First road-trip

[Bbq9]

I would have charged while I ate too. No sense letting the car just sit there And you still would have needed to make that charging stop. By charging while you ate, you could make that charging stop just a 10’ bathroom break rather then a full session.

Yep
family went into Walmart looking for drinks and goggles for swimming (we had left ours at home)
in the end I charged to 65% which on the 350 KWH chargers wasnt long

 

[Sandvinsd]

Yep
family went into Walmart looking for drinks and goggles for swimming (we had left ours at home)
in the end I charged to 65% which on the 350 KWH chargers wasnt long

Walmart was smart to have those EA chargers at their stores. Just like you, people charging will enter and spend a few bucks!

 

[Bbq9]

Walmart was smart to have those EA chargers at their stores. Just like you, people charging will enter and spend a few bucks!

Brilliant business model … and when you have 45 mins to kill and you‘re next to the home & garden entrance, oh shit it will never fit

 

[DeaneG]

@Bbq9 : How do you know how long to charge at each stop to be able to arrive at the next stop at about 15% SOC? In our Volvo and Tesla EVs, we set the next charging stop as the destination, and the car shows the state of charge that the car will be at when it arrives there. When the predicted SOC hits 15%, we unplug and go. Wondering if the Air works the same way. I also always spend some time on ABRP and Plugshare while planning a long trip, a necessity given EA chargers only every 100 miles in the stix. Next up is north coast redwoods for a few days. BTW I'm in Cupertino, we've probably passed each other on Foothill many times.

 

[Bbq9]

@Bbq9 : How do you know how long to charge at each stop to be able to arrive at the next stop at about 15% SOC? In our Volvo and Tesla EVs, we set the next charging stop as the destination, and the car shows the state of charge that the car will be at when it arrives there. When the predicted SOC hits 15%, we unplug and go. Wondering if the Air works the same way. I also always spend some time on ABRP and Plugshare while planning a long trip, a necessity given EA chargers only every 100 miles in the stix. Next up is north coast redwoods for a few days. BTW I'm in Cupertino, we've probably passed each other on Foothill many times.

I have yet to see any Air when in my Air … even when I went to see @borski his car was having the radar work and so not there

The lucid Range / charging is not that clever yet. It shows miles added but to be honest I didn’t tend to use it.

Like you I always start with ABRP which guided me to the target charge, but being new to EV, I would tend to add about 5% more. So if it said 85%, I took it to 90%. (This was for the first stop when I knew I had to climb the pass into LA). Since it is was only supposed to be 2 stops I was fortunate to still be able to remember the two numbers Without writing it down.

In reality a few hundred miles in I was comfortable using the assumption 1% SOC = 1kWh. This way I was always factoring in some buffer.
so if I knew my next stop was 240 miles, and I was averaging 3.1 miles/kWh … it was simply maths to find the %SOC I needed before leaving.

so for me … I am basically doing the math while charging … I know the dest, I do a simple div 3.1 (or 3.0 if I am feeling slow or like having a giant buffer), and calculate the %SOC I need.
I tended to ignore the car display while charging - and the mileage it showed as added. Eg “Added 300-miles”

oh and I switched from RANGE to %SOC on my dashboard finding that more useful.

not sure that makes much sense - I might have to reedit this after more coffee

 

[borski]

@Bbq9 : How do you know how long to charge at each stop to be able to arrive at the next stop at about 15% SOC? In our Volvo and Tesla EVs, we set the next charging stop as the destination, and the car shows the state of charge that the car will be at when it arrives there. When the predicted SOC hits 15%, we unplug and go. Wondering if the Air works the same way. I also always spend some time on ABRP and Plugshare while planning a long trip, a necessity given EA chargers only every 100 miles in the stix. Next up is north coast redwoods for a few days. BTW I'm in Cupertino, we've probably passed each other on Foothill many times.

Heyo, I’m in Cupertino too!

 

[Maverick]

I have yet to see any Air when in my Air … even when I went to see @borski his car was having the radar work and so not there

The lucid Range / charging is not that clever yet. It shows miles added but to be honest I didn’t tend to use it.

Like you I always start with ABRP which guided me to the target charge, but being new to EV, I would tend to add about 5% more. So if it said 85%, I took it to 90%. (This was for the first stop when I knew I had to climb the pass into LA). Since it is was only supposed to be 2 stops I was fortunate to still be able to remember the two numbers Without writing it down.

