Border Turkey – Georgia
The border crossing from Turkey to Georgia took us more than 4 hours. The combination of many people wanting to cross this border and border controls working in a very average speed let to a long queue of cars (and a much longer one of trucks). This border was the first one, where only I, as the owner of the car, could stay in the Tesla. Benedikt and Nici had to take the pedestrian border crossing. The border controls were all, on the Turkish and on the Georgian side of the border, very curious about the Tesla. Some knew that it is electric, some just thought it looks fancy, but they all could be entertained with facts about the car. That way they got out of their usual border officer roll and were easy to deal with. We’ll see if that is also possible at other borders that will follow…
Batumi
The city of Batumi is only about 30 minutes from the border. A gas station in the city was supposed to have a Type 2 charging station and we were keen to test it out. Unfortunately, something must have gone wrong with the set-up of this charging point. Our Tesla was recognizing voltage, but as soon as it wanted to only charge at one ampere, the charging process turned itself down before it even started.
Luckily, the car was still charged at about 65%. That meant for us that charging in Batumi would have been nice, but not necessary to continue our journey. In the afternoon, we went through the long process of purchasing a car liability insurance (covering damages of up to 5000€ – I don’t know if that is even helpful). Georgia is the first country that our Swiss car insurance is not covering. The feeling of not having the backup of an insurance company is something we need to get used to. Before we started our journey, Benedikt and I calculated risks forth and back to decide whether we should get an insurance that would at least cover Iran and Russia (no insurance would cover our entire trip). This type of insurance would have cost about 3000€ and the deterrent fee would have been another 3000€. Since this insurance isn’t even covering thievery, it would only pay off in the case of a total-loss accident. We think and hope this will not happen!
Kobuleti
After getting the insurance, we drove to Kobuleti, a town a little further down on the way towards Tbilisi. After a big 5-star hotel could not find one single three-phase outlet for us (they must have one somewhere), we ended up staying at a family hotel (a triple room and dinner for the three of us cost only about 30€). The Tesla charged over night with a Schuko (2 kW). The additional 25% in the battery were enough to make it easily the next day to Kutaisi and even further to Borjomi, where we were planning to go after a short visit to Kutaisi the next day.