In reply to MrJoshua :
Giving the car the benefit of the doubt, the lackluster experience is probably due largely to the long, mostly featureless roads I've been driving in it and the fact that I've been driving conservatively to avoid breaking it further. It's entirely possible I'll fall in love with it once we fix it up and I have a chance to drive it properly.
In reply to Tom Suddard :
Great minds think alike.
It's dinner time!
In reply to Nicole Suddard :
I-10 boring? Say it ain't so!
Okay, truck is at 90% and I'm headed back on the road. This was my most expensive charge yet--EA's faster chargers bill at higher rates. Once again I'm going with the slower but easier "charge all the way then do a long driving leg" because I'm not in the mood to find another charger. This should be enough power to get me the rest of the way home. 
dps214 said:Tom1200 said:In reply to Nicole Suddard :
This is my worry with a Cayman; I've driven numerous Caymans on track but always worry I won't be as enamored with it as a road car.
I mean can you really fall in love with any car based on highway cruising alone?
It's also worth mentioning that this car in particular seems to have pretty much zero options which makes it pretty bare bones, not even the dual zone climate control. Not exactly the best for making a good first impression on a long drive.
A car that's designed for highway cruising, sure. My '66 Cadillac and the E39 M5 are great highway cruisers. Very different, but very much in their element. Neither are two seater sports cars :)
And just like that, I'm home!
Well, sort of.
It seemed inhumane to park Porsche in the driveway without a bath first, especially since at the last couple gas spots I had to shoo away some bold birds trying to sneak an easy bug snack off her bumper.
Much better.
Time to grab dinner and wait for Tom to get home.
Can y'all describe the differences in your trips as far as downtimes and arrival times? Meaning if you're driving an EV are you stopping often to just sit and wait vs ICE?
In reply to Stampie :
I definitely had less downtime because fueling up the Porsche doesn't take nearly as long as charging the truck. For normal day to day driving, that wouldn't be as much of an issue, but on long hauls like this it makes a difference. I also suspect I made fewer stops in general because I was bound and determined to get home quickly, and Tom is a creature who requires ice cream stops.
In reply to Stampie :
Don't forget Tom is also driving an EV that's about half as efficient as the cars. His truck is rated at 49 kWh/100 miles by the EPA, the most popular EV on the market is 28. So Tom's going to have to spend roughly 75% more time charging because he's using about 75% more electricity. Same thing happens when you compare a 28 mpg car and a 49 mpg car, but you don't notice it as much because refueling is quicker.
In day to day driving, the truck charges at night so it never has to make a specific charging stop. So you get all that stopped time back again :)
In reply to Keith Tanner :
That is what I keep going back to, to be honest... not having to go out of my way three times a week to give Sunoco or BP another fifty bucks, when I could just plug in at home and, you know... not. Long trips would be less convenient, but it isn't like I don't already have multiple cars
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
You are certainly trading daily convenience for possible trip inconvenience. I never knew how much my wife absolutely hated going to gas stations, but that's her most favoritist part about the EV. Apparently she is not alone.
And home! I took a different route than Nicole in order to avoid traffic (30 min slower). So it's roughly a two-hour time penalty to drive an EV vs a Porsche. Probably could have gotten that time closer if I'd been a bit smarter about combining stops with charging.
Stampie said:Can y'all describe the differences in your trips as far as downtimes and arrival times? Meaning if you're driving an EV are you stopping often to just sit and wait vs ICE?
I'll write more about this in the morning. Bed time tonight (sorry).
In reply to Keith Tanner :
My wife and I were laughing the other day about how much we don't miss the gas station when we use our e Golf.
It's plugged in at night so during the day it's ready to party at 80% charge which is plenty for our local activities.
The only time I plug in aside from at home is at a local grocery store that has free chargers in the parking lot. I'm a sucker for free, though I'm probably paying more for Hamburger buns and coffee pods as a result.
I think the biggest downside of not regularly visiting gas stations is not getting to use the window cleaners during the winter and during bug killing season.
My next car will likely be a hybrid and get all the long trips. My wife wants an electric car when the time comes to replace her 2006 xB. It took her 16 years to get to 100K miles, so it could be several more years before it's replaced though.
Okay, morning is here so it's time for a quick summary.
I took the lightning on a worst-case scenario for EVs: An 1150-mile all-highway trip across a part of the country that has some of the least-developed charging infrastructure anywhere.
