Westward Ho 2025 in Our Tesla Model 3 – CleanTechnica

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My wife and I spend our summers in at our lake house in Northern Wisconsin. We have 4 kids, 12 grandkids, and 5 great grandkids. They all gather from across the country to spend time with us there. Sitting on the pier and water skiing are a big part of our activities, as you can see below.

Utah has an equal draw to us. It is where I taught alpine skiing for 10 years (see me in uniform below with my grandson student). And the scenery and ebiking in both northern Utah, where we have our home, and southern Utah, where our daughter’s home is located, is spectacular.

With our two homes drawing us, we have commuted the 1,551 miles between them in our Tesla Model 3 now for 6 years, or 12 total trips. I just turned 85 this year, so I can do a lot fewer things now than I could do when I was younger. My balance is compromised from an accident in 2017, but somehow when riding my ebike, I still feel like I’m 20 years old. However, that means we are hauling two ebikes back and forth across the country.

On October 3, 2025, we were headed west from Wisconsin for the 6^th time. However, there always has to be a new wrinkle. We purchased Full Self Driving (FSD) for $6,000 when we took delivery on our Model 3 in October of 2019. However, it wasn’t totally activated for a couple of years. Nevertheless, for over 4 years, my wife and I have been obsessively using what is now called Full Self Driving (Supervised). I drive the whole 1,551 miles myself, and FSD makes the task much easier for an old person. This year, with the two ebikes on the carrier behind the car, we pulled out of our driveway in northern Wisconsin only to be informed that the rear camera was obstructed and Full Self Driving couldn’t be activated. Are you kidding me? It had been working just fine for 6 years — what had gone wrong? I assumed that it was a “feature” (not a bug) of the latest version of the operating system and we would have to do without FSD Supervised for the whole 1,551 miles to Utah. I quickly determined that smart cruise and steering assist were still working and paged through the operating system controls until I was able to turn the navigation voice assist back on.

Our first stop this time would be Madison, Wisconsin, where both my wife and I grew up and where two of my brothers live as well as two grandchildren who are attending the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Meanwhile, I’m doing a Google search to see if anyone else has had the problem with FSD and if there is any remedy. I read that people have had success taping over the rear camera just above the license plate. Are you kidding me? How could taping over the camera cure a problem caused by obstructing the camera? With no other options, I bought a roll of black electrical tape at Ace Hardware and taped over the camera. Miracle! FSD Supervised was working again.

The other problem we have had with FSD Supervised on long trips is that we tend to lose access to it. If you look at the control screen, your phone, away from the road, down, etc. for too long, you lose access to FSD Supervised for the current drive. You need to pull off the road and put the car in park before you regain access again. If you do this more than 5 times, you lose access for exactly 7 days. It’s not good to lose access to FSD Supervised and also steering assist in the middle of a long trip. However, there is almost always some distraction, like picking your favorite music or asking the navigation to tell you how many miles it is to your final destination, that causes it to happen. You get warnings, but sooner or later, it sneaks up on you. We had lost FSD Supervised on day 1 of the trip to Wisconsin last spring. However, we were very pleased to make the whole trip without losing access on our way west.

Supercharger Access

It’s been 6 years now and hundreds of Supercharging stops, and we have never found a Supercharger out of operation or even fully occupied. However, we did have a close call on this trip. There are 6 or more charging stations at every Supercharger between northern Wisconsin and Utah, except one — the Supercharger in Cheyenne, Wyoming, which has only 4 stalls. First of all, you have to pull off of Interstate 80 and drive through town for 7 miles to get to the Supercharger.

As we approached Cheyenne, I began to check the availability of stalls at the Supercharger. No problem — there were two of the four unoccupied. But then there was only one unoccupied. And then none. At that point, a little clock face appears which I assume means that you have to plan on a wait. However, when we finally arrived, all four stalls were open. Apparently, all four cars had just left. So, our record remains unbroken — 6 years and never a Supercharger out of order or fully occupied. (You do understand the implications of a Supercharger out of order. You arrive with only 5 to 15 miles of range left and if the charger is out of order without warning, you are screwed. You don’t have enough range to make the next charger, so you have only two options: 1) A two-day charge at L1, 110V, or a flatbed trailer lift to the next charger. Fortunately, in 6 years that we have owned our Model 3, this has never happened to us.)

Wind Farms on I-80

It’s truly amazing how many wind farms there are on our route on I-80. Most are in Iowa, but you see them also in Nebraska and parts of Wyoming. It’s hard to illustrate photographically the massive scale of the wind farms on I-80 while driving and trying to not lose access to FSD Supervised, but you see some of my attempts in the composite below.

Not only did we see massive wind farms in Iowa, Nebraska, and Wyoming on I-80, but we saw at least four different turbine blades on the move. You see one at a rest area in Nebraska in the photos below. Interestingly, they were headed both east and west.

Other New Stuff on Our Route

We saw our first V4 Supercharger stalls at the West De Moines, Iowa Supercharger as you see in the photo below. You can see the longer cables. These are a welcome improvement for us traveling with bikes on the back. They will also be welcome to other non-standard vehicles. Also, there was often a Cybertruck at the Superchargers where we were charging as you also see one in the composite photo below. I didn’t see any non-Teslas charging, but I did talk to a Ford Lightning owner who was trying to plug in at the Cheyenne, Wyoming Supercharger. I was sorry to inform him that all the Superchargers on I-80 in Wyoming are of the V2 or earlier vintage that can’t be used by non-Tesla vehicles.

Referral Program: If you find any of my articles helpful to you and you are buying a new Tesla, please use my referral link: https://ts.la/arthur73734 (be sure to use it when you make your order). If you are buying a new Tesla and use my link, you’ll currently receive $1,000 off the purchase price of a Model S or X or Cybertruck, or 3 months of complimentary FSD with a Model 3 or Y.