Okie doke:
220 mile trip each way, for a total of 440 miles. Started at 100%, drove the full 220 to my first charging stop. Had the bump mentioned, but then it was ok and charging worked. Half an hour, 35% to 85%. Leg two was back down 80 miles, starting at 80% (did a little driving around between plus parked overnight). Was down to 50% pretty quickly, stopped and charged up to 85% - 27 minutes (surprised it took about the same amount as starting at 35%, both on a 350kw EA charger with good reviews). Leg 3 final 140 miles to home.
Highway assist was awesome. There's some stuff they can and should do to smooth it out and improve it, but it was overall great. Biggest are of opportunity is the idiotic keep hands on wheel and take control thing. I'm literally sitting there with my hands truly gripped on wheel, EXACTLY where the "keep on wheel" picture shows them, and it's giving me the alert. I SHOULD truly be able to just rest my hands on the bottom flat part of wheel and relax a bit, but failing that, being attentive and holding them should actually work. That was annoying for a brief moment at least a half dozen times each way. Eventually I should really be able to like eat a sandwich with no hands on the wheel.
Tires at 48 or 49 psi the whole time.
Leg 1: HA on almost 100% of the time, pegged to 79, little traffic. 3.8 mi/kWh UNTIL the final miles of preconditioning. The entire 220 miles ended up at 3.6 mi/kWh. That means preconditioning sucked a lot of battery...it must have started with around 50 or 60 miles left, which implies it took me down to a flat 3.0 mi/kWh for those last miles.
When I left th event I was up there for I was at 80%, but a bit farther south too.
Leg 2: HA on 84 100% of time but heavier traffic so it was slowing and accelerating quite a bit - 85 miles at 3.2 mi/kWh (it was preconditioning the majority of this time).
Leg 3: HA on 79 100% of time, still trafficky, and the final 10 miles were an average speed of maybe 20 in stop and go heavy traffic (Friday rush hour). 118 miles, 3.8 mi/kWh.
Overall definitely had a near heart attack when I pulled up to the first station and it was blocked off closed. I'm not really 100% sure what I would have done.
But it worked well enough that I think I will plan to do it again, and maybe the one stop that's 80 miles south of my destination I'll just plan to always take each way, vs making it all the way to the one right at destination.
We'll see when I go south to Austin, which is a longer drive, if I can achieve similar results.
I think this has validated the ability of the car to make the trip I most often drive - Dallas to OKC area, but it has also made very clear that I'm not going cross country anytime soon. The infrastructure of charging is simply not good enough. The only reason I'd make a trip that was similarly sparse on gas stations, which is very rare (like when I have crossed the mojave), would be if I could actually trust the stations would work. I'm 32 and I've encountered single or even multiple pumps not working at a gas station, but i have literally NEVER been to one that didn't have at least 2 pumps working, and the wait is never more than 5 minutes for a pump, and I'm 32 years old and have driven in and across all 48 CONUS states in some remote locations. So I won't be taking this up to Chicago or out to Denver or the like anytime soon.
At the EA stations I was first the only person there the whole time and second 1 of 2 people there the whole time (each had 4 stalls, but only 2 stalls of each were 350kw speed).
There's absolutely a business model coming for actual electric gas stations. Where you can plug in and get a drink and a snack, use a bathroom, etc. Given charging speeds it probably needs to be a bit rest-area-y so you could walk around or sit down for food if you wanted. It's too obvious a need if we are ever truly going to drive more fully electric vehicles.
220 mile trip each way, for a total of 440 miles. Started at 100%, drove the full 220 to my first charging stop. Had the bump mentioned, but then it was ok and charging worked. Half an hour, 35% to 85%. Leg two was back down 80 miles, starting at 80% (did a little driving around between plus parked overnight). Was down to 50% pretty quickly, stopped and charged up to 85% - 27 minutes (surprised it took about the same amount as starting at 35%, both on a 350kw EA charger with good reviews). Leg 3 final 140 miles to home.
Highway assist was awesome. There's some stuff they can and should do to smooth it out and improve it, but it was overall great. Biggest are of opportunity is the idiotic keep hands on wheel and take control thing. I'm literally sitting there with my hands truly gripped on wheel, EXACTLY where the "keep on wheel" picture shows them, and it's giving me the alert. I SHOULD truly be able to just rest my hands on the bottom flat part of wheel and relax a bit, but failing that, being attentive and holding them should actually work. That was annoying for a brief moment at least a half dozen times each way. Eventually I should really be able to like eat a sandwich with no hands on the wheel.
Tires at 48 or 49 psi the whole time.
Leg 1: HA on almost 100% of the time, pegged to 79, little traffic. 3.8 mi/kWh UNTIL the final miles of preconditioning. The entire 220 miles ended up at 3.6 mi/kWh. That means preconditioning sucked a lot of battery...it must have started with around 50 or 60 miles left, which implies it took me down to a flat 3.0 mi/kWh for those last miles.
When I left th event I was up there for I was at 80%, but a bit farther south too.
Leg 2: HA on 84 100% of time but heavier traffic so it was slowing and accelerating quite a bit - 85 miles at 3.2 mi/kWh (it was preconditioning the majority of this time).
Leg 3: HA on 79 100% of time, still trafficky, and the final 10 miles were an average speed of maybe 20 in stop and go heavy traffic (Friday rush hour). 118 miles, 3.8 mi/kWh.
Overall definitely had a near heart attack when I pulled up to the first station and it was blocked off closed. I'm not really 100% sure what I would have done.
But it worked well enough that I think I will plan to do it again, and maybe the one stop that's 80 miles south of my destination I'll just plan to always take each way, vs making it all the way to the one right at destination.
We'll see when I go south to Austin, which is a longer drive, if I can achieve similar results.
I think this has validated the ability of the car to make the trip I most often drive - Dallas to OKC area, but it has also made very clear that I'm not going cross country anytime soon. The infrastructure of charging is simply not good enough. The only reason I'd make a trip that was similarly sparse on gas stations, which is very rare (like when I have crossed the mojave), would be if I could actually trust the stations would work. I'm 32 and I've encountered single or even multiple pumps not working at a gas station, but i have literally NEVER been to one that didn't have at least 2 pumps working, and the wait is never more than 5 minutes for a pump, and I'm 32 years old and have driven in and across all 48 CONUS states in some remote locations. So I won't be taking this up to Chicago or out to Denver or the like anytime soon.
At the EA stations I was first the only person there the whole time and second 1 of 2 people there the whole time (each had 4 stalls, but only 2 stalls of each were 350kw speed).
There's absolutely a business model coming for actual electric gas stations. Where you can plug in and get a drink and a snack, use a bathroom, etc. Given charging speeds it probably needs to be a bit rest-area-y so you could walk around or sit down for food if you wanted. It's too obvious a need if we are ever truly going to drive more fully electric vehicles.