And, honestly, it wasn't that big of a deal. But it could have been a total non-issue with a few tweaks.
In total, I spent $88 and 4.08 hours charging across two days and 1150 miles. Honestly, I'd struggle to do this drive without four hours of stops in a gas truck, anyway. I charged five times total, but one of these was a false start at a slow charger, and I left after a few minutes. So that's two charging stops per day. Note that I'm not counting the slow charge to 75% I took at the hotel--it was free and I would have parked at the hotel overnight, anyway.
First, let's talk charger locations: The furthest I traveled off the highway for a charger was 12 miles. But that's only because my preferred charger (.7 miles off the highway) was broken, and the one I ended up at was just off a different highway. Every other charger was so close to the highway, I could see them while taking the exit. Most chargers are in a Walmart parking lot, which meant it was easy to find food/restrooms/etc. while waiting.
Second, let's talk charging time: The longest I charged was 1 hour 16 minutes. The second longest was 1 hour 5 minutes. These stops could have been way shorter, as I spent a disproportionate amount of time charging from 80% full to 90% full. But I had to charge all the way in order to bridge broken chargers along the route. In a world with reliable chargers, I could have saved about an hour from my trip. And a 45-minute charge also meshes better with how long of a break I like to take twice a day.
Third, let's talk charger reliability: Every single charger I stopped at had multiple broken stations, and all but one delivered less than the promised power. And this was the result with homework--there's an app for charger reviews called PlugShare that's basically charge yelp, and I used it to avoid the worst-reviewed stations along the route. When you put a destination into the truck's nav system, it automatically forecasts battery usage along the route, then picks appropriate chargers and adds them as stops. But it doesn't really read the charger reviews (just an average of the score), so the truck's recommendations would have been far slower. If most of the chargers that currently exist actually worked, then this trip would have been a total non-issue.
So what's my verdict? Honestly: Not that big of a deal. Electrify America's stations are hot garbage, but at the end of the day I did a massive trip in a really inefficient EV without significant hassle. I'm pretty impressed with how far we've come since my Nissan LEAF.
Tom, How long do you spend hanging around gas stations? "I'd struggle to do this drive without four hours of stops in a gas truck"
I fill up, use the wash room if needed and get out, maybe 15 minutes per stop? So at just guessing here 17mpg, that would be 4 stops with filling up at 20 gallons per stop for 1150 miles.
Granted, trucks these days get better than 17 mpg but would probably still be about the same number of stops.
My 22 f150 gets 20 mpg combined and I spend a lot of time at gas stations but don't think I ever spend an hour at one. This is a worse case scenario though as he said, how often do you go cross country? Most of the time it will charge in the driveway and never use that charge in a days driving.
Not totally cross country but many trips from Chicago to Carlisle, Atlanta, Daytona, South & North Carolinas.
Majority of those towing trailers.
GPz11 (Forum Supporter) said:Not totally cross country but many trips from Chicago to Carlisle, Atlanta, Daytona, South & North Carolinas.
Majority of those towing trailers.
I don't think we are there yet
My question is why are so many of the charging stations broken? Is it because of the people using it is abusing it, don't know how to use it properly, the quality of materials used to make the charging stations or is someone get paid to "break" them to slow down the rise of EV's in order to get people to stick with ICE vehicles? If it is a combination of these then it would indicate that it is not really ready for public use yet with the growing numbers.
I want one but my wife thinks they are a waste of money right now. She thinks we are at least a decade away before EV range and public charging stations are sorted out. I told her we wouldn't have to use the public charging stations and would be fine using one from home as the base. We would keep one ICE vehicle for longer trips.
GPz11 (Forum Supporter) said:Tom, How long do you spend hanging around gas stations? "I'd struggle to do this drive without four hours of stops in a gas truck"
I fill up, use the wash room if needed and get out, maybe 15 minutes per stop? So at just guessing here 17mpg, that would be 4 stops with filling up at 20 gallons per stop for 1150 miles.
Granted, trucks these days get better than 17 mpg but would probably still be about the same number of stops.
I always stop for lunch and sit down in the restaurant, even if it's just fast food--need a break from riding in the car. And I usually stop for a coffee in the afternoon and take a few minutes to stretch my legs. So not quite two hours per day, but also not 15 minutes in an 8-hour drive.
FWIW, the long charges only felt maybe 15 minutes too long. It took me 40 minutes to eat at the Whataburger from entering the restaurant, waiting to order, waiting for food, eating, then leaving.
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