee hours of the night, they carry on their extra loud conversation while we sleep with ear plugs, hoping to get at least 6 hours of rest.

Crazy story for a long day which started with the radio interview and almost ended with a call for a tow truck at one AM.   Lucky for us, we managed to travel our last 300 yards with zero miles left on the battery before plugging in.   Maybe we should carry a hundred foot extension cord!   Perhaps, we broke a distance record, for moving a Tesla Model S with zero miles on the battery pack!!   Our advice to Tesla owners, don’t try to duplicate our results!!!

18 minute radio interview with morning host, Tucumcari resident, Tom Even on KTNM1400AM/KQASY92.7FM.

We test the high speed capability of the Tesla Model S Performance model getting it up to a maximum speed of 133 miles per hour.