Poland To Paris — Our “31 Hour” Tesla Model S Road Trip To & From Autonomy

October 15th, 2017 by Zachary Shahan

Autonomy starts in just a few days (in Paris). I will be headed over there (from Poland) with my smart and funny cleantech pal Kuba Stechly. I will be moderating two panels at the conference, but it would have been somewhere at the top of my list of “conferences to squeeze out some time to attend” anyway due to the integrated, holistic, and insightfully future-focused approach it brings to the world. It’s not just about electric cars, not just about cleantech, not just about alternative transport, and not just about city planning. It’s about bicycling, walking, city planning, robotaxis, electric cars, electric scooters, EV charging, mobility as a service, the internet of things, and much more. (I genuinely encourage you to check out the website.)

Bringing his own strong commitment to personal action to my inbox, Kuba suggested that we take a Tesla Shuttle to Paris instead of flying. (Disclosure: Kuba and I are both co-founders/shareholders of Tesla Shuttle, which made that decision a little easier than it might have been otherwise.) I looked at the navigation in our Tesla Model S 85D to see how long it would (should) take to drive to Paris from Poland. At 15½ hours each way, I was not super seduced by the idea, but it did present itself as a possibility.

Considering that I could work much of the way, explore via a long-distance electric road trip for the first time, blog about it, have some fun with Kuba, and — quite importantly — not contribute to the profits of airlines and oil companies, I decided to jump in.

So, in a few days, Kuba and I will leave Poland for Paris. We want to publish some fun stuff over the course of the trip. We’d love more ideas if you have them, but here are some initial plans:

◊ Count the number of electric cars we see along the way. (Don’t count gas or diesel cars.)

◊ Carefully log what we do while charging … and what we do while driving. (The former is to try to help people understand how an EV road trip like this compares to a road trip in a gas car, while the latter is basically just for fun … or due to a chronic case of blogging masochism.)

◊ Compare our trip to how we would have made this trip in a next-generation Nissan LEAF or Opel Ampera-e.

◊ Vlog the experience a bit on CleanTechnica‘s Facebook page — live videos + recordings and pics.

Again, if you have some more ideas for what kind of trouble fun we can get into while driving from Poland to Paris in a Tesla Model S, please … help us!

Also, I really do encourage you to get a ticket to Autonomy, to drop me a note in the comments below if you will be there, and to stay tuned for more coverage of our “Poland to Paris” Tesla road trip and special takeaways from Autonomy.

Oh, also, got any great EV-related songs for use in our vlogs?

⇒ Related: See You In Paris! — Talkin’ Bikes, Electric Scooters, & Electric Carsharing At Autonomy

Tesla images via Tesla Shuttle











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