Trailer-friendly #Tesla #ChargingStations?

Last updated: 14 August 2022
Stations rated: 4 (MD)

Y’all, it’s super hard to find Tesla charging stations that are also trailer-friendly. Even though many Teslas can tow between 3,500 and 5,000 lbs (our 2016 Model X 90D can tow 5,000), most Tesla charging stations are not really set up to enable a Tesla that is towing something to pull in and charge. So, I’ve created a trailer-friendliness rating scale for Tesla charging stations from 1- to 5-stars so that I can share the most trailer-friendly stops we’ve seen on our travels while towing our 2022 R-Pod RP-192. This list includes any chargers that show up on Tesla’s charger map because it has a built-in Tesla plug (like Supercharger or EV Go). I acknowledge that one can buy J1772 or Chademo adapters to work with other networks like ChargePoint, but I’m not including those on this list at the moment.

The Trailer-friendly Charger Scale

Here’s what I’ve put together from our travels, so far. Feel free to recommend other considerations in this rating scale.

1-star: This is almost every Tesla charger in a city ever. 
- Pull into the charging station with a trailer: N
- Charge without unhooking: N
- If no, trailer parking nearby: N
- Organic/healthy food, beverage, or shopping stores nearby: Y (+ 0.5) or N

2-stars: This is almost every other Tesla charger ever. 
- Pull into the charging station with a trailer: Y
- Charge without unhooking: N
- If no, trailer parking nearby: N
- Organic/healthy food, beverage, or shopping stores nearby: Y (+ 0.5) or N

3-stars: This is the most common Tesla charger in a large gas station or rest stop.
- Pull into the charging station with a trailer: Y
- Charge without unhooking: N
- If no, trailer parking nearby: Y
- Organic/healthy food, beverage, or shopping stores nearby: Y (+ 0.5) or N

4-stars: This is a very rare Tesla charger in a large gas station or truck stop. 
- Pull into the charging station with a trailer: Y
- Charge without unhooking: Y
- If no, trailer parking nearby: N/A
- Organic/healthy food, beverage, or shopping stores nearby: N

5-stars: This is a unicorn; I hope they exist but I’ve never seen one IRL. 
- Pull into the charging station with a trailer: Y
- Charge without unhooking: Y
- If no, trailer parking nearby: N/A
- Organic/healthy food, beverage, or shopping stores nearby: Y (Nirvana)

If you don’t know, it can take 10-15 minutes to unhook and hook-up to your trailer every single time your charge… and charging itself can take 1.5 to 4 hours (to go from 10% to 100%) depending on the strength of the charging station… so not having to unhook-to-charge is a BIG deal.

Superchargers We Have Rated

On this rating scale, pulling up to a two-star charging stations is a relief for a Tesla owner pulling a trailer and on less than 25% battery (and I say “relief” because you can’t really tell from the Supercharger map on board the Tesla or Google Maps reviews what to expect before you show up in person, having committed to the accessibility of that Tesla on blind faith.) That’s why pulling up to a three-star charging station can cause spontaneous praise and shouts of hallelujah! But a four-star station is like reaching the first Heaven and I don’t know what I would ever do if I saw a five-star station. 🤣 With that being said, here are our the Tesla charging stations we know (from North to South and West to East) according to their trailer-friendliness.

Maryland

The Tesla Supercharger North East on I-95 is a 3.5-star charging station. It’s located at the Chesapeake House Maryland State Truck Stop. With an open-air, pull-in charging spot, and Peets coffee for my self-proclaimed, west-coast coffee-snob husband, it’s worth checking out!

This Tesla Supercharger has one pull-in stop but the trailer would block traffic, unless it was the middle of the night. Photo credit goes to Alioune Ba from Google Maps

The Tesla Supercharger Aberdeen on I-95 is a 3.5-star charging station located at the Maryland House Maryland State Truck Stop. It also has an open-air, pull-in charging spot, but also offers an organic/gluten-free/dairy-free Elevation Burger for all three of us to enjoy!!!

Although you can pull into the charging spot closest to the front of this picture, your trailer would still block traffic so it’s not ideal for trailer-towing Teslas. That’s why we unhooked-to-charge.

We were so happy to find an organic, gluten-free (GF), dairy-free (DF) food option at this Tesla Supercharger that we took a picture! 🤣

The Tesla Supercharger White Marsh on I-95 is a 4-star charging station (hallelujah). Located at a Royal Farms gas station, it has an open-air, pull-in charging spot, and we didn’t have to unhook to charge!!! Whaaaat?! Unfortunately, we can’t eat or drink anything that RoFo sells (except for, maybe, for natural spring water?) but not having to unhook-to-charge beat out our lack of food options hands down! 🙌

This is an ideal pull-in charging spot for Teslas that tow. Too bad RoFo is full of unhealthy food.

The Tesla Supercharger Edgewater on I-95 is a 3-star charging station. It’s located at a WaWa gas station. Although it has an open-air, pull-in charging spot, you must unhook before charging if you don’t want to block traffic. Bummer!

Conclusions

I will update this list as we discover more. (Lord knows, I have NOT found a good route-planning app in which I can find or save this information. Any suggestions?) At least this list helps us remember where we can go again, and I hope it can encourage others to #goEV in the future.

After all, we get asked all the time how far our Tesla can tow our trailer on one charge (like, every single time we tow). People are wondering, they want to know what’s possible. 🙂

What are your favorite Tesla charging stations?