Recargo Aims For EV Road Trip Record In Tesla Model S

A company called Recargo has been aiming at setting a new Guinness World Record for the longest vehicle journey ever taken using electricity alone. The company went after the record behind the wheel of a stock Tesla Model S electric vehicle. Recargo drove the Tesla vehicle across a 27 state route that spanned the four corners of the lower 48 states including Washington, Maine, Florida, and California.

To make the trip happen, the driver of the EV took advantage of the Tesla Supercharger stations during the coast-to-coast EV adventure. Driver and car traveled 12,000 miles in less than 3.5 weeks. Recargo says that the reason it went on the EV road trip was to prove what electric cars could do with the proper infrastructure.

During the trip, the Recargo team navigated with an app called Plugshare, which is a directory for public charging stations. That app has a database of over 48,000 public charging stations around the world. A new version of Plugshare.com was used for the trip that was made specifically for Tesla drivers and adapted for use on the Model S' 17-inch touchscreen.

Actual distance driven during the road trip was 11,418.4miles. Total drive time was 213 hours, 12 minutes, and 40 seconds. The vehicle spent 109 hours, 36 minutes, and 21 seconds charging. Total power consumed during the trip was 4080.69 kWh. The car spent more than 4.5 days out of a three week trip charging and charge time was more than half the total time spent driving. It's unclear if the team set a world record at this time.

SOURCE: Plugshare