In reality a few hundred miles in I was comfortable using the assumption 1% SOC = 1kWh. This way I was always factoring in some buffer.
so if I knew my next stop was 240 miles, and I was averaging 3.1 miles/kWh … it was simply maths to find the %SOC I needed before leaving.

so for me … I am basically doing the math while charging … I know the dest, I do a simple div 3.1 (or 3.0 if I am feeling slow or like having a giant buffer), and calculate the %SOC I need.
I tended to ignore the car display while charging - and the mileage it showed as added. Eg “Added 300-miles”

oh and I switched from RANGE to %SOC on my dashboard finding that more useful.

not sure that makes much sense - I might have to reedit this after more coffee

I kind of go the other way. Since I can see the distance traveled to the tenth of a mile, I found it useful to track the actual distance traveled against the drop of 1 mile in range. I could experiment around with different speed and AC setting to get a general idea of what 1 mile of range equated to. Then I'd determine if I had enough buffer in range miles remaining to actual miles remaining. It definitely helped getting into Quartzite. But that may be my decades old ICE mindset and I'll adapt to thinking in terms of kWh.

 

[DeaneG]

Heyo, I’m in Cupertino too!

95014 rules! I'll watch for your car.

 

[Bbq9]

I kind of go the other way. Since I can see the distance traveled to the tenth of a mile, I found it useful to track the actual distance traveled against the drop of 1 mile in range. I could experiment around with different speed and AC setting to get a general idea of what 1 mile of range equated to. Then I'd determine if I had enough buffer in range miles remaining to actual miles remaining. It definitely helped getting into Quartzite. But that may be my decades old ICE mindset and I'll adapt to thinking in terms of kWh.

Maybe I’ll try your way on the 12 hr journey home

 

[Steveinarizona]

Walmart was smart to have those EA chargers at their stores. Just like you, people charging will enter and spend a few bucks!

None at the Walmarts in my area. Then again, pretty much none in my area at all (nearest EA site is 4 miles away and the next nearest is way far away.

 

[Sandvinsd]

None at the Walmarts in my area. Then again, pretty much none in my area at all (nearest EA site is 4 miles away and the next nearest is way far away.

None in my area yet either. Two fully built stations, each within 10 miles from me are said to be “coming soon” for the past 9 months. Sort of like Lucid. Which will come first - the already built EA chargers or the yet to ‘harmonized’ car?

 

[BruceH]

Took my first road trip this week and want to share my thoughts. Sorry in advance for the long post. I’ll start by saying that, overall, I was very happy and impressed. I drove from the Nashville area to Cincinnati, just over 300 miles. On the trip I got 3.7 mi/kWh and easily made it to Cincinnati on a single charge. I left my house at 100% SOC and arrived with 25%, if my memory serves me.

I used ACC and Highway Assist on almost all of the highway driving and was very pleased with the performance. Worked as well as other ACCs that I’ve used although, like others, sometimes I was a bit nervous with the lane centering while passing a truck. On the drive home I did use ACC for a bit when I got off the highway. It was on a four lane divided road with a few traffic lights. The car did come to a complete stop behind another vehicle at a traffic light without any intervention, although I was certainly ready to apply the brake if needed. Of course, the car does not start again on it’s own, it just told me that traffic had cleared. I did learn that to resume ACC or HA once you cancel it you simply push the left toggle up, as if you are trying to increase the speed when it is active. I didn’t know this and had to look it up. Also, when you cancel ACC or HA the regenerative braking kicks in immediately and the car slows abruptly. Makes sense, but needed to take care when I was turning off ACC to exit the highway that I didn‘t brake too abruptly for the cars behind me.

I kept the speed between 72 and 76 mph, had the heat set to 72 and used the massage seats quite a bit, so I wasn’t milking the range. But, with speed limits of 65 and 70 most of the way I was still one of the slower cars on the road. I did take advantage of the awesome acceleration capabilities a few times to get around trucks.

