This summer we embarked on the adventure of travelling with a Tesla model 3 through the north of Portugal. We saw that the only Tesla supercharger in the north of Portugal was the one in Ribeira de Pena, which did not coincide with our route as we were going to enter through Vigo. But beware, the next supercharger was already in Mealhada, near Coimbra.
Our route consisted of going initially to Porto, then to Guimarães and finally to Braga, and then returning to Vigo. So as a precaution we fully charged the Tesla model 3 standard range at the Tesla supercharger in Vigo and entered Portugal towards Porto, what could go wrong?.
Along the way we were pleased to see that many gas stations advertised that they had a charger for electric vehicles, and in addition to that we came across several Tesla cars with Portuguese license plates.
So we arrived in Porto and we decided to charge the car at the destination Tesla charger at the Corte Inglés in Gaia, which although it was a slow charger it would allow us to charge a few kilometers while we ate and did some shopping.
But oh! surprise! when we arrived at the Corte Inglés Parking in Gaia we didn’t see any Tesla chargers anywhere, and I asked a mechanic at the garage and car wash in the parking lot where the destination Tesla charger was and he told me that the charger had been removed some time ago although it still appears at https://www.tesla.com/es_es/findus
So we checked https://www.tesla.com/es_es/findus again and we saw that there was another destination charger at the BessaHotel Baixa so we left the Corte Inglés for the BessaHotel, thinking about charging and eating there.
At the reception of the BessaHotel Baixa we were told that if we were not staying at the hotel we could not charge and that we should go to the Shopping Via Catarina shopping centre which was next door and charge there.
We went to the Shopping Via Catarina and asked the employee if we could charge there, he said yes, with any card or mobile app.
We parked at the charger, connected the hose, brought all our credit cards close to it and the charging post said they were not valid, nor was the Zünder app installed on my phone.
The employee at the parking lot kindly recommended a couple of apps that were widely used in Portugal, as Miio, but these did not accept a foreign card as a means of payment.
So we went to a parking lot next to the apartment we had booked, the Praça do Infante D. Enrique parking lot which luckily also had a charger compatible with the Zünder app.
But, you guessed it, the Zünder app gave an error about the payment method and we could not charge.
We enjoyed two days in Porto, without using the car and finally we picked up the car from the Parking to go to Guimarães, in the parking lot of Praça do Infante D. Enrique they charged us the whopping sum of 107 euros for two days, but well when we found out that in Porto they had stolen several foreign cars we were glad that at least we didn’t leave with the window broken.
Then we went to Guimarães at 90 KM/h and taking some slipstream when possible, where we stayed for one day to go later to Braga, also at 90 KM/h.
In Braga we parked the car and didn’t move it, we traveled by Cabify which was incredibly cheap, plus the drivers were very friendly and showed us several interesting places.
The next day, also at 90 KM/h, we returned to Vigo, we arrived at the Tesla supercharger with only 40 km of autonomy remaining, which is not bad for a standard Model 3 after having done the route Vigo => Porto => Guimaraes => Braga => Vigo without being able to recharge.