Fast Charging in Las Vegas

[terrycs]

First road trip for me driving from Southern California to Las Vegas this month ... I'm sure many of you have already done it. There are several options near the strip ... any recommendations?

 

[sdlucid]

I haven't tried charging in LV. But, I heard multiple stories of folks waiting forever in EA stations in LV. That's the case with most of the big cities in CA too. Unless you plan to charge in early morning, I would recommend charging on your way to ensure you have enough juice to drive around LV. You can look at Primm EA which seems empty and reliable most of the time.

 

[hydbob]

I've always had good luck at the premium outlets. Primm EA is new so never been. You can also make it to Vegas and back to Baker on 1 charge

 

[kmpanilla]

We’ve done the premium outlets before and had the best luck there, but Vegas is busy. Normally we’re passing thru and try to charge in Baker as those are always more available and fast chargers.

 

[terrycs]

Road trip done. Everything worked out great … except for battery capacity. I charged to 100% for the first time and noticed only 411 miles. 25% capacity is roughly 100 miles so I wanted to stay above that like I would do for a road trip with an ICE car. Plenty of opportunities to plug in along the way:

So I ended up plugging in at Primm and charging to 80%. For those that don’t know, Primm outlet mall is no longer open so it was pretty dead there except for Tesla an EA charger users.

On the return trip, I charged to 80% near UNLV and stopped at Barstow to recharge to 90% since no one was waiting. I easily made it home after that with just over 50% SOC remaining.

Outbound trip efficiency about 2.5 miles/kWh. Return trip efficiency was 3.3 miles/kWh. Normal driving in swift mode with high regen. Funny, but I don’t recall being passed by anyone in either direction.

In summary, it was a great experience, wife was able to sleep almost the whole way. Highway Assist worked flawlessly the few times I played with it. I wasn't too happy about the drowsy driver warning when it wasn’t warranted. I ended up shutting off that option and will have to ask Service about that later.

I’ll be going again next month but with 4 people in the car and different wheels and tires.