The GPS routing choices left a bit to be desired. When I started my trip the GPS had me driving into Nashville to switch highways. I knew better and just drove the way every other GPS says to go. I will say that when I overrode the GPS it was quick to recalculate. For a while the GPS just suggested I make a u-turn. When it finally “caught up” to the route I was driving it showed an earlier arrival time and a greater remaining miles, so I’m not sure how it was choosing the route. I’ll need to see if there are settings I can adjust. When I did hit a traffic jam is was not good about routing me around the backup. I pulled out my phone and launched Waze which quickly gave me an option around the traffic, which I used.

My experience with Electrify America was okay but not stellar. The first charging location had 10 charging stations, four of which were 350 kW, but none of the 350 kW ones were working. And, whenever I charged the message “Charging power limited by the station” appeared on my dash. I was the only car charging at the time. On the drive home I decided to stop at the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green to charge. I think I could have made it home but didn’t want to risk it. That location had only four charging stations with only one working. It was being used by a Mercedes EQS, but since they were almost finished charging I decided to wait. When I did begin to charge the display was different than what I experienced at other EA locations. It said Complimentary when I began charging but then displayed a cost while I was charging. Since I had nothing better to do, I called EA to ask about it. Turns out, since they were having maintenance issues at that location, they were giving free charges to everyone. When I finished charging the screen showed the cost and an equal credit so the total was $0.00.

I did lose Sirius XM several times. Sometimes it came back on it’s own but usually I had to select a different input and then switch back to Sirius XM for it to start working again. Once it stopped after I declined a phone call. Another time it stopped working just before I arrived at my destination yet, when I came back to the car, it started working right away. Go figure.

I know everyone has their own experiences with people reacting to their Lucid and here are mine from this trip. At the charging station in Cincinnati a Tesla Model 3 drove up to admire the car. We chatted for a few minutes and he said it was the first Lucid he had seen in person and was impressed. I also had the owner of a Polestar walk around the car while I was charging. I got out and talked with him. He was amazed at the range and impressed with how the car looked. On the highway I had several cars pull along side to check out the car. A few gave me a thumbs up. My favorite was a BMW that pulled up on my driver’s side, rolled down his window and gave me a thumbs up. Then he gave me a signal to accelerate, so I obliged. I was in Smooth mode but still quickly left him behind. I only did this for a few seconds and then slowed down to rejoin the BMW. He was laughing hysterically and pounding his steering wheel. I settled back to my 72 mph and let him go on his way.

One other thing I learned about the car is that you cannot change time zones while you are driving. Not sure why, since there are lots of other things you can change. I had my car set for central time because whenever I select “set automatically” it ends up being off by an hour. It shows eastern time even when I am in the central time zone. Same thing happened on this trip. When I got to Cincinnati I set the time zone to “set automatically” and it quickly changed to eastern time, which is the time zone I was in. But, it never moved back to central time so when I got home I had to turn off the automatic setting and manually set the time to central time. Not a big deal but something that should work.

So, that’s my first road trip. I was always comfortable with the car, but now I feel even more confident. Both in the car’s ability and in my understanding of how to use everything.

 

[DeaneG]

We can hope for the future: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/12/android-automotive-is-getting-its-38th-app-waze/

 

[joec]

Took my first road trip this week and want to share my thoughts. Sorry in advance for the long post. I’ll start by saying that, overall, I was very happy and impressed. I drove from the Nashville area to Cincinnati, just over 300 miles. On the trip I got 3.7 mi/kWh and easily made it to Cincinnati on a single charge. I left my house at 100% SOC and arrived with 25%, if my memory serves me.

I used ACC and Highway Assist on almost all of the highway driving and was very pleased with the performance. Worked as well as other ACCs that I’ve used although, like others, sometimes I was a bit nervous with the lane centering while passing a truck. On the drive home I did use ACC for a bit when I got off the highway. It was on a four lane divided road with a few traffic lights. The car did come to a complete stop behind another vehicle at a traffic light without any intervention, although I was certainly ready to apply the brake if needed. Of course, the car does not start again on it’s own, it just told me that traffic had cleared. I did learn that to resume ACC or HA once you cancel it you simply push the left toggle up, as if you are trying to increase the speed when it is active. I didn’t know this and had to look it up. Also, when you cancel ACC or HA the regenerative braking kicks in immediately and the car slows abruptly. Makes sense, but needed to take care when I was turning off ACC to exit the highway that I didn‘t brake too abruptly for the cars behind me.

