We live in Placitas, NM with a nice view of the 10,000 foot Sandia Mountains. There is a cable car / tramway that will take you to the top and to a restaurant and a ski area. You can also go around the back side and take a (paved) road to the top, mostly to access trails. There is also a shorter way directly from Placitas but it is an unpaved road and we decide that would not be a good idea in the Tesla.

it was about an hour drive to the top, starting at about 5000 feet rising to 10,000. I had never tested the Tesla in this sort of environment so I kept an eye on the range, just to make sure we had enough juice to get home. We started with a full charge at 258 miles. When we got to the top it was about 170, or about 90 miles of range for a 51 mile trip. So the altitude cost about 40 miles of range. Ok.

On the way home things got interesting. Going down the steep part of the hill we added range, maybe 15 miles total. But I’m not sure the battery was ready to take on this charge (there was some green light that kept going on and off on the console). The rest of the ride was still downhill but less so. It took a while for the range to go down at all an eventually it got back to 170, where we were at the peak, but by the we were almost home.

I didn’t really keep close track of the numbers but it was roughly a 100 mile round trip, and total range was maybe 110.  Not much of a penalty for a 5000 foot climb.