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I finally had the chance to drive the car a distance that felt significant outside of my daily commute and figured I'd share with everyone. I took two separate trips down from Newark area down to Cherry Hill, NJ to scope out new homes for our impending move. My typical commute is a 50/50 highway / local highway/streets drive that is 21 miles each leg, so I drive 42 miles about 3-4 times a week. I mostly charge at work, so I've really only used the EA charger once outside of an initial test run day 1. Now we were facing down a 73-mile leg down to Cherry Hill plus some in-city driving followed by a drive back. I started off with around 50-plus percent state of charge and knew there were 2 EA stations around the destination area where I would be charging.
On the drive down, I took the NJ Turnpike, set ACC to 70 mph, and just kind of let the ride happen. It was smooth sailing all throughout, the car kept the 70 mph more or less, and we were able to climb up to 3.1 mi/kwh on mostly highway speeds. It hung around 2.8 mi/kwh for a large portion of the trip, but as the car slowed down a tad behind traffic here and there, it regained a bit and took advantage of some downhill at the end to boost up to 3.1.
We got to Cherry Hill with a listed 50-60 miles of range. We drove around to look at four houses that day, grabbed some lunch at a decent ramen location, and ended our day checking out an apartment. We initially had planned to charge midway through the trip around town and had navigated to the Target at Cherry Hill EA charger. However, when we had stopped by with around 40 miles of range (and the under-20% warning present), Charger 2 was down and the two other locations were taken up by a Bolt and Taycan. The Taycan was almost wrapped up, the Bolt was barely pulling 40 kw, but I knew the Bolt couldn't pull past 50 kw, so that might have been normal.
Instead, we went off to the Walmart Supercenter EA charger in Somerdale. There, I finally saw the visage I've been waiting for:
![3203]()
After two EA charges, I FINALLY got 125+ kw to start my charging session! It took a grand total of 35 minutes to charge back up to 80%, and that feels right in line with what VW had mentioned. My wife said as we walked through the Walmart and I compulsively checked the Car-Net app to see our remaining time that 30-35 minutes was perfect for a stopover to get food. She even said we'd have time to go in and out of the drive-thru at a busy McDonalds in that time frame, to which I noted that we wouldn't be able to drive-thru on account of the charging car!
We drove back home after that and the native navigation took me through some very small local roads instead of going the typical route of going up US-1 and to the Garden State Parkway. I suspect it thought the Parkway would toll me even though I know it wouldn't. Our overall trip was a solid 3.3 mi/kwh covering 201 miles for the day, and that is without any hypermiling other than driving in Eco mode. We AC'd when we needed to and it was no issue.
The next day we decided to hit up some open houses and went back down. This time, I had enough chances to use my new NJ EZPass and find out that you can get it to register if you slap it on the back of the infotainment screen! That was a delight. This time, I started our drive at 44% charge and will admit that, while the car was showing 40 miles of range left, I was feeling the slightest bit of range anxiety in terms of making it to the EA charge specifically. That was an unnecessary concern, as we made it to Cherry Hill, went to the three houses we checked out, and ended up at the Target charger with 7% SOC left in true road-tripping fashion.
I pulled into the first station and got...42 kw! This persisted through the initial time period. It was a 150 kw station from what I saw on their markings. The only other working station was occupied by another Taycan...sitting 20 minutes idle! We walked around the place a bit and came back and the Taycan owner was 37 minutes idle and STILL nowhere to be seen. My wife commented that if you have the money to own a Taycan, maybe you don't care about $12 more dollars in fees. Just as I conceded to my fate of charging at 40 kw, the Taycan owner showed up and unplugged her vehicle. Then we got our second instance of hyperspeed charging! It took 35.5 minutes to go to 80%, and even at the end the machine was pulling good numbers.
![3207]()
We had the benefit of a couple of warm May days to get these numbers, but it impressed me nonetheless.
We made our way back home up the Turnpike and I kept an eye on our final efficiency for the day-long trip. We managed 3.5 mi/kwh on the way back on mostly highway terrain, making me feel very good about my impending 110 mile total back and forth commute that I'll be making once we move down.
