- Joined
- Mar 22, 2022
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- Cars
- Air GT Black/Tahoe/19"
I figured I'd post here as I planned a last minute road trip from Providence RI to Crown Point Indiana and probably went a somewhat similar route to you (80 west?). My intent was to visit my grandparents who are 90 and 92 because they're increasingly frail. Unfortunately I had to abandon the trip after stopping in Medina OH overnight and return home because I got sick and spiked a fever to 102.7 (Covid negative) and didn't want to expose my grandparents. So I drove 1,280 miles for nothing but I did learn a lot. I stopped at the Sheetz in Bloomsburg PA (sucked, 2 of 4 chargers down in spite of PlugScore of 10, had to wait 40 minutes to plug in), Clarion PA EA WalMart which was great and got me 234kw and also the thermometer that told me I needed to abandon the trip, the Holiday Inn Express in Medina OH as I'd already made the reservation and really needed the rest now that I got sick and they had a L2 charger, back to the Clarion PA EA on the way back since it was a good one, and then the WalMart EA in East Stroudsburg PA which were new units and I got 245 Kw, and added 53kw in 18 minutes meanwhile the Kona next to me added 53Kw in 51 minutes! All I can say is the car was awesome, there's no other vehicle I could have done this trip in with this little fatigue and stress (ICE or EV!), especially while being sick driving back home in heavy rain. Highway assist made the drive much less fatiguing and only required rare interventions, and many times in severe rain it could see the road when I couldn't. The heated/massaging seats plus phenomenal audio definitely made me feel less ill and helped me power through the 640 mile drive back in terrible conditions. The lone criticism I have for HA is that it doesn't slow down for corners, so you have to manually. The Mercedes ADAS does slow down (they call it route based speed adaptation). And you're right it would sometimes mistake on-ramp lines as the point of reference pulling you to the right if you were in the right lane.
More than anything else, more than the car's range estimator which we know to be useless, more than ABRP, more than Plugshare, the solution to smart road tripping is anyone with an iPhone and Grand Touring needs this GT Range Siri shortcut, just say Hey Siri GT range and it will figure out your range prediction based on that number, or any number if you want so you could see what it would be like if you drove slower or faster. I don't recall who made this shortcut but I want to shake their hand! I'm sure someone can mod it for the Touring/Pure battery pack size if they want.
You can do the math yourself or ask Alexa to do the math (multiply current efficiency x battery percentage x battery pack size) but that's a lot more cumbersome.
The reason why this shortcut was helpful is efficiency changes based on multiple conditions, as you experienced. I started out my trip with 4.2 mi/kwh after going 180 miles, got to the charger at 3.8 mi/kwh, hit torrential rain and blinding fog on the way back with efficiency as low as 2.8 mi/kwh and ended at home with 3.4 mi/kwh, compounded by the fact that I was driving as fast as traffic would allow because I was trying to beat a big storm that was supposed to hit with flash flood conditions and 60mph wind gusts. Using the Siri GT Range shortcut saved me from my original plan of charging in Stamford CT on the way back and stopping much sooner at the WalMart in East Stroudsburg PA, as my efficiency on the way back due to the worse conditions would have made me not make the originally planned charging stop.
