First road trip - TX/OK

[Instinctive]

Okie doke:

220 mile trip each way, for a total of 440 miles. Started at 100%, drove the full 220 to my first charging stop. Had the bump mentioned, but then it was ok and charging worked. Half an hour, 35% to 85%. Leg two was back down 80 miles, starting at 80% (did a little driving around between plus parked overnight). Was down to 50% pretty quickly, stopped and charged up to 85% - 27 minutes (surprised it took about the same amount as starting at 35%, both on a 350kw EA charger with good reviews). Leg 3 final 140 miles to home.

Highway assist was awesome. There's some stuff they can and should do to smooth it out and improve it, but it was overall great. Biggest are of opportunity is the idiotic keep hands on wheel and take control thing. I'm literally sitting there with my hands truly gripped on wheel, EXACTLY where the "keep on wheel" picture shows them, and it's giving me the alert. I SHOULD truly be able to just rest my hands on the bottom flat part of wheel and relax a bit, but failing that, being attentive and holding them should actually work. That was annoying for a brief moment at least a half dozen times each way. Eventually I should really be able to like eat a sandwich with no hands on the wheel.

Tires at 48 or 49 psi the whole time.
Leg 1: HA on almost 100% of the time, pegged to 79, little traffic. 3.8 mi/kWh UNTIL the final miles of preconditioning. The entire 220 miles ended up at 3.6 mi/kWh. That means preconditioning sucked a lot of battery...it must have started with around 50 or 60 miles left, which implies it took me down to a flat 3.0 mi/kWh for those last miles.

When I left th event I was up there for I was at 80%, but a bit farther south too.

Leg 2: HA on 84 100% of time but heavier traffic so it was slowing and accelerating quite a bit - 85 miles at 3.2 mi/kWh (it was preconditioning the majority of this time).
Leg 3: HA on 79 100% of time, still trafficky, and the final 10 miles were an average speed of maybe 20 in stop and go heavy traffic (Friday rush hour). 118 miles, 3.8 mi/kWh.

Overall definitely had a near heart attack when I pulled up to the first station and it was blocked off closed. I'm not really 100% sure what I would have done.

But it worked well enough that I think I will plan to do it again, and maybe the one stop that's 80 miles south of my destination I'll just plan to always take each way, vs making it all the way to the one right at destination.

We'll see when I go south to Austin, which is a longer drive, if I can achieve similar results.

I think this has validated the ability of the car to make the trip I most often drive - Dallas to OKC area, but it has also made very clear that I'm not going cross country anytime soon. The infrastructure of charging is simply not good enough. The only reason I'd make a trip that was similarly sparse on gas stations, which is very rare (like when I have crossed the mojave), would be if I could actually trust the stations would work. I'm 32 and I've encountered single or even multiple pumps not working at a gas station, but i have literally NEVER been to one that didn't have at least 2 pumps working, and the wait is never more than 5 minutes for a pump, and I'm 32 years old and have driven in and across all 48 CONUS states in some remote locations. So I won't be taking this up to Chicago or out to Denver or the like anytime soon.

At the EA stations I was first the only person there the whole time and second 1 of 2 people there the whole time (each had 4 stalls, but only 2 stalls of each were 350kw speed).

There's absolutely a business model coming for actual electric gas stations. Where you can plug in and get a drink and a snack, use a bathroom, etc. Given charging speeds it probably needs to be a bit rest-area-y so you could walk around or sit down for food if you wanted. It's too obvious a need if we are ever truly going to drive more fully electric vehicles.

 

[segbrk]

Biggest are of opportunity is the idiotic keep hands on wheel and take control thing. I'm literally sitting there with my hands truly gripped on wheel, EXACTLY where the "keep on wheel" picture shows them, and it's giving me the alert. I SHOULD truly be able to just rest my hands on the bottom flat part of wheel and relax a bit, but failing that, being attentive and holding them should actually work.

There is no "grip" sensor, it's a torque sensor. Not saying that's good or bad, that's just what it is for now. You can comfortably avoid that message, it just takes some getting used to. I hold the wheel at 3 o'clock with my right arm resting on the center arm rest. The dangle of my arm weight on the wheel is enough to trip the torque sensor without me really doing anything actively. You can do the same at just about any position on the wheel except right on the top and bottom.

I'm not really 100% sure what I would have done.

Looking at PlugShare myself, I see there are two other fast chargers in Moore, and plenty in the surrounding area. They're not EA, but don't limit yourself to EA or you'll have a worse experience. You might have to fight with a new app or something (hopefully that trend dies soon), but I think you would have been fine. You had plenty of charge in reserve, which is great.

but it has also made very clear that I'm not going cross country anytime soon. The infrastructure of charging is simply not good enough.

I hear you, but I bet you'll get more comfortable with it before long. It takes a bit more planning, but chances of you actually getting stranded if you do so are very low. When you pick chargers along your route, find a couple backup options in the area and make sure you'll have enough charge to get to them. Your backups might be slower, they might be a bit more out of the way, but they'll get you there. Factor in the NEVI funding coming in now and charging on road trips should become even less of a headache in the next couple years.

