[bish79]

This is the story of my similar experience of your day 3 adventure!

Road Trip

We left yesterday on a planned 450 mile road trip from LI to my son's house near Pittsburg, PA. As this is the first EV we ever owned, I had range anxiety before we left. We charged to 100% and set off for the EA station in Bloomsburg, PA. We arrived with a 15% charge remaining and initiated...

www.vwidtalk.com

Oh man, you didn't even have a GOM! I was living by checking my GOM frequently on that day. I have found that when your driving situation is consistent (same speed, weather/wind, terrain) then the GOM gets pretty accurate so I had at least a little faith in it.

 

[Spin]

Oh man, you didn't even have a GOM! I was living by checking my GOM frequently on that day. I have found that when your driving situation is consistent (same speed, weather/wind, terrain) then the GOM gets pretty accurate so I had at least a little faith in it.

I did have SOC in the app, and that was a big help.

 

[Froggy]

Well I missed you in Gulfport, you came through between my coming and going charges during the holidays. Yes the Mobile(actually Saraland) charger is intended to serve I 65 instead of I10. Hopefully they add a charger at Spanish Fort East of Mobile.

 

[VW TECHNICIAN]

Let's hope for OTA tele matic software integration so i can follow some of this road warriors by being connected to the onboard cellular network modem and ICAS on the vehicle.

 

[limeyinusa]

What's the deal with "Chademo unit " ?? Are they just really slow ?

 

[ga2500ev]

What's the deal with "Chademo unit " ?? Are they just really slow ?

Most EA stations in the US are deployed with exactly one Chademo handle that is shared with a CCS handle. Because of the design of the station, only one handle can be in use at a time. So, if someone uses the CCS handle on the unit, then the Chademo is inoperative until that CCS sessions is finished.

Being reasonably good human beings and realizing that blocking the Chademo could prevent someone with a Chademo port from charging, most CCS drivers refrain from using the dispenser with the Chademo handle attached just in case a Leaf wanders by during the charging sessions. However, with the reliability issues that virtually every EA station seems to have, sometimes it is necessary to use it to get a charge.

In all my charges in the last year plus, I've only seen on Leaf use that handle to charge exactly one time. Note that the CCS attached to that unit is rated at 150kw. So, it's not slow.

ga2500ev

 

[LHNinME]

What's the deal with "Chademo unit " ?? Are they just really slow ?

This is what Leafs use for fast charging.

 

[TidingSStables]

What's the deal with "Chademo unit " ?? Are they just really slow ?

Level 3 Japanese standard that got defunct by CCS when it became the North American standard. Plug is huge and as ugly as CCS.

 

[bish79]

Ok, so after some time in Florida, and a three day trip back to Colorado, I can say that I survived and was generally pleased with the whole experience, which was actually surprising considering I was expecting failure on at least some level.

Anyways, a brief summary of what was done in Florida. Keep in mid that the temperatures here were generally in the 60’s and 70’s so temperature was not an issue:

Nearest EA charger to our AirBnB (in The Villages) was at the Wal-Mart in Bushnell FL. Charged here while getting groceries for the week. No issues but the station did get busy and a line formed before we left. All stalls operational though so no complaints there.

Drove to Orlando to see some things at ICON park. Charged at the EA station at The Florida Mall just a few miles away, ate some lunch in the mall while we charged. Was able to get a good working charger right away but when we came out there was a line three cars deep. Again, all stalls were working so not a reliability issue, just a sizing issue. To be fair there was a supercharger right next to this EA station that also had a line, just a busy area. Picture of the line below:

(What a group... Also, one more car in line behind the Wal-Mart Van)


After leaving Orlando, decided to drive to the Gulf coast to see that. So we went all the way to Pine Island, they have a nice park there on the beach. Stopped by the Bushnell charger again on the way back to the house, hit full speed (135 kW) because I got it under 20% (more on that later).

The next day we decided to go to Kennedy Space Center. Drove straight to the EA station in Cocoa FL. Again all stalls operational, three other cars charging (all Fords, oddly). Got less than full speed because I was over 20%, but only needed a little bit to get to KSC and then back to the mall in Orlando for another charge on the way back.

Made it back to the mall in Orlando with less than 20%, grabbed the last open stall and got full speed again. Piece of cake.

