- Joined
- Jan 2, 2026
- Messages
- 366
- Reaction score
- 591
- Location
- Detroit, Michigan
- Cars
- 2023 Air GT (White)
Drove straight through from Detroit to Hilton Head Island, SC. 880 miles. Would be an 14 hr trip with a gas car. Took 18, but there’s a story…
THE GOOD:
Not that I take a lot of 18 hour drives, but this was, from a driving standpoint, fairly effortless. No driver fatigue. No drowsiness. The charging stops broke things up nicely. Bio breaks with some snacking. Never an issue getting to or using the chargers. Not like the good ol’ days 3 - 5 years ago when everyone complained about finding setups with four charge stalls where two didn’t work and the line for the remaining two was ridiculous.
DreamDrive Pro worked as well as it was supposed to for the most part. There was a short stretch where I was constantly getting nagged to keep my eyes on the road (they were). Eventually I lowered my steering while a smidgeon and it stopped doing that. I think that using DDP helped significantly reduce fatigue. It was almost like being a passenger. But a very engaged passenger ready and willing to take the reins and guide the craft when needed. In other words, exactly what DDP was designed to do.
THE BAD:
We loaded the car for the drive. We utilized both trunks and subtrunks and had two bikes mounted to the crossbars. More on that later. Just two passengers. We also had a mobile refrigerator on the back seat. It was plugged into the the outlet in the trunk. Beverages, sandwiches, salads, and other goodies for charging stops. I had taken the aero covers off several weeks ago because the 19” wheels look much better with the bear caps and black lugnut covers. I had trouble getting the the center caps off when we were loading the car, so I said “eff it” and just tossed the aero covers in the frunk and said “let’s just get on the road”. MISTAKE!!
I had been driving the car around town for a few days with two bikes mounted on the crossbars just to get a feel for any changes in driving dynamics, gaining confidence in the amount or lack of shake and wobble when going over bumpy surfaces and around curves and such. I noticed what I perceived to be minor and very much expected reduction in energy efficiency. The bikes clearly affected aero, but it didn’t seem to be that much. BIGGER MISTAKE.
When I made a roundtrip Buffalo - NYC with four people and luggage a few months ago, I averaged somewhere around 3.7 miles/kWh. No bikes. No crossbars. Aero covers on. Was thinking with the bikes and crossbars and no aero covers, but only two people, maybe I’d get around 3.3 - 3.5. WRONG!!!
First leg of the trip scored 2.5 mi/kWh. Super disappointing. So I grabbed a screwdriver and popped the bear center caps off while it was charging and put the aero covers on. Got 2.7 mi/kWh for the second leg of the trip. Not great, but better than 2.5.
THE UGLY:
This next part took place in the course of about 5 seconds. That is important. If anyone can explain WTH happened, please do.
So I glance at the miles remaining on the instrument cluster. 105 miles. I glance at the miles to destination on the routing. 64 miles. Easy peasy. I ask my wife to hand me the Sun Chips. I take the bag of chips and look at the miles remaining on the instrument cluster. 64 miles. I glance at the miles to destination on the routing. 64 miles. WTF?!?! 41 miles drop in 5 seconds?!?! And now the miles remaining is dropping at the rate of 3 miles expended for every less than 2 miles driven!!. So now I have her pulling up ABRP on her phone and finding a charger, any charger, on our route.
We find a municipal Level 2 charger in some little hick town. It’s about 12:45 am. We’re in a dark parking lot on a Level 2 charger just trying to get enough charge to make it to the closest DCFC. And having to accommodate for the fact that now the car was using way more than 3 miles of charge for every 2 miles driven. We were there for a while. The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful once we got to the next DCFC and were able to get enough charge to complete the trip.
THE WEIRD:
I guess I should say that “uneventful” is relative. Somewhere along the line the native nav decided it was bedtime, even though we were far from any bed that we wanted to sleep in. It said that it could not communicate or something to that effect. Of course we still had Waze running, but I like to have the native system primary so that I can see how much battery I will have left when I reach the next stop. Given the 105 —> 64 incident this was of heightened importance to me now, but suddenly unavailable. Eventually I was able to do a system reset and get it back in play.
THE WACKY:
Somewhere along the line, my app decided that it really wanted to learn a new language. So now it displays in what I believe to be Dutch. Maybe even Afrikaner. Don’t know when, why, or how it happened. Don’t know how to change it back to English. Parked the question with Customer Service. Crickets. Anybody want to take a swing at cause / remedy for me? I’m all ears.
For the time being I have to look at the app on my wife’s phone to decipher messages. Hers is still in English.
POSTLOGUE:
Got to our resort and parked in the garage. Right next to a Model S. There’s an EQE SUV in the garage for the building next to us. Took the bikes and carriers down so now I’m riding with just the crossbars. Getting 3.6 mi/kWh driving around on the island, including a side trip to Savannah to hang out with some friends who live there now. So far on the trip I’ve seen two other Airs and two Gravities. Gonna have to research online to see if there’s anything I can change in terms of mounting the bikes to mitigate the severe loss of efficiency I experienced on the drive down.
