Last night I didn't sleep well - excitement before departure. Despite attempts to pack everything the day before, we still were running around the house at 9:00. Left at 9:40 with 412 km range.
Supercharger Ghent has 4 temporary stalls - funny big red cable bundles proceed to a greenish building which probably contains an electricity power station enough to power a medium sized village.
Today we confirmed that using Waze in addition to Tesla nav is a good idea: it's up to date and frighteningly smart about route optimising - once it sent us to a parallel stretch of road to bypass about 1 km of traffic jam. Tesla nav is very useful for SuC data (such as their locations and usage) and the energy estimates. So we generally end up using both.
Arrived to Calais on time but due to traffic at checkin the trains were delayed by about 45 minutes. The shopping center is extremely uninteresting, but there is a 4 stalls SuC here, so time well spent! Lesson learned: if you can help it, don't plan the crossing during high season in the weekend. It's crowded and expensive.
Speaking of Superchargers: the first time I crossed the Chunnel, I planned to charge on the other side in Folkestone, only to find out that that supercharger is 'Calais-bound' only. In Calais there is one supercharger which you can visit without taking the train, and the other one is behind the check-in.
“Tip: when going from the Continent to the UK, be sure to charge before crossing unless you have enough to reach Maidstone (53 km). ”
The crossing itself is very smooth and painless and takes 35 minutes. A word of caution: Model S is very wide and space in the train is tight. Special care if you have 21" rims since they are easily damaged due to raised edges of the metal train floor.
On the other side we quickly turned off the motorway to a beautiful winding road in the direction of Canterbury (footage from dashcam hopefully forthcoming). We changed the units to miles but something weird happened: Tesla started to convert the speed limits on road signs from kilometres to miles. Hopefully after a night rest she will discover she is in the UK and will adjust her behaviour.
Train
Extra stalls in Ghent SuC
Alien cables
Calais UK-bound SuC
Almost boarding
Careful with those rims!
Here are some pictures of Canterbury. It's a lovely medieval city with 40K inhabitants and 40K students. It's rather touristic in high season but the magnificent cathedral is definitely worth a visit.