I kept the speed between 72 and 76 mph, had the heat set to 72 and used the massage seats quite a bit, so I wasn’t milking the range. But, with speed limits of 65 and 70 most of the way I was still one of the slower cars on the road. I did take advantage of the awesome acceleration capabilities a few times to get around trucks.

The GPS routing choices left a bit to be desired. When I started my trip the GPS had me driving into Nashville to switch highways. I knew better and just drove the way every other GPS says to go. I will say that when I overrode the GPS it was quick to recalculate. For a while the GPS just suggested I make a u-turn. When it finally “caught up” to the route I was driving it showed an earlier arrival time and a greater remaining miles, so I’m not sure how it was choosing the route. I’ll need to see if there are settings I can adjust. When I did hit a traffic jam is was not good about routing me around the backup. I pulled out my phone and launched Waze which quickly gave me an option around the traffic, which I used.

My experience with Electrify America was okay but not stellar. The first charging location had 10 charging stations, four of which were 350 kW, but none of the 350 kW ones were working. And, whenever I charged the message “Charging power limited by the station” appeared on my dash. I was the only car charging at the time. On the drive home I decided to stop at the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green to charge. I think I could have made it home but didn’t want to risk it. That location had only four charging stations with only one working. It was being used by a Mercedes EQS, but since they were almost finished charging I decided to wait. When I did begin to charge the display was different than what I experienced at other EA locations. It said Complimentary when I began charging but then displayed a cost while I was charging. Since I had nothing better to do, I called EA to ask about it. Turns out, since they were having maintenance issues at that location, they were giving free charges to everyone. When I finished charging the screen showed the cost and an equal credit so the total was $0.00.

I did lose Sirius XM several times. Sometimes it came back on it’s own but usually I had to select a different input and then switch back to Sirius XM for it to start working again. Once it stopped after I declined a phone call. Another time it stopped working just before I arrived at my destination yet, when I came back to the car, it started working right away. Go figure.

I know everyone has their own experiences with people reacting to their Lucid and here are mine from this trip. At the charging station in Cincinnati a Tesla Model 3 drove up to admire the car. We chatted for a few minutes and he said it was the first Lucid he had seen in person and was impressed. I also had the owner of a Polestar walk around the car while I was charging. I got out and talked with him. He was amazed at the range and impressed with how the car looked. On the highway I had several cars pull along side to check out the car. A few gave me a thumbs up. My favorite was a BMW that pulled up on my driver’s side, rolled down his window and gave me a thumbs up. Then he gave me a signal to accelerate, so I obliged. I was in Smooth mode but still quickly left him behind. I only did this for a few seconds and then slowed down to rejoin the BMW. He was laughing hysterically and pounding his steering wheel. I settled back to my 72 mph and let him go on his way.

One other thing I learned about the car is that you cannot change time zones while you are driving. Not sure why, since there are lots of other things you can change. I had my car set for central time because whenever I select “set automatically” it ends up being off by an hour. It shows eastern time even when I am in the central time zone. Same thing happened on this trip. When I got to Cincinnati I set the time zone to “set automatically” and it quickly changed to eastern time, which is the time zone I was in. But, it never moved back to central time so when I got home I had to turn off the automatic setting and manually set the time to central time. Not a big deal but something that should work.

So, that’s my first road trip. I was always comfortable with the car, but now I feel even more confident. Both in the car’s ability and in my understanding of how to use everything.

Great writeup. Thanks.

Others have reported the issue where the time zone defaults to an incorrect one. I wonder if perhaps that bug is part of why the nav chooses longer routes sometimes? Like, it thinks you are in a different place than you actually are? Who knows? Hoping they get some of these current bugs squashed soon.

 

[Lucken]

Took my first road trip this week and want to share my thoughts. Sorry in advance for the long post. I’ll start by saying that, overall, I was very happy and impressed. I drove from the Nashville area to Cincinnati, just over 300 miles. On the trip I got 3.7 mi/kWh and easily made it to Cincinnati on a single charge. I left my house at 100% SOC and arrived with 25%, if my memory serves me.