THE GOOD:
Not that I take a lot of 18 hour drives, but this was, from a driving standpoint, fairly effortless. No driver fatigue. No drowsiness. The charging stops broke things up nicely. Bio breaks with some snacking. Never an issue getting to or using the chargers. Not like the good ol’ days 3 - 5 years ago when everyone complained about finding setups with four charge stalls where two didn’t work and the line for the remaining two was ridiculous.
DreamDrive Pro worked as well as it was supposed to for the most part. There was a short stretch where I was constantly getting nagged to keep my eyes on the road (they were). Eventually I lowered my steering while a smidgeon and it stopped doing that. I think that using DDP helped significantly reduce fatigue. It was almost like being a passenger. But a very engaged passenger ready and willing to take the reins and guide the craft when needed. In other words, exactly what DDP was designed to do.
THE BAD:
We loaded the car for the drive. We utilized both trunks and subtrunks and had two bikes mounted to the crossbars. More on that later. Just two passengers. We also had a mobile refrigerator on the back seat. It was plugged into the the outlet in the trunk. Beverages, sandwiches, salads, and other goodies for charging stops. I had taken the aero covers off several weeks ago because the 19” wheels look much better with the bear caps and black lugnut covers. I had trouble getting the the center caps off when we were loading the car, so I said “eff it” and just tossed the aero covers in the frunk and said “let’s just get on the road”. MISTAKE!!
I had been driving the car around town for a few days with two bikes mounted on the crossbars just to get a feel for any changes in driving dynamics, gaining confidence in the amount or lack of shake and wobble when going over bumpy surfaces and around curves and such. I noticed what I perceived to be minor and very much expected reduction in energy efficiency. The bikes clearly affected aero, but it didn’t seem to be that much. BIGGER MISTAKE.
When I made a roundtrip Buffalo - NYC with four people and luggage a few months ago, I averaged somewhere around 3.7 miles/kWh. No bikes. No crossbars. Aero covers on. Was thinking with the bikes and crossbars and no aero covers, but only two people, maybe I’d get around 3.3 - 3.5. WRONG!!!
First leg of the trip scored 2.5 mi/kWh. Super disappointing. So I grabbed a screwdriver and popped the bear center caps off while it was charging and put the aero covers on. Got 2.7 mi/kWh for the second leg of the trip. Not great, but better than 2.5.
THE UGLY:
This next part took place in the course of about 5 seconds. That is important. If anyone can explain WTH happened, please do.
So I glance at the miles remaining on the instrument cluster. 105 miles. I glance at the miles to destination on the routing. 64 miles. Easy peasy. I ask my wife to hand me the Sun Chips. I take the bag of chips and look at the miles remaining on the instrument cluster. 64 miles. I glance at the miles to destination on the routing. 64 miles. WTF?!?! 41 miles drop in 5 seconds?!?! And now the miles remaining is dropping at the rate of 3 miles expended for every less than 2 miles driven!!. So now I have her pulling up ABRP on her phone and finding a charger, any charger, on our route.
We find a municipal Level 2 charger in some little hick town. It’s about 12:45 am. We’re in a dark parking lot on a Level 2 charger just trying to get enough charge to make it to the closest DCFC. And having to accommodate for the fact that now the car was using way more than 3 miles of charge for every 2 miles driven. We were there for a while. The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful once we got to the next DCFC and were able to get enough charge to complete the trip.
THE WEIRD:
I guess I should say that “uneventful” is relative. Somewhere along the line the native nav decided it was bedtime, even though we were far from any bed that we wanted to sleep in. It said that it could not communicate or something to that effect. Of course we still had Waze running, but I like to have the native system primary so that I can see how much battery I will have left when I reach the next stop. Given the 105 —> 64 incident this was of heightened importance to me now, but suddenly unavailable. Eventually I was able to do a system reset and get it back in play.
THE WACKY:
Somewhere along the line, my app decided that it really wanted to learn a new language. So now it displays in what I believe to be Dutch. Maybe even Afrikaner. Don’t know when, why, or how it happened. Don’t know how to change it back to English. Parked the question with Customer Service. Crickets. Anybody want to take a swing at cause / remedy for me? I’m all ears.
For the time being I have to look at the app on my wife’s phone to decipher messages. Hers is still in English.
POSTLOGUE:
Got to our resort and parked in the garage. Right next to a Model S. There’s an EQE SUV in the garage for the building next to us. Took the bikes and carriers down so now I’m riding with just the crossbars. Getting 3.6 mi/kWh driving around on the island, including a side trip to Savannah to hang out with some friends who live there now. So far on the trip I’ve seen two other Airs and two Gravities. Gonna have to research online to see if there’s anything I can change in terms of mounting the bikes to mitigate the severe loss of efficiency I experienced on the drive down.
They even sell a T-shirt saying that
