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Comment by jmpman | Hacker News Reader

Many times the third party chargers are broken, or vandalized. Some have screens which are completely unreadable after a few years in the sun. They’re sited in inconvenient spots, such as mall parking lots, which have nothing open after 9pm.

That being said, the Tesla charging network is far from perfect. Check to see how many US National Parks you can practically visit with a Tesla. Carlsbad Caverns? Nope. North Rim of the Grand Canyon? Barely.

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Apparently this reddit post from three years ago doesn't think so: https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/6oq1wb/an_upda.... Looks like only four National Parks aren't (as of three years ago) within round trip distance of a Supercharger, and Carlsbad isn't one of them.

Carlsbad caverns is ~100 miles from the nearest supercharger. It wouldn't be a comfortable round trip even with a Y Long Range. With a standard range vehicle, it is not doable.

Some of those that are near the mid 250s would be risky, especially as the car is likely to be loaded down with above average mass, maybe some bikes or a roof luggage unit hurting aero. Guess you could drive slow.

Furthermore, people often don't drive to a national park, drive around a bit, and head back. When I visit Death Valley, I probably drive hundreds of miles within the park.

I was in Death Valley last weekend. Drove there from SF with Model Y, ended up renting an ICE car to explore the park, especially since we were staying 1.5 hours from the center of the park.

I saw several Teslas around the park, and I think it's doable if you only want to visit say 1 or 2 locations, but without a Supercharger in the middle of the park, you will be limited and won't have the flexibility to see everything.

The resort in the middle of the park has 4 J1772 chargers, which would help if you were staying in the park overnight, but we were simply doing day trips.

OK. I've always stayed at Furnace Creek for a number of days and done things like drive up to Ubehebe Crater, Charcoal kilns, etc.

Ok, when I went to Carlsbad, I first drove to Carlsbad NM via El Paso, spent the night, and from there drove to the caverns, returning to Carlsbad that night. As my hotel didn’t have a destination charger, the drive couldn’t be done in the Tesla, and I opted to drive an internal combustion vehicle. But let’s say I was determined to drive the Tesla, and not spend the night in Carlsbad. The trip from El Paso to Carlsbad caverns requires a trip to Van Horn first, for a total round trip of 454 miles, and over 8 hours. With an internal combustion vehicle, it’s a direct drive, 304 miles round trip, in just 5 hours. An additional 3 hours and 150 miles in the Tesla? No thanks.

The story for the north rim of the Grand Canyon is similar. In the Tesla, from Flagstaff, you must first drive to Page, AZ. Round trip 508 miles and 10 hours. In an internal combustion, its 422 miles and roughly 8.5 hours. When you arrive at the north rim in the Tesla, you can’t go anywhere else, and you must return the way you came.

Tesla should work on optimizing their National Park experience, as it’s the classic destination of an old fashioned American road trip.

Although you are correct in general, there is a trick - buy a NEMA 14-50 RV adapter and stay overnight at an RV campground or state park, wake up to a fully charged car in the morning.

> third party chargers are broken, or vandalized

The Chargepoint / third-party ones in Seattle have almost universally destroyed screens by vandals.

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