Elon Musk's Tesla Model S electric road trip: 5 kids, 3,200 miles, 9* hours of charging

With his legions of vociferous fans, there has been no bigger champion for the electric vehicles from Tesla Motors than the man at the helm, Elon Musk. Musk's latest promotional event to prove the power of EVs will be a cross-country drive in a Model S, using the rapidly growing network of Superchargers along the way.

Musk says the six-day, 3,200-mile trip should only require 90 minutes of charging a day.

Musk first proposed this trip back in May when Tesla announcedan expansion to the Supercharger network. At the time, Musk said he wanted to retrace the route of a college road trip, but this time with his five children in the car. With the optional rear-facing seats installed the Model S can seat 7, if some are small enough. On Twitter, Musk said trip planning is done, and the six-day, 3,200-mile trip should only require nine hours of charging. He added, "At 1.5 hrs/day, we will only ever need to charge when stopping anyway to eat or sightsee, never just for charging itself." But we assume he's not including overnight charging in that time, since six Supercharger fill-ups – which can each provide three hours of driving – will not be enough for the entire coast-to-coast trip.

To be honest, driving across the country in a Model S – to say nothing of other EVs – is a feat that's been done before, but when Mr. SpaceX loads up the kids and goes for a drive, people pay attention. People also noticed when, during a much shorter drive, a writer from The New York Times managed to run out of electricity last winter. In response, Tesla fans proved the drive up the East Coast could be done.

News Source: GigaOM, Twitter