Camping Tesla

The $15K Tesla post from a couple days ago, currently the most popular recent post on the site, had within some notice that the vehicle might be used for some camping activities. This post goes into what's required, or at least 'nice to have' to make that happen.
Yes we know the Tesla Model Y is probably a better choice for a camping focused vehicle, there's lots of Youtubes attesting to that, but there's some on the Model 3 as well, which is good because a Model Y would have cost us almost twice as much, and only been a significant benefit on some relatively rare occasions. Nice to have but not $14K more nice to have.

Camping Mode is available on pretty much all Teslas, but works by far the best on 2021 and later Model Y's and 2022 and later Model 3's (yes and later 2021's) because they have the latest, most capable heat-pump systems. The #1 advantage of Camping Mode is the ability to efficiently, quietly keep the temperature stable overnight without draining the battery (~10-14% over 8 hrs)   ...well, and keep the bugs out.

You can of course switch the display to a cozy fire and even play ambient sounds over the audio system. Wave sounds from the beach anyone? We actually put a towel over the display at night and play a little white noise if the background sound in the location is distracting. Camp mode also keeps the 'accessory power' on so your electronics will charge and power remains available from the 12V outlet.

Mattress. The second most important thing is having something to sleep on. Seems like everyone knows that you can sleep in the back of a model Y. What's less obvious is that the sleeping space in the Model 3 is almost identical excepting one obvious dimension. You fit the same 75"x38" 'Twin' mattress in either case and the size of person(s) that will fit is nearly the same. The Model 3's space is about 1" shorter and the shelf above limits the space for rolling over if you're unusually wide in the beam. We have a fix, shown below, for the length issue. Not much you can do about the turn-over height (just over 16") except buy a Y.

                   It is admittedly cozy for two, so choose your partner wisely. 
The biggest practical difference between 3 and Y is that you can climb in on the tailgate end of the Y but ingress/egress is limited to the rear doors with the 3. It does take a few tries to learn how to get in and out without contortionist moves or bumped heads. By the tenth time it's almost natural. 

Tip: If you plant your butt first and take off your shoes you can slip them into the footwell without getting mud all over.

We chose a firm foam mattress from IKEA. That plus sheets and a couple pillows fit into $100.  It isn't the most comfortable thing ever, but if you're tired enough... 

Bed ruffle and Duvet not shown ;-)

We're looking into a memory-foam or gel-foam mattress topper and will probably update this post later.

When you're done sleeping, you toss the pillows just back behind the seat fold-up line and then lift the front of the mattress up and back, tucking it under the shelf leading back to the trunk area. 

Folded Mattress from the trunk end

When you're done it makes kind of a 'C' shape. You stash the extender (if you have one, see below) and flip the seats up for the day. At the rear there's still room for two 'carry on' size suitcases, nestled inside the opening of the 'C' shape, although that makes the access to the under-trunk more difficult. You can take out the suitcases temporarily if full access becomes necessary.
The footwell space behind the front seats fits two similar size suitcases as well so roughly 4X of that size carry space without putting stuff on the rear seats. Not bad.

The sleeping space is wider up near the doors, and to make it seem less like there's an edge to fall off of, just stuff a spare pillow in the space at the side. It is necessary to find the 'right' position for the front seats, making the seatbacks upright enough, but the whole seat just far enough back, to keep head pillows from sliding off.

Any photo: Click to expand.

The Extender Board we made is not really necessary unless you're above 5'10" (or maybe 6' depending on how you sleep) but it does make the bed area seem more spacious and less 'on the end.'

It started life as a 15"x37"x1/2" bit of plywood, with four chunks cut out of it to make a 7 1/2"x1" tongue toward the rear and a 7 1/2"x4" tongue toward the front. See photo. That long rectangle shape then comes out 10"x37".  The front tongue with a 1 1/2" foot attached below rests on the front armrest and the rear edges rest on the rear center headrest (pulled up) and the back of the other two headrests. A little chunk of the cut-off plywood provides a lip that fits just behind the extended center headrest and 'locates' the whole assembly so it won't slide around.

WARNING: PUTTING WEIGHT ON THE UNSUPPORTED FRONT CORNERS OF THE EXTENDER BOARD CAN CAUSE IT TO FLIP UP AND INJURE YOU OR SOMEONE NEAR. It's best to put it in place immediately before sleeping and remove it first thing. Ask how we know ... ;-)

We're still working on methods of strapping it down. This information provided without warranty of usability, safety or fitness for any purpose.

It doesn't really show here but the extender width is tapered slightly on the rear so the whole thing can slide in under the mattress for storage.

