Visiting 'Tarquin' the burnt-orange Tesla

Queensland Coast 2023

We popped in to see Kylie, Aaron, their family, pets and newly wrapped “Tarquin” the Tesla, in its burnt orange glory. We first met them (back when Tarquin was white) nearly a year ago when we were road tripping towards Cairns (and the Daintree). Since then, Kylie has been following along on our blog, making suggestions along the way. They kindly invited us for some afternoon tea today ☺️.

The finished edges of Tarquin’s wrap are impressively neat. Our Tesla is basically the same, except ours is wrapped in bugs and thousands of kilometres of road dust.

Francis was ready to adopt a few of the pets.

We considered charging in the garage, but the pricing (made especially for us) was too high 😉.

We stayed overnight in a motel in Mackay, which turned out to be right under the flight path, next to the airport. It was amusing, rather than annoying, until perhaps the 6am wake up call of what seemed to be a truck on our roof.

Charging

Next morning, we stopped at the fast (ish) DC charger in Mackay. Francis takes great delight in plugging it in successfully after it doesn’t work for Tom. Just enough time, while charging, to walk a round trip to the coffee shop for the reward.

A BMW plug-in hybrid was charging next to us using the slower AC charger. The owner said that it has a 24kWh battery which gives him 80km around town. But that seems terribly inefficient, so maybe I heard wrong. Our Tesla gets about 170km out of 24kWh of charge (or 430km out of its full 60kWh battery).

9 comments

  1. Nathan Wilson
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  2. To get 430km range in actual driving conditions, do you have your car in chill mode?
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    1. Keith Strib That’s our Tesla’s stated range, which I expect would be typical for around town, like the BMW guy was doing. We probably get that when we’re not road tripping highways at 100km/h.
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  3. We get 430 km range comfortably with mostly driving in suburbia
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  4. Aww that's a lovely blog, I don't think think $75 is expensive 🤣

    Thanks for the visit and laughs, best of luck with the new move xx
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    1. Kylie Gilroy well our Tesla is inferior compared to your mighty machine so the price is probably fair 😉
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  5. Love that colour!
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  6. More electric cars in Mackay, I say. There are a few here.
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  7. Happy days
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