David Williams: Tesla S shows a little power can take you a long way

Green machine: the Tesla S made good going on a Snowdonia jaunt

Range anxiety is a huge factor affecting electric car sales. But how far can you really travel on battery power alone from London? If you junked your diesel or petrol-engined car in a bout of environmental altruism, but still fancied a night away, or giving the kids a weekend treat, or a spot of hill-walking, how far would you get before running out of juice?

Well, how about luxuriating at upmarket Lucknam Park Hotel, some 105 miles from Charing Cross? Or letting your children loose at Diggerland in Devon, 184 miles away? Or flopping at a remote eco guest house in Snowdonia, 234 miles away?

Tesla — king of the electric motoring jungle — has just installed its 200th UK Supercharger bay, capable of topping up the car’s potent batteries in under an hour. To celebrate, it has teamed up with a host of organisations each of which installed its own charger (tesla.com). The aim? To show that long-distance electric touring is now possible, with top-up points across the UK and beyond.

So we put it to the test. We picked up Tesla’s S — the five-door saloon with coupé-styling — and with batteries at 100 per cent as we left the firm’s Heathrow centre, and the computer promising 291 emission-free miles, headed up the M40 in search of that Snowdonian guest house, fresh air... and fine-dining in deepest Wiltshire.

Even those accustomed to electric motoring find the Tesla an eye-opener, especially the latest P100D. It is super-quiet, refined and as luxurious as you would expect for £131,800 — but hypercar performance? It hits 60mph in around three seconds. Delve into the massive central screen and hit the “Ludicrous” button, however, and you’re in supercar territory, hitting 60mph in a neck-bending 2.5 seconds, or 2.4 if you hit “Ludicrous Plus”.

I enjoyed it so much I wanted to push on to Snowdonia, but we needed lunch so stopped at Hopwood Services on the M42, plugged in Tesla’s supercharger and, in less time that it took to eat our sandwiches, the iPhone app showed that the batteries were full again, up from around 60 per cent.

The Tesla S is a fine way to travel. Power, silence and a guilt-free conscience are givens. Less expected are the swish, modern cabin, comfortable seating for four or five and vast amounts of storage in the rear boot and under the bonnet. Passengers love playing Spotify on the super-large screen, or gazing out of the panoramic glass roof. The ride is reasonably good (it’s a heavy car) and, for the driver, there is a unique challenge; not using the brakes. Well, not much, anyway. The braking effect is so marked when you deccelerate that initially you stop too soon — and must accelerate again to reach the traffic lights. Get the hang of it, though and you can — largely — control “stop” and “go” with the throttle alone.

Plugging into the fast charger at Bryn Elltyd guest house (ecoguesthouse.co.uk), where they produce their own electricity, gave the Tesla its cleanest “drink” ever. After an overnight charge, the batteries sped us to Snowdonia Mountain Railway, where we chugged up on old-fashioned diesel, and walked down before visiting the bewitching, fantasy village of Portmeirion on the coast.

Then, we indulged in more clean, green activity, ziplining high above Blaenau Ffestiniog at Zip World (zipworld.co.uk) at 70mph before exploring the Llechwedd Slate Caverns, deep underground.

The best part of our round-trip was plunging silently from Snowdonia to upmarket Lucknam, Chippenham, along the fast, twisting, highly scenic A470 through Wales. Perfect Tesla country and, on arrival after some 200 miles, we still had 80 miles range left, so it seemed a shame to stop. Almost. Tesla is proud of its new, luxurious — and more day-to-day — electric connections. It would have been rude not to sample Lucknam’s (lucknampark.co.uk) exquisite restaurant (Wiltshire Downlands lamb rump with wild garlic, anybody?), its 500 acres of parkland, spa and grand rooms, while we used their charger. Just this once, we wished it took a little longer to get the batteries back to 100 per cent.

Other “destination charging partners” include country clubs, shopping centres, car parks, the National Motorcycle Museum, golf courses, marinas and many more. Now, what was that about range anxiety?

Leading the electric charge

Most mainstream manufacturers now offer electric variants (see Go Ultra Low).

Electric car sales rose sharply over the past two years, with an average of 3,000 per month over the past 12 months. By the end of 2016 more than 35,000 plug-in cars had been registered over the year — a record.

VW says that by 2025, 25 per cent of sales will be electric, and 50 per cent by 2030. Volvo says 20 per cent by 2025, Daimler says up to 25 per cent by 2025, as battery prices are falling with their performance rises.

Few however are as long-legged or as fast as Tesla’s, which have been bought by 200,000 customers worldwide. In London, most Tesla owners have a 7kwh home charger (£5-£10 for an overnight charge), while topping up at public chargers costs around £80 for 1,000 miles, roughly half the bill compared to petrol or diesel. Planning a long trip is possible by consulting their map (tesla.com).

Jaguar XK parade heads to the coast

More than 100 classic Jaguar XKs, pictured, roar off from the National Motor Museum, Beaulieu, on Monday June 12, on the Round Britain Coastal Drive, aiming to raise £50,000 to fight prostate cancer.

Murray Walker is flagging-off the stunning line-up of cars between 9am and 10am, as they embark on an 18-day, 3,500-mile tour. It follows a similar run last year in Jaguar E-types.

More at xkclub.com

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

MORE ABOUT