There's absolutely a business model coming for actual electric gas stations. Where you can plug in and get a drink and a snack, use a bathroom, etc. Given charging speeds it probably needs to be a bit rest-area-y so you could walk around or sit down for food if you wanted. It's too obvious a need if we are ever truly going to drive more fully electric vehicles.

100%. Walmarts and Banks of America are not good places for road trip chargers (looking at you, EA). Here in VA, we have a number of chargers outside of existing convenience stores, right next to the gas pumps. Looking at the plan for NEVI funding here, I'm happy to see a lot of the awards are also going towards truck stops and convenience stores. I hope the rest of the country got the memo as well.

 

[borski]

There is no "grip" sensor, it's a torque sensor. Not saying that's good or bad, that's just what it is for now. You can comfortably avoid that message, it just takes some getting used to. I hold the wheel at 3 o'clock with my right arm resting on the center arm rest. The dangle of my arm weight on the wheel is enough to trip the torque sensor without me really doing anything actively. You can do the same at just about any position on the wheel except right on the top and bottom.

I hold it at 9 o clock and keep my left arm on the windowsill, with the same results - so seems either side works fine.

I agree with the rest of what you said.

 

[Instinctive]

I hold it at 9 o clock and keep my left arm on the windowsill, with the same results - so seems either side works fine.

I agree with the rest of what you said.

I will try this. I tried a number of different holds, but all of them were like where my hands were on the wheel in semi normal spots, high/low/etc but opposite sides.

Torque-wise: do you mean like left to right? or like front to back? Wouldn't left to right torque literally steer the vehicle and override HA?

 

[segbrk]

I will try this. I tried a number of different holds, but all of them were like where my hands were on the wheel in semi normal spots, high/low/etc but opposite sides.

Torque-wise: do you mean like left to right? or like front to back? Wouldn't left to right torque literally steer the vehicle and override HA?

Left to right, yes. Give it a shot when you have room around you, you'll feel that there's kind of a wall of resistance when HA is activated. You can wiggle the wheel a little bit - that's all you need to tell it you're paying attention, and doesn't do anything. You have to push through that wall to override HA. It's not enough force that you'd even notice if you were panic-steering away from something, but it's enough that you won't override it by accident.

 

[HariK]

I just used plugshare to plan my entire CA to Montreal trip. 72mph HA. Average 3.6 miles per KWh in pure awd. In the US I had to charge only at one chargepoint. I had problem only at one EA in Utah with authentication and lucid gave refund on the credit card charge.

 

[Instinctive]

I just used plugshare to plan my entire CA to Montreal trip. 72mph HA. Average 3.6 miles per KWh in pure awd. In the US I had to charge only at one chargepoint. I had problem only at one EA in Utah with authentication and lucid gave refund on the credit card charge.

ok?

 

[Instinctive]

Left to right, yes. Give it a shot when you have room around you, you'll feel that there's kind of a wall of resistance when HA is activated. You can wiggle the wheel a little bit - that's all you need to tell it you're paying attention, and doesn't do anything. You have to push through that wall to override HA. It's not enough force that you'd even notice if you were panic-steering away from something, but it's enough that you won't override it by accident.

Awesome. I will give it a try.

And still stand by the point that it's a silly mechanism

 

[borski]

Awesome. I will give it a try.

And still stand by the point that it's a silly mechanism

I dno about silly, since a lot of cars use it, but I agree I prefer capacitative sensing.

 

[HariK]

ok?

What I was saying was that I did not use abrp.

 

[Drendino]

Awesome. I will give it a try.

And still stand by the point that it's a silly mechanism

For a while it irked me that I had to change my hand positioning style to accommodate HA. However, I recently discovered that I drive with the Lucid style on every car now, so I’m no longer really bothered by it. In fact, when I drive my Rivian, I hold the bottom left part of the wheel with two fingers and some torque, even though it’s a touch sensor. There is a lot to be said about muscle memory.

At some point in the future, after Lucid starts rolling out more DD features I’m hoping that we discover the reason why the engineers decided on torque rather than touch. I just think that there has to be some sort of advantage for some feature, but we just don’t know what it is yet. If not, then yes, it probably is a silly design when the industry settled on touch sensors years ago. This topic comes up a lot here.

 

[hydbob]

Tire pressure seems a tad low, especially if it's at 48/49 after driving. Maybe you can eek out an extra 0.1mi/kw

 

[PhotoEye]

I just used plugshare to plan my entire CA to Montreal trip. 72mph HA. Average 3.6 miles per KWh in pure awd. In the US I had to charge only at one chargepoint. I had problem only at one EA in Utah with authentication and lucid gave refund on the credit card charge.

Heading to Montreal and Quebec City next week. How was the charging and roads there?

 

[HariK]

Heading to Montreal and Quebec City next week. How was the charging and roads there?

I did not go to Quebec city. Also at Montreal the charge was done at lucid. If you are entering Montreal from NY, there is one EA at the border in a small town at a car dealership.

 

[PhotoEye]

I did not go to Quebec city. Also at Montreal the charge was done at lucid. If you are entering Montreal from NY, there is one EA at the border in a small town at a car dealership.

Merci!