Seven-year Tesla Model 3 completes 772-mile trip

A Tesla owner said on May 22 that a seven-year-old Model 3 completed a 772-mile round trip between Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area without problems, according to a post on X. The account, BLKMDL3, shared trip screenshots showing the route, charging stops and total distance. The post did not identify the exact trim, battery condition or odometer reading, but it presented the drive as a real-world durability datapoint for an early Model 3. Tesla’s trip planner says Model 3 remains configured for long-distance travel through the company’s Supercharger network. ### What exactly did the owner claim? The May 22 post said a seven-year-old Tesla Model 3 finished a 772-mile LA-to-Bay Area round trip “without issue,” based on the screenshots and caption shared by BLKMDL3 on X. The material appears to show a completed out-and-back drive rather than a projected route, with charging sessions included in the trip record. (x.com) The X post is the core source for the claim, and the available web capture does not expose the full text of the thread beyond the linked status page. That means the public evidence available here supports the existence of the post and the broad trip claim, but not additional details such as average efficiency, battery-health reading or total charge cost unless those are visible inside the screenshots themselves. (x.com) ### How unusual is a 772-mile trip for a seven-year-old Model 3? A 772-mile round trip is longer than a single-charge drive by a wide margin, so the relevant question is whether the car could complete repeated highway legs with planned charging. Tesla’s current trip planner for Model 3 shows the vehicle is designed around route-based charging stops on long drives, rather than one uninterrupted leg. (x.com) A seven-year-old Model 3 would date to the early years of the vehicle’s production run. U.S. government fuel-economy records list 2018 Model 3 variants, and third-party summaries of EPA data show the 2018 Long Range version at 310 miles of rated range when new. That does not establish the range of this specific car today, but it gives a baseline for what an early Model 3 was rated to deliver when sold. (tesla.com) ### What does this say about battery aging? Battery aging matters more than calendar age alone, and the X post did not provide a battery-health test for this car. Without that, the trip shows that one owner’s seven-year-old Model 3 could still complete a California highway run with charging support, but it does not prove how much capacity the pack has retained. (fueleconomy.gov) Outside studies have found that many Teslas retain most of their original range after several years. A GreenCars summary of Recurrent data said the average Model 3 had lost about 8% of range after roughly 1,500 days, while a separate NimbleFins analysis said seven-year-old Teslas in its sample averaged about 93% of original capacity and range. Those figures are averages across datasets, not measurements of the BLKMDL3 car. (x.com) ### Why does the route matter here? Los Angeles-to-Bay Area driving is one of the most established long-distance EV corridors in the United States because of dense fast-charging coverage along Interstate 5 and other California routes. Tesla’s trip planner is built around that network and calculates charging stops for Model 3 trips based on starting charge and preferred arrival reserve. (greencars.com) That means the practical test in the owner’s post is less about whether the car can travel 772 miles on one battery and more about whether an older EV can sustain back-to-back highway legs, charge normally and finish the trip without faults. The next public reference point is the owner’s X thread from May 22, where BLKMDL3 posted the route and charging screenshots tied to the trip. (tesla.com) (x.com)