Windows don’t have a tint mode
We put the car on some Instavolt ultra-rapid chargers near the ferry port before we boarded
We did, however, find one fast charger near George Street, so we walked around Edinburgh and had some hot food while the Model Y slow charged.
The space, comfort, and how Teslas hold their range makes driving for hours minimum effort, and the Y was no different.
In the space of a few nights, Tesla camping had changed us – we’d become discerning connoisseurs of lay-bys. I will forever look at scenic lay-by and think ‘that looks like a very nice place to spend the night in an EV’.
The difference between England and Scotland was stark when it came to available and enjoyable places to camp. To make it work in the UK, you need to pick a place where there’s a lot of available parking places and right to access laws.
Why Scotland?
Feeling far more secure than night one, it allowed us to relax into our bedtime camping ‘routine’ (i.e. cleaning our teeth with water from a bottle).
The hooks above the passenger doors were also useful to hang our clothes to dry.
I felt very smug knowing that the none of the many car alarms going off belonged to the Model Y because the Tesla app hadn’t alerted me to any issues.
Just make sure your friends are up for an adventure and aren’t at all precious…
At this point you can decide to go full glamping ‘boujee’ and bring a sheet, pillows and duvet like we did, or you can go more pop-up tent style and just use a sleeping bag and inflatable pillow.
We also had far too much fun watching ourselves on the Sentry Mode cameras disembarking the ferry as we sat waiting for the cars in front to drive off.
Some new cars have panoramic roofs that can tint and this would be a great feature for future Tesla Model Ys. While camping in a car is fine in winter when it doesn’t get fully light until close to 8am and it gets dark by 4pm, in the summer it would be very hard to get to sleep with so much light and you’d wake up so early.
Waiting to board the ferry back to mainland UK: Is Tesla glamping for the fainthearted? No. But is it a fantastic adventure? Yes.
To enter Camp Mode, just tap the temperature menu icon on the bottom of the screen and select Camp (or use the Tesla app).
We drove for about three hours to walk around Edinburgh and find some hot food before our next lay-by camp
There’s no loo
We’d pre-planned to sleep in a very remote valley between Edinburgh and the Ardrossan ferry terminal where we had a 9am ferry to catch the next morning.
Parked up against the sea, Tesla camping on the Isle of Arran is truly an amazing experience
It felt sad to say goodbye to our house on wheels on the drive home as we’d become quite attached
Turning the headlights on, we had a near heart attack (my second in 10 minutes) when they picked up a Land Rover Discovery that had silently turned up sometime between 12.40 and 4.55am.
The Tesla has lots of space, and it was very easy to keep clean. Even if we left the bed in place, we still had plenty of space for our bags and the frunk meant we could separate wet clothes
While we could use the Tesla Model Y’s Theatre mode again, part of the relaxation of camping is winding down reading a book
The Isle of Arran only has four public chargers and you can only get a ferry to the mainland: There are three in Brodrick and one near Blackwaterfoot so you can really test range anxiety
Tesla has a specially shaped Air Mattress for its Model Y SUV that inflates to turn the car into a bed for the night
For anyone living under a social media rock, #vanlife has become one of the biggest viral trends of the last few years.
Sentry Mode – Tesla’s anti-theft feature which records footage using the car’s threat detecting external cameras and sensors – came into its own during the crossing, as did the Tesla app
Off to bed (a bed that was as steep as Everest because the parking spot was on a sharp incline) I awoke just over four hours later at 4.55am.
Then we got the Camp Mode temperature perfect, read our books and drifted off to sleep in our very cosy hotel on wheels. We slept like logs.
But what about living out of an electric car? Could that be the most eco and luxury van life possible? Or is the reality just a photo opportunity but a holiday to avoid?
While our day activities were quite messy, the Tesla and its vegan seats were very easy to keep clean.
Camp Mode hardly depleted range
The Model Y has 854 litres of boot space as well as a 117-litre frunk: more than enough space for all our ‘glamping’ stuff and the front trunk became a designated space for wet swimming costumes, towels and muddy boats.
