West Bound - Day 6

It sure is nice to be home...

We had another short day today with only 487.5 miles between Indio and home. The drive was again uneventful. We did have one new thing that happened at the supercharger in Harris ranch. The first one (of 16?) gave a "charging station error". That's the first time I saw any error at all for the 48 supercharges that I did over the 5,988 miles. That's something that I wondered about before the trip - How reliable were the superchargers? Pretty damn reliable...

I noticed that there was a monitoring station at all of the superchargers. I guess so that they can see what's happening (see the camera?) and remotely reset things:

I saw another one of the temporary setups (with 00-AWG 480v 3-phase temporary wiring) at the charger in Cabazon, CA. I guess they were making sure to have enough charging spots for the Thanksgiving peak travel days.

At the Cabazon supercharger

At the Indio supercharger

We noticed when we were going East that we passed quite a few semi trucks carrying Teslas.  Suzanne started counting them and we ended up counting 15. There were lots in California, but we only saw one in Texas (on I-40). Well we saw a TON of them yesterday and especially today. We counted 60 trucks, each with at least 8 vehicles on them. Just in our time on the road we saw almost 500 Teslas going out to people...

The overall trip map is pretty impressive. 5,988 miles in 16 days. But, the total mileage on the car is 8,268 miles and 5,988 miles of that is this trip! 64% of the car's total is this trip:

Our trip today... not so impressive:

Our drive & charge details:

Totals for the day:
487.5 miles, 139.1 kWh, 285 Wh/mi (3.51 miles/kWh)
08:00-16:59, so 8 hrs 59 minutes trip time (54.2 mpg, which includes lunch at Harris Ranch)
Actual drive time was 7 hrs, 21 minutes (66.3 mph)

Totals for the trip:
5,987.75 miles, 1,660 kWh, 277 Wh/mi (3.61 miles/kWh).
111 hrs 8 minutes, 53.9 mph (including lunches and dinners)

West Bound - Day 5

It was a short day today, only 482 miles. We went through some serious cross winds, a dust storm, and rain. We also sat in traffic for half an hour East of Tucson because four people's cars touched and made a big mess.

When we got to Indio we drove around some to look at what's there. The places we wanted to look at turned out to be gated communities and the places that weren't gated we didn't want to look at. Does anyone know why RV parks need to be gated? There must be hundreds of them here...

Looking at the total consumption for the trip, we used 1,521 kWh of electrical energy to go 5,500 miles. Since a gallon of gasoline has 33.7 kWh of energy in it, we used the equivalent of 45.1 gallons of gas so far to go the 5500 miles!  That's the equivalent of 121.9 miles per gallon.

We are so ready to be home tomorrow! So much laundry to do...

Here's our route today:

Our route so far:

Our drive and charge details:

Totals for the day:
481.6 miles, 125.8 kWh, 261 Wh/mi (3.83 miles/kWh)
07:38 - 14:22 (but one last time zone) so 7 hours 44 minutes trip time, not including our driving around in Indio.
Actual drive time was 6 hrs, 50 minutes (70.47 mph)

Totals for the trip:
5,500.3 miles, 1,521 kWh 277 Wh/mi (3.61 miles/kWh)
102 hrs 9 minutes, 53.8 mph (including lunches & dinners)

West Bound - Day 4

Long day today across some of the most boring parts of America. We went from scrub oaks and rolling hills to featureless expanses of flat dirt & rocks with warning signs about what to do in a dust storm! 588 miles in 7:46 of driving time (75.9 mph). Total time of 9:48, so 60.3 mph including charging, lunch, & "bio breaks".

One of those bio breaks brought something to my attention that Suzanne dealt with.  At one of the stops, even though the bathroom had 15 open stalls, she had to wait for the person in the one handicapped stall to leave it.  She ended up waiting about 10 minutes (and needing to pee after 300+ miles) but the person was totally clueless...  Have you done this?

About half of the trip was still in Texas, with a speed limit of 80 mph. Once we got into New Mexico & Arizona the speed limit dropped to 75 and so did the consumption. But still the superchargers are pretty far apart and we had to make sure that we were full enough when we headed out to make it.  Not because the car didn't have the range, but because the car's range that was displayed was "rated range". Not range at 80+ mph! The screen would tell us that we would end up in the next spot with say 25% charge (at rated mileage) but once we got on the road it would recalculate based on our speed and drop the projection to 16% at the next supercharger.  It was quite accurate once we got on the road and showed it how we were going to be driving.