Board shown here sliding -not quite- all the way in

Setup or takedown of the mattress and extender takes under one min. with practice.

Note: If it looks a little 'off' in the pictures it's due to the rear seat-backs which squish down about 3" when you put weight on them, then everything, including the extender aligns properly. This does bring up one of the irritations: When you move around the seats squeak and so does the extender. OK in the day, not so much at night.  We're working on it...

Privacy and Darkness are the next topics. Truck stops and rest stops and Walmart parking lots are frequent "Gotta rest right now!" targets. Obviously an actual campground would be a better idea but life doesn't always cooperate. 

There are a lot of sunshades/window-shades or whatever out there. Again, many seem to be from the same Chinese suppliers with different branding tags slapped on. We went once again to vion.com since they were very responsive during an issue with a previous order. Pricing seems middle-of-the-road and quality is 'good average' which matches what we're looking for.

They have sets of seven window shades. 

photo credit: VION

and, another set containing the two roof shades. Total for all was just over $100.

photo credit: VION

Yes this is a lot to set up. Sometimes we don't bother with the roof shades depending on circumstances. The roof glass is pretty dark. That said, with everything in place the interior is pretty dark even in the middle of the day. 
Notice that most parts have a reflective side to keep the heat out during the day and a black side that looks very 'stealth' for use at night or other "Nope, nobody home" situations.

Nobody is claiming that this is a perfect solution, and when all you wanted to do was sleep, fiddling with shades is a pain. Still, works remarkably well.

Charging! Most of the charging will of course be at Tesla Superchargers. However if you have your CCS Adapter (see previous post) along it increases the odds of free fast(ish) charging, especially in California. And, having the J1772 adapter doesn't hurt your chances, especially at Motels.

 
However, you probably won't find either of those in a campground. While some campgrounds have 14-50 sockets that will fit your Tesla Mobile charging cord many have the old style RV TT-30P plug, so having a TT-30 to 14-50 adapter can turn your somewhat expensive camp spot into a free pass as you drive past that $20+ Supercharger session in the morning.

Food:  Two things here.One is a big deal, the other quite minor.

Those lucky dogs with Model Y camping pretensions have a -just- slightly larger rear sub-trunk -and- a 12V Socket right next to it. This makes it relatively easy to toss a mini-fridge in the back. All is not lost however. 

We found a 12-24V capable fridge that will fit behind the passenger seat -or- in the rear sub-trunk. Yes it's only 19 liters instead of 24 but for $150 you can't complain too much. And yeah it's a brand nobody ever heard of, but it does seem to work well.
If you look it up online (Amazon in this case) you'll find it's 1/2" too tall to fit in the back half of the Model3 sub-trunk.
This brings up one of the key tweaks required for a fridge in the back of 3 or Y. 
If you take a pair of 3/4"x3/4"x1.5" chunks of wood and attach some grippy-side Velcro to one face you can attach it to the lip of the sub-trunk lid. This will hold the back of that lid open almost 1" and two cool things will happen. One is that suddenly this (relatively cheap) fridge will fit no problem, and the other is that ANY fridge back there will require ventilation if it's going to work efficiently so having the sub-trunk lid 'cracked open' a bit really helps. The downside of course is that any noise it happens to make will be less muffled.

Since we don't have a convenient plug in the back and the fridge cord isn't long enough, a 12V extension is required. This one from NOCO does at least have fairly heavy gauge wires.

 

The other oddity we picked up was a 12V immersion heater.  Kind of a crap-shoot as about one in three of them just seems to burn up and fail.  Also they're not really safe to plug directly into the 12V socket in the car as they're also famous for overheating there, but it should be safe-ish into the extension cord.

Testing with a 12 oz. Hydroflask shows simmering after 5-6 min. and really near boiling at 10 min. The 16V that the Tesla provides seems to speed up the process somewhat, though at the cost of increased odds of burnout. One key is to only heat water, and to have the water up within about 1/2" of the lip so all the heating element is in the water. Should work well for instant soups and coffee, if somewhat slowly.

Sharp metal. Photo looking up from rear trunk

One small fly in the ointment we found was that some cars, ours included have a metal stud/bolt/whatever sticking down below the rear deck, behind the big cross brace. 

This one is on the passenger side just under the rear window.

We've snagged the comforter and some body parts on it. 

as a more-or-less expedient fix we drilled a hole in half a wine cork and screwed that up on it. Prevents injury or holes in the blanket, things can still snag on it but no damage results.

More later, maybe, as we get more experience.