We recently road tripped our Tesla from Melbourne to Sydney and back, and I’ve had so many questions about it that I thought I’d put it all in one place. We’re a family of four, we were comfy the whole way, and Full Self-Driving mode made the long stretches feel almost effortless. Most importantly, here’s what the trip actually cost us.
How we planned the drive
Our home is about two and a half hours south west of Melbourne, so the full trip each way was going to be around 12 hours. Rather than push through in one go, we decided to split it into two days. That meant no driving at night and no dodging kangaroos on dark country roads.
We drove from 10am to 5pm each day. Out of those seven hours, about six were spent driving and only one hour in total went on charging, food and bathroom breaks, which honestly isn’t bad at all with two kids in the back!
The drive up: Supercharger stops and costs
Heading north, we stopped at five Superchargers between home and Sydney Olympic Park:
- Campbellfield: $9.04
- Euroa: $11.16
- Albury: $9.17
- Gundagai: $12.73
- Goulburn: $20.33
That came to $62.43 for the outbound trip, not counting the charge we started with at home.
The stops were easy to plan around. The car tells you where to charge and for how long, so we used each one for a quick stretch, a snack or a bathroom break, and by the time we were ready the car usually was too.
Heading home
Our return trip was also split over two days, with a slightly different set of stops:
- Campbelltown: $18.19
- Goulburn Visitor Centre: $11.22
- Gundagai: $10.50
- Albury: $13.39
- Wallan: $21.66
That made $74.96 for the drive home.
The total cost
All up, our Supercharger bill for the whole return trip from Melbourne to Sydney was $137.39. For a family of four driving there and back, I was really happy with that.
A few people have asked whether you could do the trip with fewer stops, and yes, you could stop only two or three times if you were happy to drive longer stretches. For us, with the kids, breaking it up made the whole thing far more relaxing. Would you do a long road trip in an EV? Let me know in the comments!
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