Telsa to the Crest

Last week I took the Tesla up to the Crest and back. Thought I would go at night, so there would be fewer other folks on the road. Advantage: fewer other folks on the road. Disadvantage: it was really dark. The regular lights are pretty useless at night, but I thought the brights were good, until this run. Maybe it is just the nature of a twisty road in a forest, but every curve was frightening. The lights covered the asphalt straight ahead quite well, and I could see the reflectors in front of me, and had no problem telling if I needed to turn right or left. The problem was that it felt like every turn was into total darkness.

Perhaps eating more carrots would help?

There was another novelty to the drive, a new warning. The motor got too hot on the way up, and just a bit before getting to the Crest the computer put the car into low power mode. If you are not heavily on the throttle, you will not notice this, but I did let up a bit for the last quarter mile or so. After cooling off in the parking lot for a few minutes it was back to normal.

Of course on the way down there was no repeat of the problem, since the motor had to work nowhere near as hard. From the valley to the peak and back, plus an extra six miles since I missed the exit (didn't see it coming, there was construction) and the Tesla still reported a further 80 miles of range. Nice!