Thursday, May 2, 2019

C2C - Supercharging on a Distance Trip.

The only way to really understand the size of the USA is to drive. Even after a Coast to Coast and back trip I'm not really there - after all Alaska would probably double such a trip.

Still to review:


6370 Miles + 440 Mile Wilmington NC leg = 6810 miles sea to sea and back home.

Now considering the 300 miles were off the home charger, that meant 6,500 miles were Supercharged at 45 SC stops across the country. Sometimes my planning worked well - other times not so much.  April was still cold over much of the country so often I would be force to add a final SC stop knowing the battery would be cold overnight and wake up considerably lower than I stopped with.

This could be the reason 151.4 = 6810 / 45 stops.  Given I had two 120 plugins - one KOA and Texas, plus a 240 charge worth 80 miles or so I'd say we can call this 150 miles average. I think that's because I often choose to make two 15 min stops topping around 55-60% rather than a single full charge taking 55-1 Hr 10 minutes.

The final part of the charging puzzle I just couldn't find on the fly. Destination charging. This would have been a big help. When you pull out the driveway at 300miles+ in the battery it really opens up the options and cuts back on the extra SC stops. One medium 45 minute stop places you at 500 miles for the day and then another Destination Charger means you can do it all again. Planning with a Better Route Planner or staying at different places would have helped here.

I was also pushing hard on daily distance on my starting days to cut cost.  If I had a little extra cash I might not have done that - saving wear and tear on my sixty year old self.  My first return day started at 8:30am and ended at 11pm.  Admittedly part of this was because of large sections of road that were 30-40 mph for whole morning. I picked a beautiful mountain and lake route but it cost in time.

So while SC fueling is not more convenient than gas it's getting close. With Destination Charging at hotels it could be about the same.  Day to day though with a home charger it beats gas hands down as normally one never stops with 300 miles of range any morning you wake up.

Happy EV motoring!


                                                

No comments:

Post a Comment