I also watched two other cars come and go – one of which was a hunter’s van containing three Hound of the Baskervilles-sized hunting dogs.
Brushing your teeth and washing your face in a restaurant loo near a Tesla Supercharger is the glamorous reality of Tesla living
Driving around the Isle of Arran with no check-in times to abide by we could enjoy the scenery and outdoor pursuits to our own schedule
Although we did eventually manage to have a very early dinner at a hotel near Brodrick, the Tesla glamping lesson of the day here would be to at least pre-book your meal reservations, especially if it’s out of season.
A hotel for two is easily £200 for a night – you’ve saved that in one sleep. Gil math it and that’s practically free. And if you’re parking wild you don’t even have to pay a campsite fee either.
We’d pre-selected a place using the Park4night app, but driving up to a lay-by under a remote bridge and encountering just one guy and his camper van we got the heebie-jeebies and decided to find an alternative.
An environmentally-conscious take on van-life
I woke about 6am to a glorious stormy Scottish dawn sky, and an empty valley of mountains.
There’s even a Camp Profile which remembers your preferences and sets them automatically when you want to crash for the night.
Just roll the air mattress out, plug the air pump into the 12V, slot the air pump nozzle into the air mattress intake, turn the air pump on and watch it inflate.
This is Money’s Freda Lewis-Stempel took a new Tesla Model Y with its own specially designed ‘Air Mattress’ and ‘Camp Mode’ to one of the remotest islands in the UK to find out….
Convincing ourselves we weren’t going to end up as front page horror story news, we tried to get back to sleep.
The nomadic way of life is popular with (mainly) young people, and preceded the ‘underconsumption core’ lifestyle.
The less said about this the better really. Unlike a converted van that’ll have a loo in it you’re at nature’s whim…
Then we drove off in search of our sleeping spot in the wild for the night.
It pumps up almost instantly when connected to the car’s 12V outlet in the boot.
Scotland is popular for wild camping because of the Scottish Outdoor Access Code, which gives everyone the right to access Scotland’s outdoor spaces.
During the afternoon, we’d driven from the north west of Arran across to the north east and had passed many a lovely, big, isolated lay-by, noting a few that we’d be happy to park for the night in any of them (frankly we were spoilt for choice on Arran).
Living out of an EV is as eco as van life gets, especially if you charge using only renewable energy which is very easy to do these days. Zero tailpipe emissions and emersion in nature make it a very good way to holiday and protect the environment
It was all going swimmingly, cruising up the M6 in the warm, extremely comfortable and smooth Model Y.
The second night camping location was the stuff of Instagram posts – although murky weather the remote Scottish hills were beautiful and it felt safe which led to a great nights’ sleep
During the 55 minute crossing, Sentry Mode – Tesla’s anti-theft feature which records footage using the car’s threat detecting external cameras and sensors – came into its own during the crossing, as did the Tesla app in general.
Then it was back into the car for another three hours of driving up to Edinburgh for a afternoon ‘city break’.
For the rest of the day we drove around Arran, using the freedom of the car and no time restraints to let nature lead us. We went for a walk, swam in the very cold sea, and watched the wildlife – Arran is famous for its seals.
This time we wanted the spot to be as isolated as possible, and we found it; a single-track road about 30 minutes from the coast without a soul in sight. Not a star, not an animal – nothing. And it felt so much safer.
You also have to be prepared to shower a lot less than usual and make use of any services, public facilities or kindly restaurant or hotel to wash.
The next morning, after we had one last cold sea swim before boarding the ferry to begin our drive back to London, we both agreed we’d happily spend another three nights sleeping in the Tesla.
Going for a brisk wake-up walk around 8am, we packed down the Air Mattress and set off for our pre-Scotland charging and feed stop at Tebay.
It was everything I’d thought Tesla living would be. And the night before moved into funny memories.