I used ACC and Highway Assist on almost all of the highway driving and was very pleased with the performance. Worked as well as other ACCs that I’ve used although, like others, sometimes I was a bit nervous with the lane centering while passing a truck. On the drive home I did use ACC for a bit when I got off the highway. It was on a four lane divided road with a few traffic lights. The car did come to a complete stop behind another vehicle at a traffic light without any intervention, although I was certainly ready to apply the brake if needed. Of course, the car does not start again on it’s own, it just told me that traffic had cleared. I did learn that to resume ACC or HA once you cancel it you simply push the left toggle up, as if you are trying to increase the speed when it is active. I didn’t know this and had to look it up. Also, when you cancel ACC or HA the regenerative braking kicks in immediately and the car slows abruptly. Makes sense, but needed to take care when I was turning off ACC to exit the highway that I didn‘t brake too abruptly for the cars behind me.

I kept the speed between 72 and 76 mph, had the heat set to 72 and used the massage seats quite a bit, so I wasn’t milking the range. But, with speed limits of 65 and 70 most of the way I was still one of the slower cars on the road. I did take advantage of the awesome acceleration capabilities a few times to get around trucks.

The GPS routing choices left a bit to be desired. When I started my trip the GPS had me driving into Nashville to switch highways. I knew better and just drove the way every other GPS says to go. I will say that when I overrode the GPS it was quick to recalculate. For a while the GPS just suggested I make a u-turn. When it finally “caught up” to the route I was driving it showed an earlier arrival time and a greater remaining miles, so I’m not sure how it was choosing the route. I’ll need to see if there are settings I can adjust. When I did hit a traffic jam is was not good about routing me around the backup. I pulled out my phone and launched Waze which quickly gave me an option around the traffic, which I used.

My experience with Electrify America was okay but not stellar. The first charging location had 10 charging stations, four of which were 350 kW, but none of the 350 kW ones were working. And, whenever I charged the message “Charging power limited by the station” appeared on my dash. I was the only car charging at the time. On the drive home I decided to stop at the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green to charge. I think I could have made it home but didn’t want to risk it. That location had only four charging stations with only one working. It was being used by a Mercedes EQS, but since they were almost finished charging I decided to wait. When I did begin to charge the display was different than what I experienced at other EA locations. It said Complimentary when I began charging but then displayed a cost while I was charging. Since I had nothing better to do, I called EA to ask about it. Turns out, since they were having maintenance issues at that location, they were giving free charges to everyone. When I finished charging the screen showed the cost and an equal credit so the total was $0.00.

I did lose Sirius XM several times. Sometimes it came back on it’s own but usually I had to select a different input and then switch back to Sirius XM for it to start working again. Once it stopped after I declined a phone call. Another time it stopped working just before I arrived at my destination yet, when I came back to the car, it started working right away. Go figure.

I know everyone has their own experiences with people reacting to their Lucid and here are mine from this trip. At the charging station in Cincinnati a Tesla Model 3 drove up to admire the car. We chatted for a few minutes and he said it was the first Lucid he had seen in person and was impressed. I also had the owner of a Polestar walk around the car while I was charging. I got out and talked with him. He was amazed at the range and impressed with how the car looked. On the highway I had several cars pull along side to check out the car. A few gave me a thumbs up. My favorite was a BMW that pulled up on my driver’s side, rolled down his window and gave me a thumbs up. Then he gave me a signal to accelerate, so I obliged. I was in Smooth mode but still quickly left him behind. I only did this for a few seconds and then slowed down to rejoin the BMW. He was laughing hysterically and pounding his steering wheel. I settled back to my 72 mph and let him go on his way.

One other thing I learned about the car is that you cannot change time zones while you are driving. Not sure why, since there are lots of other things you can change. I had my car set for central time because whenever I select “set automatically” it ends up being off by an hour. It shows eastern time even when I am in the central time zone. Same thing happened on this trip. When I got to Cincinnati I set the time zone to “set automatically” and it quickly changed to eastern time, which is the time zone I was in. But, it never moved back to central time so when I got home I had to turn off the automatic setting and manually set the time to central time. Not a big deal but something that should work.

So, that’s my first road trip. I was always comfortable with the car, but now I feel even more confident. Both in the car’s ability and in my understanding of how to use everything.

Great review. It again underscores the dismal state of repair of EA stations. Something really needs to be done and there seems to be no entity to do it.

It‘s why my wife will not get a second EV. She’s convinced you need a hybrid/ICE vehicle as a backup. You can’t argue with logic.