Our last delivery of a 2023 Tesla Model 3 from Portland, Oregon, to Arlington, Virginia, took place only a short while ago. The trip spanned a distance of 2,811 miles by means of an open trailer for a price of $2,441.00 or, in other words, $0.87 a mile.
The vehicle in question was running when it was picked up and had driven itself onto the deck. It’s our regular lane; we’ve shipped a Jeep Compass recently from Eugene to Arlington along almost the same route. The only difference here is the type of vehicle, because a smart one provides its owner with an exclusive feature of all kinds of cargo.
The route
This is a journey that covers 2,811 miles from Portland all the way to Arlington in a north-south orientation from the Willamette Valley to the Potomac.
The drivers will begin their journey by driving from Portland along I-84 towards the east until they reach The Dalles and Pendleton, after which they cross into Idaho through Ontario, Boise and Twin Falls to Ogden in Utah.
From here, the load will join I-80 east bound and drive through Wyoming, Rock Springs and Cheyenne to Ogden in Utah before continuing further west through Nebraska via North Platte and Omaha, as well as Iowa passing through Des Moines to the Chicago area.
Finally, the load will continue its journey to Northern Virginia while traveling east bound through Indiana and Ohio taking the Ohio and Pennsylvania turnpike to Harrisburg where it will turn south on I-81 to Shenandoah Valley and finally onto I-66.
Watching your car move on the app
Connected vehicles have taken this portion of the task to another level. With a Tesla vehicle, one can open the application at any moment and know exactly where his/her car is located until when it is not.
The path will not be the path. Your car is among many that are going along the path. There is picking and dropping at multiple points and mandatory rest periods for the truck, and at times it parks for the night at a yard. In the application, it looks like detours and long rests and periods of immobility. All of this is quite common.
Turn off Sentry Mode before picking. This is a practical point. Sentry Mode keeps the exterior cameras active during parking time and consumes power. Over the few days the car spends on a trailer, it may consume a lot of battery, making the arrival of the car with less than full battery life quite unnecessary. The car would also raise alerts every time you pass it by.
There will be some charge lost, regardless. Even when Sentry is off, a car that’s plugged in isn’t asleep entirely. Some drain over a week is to be expected. We request a state of charge between twenty and fifty percent; there’s always some margin for error, especially considering the trip and drive off the trailer.
The transport mode remains valid. The Tesla will have to be in transport mode or else the parking brake will activate itself, making it very difficult to reposition the car on a deck. People who work with Teslas regularly will be aware of this. It’s an order of magnitude either way.
Use the app, and give us a call in case of any questions. The location data will let you know where the truck is. It won’t explain why the truck is there. That’s information your coordinator will get over the phone in a matter of seconds.
What $0.87 per mile reflects
There were two major factors driving this number.
Distance is the key one. The cost of pickup and loading is about the same for a carrier in all operations, the same goes for securement and coordination and delivery, and all of that does not scale by distance. Split between 2,811 miles makes each mile pay much less.
Open transportation is the other one. More cars per load and much higher frequency of trips compared to enclosed trailers is what makes open transportation more efficient in such a long journey.
Weight of a vehicle pushes it in another direction. A Model 3 weighs about 4,000 pounds, which is more than a similar car of gasoline version due to a battery pack, and carriers take that into account in planning a full load.
It is a favorable corridor. I-80 is the main transcontinental highway in the northern part of the country, and both Portland and Washington DC metro areas are good markets.
Open transport
The delivery took place with the car on an open flatbed, as this is the mode by which most cars in the United States are delivered.
It is a current production sedan that comes out of the factory with its fresh paint job. Enclosure is for those cars where having a rock chip is a significant monetary occurrence, and over 2,811 miles the enclosure charge would have been significant when it really was not needed on this particular car.
There were no complications when loading the car onto the transport. The car started, and the Model 3 is a sedan that sits at the regular sedan height, so ramp angle was not a problem.
Transport summary
- Origin: Portland, OR 97239
- Destination: Arlington, VA 22202
- Distance: 2,811 miles
- Service cost: $2,441.00
- Cost per mile: $0.87
- Vehicle: 2023 Tesla Model 3
- Condition: Operable
- Trailer type: Open
- Route: Portland, OR → I-84 east through the Columbia River Gorge, Boise and Twin Falls → Ogden, UT → I-80 east through Cheyenne, Omaha and Des Moines → Chicago, IL → Ohio and Pennsylvania turnpikes → Harrisburg, PA → I-81 south → I-66 east → Arlington, VA