Final thoughts:
On the drive down, I took the NJ Turnpike, set ACC to 70 mph, and just kind of let the ride happen. It was smooth sailing all throughout, the car kept the 70 mph more or less, and we were able to climb up to 3.1 mi/kwh on mostly highway speeds. It hung around 2.8 mi/kwh for a large portion of the trip, but as the car slowed down a tad behind traffic here and there, it regained a bit and took advantage of some downhill at the end to boost up to 3.1.
We got to Cherry Hill with a listed 50-60 miles of range. We drove around to look at four houses that day, grabbed some lunch at a decent ramen location, and ended our day checking out an apartment. We initially had planned to charge midway through the trip around town and had navigated to the Target at Cherry Hill EA charger. However, when we had stopped by with around 40 miles of range (and the under-20% warning present), Charger 2 was down and the two other locations were taken up by a Bolt and Taycan. The Taycan was almost wrapped up, the Bolt was barely pulling 40 kw, but I knew the Bolt couldn't pull past 50 kw, so that might have been normal.
Instead, we went off to the Walmart Supercenter EA charger in Somerdale. There, I finally saw the visage I've been waiting for:
After two EA charges, I FINALLY got 125+ kw to start my charging session! It took a grand total of 35 minutes to charge back up to 80%, and that feels right in line with what VW had mentioned. My wife said as we walked through the Walmart and I compulsively checked the Car-Net app to see our remaining time that 30-35 minutes was perfect for a stopover to get food. She even said we'd have time to go in and out of the drive-thru at a busy McDonalds in that time frame, to which I noted that we wouldn't be able to drive-thru on account of the charging car!
We drove back home after that and the native navigation took me through some very small local roads instead of going the typical route of going up US-1 and to the Garden State Parkway. I suspect it thought the Parkway would toll me even though I know it wouldn't. Our overall trip was a solid 3.3 mi/kwh covering 201 miles for the day, and that is without any hypermiling other than driving in Eco mode. We AC'd when we needed to and it was no issue.
The next day we decided to hit up some open houses and went back down. This time, I had enough chances to use my new NJ EZPass and find out that you can get it to register if you slap it on the back of the infotainment screen! That was a delight. This time, I started our drive at 44% charge and will admit that, while the car was showing 40 miles of range left, I was feeling the slightest bit of range anxiety in terms of making it to the EA charge specifically. That was an unnecessary concern, as we made it to Cherry Hill, went to the three houses we checked out, and ended up at the Target charger with 7% SOC left in true road-tripping fashion.
I pulled into the first station and got...42 kw! This persisted through the initial time period. It was a 150 kw station from what I saw on their markings. The only other working station was occupied by another Taycan...sitting 20 minutes idle! We walked around the place a bit and came back and the Taycan owner was 37 minutes idle and STILL nowhere to be seen. My wife commented that if you have the money to own a Taycan, maybe you don't care about $12 more dollars in fees. Just as I conceded to my fate of charging at 40 kw, the Taycan owner showed up and unplugged her vehicle. Then we got our second instance of hyperspeed charging! It took 35.5 minutes to go to 80%, and even at the end the machine was pulling good numbers.
We had the benefit of a couple of warm May days to get these numbers, but it impressed me nonetheless.
We made our way back home up the Turnpike and I kept an eye on our final efficiency for the day-long trip. We managed 3.5 mi/kwh on the way back on mostly highway terrain, making me feel very good about my impending 110 mile total back and forth commute that I'll be making once we move down.
Final thoughts:
- I wish I had pen and paper near me to leave notes on cars sitting idle or not charging in our EA station that has two functional chargers
- When the EA station works and this car charges, it WORKS and the car charges fast.
- Short road trips like these are still long, but they work very easily
- The warnings coming at below 20% gave me a little pause and anxiety, but driving around town, the car can be so efficient that even getting to below 10% didn't spook me as long as I knew we were close to a charger.
- This car rocks. I've been very happy with the purchase.
