Live Updates: What happens when we drive a broken Porsche across the country?

Tom Suddard said:

First charge is in the books! Back on the road. 

Wow, only 42 KWH charging rate?   Can you use the Tesla superchargers?  

frenchyd said:

Tom Suddard said:

First charge is in the books! Back on the road. 

Wow, only 42 KWH charging rate?   Can you use the Tesla superchargers?  

Unless I don't understand, looks like it put in 88kwh in less than an hour.  Wouldn't that be closer to 90kw/h?  

I'll be honest, the units are confusing to me.

wvumtnbkr said:

frenchyd said:

Tom Suddard said:

First charge is in the books! Back on the road. 

Wow, only 42 KWH charging rate?   Can you use the Tesla superchargers?  

Unless I don't understand, looks like it put in 88kwh in less than an hour.  Wouldn't that be closer to 90kw/h?  

I'll be honest, the units are confusing to me.

I'm wondering if it didn't charge quicker initially, and then ramp down to the 42 towards the end. 

Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter) said:

wvumtnbkr said:

frenchyd said:

Tom Suddard said:

First charge is in the books! Back on the road. 

Wow, only 42 KWH charging rate?   Can you use the Tesla superchargers?  

Unless I don't understand, looks like it put in 88kwh in less than an hour.  Wouldn't that be closer to 90kw/h?  

I'll be honest, the units are confusing to me.

I'm wondering if it didn't charge quicker initially, and then ramp down to the 42 towards the end. 

In his post, Tom says he's using a 150KW charger, so it must ramp down as it gets "fuller".

Yeah, EV batteries charge more slowly as they fill up, but the Lightning should give a solid 10 minutes or so of 160-180kw when first plugged into a 350kw charger (at least that's what the press truck I had would do).

This charger started at 130kw, then tapered to 100kw until it started declining above 80%. I needed to spend some time "slow" charging at 50kw in order to bridge the gap to the next decent charger.

In other news, dairy queen stop! Not charging, just hungry. 

That's actually how all batteries work when charging.  
 

What I want to know is how far $15.72 gets you.

In reply to AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) :

The display showed 1.6mi per kwh, so that is roughly 145mi or a bit under ten cents per mile, if my approximations are right.

That was also while towing a car, be interesting to see what the untethered power consumption is.

Time for charger number two! This one was (surprise) also broken, and the 350kw was only giving me 60kw. I moved to a 150kw charger which is putting out just over 100kw. The truck is down to 20% full, so it should be able to take way more current than this. I'm really starting to love Electrify America....

The last leg was 210 miles, all highway, though slightly lower speeds due to heavy traffic (70-75 mph mostly). So far today I've done 392.1 miles, and averaged 2.0 miles/kWh.

And yes, all batteries charge like this. The fastest way to travel isn't to run the battery to 0% and then charge to 100%, it's to charge to 80% and hit the road again.

It's only 133 miles to New Orleans (our stop for the night), so I'll be here long enough to take a bathroom break and grab a drink, then get back on the road. 

Needed a quick mental break from the road, so I pulled off to check out the Atchafalaya Welcome Center. It did not disappoint.

Not only did it have clean bathrooms and vending machines stocked with energy drinks, it also had talking animatronic critters!

10/10 rest stop, would visit again.

A friend appears!!

Running to empty and filling to full is ICE thinking :) Like Tom said, the charging rate is fastest when it's near empty and it starts to really drag above 80% - so you only go there when you have other things to do (dinner stop) or you really need that extra range for a leg. The route planner should take this into consideration. 

It's actually really interesting to see charge rate vs state of charge graphs. Like a dyno chart, it ends up being about area under the curve instead of peak numbers. 

wvumtnbkr said:

frenchyd said:

Tom Suddard said:

First charge is in the books! Back on the road. 

Wow, only 42 KWH charging rate?   Can you use the Tesla superchargers?  

Unless I don't understand, looks like it put in 88kwh in less than an hour.  Wouldn't that be closer to 90kw/h?  

I'll be honest, the units are confusing to me.

Current charging speed is how much power the battery is taking right now. It's 42 kW. If that continues for an hour, you'll get 42 kWh.

Think of it as the same sort of thing as instantaneous speed and distance. You can be driving at 42 mph now, and in an hour you will have gone 42 miles. But if you're in traffic, your current speed might be less than your average has been.

Obviously, since it's taken nearly 90 kWh in the past hour, it was charging at a much higher power level for most of that. 

And done! Tesla Supercharger access cannot come soon enough, but I'm back on the road. 

John Welsh said:

I wondered if you would tow the 4 speed Cayman? 

Of course, I wondered if that towing would significantly hurt EV range and require very frequent stops.  Furthermore, the challenges of charging parking spaces with a trailer attached.  

Towing involves expending more energy, so yes - it will definitely affect range. Same with my big Dodge. But you notice it more on an EV because of the longer fill times.

Towing with EVs is a fairly new thing, so most charging stations weren't built with that in mind. That's changing, but since we're talking physical infrastructure it's a gradual change. Flying J/Pilot has said that they'll be installing pull through chargers. 

Tom is discovering why Ford was the first to make the deal with Tesla for the Supercharger network. Not for ultimate speed, but reliability. Unfortunately, that's not yet in place unless he can find one with a Magic Dock. 

OK, enough from me about EVs. Back to Nicole bravely crossing Texas in a broken German car after Tom abandoned her with his new toy. 

Nicole Suddard said:

Needed a quick mental break from the road, so I pulled off to check out the Atchafalaya Welcome Center. It did not disappoint.

Have overnighted there many times with the motorhome.  Great place.

I'm actually here to see how the Porsche Does. ( wish you well there) 

   I've heard how bad some chargers are.            Some haters just love to spread bad news.  Based on that I'm surprised you only had one failed charger so far. 

Nicole Suddard said:

Needed a quick mental break from the road, so I pulled off to check out the Atchafalaya Welcome Center. It did not disappoint.

Not only did it have clean bathrooms and vending machines stocked with energy drinks, it also had talking animatronic critters!

10/10 rest stop, would visit again.

Just don't blow the dam! 

(Super interesting reading if you're interested, the Atchafalaya is where the Mississippi wants to go and the gate/dam is the only thinking keeping it from happening.)

And just like that, we made it to New Orleans! The Porsche hasn't gotten much attention because it's been boring: So far it just does its thing, cruising along in fourth gear.

Next stop is dinner, then some sleep before the final day of our trip tomorrow. Hopefully things stay uneventful. 

In reply to Tom Suddard :

Can confirm, the Porsche drove like a dream today. 

Need to take a little side trip to the Mexico section of I-10 and do a little highway racing.

Dinner... check. Sugar... check. Time for bed. 

In reply to Tom Suddard :

I miss being able to have sugar before bed....

If you have the time, Cafe du monde

Beignets and cafe au lautis

Enjoy

14 Minutes Late . was I

In reply to RacingComputers :

Its in the picture. Jackson square. Ive been there many times. If you get a chance, go to the hilton hotel, its the "convention center". Restaurant in the bottom is Drago's. Get the charbroiled oysters.  They are incredible.