Last day was spent with family in Florida. We were planning on spending one more day in Florida but after checking the weather for the route home it looked like a very good idea to leave a day early to avoid another winter storm back in Colorado and Kansas. So towards the end of the day I went back to Bushnell, charged up enough to start the trip back the next day and packed up.

Overall, Florida (for me) was a piece of cake since there were plentiful charging options near the destinations we wanted to be. And maybe I am just lucky but they were all fully operational the whole time. And yes I have seen Kyle’s videos. I hope EA gets their crap together, but for me and my trip it was great.... this time.

One note on the 20% thing. I have seen a lot of posts on here about charging curves from 10% - 80%, but I haven’t been able to find many where someone started at a higher SOC. I was noticing some interesting behavior where the car seemed to really punish you with a terrible charging curve if you plugged in at say 40%. So I did try to log a few different curves to get a grasp on this. But in general I will say that, yes, the car seems to really punish you if you plug in at too high of a SOC. For example, when you get the good curve, at 50% SOC you will be getting 100kW but if you get a bad curve you might only be getting 72kW at 50% SOC, ouch! Maybe when I have some of the data compiled and graphed I will make a new post about that.

Up next will be the trip home, but I have to warn you, it was pretty uneventful and almost, dare I say it, boring…

 

[bish79]

Ok, starting the trip home. Note that I took pictures of the binnacle for the data but I will only post them if there is something particularly interesting or if someone doesn’t believe that it was this dang easy. A note for today, in general the speeds on the interstate were 80 mph.

Started in The Villages in Florida with about 80% SOC, made it to Gainesville with a very high 54% SOC. Temperature was 65F, efficiency was 3.0 miles/kWh with some slower speeds before hitting the interstate. Knew this would be a quick stop since I didn’t need much to make it to Valdosta GA. Pretty much by the time I hit the restroom and made it back to the car, I had to unplug so I would not overcharge and get the punishment curve at the next stop. So I did that, pulled out of the charging spot and waited for the wife to get Starbucks at the Target. Car: 1 Starbucks: 0

Next stop in Valdosta was nearly textbook perfect. 15% SOC, 72F, 101 miles travelled, 2.9 miles/kWh. I still have no EA data but I did log this charging session as an ideal curve and will graph it later. Got 137 kW peak, 16 minutes to get to 55% and off. We were basically rushed to use the restroom here.

Next stop was in Cordele GA. Arrived with 16%, 73F, 84 miles travelled, 3.0 miles/kWh. This was our lunch stop so we walked to the nearby Subway. There was a pretty decent line and it took about 45 minutes or so to get food and eat. Ended up charging up enough to skip all the way to just north of Atlanta, so that is what we did.

On the next leg we ran into the biggest problem of the day, Atlanta traffic, and more specifically two accidents which required a re-route and a total addition of 1 hour and a half (plus a restroom stop due to the added time) to the trip. Gotta love that….

Anyways, because of the re-route and slower speeds, arrived at Kennesaw GA with 20% on the nose, 61F, 174 miles travelled, 3.3 miles/kWh and still got the good curve! Made it to 62% in 18 minutes. Again almost rushed to use the restroom and buy a couple of things at Michael’s. On to Chattanooga!

Stopped again at the Buc-ee’s in Calhoun GA to grab some dinner to eat in the car at the Chattanooga stop.

On this leg, I could have charged enough to skip Chattanooga, but I was hesitant because I knew there was some elevation changes between Chattanooga and Manchester TN. Having never really driven this car yet on any real elevation changes, I decided to play it safe and add the stop even though the Chattanooga charger was way out of the way (about 12 miles!) for our route. Besides we were able to go by the plant and wave at Plant Peon and all of the other hard workers there kicking out new ID4s. Having checked the SOC and efficiency on the two legs, yeah we easily could have skipped Chattanooga and likely will next time.

So, arrived in Chattanooga with 25%, 63F, 96 miles travelled, 3.1 miles/kWh. Since I arrived with 25% I figured this was a good opportunity to log this charging curve, and yes, even plugging in at 25% it was somewhat lower than if I were at 15%. For example, at 50% SOC I was seeing 90kW vs 100kW. Not awful, but still being punished for only 5% extra SOC. Anyways, 19 minutes to get to 63% and off to Manchester TN.

