I have done a number of road trips now in my 2021 Model 3. Primarily road-tripping up and down the east coast. For each road trip, I have at least ensured the route I took had a minimum amount of super chargers to get from one destination to the next. This hasn't been an issue, and it was not an issue when I traveled from NC to Charleston, SC. The new issue I ran into was utilizing super chargers for the days after I arrived.

Charleston is popular vacation destination. It has many activities for both men and women. Boating, Fishing, Golfing, historical sites, great restaurants, water sports, and more. Walking downtown has delights both morning and night. It was a great trip and I hope to revisit in the near future.

Day to day, we primarily drove to a destination, such as downtown, and parked in a garage for the day. When it came time to charge, it initially appeared there were numerous options. Issue was most of these options were "destination" chargers. Meaning they could charge your Tesla, but it would take possibly 5+ hours to complete a full charge. Super chargers on the other hand take less than thirty minutes.

After further investigating, I was surprised to discover only two super charger locations in Charleston. Both not near prime locations but on the outskirts. This meant driving to a location just to charge that I would not have driven to otherwise since, for vacation interests, there was not much to offer. Nevertheless, on the last day of our trip, we drove to one of the two charging locations. It was located in a small plaza that had a pizza restaurant. The parking lot was littered with Teslas! All 8 charging spots were full, and surrounding them were another 6 Teslas waiting to charge! I spoke to one driver and he said he was waiting already for twenty minutes, and no one had established an official queue. With the design of the lot, and with the eight spots being four and four mirrored, it was not obvious who had proper claim to what. Looking back at the map, the other super charger was ten minutes away at a mall, so I took my chances and drove to the other location.

Arriving here it was also packed! It was twelve spots, but four were out of order! Luckily, since this was a huge lot and the charging spots were all in a line, a natural queue formed. From entering this queue to acquiring a spot took about twenty minutes. But in total, me driving out of my way to the first charging, then to the next, then waiting, then charging, it took around two hours! Safe to say it was my least pleasant super charging experience.

I was surprised Charleston did not have many super chargers. Maybe Tesla is looking to make more in the area, or they think destination chargers are sufficient. For people road tripping, destination chargers are not really a viable option. With the city being as popular as it is, it really needs more options. If you plan on driving to Charleston for vacation, I would highly recommend a gas vehicle, despite current gas prices.

Charleston SC Vacationing Experience