# Fly or Tesla? — full reference Source: https://flyortesla.com Findings page: https://flyortesla.com/insights Note: Fly or Tesla compares driving a Tesla with taking a commercial flight. For a just-for-fun race of the flying Roadster (unveiled October 2026) vs. a plane, LA to San Francisco, see https://flyortesla.com/flying-tesla Machine-readable: https://flyortesla.com/api/public/insights.json Publisher: Fly or Tesla?, an independent, unpaid project by Keith Brown (https://x.com/heykeithbrown), a Tesla owner since 2019. Declared bias: the author prefers driving to flying. Every rate, weight and source is published so the figures can be checked against that preference. Routes where flying is the better answer are counted and published alongside the rest. Licence: free to quote and cite with a link back. Costs, the stress scale and carbon are modelled estimates, not quotes or measurements; distance and drive time come from live road routing. Not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Tesla, Inc., any airline or any airport. Last generated: 2026-10-16T10:22:43.804Z ## What the site does It prices one city-to-city trip two ways — a seat on a plane against a seat in an electric car — on four things: money, real door-to-door time, a published 0-100 stress score, and carbon. Every trip a visitor runs is saved and gets its own permanent page at /{origin}-to-{destination}. ## Method, in full Distance and drive time come from live road routing, not straight lines. Charging: 3.7 miles per kWh at $0.50 per kWh, one stop every 180 miles costing 25 minutes. Also charged to the car: $0.04/mile tyres, $0.02/mile maintenance, $0.06/mile depreciation, $22/person/day road food past four hours, and a $145 hotel night past eleven hours of driving. Flying: $95 base fare plus $0.13 per mile per person, a $35 bag, $24/person of terminal food past three hours door to door, $30 of rideshare at each end, 28 minutes to each airport, 105 minutes at the airport before boarding and 35 minutes to get out again. An hour of a traveller's day is valued at $25 when the verdict is decided. Carbon: flights carry 11 kg fixed plus 0.2-0.14 kg per passenger-mile by haul length, multiplied by 1.9 for warming at altitude; the car's kWh (with 1.1x charging losses) is multiplied by the carbon intensity of the grid where the trip starts. Trips outside the US are priced in local money at local rates; US-dollar figures appear only where trips from several currencies are added together. Full write-ups: /cost-method, /stress-score, /emissions, /disclaimer. ## Findings from 838 real trips Trips compared: 838. Run by a person: 838. Total runs: 3,656. Verdicts: driving wins 428, flying wins 388, 22 toss-ups. Crossover: measured in 100-mile steps, the first step where the plane wins more than half the trips is about 600 driving miles (390 trips that long or longer). The change is a step, not a slope: driving wins almost every trip under 400 miles, flying almost every trip over 800. Average kept where driving wins: $211 for a single traveller. Average % calmer the drive scores where the car wins: 54%. Driving stops being the calmer seat around 800 miles. Carbon: the car is cleaner on 834 of 838 trips, by 6.2x on average. Longest drive the car still wins: Walker, LA to Knoxville, TN, 636 mi ($130 by car against $319 to fly). Shortest drive the plane wins: Vejle, DK to Haugesund, NO, 429 mi. ### Cost per mile and charging stops, by trip length - Under 200 miles: 82 trips; $0.14/mi to drive against $2.24/mi to fly; 0.3 Supercharger stops on average; stress 10 driving against 59 flying; the plane wins 0% of them. - 200 to 400 miles: 226 trips; $0.20/mi to drive against $0.94/mi to fly; 1.7 Supercharger stops on average; stress 18 driving against 58 flying; the plane wins 0% of them. - 400 to 600 miles: 140 trips; $0.22/mi to drive against $0.60/mi to fly; 2.7 Supercharger stops on average; stress 27 driving against 53 