- Joined
- May 25, 2022
- Messages
- 413
- Reaction score
- 376
- Location
- Las Vegas, NV
- Cars
- 08 Dodge Challenger SRT
Took our first road trip with the Touring from Las Vegas to La Quinta, CA. Did some research and found a HyperFast EA charge station at the outlet mall in Cabazon, CA so I set that as my first stop. Charged the Touring (with 20" tires) to 100% at 382 miles. The left side of the screen showed 102 miles left at destination, so that gave me a nice sense of comfort. The drive to La Quinta is a hilly one. Las Vegas is around 2,000 ft elevation. You have to cross Mountain Pass at around 4,000 then drop to around 2,000 before climbing back up over 4,000 before dropping back down to Baker. Then you do a steady climb to Cajon Pass (again around 4,000) before dropping back down before the I-15/I-215 split. 102-mile reserve dropped steadily as we climbed but did not nearly reciprocate on the downhills. We arrived at Cabazon with around 45 miles of reserve.
Spent 3 days with friends before the drive home. Left around 8:15am heading for Cabazon but the EA charge icon did not show up. Luckily we were still in La Quinta so we drove to the station off Highway 511 in Palm Desert (150Kw). I charged to 80% thinking that would get me to Barstow. with 95 miles of reserve. Found out when charging that the Cabazon icon lit up. They open their chargers at 9am. Got to Barstow but the charger at Walmart was broken so continued to Baker. I called EA to ensure that the chargers at Baker were working; otherwise we were SOL. Got to Baker with 28 miles of reserve. Charged to 80% and we were home-free.
Some observations: You can guess that the reserve estimate is only an estimate at best. It probably assumes that you are driving in the Midwest where everything is flat. I would at best drop this by 50%, more if you are driving a hilly route. I would not go past 250 miles on a FULL charge, and 200 miles on a refill. I'm sure many of you also notice that the charge rate drops as the percentage goes up, presumably so you don't fry the batteries with an overly aggressive charge rate. Or it is to prevent the charger itself from overheating (probably the latter more than the former but I don't know for sure). I had 50% success rate with the chargers. I ended up calling EA for assistance. To their credit, I got someone every time I called, so thumbs up for their customer service. I think it was a combination of some of the chargers and my lack of familiarity with the Lucid app. I think the correct procedure is to wait until you plug in and then hit the lightning bolt on the app. Electrify America should pop up and you have to confirm which charge station you are plugging into. If I have this wrong, someone please correct me.
Baker had the most EA chargers that I saw, around a dozen. I was envious of the banks of chargers from Tesla that were at most 20% occupied and it seemed like they were all working. It also seemd like they were everywhere. The EA charger closest to my home says 150Kw but I've never gotten more than 30 at initial and it drops to 20 very quickly. Was thinking of a Route 66 trip to Chicago this summer but my first trip cooled my jets for that. I will drive it to San Diego in June but still in the air about driving it to Tucson next month. I think it will be a while before EA catches up to Tesla in charger availability; I'm sure my 3-year free charge with EA will expire long before that. If/when Tesla opens their chargers to everyone, my anxiety will do way down.
Oh, almost forgot to mention my drive - it was amazing! Nothing but happy vibes! I averaged around 7 miles over the speed limit so that probably contributed to the drop in range. Car wants to "center." I tend to drive around a foot towards the center lane so the car wants to "jerk" the steering wheel to the right. It was a little disconcerting until I just learned to trust the technology and - problem solved! I held the steering wheel loosely and the wheel would slip through my fingers as the car centered itself. Will so many cameras on the car, I still tend to look over my right shoulder when I'm backing up. My daughter looks at the glass and hits the pedal. Old dog needs to learn new tricks lol! We drove in full sun for the entire trip and I did not notice any heat buildup in the interior whatsoever. I'll wait until the Vegas summer heat before a final verdict but I don't think it will be an issue. We love the glass roof so far.
Had trouble setting up Tidal but customer service got me hooked up in a matter of minutes. That said, I was not impressed with it, maybe because of the content (not my type of music). We used Sirius and loved it. I could not find a way to turn the radio off though or make the volume of the nav system louder without increasing the volume of the radio.
I would give my trip a C average.
Spent 3 days with friends before the drive home. Left around 8:15am heading for Cabazon but the EA charge icon did not show up. Luckily we were still in La Quinta so we drove to the station off Highway 511 in Palm Desert (150Kw). I charged to 80% thinking that would get me to Barstow. with 95 miles of reserve. Found out when charging that the Cabazon icon lit up. They open their chargers at 9am. Got to Barstow but the charger at Walmart was broken so continued to Baker. I called EA to ensure that the chargers at Baker were working; otherwise we were SOL. Got to Baker with 28 miles of reserve. Charged to 80% and we were home-free.
Some observations: You can guess that the reserve estimate is only an estimate at best. It probably assumes that you are driving in the Midwest where everything is flat. I would at best drop this by 50%, more if you are driving a hilly route. I would not go past 250 miles on a FULL charge, and 200 miles on a refill. I'm sure many of you also notice that the charge rate drops as the percentage goes up, presumably so you don't fry the batteries with an overly aggressive charge rate. Or it is to prevent the charger itself from overheating (probably the latter more than the former but I don't know for sure). I had 50% success rate with the chargers. I ended up calling EA for assistance. To their credit, I got someone every time I called, so thumbs up for their customer service. I think it was a combination of some of the chargers and my lack of familiarity with the Lucid app. I think the correct procedure is to wait until you plug in and then hit the lightning bolt on the app. Electrify America should pop up and you have to confirm which charge station you are plugging into. If I have this wrong, someone please correct me.
Baker had the most EA chargers that I saw, around a dozen. I was envious of the banks of chargers from Tesla that were at most 20% occupied and it seemed like they were all working. It also seemd like they were everywhere. The EA charger closest to my home says 150Kw but I've never gotten more than 30 at initial and it drops to 20 very quickly. Was thinking of a Route 66 trip to Chicago this summer but my first trip cooled my jets for that. I will drive it to San Diego in June but still in the air about driving it to Tucson next month. I think it will be a while before EA catches up to Tesla in charger availability; I'm sure my 3-year free charge with EA will expire long before that. If/when Tesla opens their chargers to everyone, my anxiety will do way down.
Oh, almost forgot to mention my drive - it was amazing! Nothing but happy vibes! I averaged around 7 miles over the speed limit so that probably contributed to the drop in range. Car wants to "center." I tend to drive around a foot towards the center lane so the car wants to "jerk" the steering wheel to the right. It was a little disconcerting until I just learned to trust the technology and - problem solved! I held the steering wheel loosely and the wheel would slip through my fingers as the car centered itself. Will so many cameras on the car, I still tend to look over my right shoulder when I'm backing up. My daughter looks at the glass and hits the pedal. Old dog needs to learn new tricks lol! We drove in full sun for the entire trip and I did not notice any heat buildup in the interior whatsoever. I'll wait until the Vegas summer heat before a final verdict but I don't think it will be an issue. We love the glass roof so far.
Had trouble setting up Tidal but customer service got me hooked up in a matter of minutes. That said, I was not impressed with it, maybe because of the content (not my type of music). We used Sirius and loved it. I could not find a way to turn the radio off though or make the volume of the nav system louder without increasing the volume of the radio.
I would give my trip a C average.
