Epic Energy Usage In Our Tesla Model S In Albania

May 19th, 2018 by Jacek Fior

Here we come with the final stage of our CleanTechnica Tesla Shuttle Adventure. Our previous entries attracted a lot of attention in the countries we visited and the photo of the Polish tourist in Macedonia was a Twitter hit. We also received emails from concerned EV enthusiasts from Hungary, who were sorry to hear about our difficulties in Debrecen.

I feel it is important to highlight that the overall experience from all the countries was very positive. Of course, there were some problems and hiccups on the way, but we have them everywhere — Poland, Hungary, or Germany. It’s important to keep promoting the right direction and that is what we are doing here on CleanTechnica globally and with Tesla Shuttle in Europe. We believe we showed many more people through this trip that electric car life is possible, practical, and coming fast.

Anyway, to continue from where we left off, we are still in Macedonia on our EV trip and we landed in a picturesque town of Ohrid with its hilly surroundings and beautiful lake (no swimming or sunbathing this time, as far as we know). We found a great place to stay and the owners are happy to share their socket, but we failed to charge here, as there was no extension long enough to reach the car park. Reality bites! We still have some kWs left, nobody despairs, and we are looking forward to Albania and Tirana with the promise of a fast charger. Of course, this is all second hand (I didn’t go on the trip) and I’m just putting you in a storybook mindset. 😀

As you may remember, the Tesla Shuttle team faced serious challenges and hardly made it to Sofia, with only a few Whs left once the charger was plugged in. Tomek had to pull out all his best EV driver tricks to reach an average Wh/km low enough to make it to the charger. And yes, he was proud of the result at the time, but he couldn’t know what was about to come — a magical drive to Tirana which will change his record table forever.

I wonder what is your best energy usage over 50 km in a Tesla Model S. Are you satisfied with 160 Wh/km? 120 Wh/km? After crossing the Macedonia-Albania border and taking a few illegal photos, the team headed for Tirana along a winding mountain road going down and down and down. … Tomek started to get excited when his average consumption dropped below 100 Wh/km, a first for him in a Tesla. He even texted us a photo of the Tesla screen. Before you read any further, though, try to guess the lowest average he could achieve over a 50 km distance.

Yes, obviously, it was downhill, good weather, very good roads (which was much appreciated in all of Albania) but still, the result of … 10Wh/km sounds quite unbelievable, doesn’t it? It’s great to see a projected range of 999 km after you have driven for some time without charging. 🙂 We would have beaten the Italian team going this way! But we didn’t, of course. 🙂 It was fun trying, nonetheless.

Albania, then, gave the CleanTechnica–Tesla Shuttle team a warm welcome. And it was not only the weather, good roads, and easy driving with insanely low kWh/km. It was also the people they met. We’ll get to that in the next and final installment of this CleanTechnica–Tesla Shuttle road trip series.

But seriously — 10 Wh/km! Crazy.









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