What Does It Cost To Drive A Tesla From NoCal To SoCal? This California Woman Just Found Out The Hard Way

A Tesla owner who drove from Northern California to Southern California raised some eyebrows on social media after she shared how much the journey cost.

The TikTok user, who goes by Tesla Blondie (@tesla.blondie) on the popular social media platform, regularly posts about her electric vehicle. In one clip, she records herself sitting cross-legged in her driver’s seat while her vehicle’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) is engaged.

There are two components to her drive that are worth noting: the total cost of electric charging and the total miles involved using FSD. 

A text overlay in the video about her drive from Northern to Southern California displays her “Roadtrip Stats,” as she puts it. This includes 485 miles of driving over a 10-hour span. She says that she spent $54.57 charging her EV for the journey.

Judging from the caption she appended to the video, she feels the money and time she spent in the vehicle were well worth it. She quips, “485 miles I didn’t drive,” capping off the remark with an emoji sticking its tongue out, referring to the use of FSD. 

Commenters took issue with several things about her clip. One person was alarmed by the speedometer on her Tesla’s central screen, showing how slowly she was driving at times. “43 mph on the freeway would drive me insane,” they stated.

Another person said that the vehicle’s FSD (Supervised) implementation makes such slow highway speeds “much more bearable.”

Tesla FSD Vision-Based Monitoring

Several shared their opinions of Tesla’s 12.41 and 12.5 FSD (Supervised) update, particularly the mitigation of “steering wheel nag,” as one YouTuber describes it. According to their assessment, these FSD updates don’t require as much physical interaction as previous iterations—although they still need constant human supervision.

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This is due to the attention monitoring system utilized by the in-cabin cameras Teslas are outfitted with. Tesla writes in the Model 3 owner’s manual that “while Full Self-Driving (Supervised) is engaged, the cabin camera monitors driver attentiveness.” Additionally, under the manual’s “Driver Attentiveness” section, Tesla says that “the cabin camera does not require full visibility of … driver’s eyes in order to monitor attentiveness.”

Tesla further writes that wearing sunglasses won’t impede its systems from noticing whether or not the person behind the wheel is paying attention.

Some Tesla owners have claimed that sunglasses mitigate the system from detecting that they’re not watching the road. One TikToker posted a clip of himself driving with sunglasses on. He’s able to look down at his phone as the car drives itself. He called his experiment a success, and told Elon Musk that he’s been “outsmarted.”

But people writing on Tesla Owners Online reported much different experiences. Several claimed their Teslas will ping them to put their hands on their steering wheels while driving if they’re wearing sunglasses, irrespective of whether they’re watching the road. Conversely, they said that when they take their spectacles off, the vehicle stops nagging them to pay attention.

No Hands On The Wheel?

Others said that Tesla Blondie’s clip didn’t portray an actual depiction of how FSD actually works. “Don’t forget the naggings. Tesla will nag you to death to pay attention. Nice advertising though,” one wrote. Someone else commented: “When I test drove this 2026 Model Y with FSD, it kept having me apply pressure to the steering wheel.”

Some were amazed by how much Tesla Blondie had to pay for the 485-mile trip. One person wrote, “54 dollars [is] crazy. My mom’s hybrid can go 600 miles for only 30 dollars.” Someone else simply asked, “Why is your charging so expensive?”

For comparison, another person said that they’re easily able to get from Stockton, California to Los Angeles in less than half the time. “I’m good. I get to LA in 4.5 hours from Stockton in my Honda. And only spend 130 round-trip on gas.”

Others were also shocked at the amount of time it took her to drive from Northern to Southern California. “Why did it take so long?” one wrote. Someone else echoed: “10 hours?!”

InsideEVs has reached out to Tesla via email and Tesla Blondie via TikTok direct message for further comment.

 

 

 

 

 

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