Manchester TN was… interesting. If you have never been there, it is HARD to find the chargers. As we approached where they were supposed to be, it was almost as if the car was telling me to turn into a back alley. I ended up going past it, turning around, and trying again. Short story is that they are hidden behind a Dollar General, and in front of a shopping plaza that includes a Food Lion. I would say out of all charging stops on this trip this was the hardest to find and it felt significantly unsafe at night in the back corner of a poorly lit parking lot… yikes EA, gotta do better with charger placement than this.

Anyways, I was so flustered by the situation that I forgot to take a picture of the binnacle so I have no real data on this leg. But I didn’t need a lot of charge here so we got in and got out ASAP!

Next stop was the hotel in Murfreesboro TN. Take a look at this place on plugshare! Holy CRAP look at all of the hotel charging! We chose the Hilton Garden Inn as a lot of the other hotels used Blink, and at the Hilton they were free, just plug and go. I counted and they had four J1772’s and 7 or 8 Tesla chargers! I only saw one Tesla charger ICE’d when I got there and several were in use. I tried the first two J1772’s and they faulted out immediately, moved to the third one and it worked great. I even went in to tell the guy at the front desk and he seemed genuinely concerned that the first two did not work and said that he would have maintenance look into it! What is this place? They get it here!

So with a good working hotel charger, it was time to get some rest for day 2. I would point out that this travel day was essentially "perfect" for an EV travel day. I don't recall even once needing to unplug and try a different charger, I got great speeds at every stop and the efficiency was great. Every stop other than the lunch stop was less than 20 minutes. This is what summer road tripping could be like if the charging network could keep up!

 

[bish79]

Time for Day 2. After getting a full charge at the hotel in Murfreesboro, the first planned stop was in Clarksville TN, mostly for a bio break as the car didn’t really need it. Made it to Clarksville with 2.8 miles /kWh, 71 miles travelled, 56F, don’t recall SOC as I kept forgetting to snap the pictures until after charging today. In general, today was a bit of a mess on my end as I kept overcharging for various reasons, mostly because we were taking longer than the car to get ready for the next leg… Oh well, not the best charging curves today. Not like I am trying to cannonball it or anything.

Anyways, since the car didn’t need anything really this was just to warm up the battery and hit the restroom.

Next stop was Paducah KY, arrived with 30%, 92 miles travelled, 2.6 miles/kWh and 47F. Cooler temps are clearly starting to affect range at this point as wind was very minor so far. Up to this point, speeds were about 80 mph. The next leg is getting into Illinois where speeds will decrease to 75 mph max, usually less, as I know the Illinois state troopers are very happy to hand out tickets, especially for out of state cars. This was also the first time on the trip back that I had a charger which appeared to be working which would not initiate with the car. So I had to wait about 2 minutes for an e-Tron to unplug and I took that charger.

Made it to Mt Vernon, again forgot to take the pic until after charging so don’t recall SOC when starting, pretty sure it was in the 15%-20% range. 92 miles, 45F, 2.9 miles/kWh. This was our lunch stop so we walked over to the nearby Burger King and overcharged for our next stop in Collinsville IL.

Arrived in Clarksville again forgetting to snap a pic right away (EA history would be helpful here for SOC info). 50F, 72 miles, 2.8 miles/kWh. I knew that to make it to Boonville would be a stretch, both for the car and for everyone’s bladder. So I planned the first non-EA fast charge at the Fast Lane in Kingdom City, MO. Since this is a route I am familiar with I knew it was there and it appeared to be very reliable. The wife walked to a nearby Starbucks again for a drink. Car completed charging and I drove over to pick her up. The drink was not ready yet.

Car: 2, Starbucks: 0

Arrived at Kingdom City with 24%, 50F, 2.9 miles/kWh, 114 miles travelled. Charged up to just 36% to make it to Boonville MO. Charger was a Chargepoint 125kW “shared” (i.e. 62 kW) unit. Did the job for a quick splash and dash while we hit the restroom and grabbed some snacks. Charging cost was $2.77.

Arrived in Boonville with 17%, 43 miles travelled, 3.0 miles/kWh, 51F. This stop ended up being a little rushed as we wanted to order some pizza to pick up and eat at our next stop and the pizza place was closing soon (New Years Eve). So I charged just enough to make it to the next stop and we were off.