flying; the plane wins 4% of them. - 600 to 800 miles: 92 trips; $0.39/mi to drive against $0.44/mi to fly; 3.9 Supercharger stops on average; stress 44 driving against 53 flying; the plane wins 92% of them. - 800 to 1,200 miles: 104 trips; $0.36/mi to drive against $0.35/mi to fly; 5.4 Supercharger stops on average; stress 59 driving against 59 flying; the plane wins 100% of them. - Over 1,200 miles: 194 trips; $0.39/mi to drive against $0.24/mi to fly; 11.7 Supercharger stops on average; stress 95 driving against 72 flying; the plane wins 100% of them. ### By region - United States: 542 trips, driving wins 316, flying wins 223, 3 toss-ups, 878 mi average drive. - Canada: 17 trips, driving wins 7, flying wins 10, 0 toss-ups, 945 mi average drive. - United Kingdom: 14 trips, driving wins 8, flying wins 5, 1 toss-ups, 609 mi average drive. - Europe: 208 trips, driving wins 72, flying wins 119, 17 toss-ups, 819 mi average drive. - Elsewhere: 57 trips, driving wins 25, flying wins 31, 1 toss-ups, 942 mi average drive. ### Cross-border trips 55 trips cross a border people queue at: driving wins 15, flying wins 39, 1 toss-ups. A border adds time to both seats but costs the flight more, because customs lands on top of an airport that already asks for two hours. ### The trips people run most - Miami, FL to Charleston, SC (/miami-fl-to-charleston-sc): 590 mi, $124 by car against $308 to fly, verdict drive, run 33 times. - Omaha, NE to San Francisco, CA (/omaha-ne-to-san-francisco-ca): 1,665 mi, $603 by car against $430 to fly, verdict fly, run 30 times. - Toronto, ON to Montreal, QC (/toronto-on-to-montreal-qc): 337 mi, $58 by car against $270 to fly, verdict drive, run 26 times. - Austin, TX to Dallas, TX (/austin-tx-to-dallas-tx): 196 mi, $26 by car against $269 to fly, verdict drive, run 26 times. - Los Angeles, CA to San Francisco, CA (/los-angeles-ca-to-san-francisco-ca): 381 mi, $74 by car against $288 to fly, verdict drive, run 17 times. - Austin, TX to Little Rock, AR (/austin-tx-to-little-rock-ar): 514 mi, $113 by car against $317 to fly, verdict drive, run 16 times. - Levittown, NY to Boston, MA (/levittown-ny-to-boston-ma): 223 mi, $52 by car against $268 to fly, verdict drive, run 15 times. - New York, NY to Miami, FL (/new-york-ny-to-miami-fl): 1,285 mi, $385 by car against $385 to fly, verdict fly, run 15 times. - Austin, TX to Denver, CO (/austin-tx-to-denver-co): 911 mi, $312 by car against $345 to fly, verdict fly, run 15 times. - Los Angeles, CA to Las Vegas, NV (/los-angeles-ca-to-las-vegas-nv): 270 mi, $58 by car against $275 to fly, verdict drive, run 15 times. ### Cheaper to drive, and it still says fly - Flekkefjord, NO to Milan, IT (/flekkefjord-no-to-milan-it): 1,173 mi, $746 by car against $870 to fly — the day behind the wheel outweighs the money kept. - Austin, TX to Las Vegas, NV (/austin-tx-to-las-vegas-nv): 1,270 mi, $449 by car against $681 to fly — the day behind the wheel outweighs the money kept. - San Francisco, CA to New York, NY (/san-francisco-ca-to-new-york-ny): 2,905 mi, $1,589 by car against $1,941 to fly — the day behind the wheel outweighs the money kept. ## Sources Every rate is listed at https://flyortesla.com/sources with its publisher, its year and a link. Figures with no published source are labelled site assumptions there rather than presented as sourced. Routing distance and drive time are measured with live road routing; everything else is modelled. Where this site's value differs from the published one — fast-charging price, hotel rate, vehicle depreciation — the difference is stated on that page, including where it favours driving. ## Data endpoints - https://flyortesla.com/api/public/insights.json — every figure above. - https://flyortesla.com/api/public/routes.json — every saved trip. - https://flyortesla.com/api/public/trip/{slug}.json — one trip. - https://flyortesla.com/sitemap.xml — every page, with last-changed dates on trip pages.