2,816.1 Miles on a Dare (AKA from the East Coast to the Upper Midwest and Back)

petergottlieb

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Virginia
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25' Air Pure
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Last winter when I started seriously looking at EVs, my entire friend group tried to talk me out of it. "Get a hybrid!" "You'll get stranded on the freeway in a snowstorm!" "Charging is a disaster!" You all know the drill. It only got worse when I told them I planned to get a low volume car from a new manufacturer (Lucid). For my part, I was so annoyed by how sure they were, particularly when none of them owned an EV. So, I decided we should settle this like men - with a bet for beer.

"This summer, I'll drive it to my family's ancestral home in the rural upper midwest and back. If I can't do it in roughly the same time it would take in a gas powered car, I'll bring you all beer," I said. On the other hand, if I could, they agreed to get me a full selection of Belgian monastery ales as penance for their unbelief.

Long story short; they had better get beer shopping. I made the roughly 1,200 mile one-way trip in two days there and two days back (with a couple of weeks of visiting friends and family in between). Along the way, I never had to wait to charge, I never ran into a faulty charger (though I did get a slow one once) and I enjoyed a very quiet, comfortable drive along I-76, I-90, I-94, and a bunch of smaller, more rural roads. I averaged a bit under 60 miles per hour (57.1) with all stops and construction. I drove 800 miles in 14 hours on two of those four travel days - better than I would have done in our gas powered car.

I used Electrify America's network exclusively, and generally would charge for three half-hour sessions each driving day. That would get my 2025 Air Pure from 10-80 percent give or take. I would then drive between 200-250 miles between charging stops. I was often stopping at Walmarts, or as I got closer to the East Coast, Sheetz stations. While I had theoretically hoped to go closer to 300 miles between charging stops, I found that in practice I was ready to stop between 200-250 anyway.

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Some observations: The Air's navigation software is conservative and it would be nice if it was more flexible for long distance driving. It wanted to get me to every charging stop with 100-150 miles of range left. Given that I was committed to just using Electrify America's network (I still have free charging!), this didn't work very well - it would choose any charging station that was close to its preferred stopping point, no matter the brand and sometimes even selecting fairly slow options.

To get around this, I would either just navigate to my next personally chosen charging stop (rather than let it plan the whole trip out), or, after a while just use Apple Maps via CarPlay so it wasn't freaking out just because I was happy to let the battery get down to 7-8 percent before charging if I could. I would love for Lucid to let you select charging networks that you want it to route you on a longer trip. It will let you search for just Electrify America stations, for instance. But when it route plans, it chooses whatever is closest to maintaining it's internal goal of having you pull up with about 25-30 percent of charge. Wouldn't it be great if we could not only select our preferred charging network(s) in the navigation system, but also our target amount of charge remaining when we pull into the next charger? I'd be quite happy setting it to 7-10 percent.

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I did have two gremlins pop up during the drive, but nothing that was an ongoing problem. Once Apple CarPlay just died on me when I was using it to navigate - in Chicago rush hour traffic on a detour no-less. I had to pull over and do a soft reset to get it working again. Twice, I also had a "right front radar" sensor not working warning flash up in the left center of the pilot panel. It stayed on for about five seconds and then flashed off. After the second time I cleaned all the dead bugs off of the radar domes, and then drove another 8 hours without seeing that warning again. Everything seems to be working now. Hopefully it will stay that way.

My total efficiency wasn't as good as I hoped, but not bad either - 4.06 for the entire trip. I have the 19 inch wheels but removed the aero covers (they look so much better that way!). That gave me a real road maximum highway range between 320-340. I drove anywhere between 70-80 mph most of the time.

I saw one other Lucid on my entire drive. They are very rare cars as you get into the upper midwest. It sparked a number of conversations, and more than one loud muscle car attempting to compensate for something as they drove by (I only took the bait a couple of times).

Now to tell those loser friends of mine that they owe me beer!
 
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4.06 is excellent efficiency for such a long drive. my lifetime efficiency on my Touring with 19 inch wheels is 3.7 after 32,000 miles.

I just finished a round trip from Miami to Charlotte, NC. I love traveling in the Lucid. I also wish the Lucid map would better control charging stations. I also struggled with ABRP in getting the right charging stations to fall on the planned path. EA is the best option on long trips while we have free charging. I did charge overnight at the roadside hotels we stopped at and also once at a Buc-ees. Overall, my trip was perfect. No issues charging.
 
My total efficiency wasn't as good as I hoped, but not bad either - 4.06 for the entire trip. I have the 19 inch wheels but removed the aero covers (they look so much better that way!).
Thanks for sharing your journey (pun intended)! That’s a very good efficiency number, given high speed highway driving. And I just did the same with my Touring 19” wheels, removed Aero covers replaced with the Bear logo center cap. Looks great!

One small advice on road trips: use ABRP (a better route planner) app, which is compatible with Car Play, and can be used for turn by turn navigation in addition to planning the charging stations and stops very well. You can set EA as the only preferred charging network in it. It is $5 per month subscription for all premium features, and you can cancel it after the road trip is done.
 
Andretex
What type of chargers at roadside hotels did you use?
I stayed at two different roadside Marriot branded hotels. One had a non-branded EV station and the electricity was free. the other hotel had Tesla level 2 stations. I plugged in, used my CCS to NACS adapter, the Tesla app and paid for that overnight charge.
 
I stayed at two different roadside Marriot branded hotels. One had a non-branded EV station and the electricity was free. the other hotel had Tesla level 2 stations. I plugged in, used my CCS to NACS adapter, the Tesla app and paid for that overnight charge.
Which J1772 adapter do you use for the level 2 Tesla?
 
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