Made it to the pizza place with 5 minutes to spare and made it to the charger in Independence MO with 7% to spare. Gotta love the consistency of this car to be able to nail the calculations that well! I was aiming for 8%. Travelled 89 miles, 2.8 miles/kWh at 48F. We were going slightly faster to make it in time. I was also rewarded with great charging speeds, 143kW at 11%. See pics below:

This was the last charging stop of the day before the hotel so I charged up a lot extra. The hotel has a charger but the last time I was there (just a month ago) it was already taken by a white Tesla model 3 with a very distinctive roof rack. That Tesla was there when we arrived last time and it was there when we left last time. I found that a little odd as I felt that we took our time getting going in the morning. But anyways, arrived at the hotel this time and a VERY similar looking model 3 had already taken the charger again… hmmmm. I have a suspicion that perhaps someone living in the adjacent apartment complex might be using this as their home charger. Not enough evidence to say anything to the front desk yet, but perhaps the next time we stay, if the same car is there I may mention it. But this is why I always have a backup plan anyways, which we will get to on day 3. For this night, I still had 63% SOC and called it a night.

 

[2928]

Sounds like a good trip, thanks for sharing!

 

[bish79]

And now for the last day. This is the shortest day for the trip home and on a very familiar route. Temperatures were decreasing today and the effects of that will be seen.

Starting at the hotel in the morning, I decided to not be a dummy like my last trip and go charge the car in the morning while everyone else slept. I went over to the ChargePoint right across a parking lot adjacent to the hotel. This unit is known for not initiating with the RFID scanner and thus charging must be initiated with the app. I tried anyways with the Apple Wallet ChargePoint “card” with no luck. Cool I’ll just open up the app, find the charger and… its offline… can’t start it with the app. Out of this whole trip I really didn’t expect ChargePoint to be the one to let me down. Ugh. Well there is a backup to the backup about 12 miles away at the Topeka service plaza. Checked on the app and that was online and available so headed off to charge there.

Had a fine charging session, a little slow but everyone else was still sleeping in so no one cared. And I got this fine sunrise picture out of it:

Got up to 100% and headed back to the hotel just in time for everyone to wake up and get this show on the road. Charging cost for this charge was $6.24. But most importantly we could skip the mess that is the Topeka EA station.

Speeds this day increased significantly to 85 mph or so. Winds also increased. Temperature decreased. Plus there was a gradual elevation increase all day. Complete recipe for inefficiency, and inefficiency is what I got!

Made it to Salina KS with 2.4 miles/kWh, 130 miles travelled, 18% SOC and 40F outside. Left the hotel with 95% so by my calculations that is a 100% charge range of only 168 miles. Didn’t get full speed on the charger either, topped out at about 112kW. Preconditioning anyone??

Decided to aim low for the next stop since my speeds were ludicrous and I could always lower them if needed. Aimed for 8%, got to Hays KS with… 6%. That's the lowest I have had it so far. 95 miles, 2.3 miles/kWh and 46F. Look at this point I am ready to get home and I want full speed charging. But yet full speed charging was not to be had. Again got to about 112kW. Took 38 minutes to get to the 80% needed for the next leg. I guess really fast charging was not in the cards today. Binnacle pic below:

Aimed a little higher at 12% for Colby KS and arrived with 13%. 2.2 miles/kWh, 103 miles, 42F. Saw the only other EV charging this day which was an F-150 lightning headed back to Detroit. Only two working stalls in Colby so good thing no one else was there. Yet again I only got 112kW and the F-150 driver said he was slightly off of his full speeds too. Not sure if it was car related or charger related. Charged up really high here since Flagler CO is STILL a mess after being a mess for the last trip and my backup is 30 miles further in Limon CO.

Made it to Flagler with 25% or so, 106 miles, 32F, 2.4 miles/kWh. I decreased speeds on this leg to be sure I could make Limon if needed. Only two working units. Took the Chedemo first and only got 62kW. Moved to the other working unit and got 87kW. I guess I’ll take it. We also just missed the I-70 diner being open. It appears that they have very limited hours due to staffing, Wed-Sun 11-3. Might have to make a trip back out just to eat there one of these days.

Charged up enough to easily make it home, pretty uneventful trip home from here. Had a semi-truck stuck on the exit ramp to highway 86. Funny enough the car’s navigation was saying that there was a traffic slowdown there and I thought, how the heck can there be a traffic slowdown there? This is the middle of nowhere and something like 10 cars per hour take this exit. But sure enough, it was right. A state trooper was there directing people to go off-roading to get around it. Had a few deer almost jump out in front of us on highway 86. That would have been a crappy post to make. Made it home with 17%, 106 miles, 2.5 miles/kWh (slower speeds) and about 30F. Car now has 8,626 miles after only 45 days of ownership. That averages 192 miles per day. Time to slow down for a bit until spring break, then it's SoCal time.

