Folks, my round-trip from Phoenix to Colorado Springs went well, but not without excitement.
This was my first EV road trip and as you saw from another recent thread of mine, I was a bit worried. What if I couldn't charge successfully at a charging station and didn't have enough range left to make it to another? There are enough horror stories on the web. This isn't another one
Lucid's navigation system was very reassuring in that it slightly underestimated how much range I'd have left at each charging stop. The car's range outlasted mine-- I had to make one restroom stop where I wasn't charging. I was conservative and kept charging past the recommended state of charge at each stop-- which I knew meant arriving with a higher state of charge and thus getting lower peak charging rates, lengthening my stops. If there were more charging stops along the way, I might have been less conservative. I was actually considering stopping at every charging station along the way, but when the nav updated my course along the way and told me I could skip the stop in Gallup and go all the way to Grants, I suddenly realized this car is a real-deal road-tripper. I still stopped in Gallup but felt greatly reassured.
On the way up, I did have a few issues:
I woke up early in Raton and quickly hit the road, pushing the pace in hopes of avoiding the worst of the storm. I did wind up driving in very-quickly-accumulating snow for maybe ten miles but thankfully that was the worst of it. The cold, the pace, and the headwind all conspired to reduce my efficiency that morning-- and throughout the rest of the day, as temps didn't pop up over 50 until the very last leg of the trip. When I approached Grants, I was initially planning on continuing on to Gallup, but decided to take the road less travelled down through Quemado, Springerville, Show Low, and Globe. My Lucid hit 10,000 miles driving down into Salt River Canyon. Due to damp roads, I kept it in Smooth and never once had to touch the brake pedal, but even still, it was a delightful drive.
I'm happy to note that I didn't notice a single plug being down at the stations I visited, and plug-and-charge worked flawlessly at all but two of my stops on the first try. And where it didn't work on the first try, it did eventually work. Still, people coming from ICE will expect it to work every time. On the other hand, when I was in Albuquerque, I noticed that the other vehicles charging there had to fuss with phone apps to get charging going. So Lucid scores big here by supporting plug-and-charge.
I was surprised to see so few EVs out on the open road-- I believe I counted FOUR that weren't in an urban/suburban area. You can see evidence of that in the table below, where the only charging stop where I encountered another EV was Albuquerque. Well, there was a Lightning in Show Low, but it was presumably a Show Low City Hall employee and they were not occupying a charging station. In Albuquerque, I did meet the Rivian mobile service tech who covers the entire state, and he was quite surprised to see a Lucid. On the way back, in the same place, I met a family road-tripping in their Rivian R1S. I'm hopeful that as the number of charging stations grow, people will become more confident about road-tripping their EVs. I really enjoyed this opportunity.
This was my first EV road trip and as you saw from another recent thread of mine, I was a bit worried. What if I couldn't charge successfully at a charging station and didn't have enough range left to make it to another? There are enough horror stories on the web. This isn't another one
Lucid's navigation system was very reassuring in that it slightly underestimated how much range I'd have left at each charging stop. The car's range outlasted mine-- I had to make one restroom stop where I wasn't charging. I was conservative and kept charging past the recommended state of charge at each stop-- which I knew meant arriving with a higher state of charge and thus getting lower peak charging rates, lengthening my stops. If there were more charging stops along the way, I might have been less conservative. I was actually considering stopping at every charging station along the way, but when the nav updated my course along the way and told me I could skip the stop in Gallup and go all the way to Grants, I suddenly realized this car is a real-deal road-tripper. I still stopped in Gallup but felt greatly reassured.
On the way up, I did have a few issues:
- Hearing "Follow the highway" what seemed like every ten minutes, interrupting my music, got aggravating. Why does the nav bother saying this? I eventually figured out I could mute the nav.
- Thankfully this only happened once-- and I knew better than to follow its directions: the nav wanted me to get off I-40 at one exit, just to rejoin I-40.
- For a few minutes, my music got stuck at the reduced volume level it plays at while the nav system is talking over it, except that the nav system wasn't talking. Playing with the volume didn;t help because it would only adjust the nav volume. I solved the issue by making a phone call: after the call ended, the music was back to normal volume.
- After over 600 miles of driving, my back was getting sore. But, as I've discovered with other endurance activities, time in the saddle helps you discover little adjustments that make things so much better. I played with the lumbar and thigh support and the seat feels better than ever. It was fantastic for the remainder of the trip.
I woke up early in Raton and quickly hit the road, pushing the pace in hopes of avoiding the worst of the storm. I did wind up driving in very-quickly-accumulating snow for maybe ten miles but thankfully that was the worst of it. The cold, the pace, and the headwind all conspired to reduce my efficiency that morning-- and throughout the rest of the day, as temps didn't pop up over 50 until the very last leg of the trip. When I approached Grants, I was initially planning on continuing on to Gallup, but decided to take the road less travelled down through Quemado, Springerville, Show Low, and Globe. My Lucid hit 10,000 miles driving down into Salt River Canyon. Due to damp roads, I kept it in Smooth and never once had to touch the brake pedal, but even still, it was a delightful drive.
I'm happy to note that I didn't notice a single plug being down at the stations I visited, and plug-and-charge worked flawlessly at all but two of my stops on the first try. And where it didn't work on the first try, it did eventually work. Still, people coming from ICE will expect it to work every time. On the other hand, when I was in Albuquerque, I noticed that the other vehicles charging there had to fuss with phone apps to get charging going. So Lucid scores big here by supporting plug-and-charge.
I was surprised to see so few EVs out on the open road-- I believe I counted FOUR that weren't in an urban/suburban area. You can see evidence of that in the table below, where the only charging stop where I encountered another EV was Albuquerque. Well, there was a Lightning in Show Low, but it was presumably a Show Low City Hall employee and they were not occupying a charging station. In Albuquerque, I did meet the Rivian mobile service tech who covers the entire state, and he was quite surprised to see a Lucid. On the way back, in the same place, I met a family road-tripping in their Rivian R1S. I'm hopeful that as the number of charging stations grow, people will become more confident about road-tripping their EVs. I really enjoyed this opportunity.