So again I will end with some overall thoughts and stats on the trip.

1. I must be lucky. I thought that EA worked generally well for me. I know there were many stops where it could have been a disaster but it wasn’t. But for sure EA needs to get their act together. With the volume of non-Tesla EV sales increasing dramatically there will be issues soon, real soon. Actually now, I just got lucky. If I had to throw a guess out there, EA needs to get their reliability to be up to near 100%, double the number of stalls at each and every location, and then double again in two years. Or someone else needs to step up. Anything short of that and it will be painful to even think about road tripping in a year or two.
2. If you want to road trip reasonably fast in this car, you have to arrive with less than 20% SOC. I fully understand that makes a lot of people uncomfortable, and that is why EA reliability needs to be better. It would also be great if you didn’t get put on these punishment charging curves for plugging in with more than 20%, but it appears that you do.
3. Can we PLEASE get battery preconditioning? Please. VW? Someone? This car charges so much faster when its 70F out than when it is just 40F, let alone -10F, even with a “warm” battery. This can be solved by some fairly simple software.
4. I still think with the quietness, comfort, size, and features of this car, it is the best road tripping car I have ever had.
5. I still like the built in navigation. As it was routing us around traffic in Atlanta, it was doing as good as Google Maps which my wife had up the whole time. I like the ID light integration, I like the lane animations in cities. It probably is my favorite navigation system of any car I have owned.
6. Might want to reset the heated seats and steering wheel to default to medium instead of high. This is incase another loss of infotainment occurs and those functions cannot be adjusted. Also, in the event of that happening, it is much easier to maintain steady speed without cruise control in D mode vs B mode.
7. I charged at 38 different EA locations on this trip. 24 of those were at a Wal-Mart or Sam’s Club. I was able to get a charge at a decent rate at every single location (except maybe Pueblo, but I think that was the car’s fault due to temperature and lack of preconditioning).
8. It takes longer to get Starbucks than to charge the car.
9. Of note, this was all on the stock tires. I will likely get a set of winter wheels and tires but I definitely didn’t want to have them on in Florida where it got up to about 80F.
10. I don’t have EA history but over the course of the trip EA auto loaded $80 total, so I can assume the trip was about $80 plus the $8 or so from ChargePoint for a total of $88. Total miles including running around central Florida while we were there is approximately 4,400 miles. At $3.50 per gallon in the Volvo that would have been at least $616 but that is assuming 25 mpg, at the temperatures and speeds I saw, 25 mpg is very high. Savings of at least $528.
11. As much as I and everyone else loves the Supercharger network, this trip likely would have been slower in the SR+ Model 3 that I had. For one, it's charging curve was much worse than the ID4. For two, if you get a shared V2 supercharger you are getting 70kW or so max. This is also due to a lot of luck with the EA network for me.
12. Florida is freakin crowded this time of year. I am glad to be out of there and back in Colorado. I get it, its 80 degrees, but also eff that madness.

 

[VW TECHNICIAN]

We need EV vehicles with 400+ miles battery packs and this will be much easier and less stressful long trip. I had Tesla 3 long range for trip from east coast to west coast and back to east coast.....in December last year and it was forcing me more times than I wanted to stop when taking this long trip.
My best range on full battery was 220-250 when fully charged and way below 190 when staying between 10-80% SOC cycle. Tesla has very efficient propulsion units....but if AWD equipped they are not so efficient. Charging curve was great if using Tesla Fast DC chargers....but if you use EA or other chargers, Tesla will not start preconditioning for optimum condition to charge....lesson learned. Temperatures where in single digits and windy conditions with me and all equipment i was around 700+ lbs extra weight. Driver seat was one of worst that my German a%* experienced..... Tesla 3 is definitely not vehicle for taking long distance trips if you prefer comfort. Heat pump was quite efficient for as long there was enough heat in the battery to scavenge out....once is gone it really hits the remaining energy left in the battery pack. Skipping one charging location was best i could do with weather conditions and trying to maximize heat recovery from battery pack to keep heat pump on efficient side.

 

[Spin]

Thanks for the telling the story of this trip. It was a very interesting read!