Here's our route today:

Our route so far:

We also had a few instances of ICE-ing. Where an ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) vehicle parks in an EV charging spot. They did it either because they didn't realize or wanted to spite the EV driver. It happened at the Deming Supercharger (which was at a "travel plaza"). The charging spots were primo locations and I think that's why people used them.

The hotel in Willcox Arizona has them in their parking lot and when we arrived there were three new kinds of Teslas parked in their charger spots. A truck, a minivan, and a small SUV. I had no idea Tesla had so many new models out.

Below are the drive and charge details. In them you will see a place called La Unica. It's a Mexican restaurant and I believe that it may be the best Mexican food I've ever eaten! If you are ever in Willcox Arizona, you HAVE to eat there!

The margaritas are quite good too!

Totals for the day:
588.4 miles, 184.7 kWh, 314 Wh/mile (3.18 miles/kWh)
08:00-16:48 (but one time zone back, so 9 hours 48 minutes trip time
Actual drive time was 7 hrs, 46 minutes (75.9 mph)

Totals for the trip:
5018.7 miles, 1,395.2 kWh, 278 Wh/mi (3.60 miles/ kWh)
94 hrs, 25 minutes, 53.1 mph (including lunches & dinners)

West Bound - Day 3

Today is a short day because the high school friend we were going to meet in Kerrville got called up to work. He's a ship's navigator and got called out to a job in the Gulf of Mexico. We had planned on spending 3 or 4 hours with him, so it looks like we will be getting into Ozona early.

Suzanne had never been to a Buc-ee's so we stopped at one in Luling. Waaay more then just a truck stop! Check them out here. We picked up some BBQ sandwiches for the road and headed on West.

The drive was again uneventful, but I used a good bit more energy since the speed limit was mostly 75 and 80.  The car uses a lot more energy at higher speeds, so our consumption (Watt-hours per mile) was up, almost to 300. This is in contrast to the 275 on I-10 between Mobile & Houston and the overall trip average of 236. We also climbed from basically sea level to almost 2700 feet during the day. That didn't help...

Our route today:

The trip so far:

Here are the drive & charge details:

Totals for the day:

402.9 miles, 120.2 kWh, 298 Wh/mi (3.36 miles/kWh)

08:25-17:00, so 8 hours, 35 minutes trip time

Actual drive time was 5 hrs, 43 minutes (70 mph)

Totals for the trip:

4637.3 miles, 1,122.6 kWh, 242 Wh/mi (4.13 miles/kWh)

84 hrs 37 minutes, 54.9 mph (including lunches & dinners)

West Bound - Day 2

We put on another 503 miles, pushing the car past 6,000 miles. Outside of Slidell Louisiana we ran over some road debris. I grabbed a photo of it from the dash cam. It's yellow and looks like some kind of sheet metal, so not too substantial.

It did bounce off the bottom of the car some as we went over it, but the car seems to be fine. It looked like it stuck under the Honda Accord that was following us...

We also had our first "ticket scare" in West Louisiana. I had been just taking it easy and setting the cruise to 3 miles over the speed limit, and we came upon a trooper on the side of the road. He was standing behind his car pointing his laser gun at traffic (us?). As we passed him, he jumped in his car, turned on his lights, and peeled out. We thought for sure that we were going to get a ticket, but he wasn't interested in us, he was interested in the pickup that was overtaking us.  Whew!

It was so nice to stay in a house with family, not a hotel. My sister-in-law is a great cook and she cooked us a wonderful meal. My brother-in-law makes a great margaritas and we had quite a few so tomorrow morning is going probably going to come too early...

I've been told that the stats are too much, so I'll put them after the maps.

Our route for the day:

Our route so far:

We charged overnight using their dryer outlet (we ran the cord out of the house through the dryer vent). It worked great and we added 22 miles of range for each hour charging.  I stopped it at 90% since we didn't need to be at 100%.

Here are the drive and charge details:

Totals for the day:
503 miles, 138 kWh, 275 Wh/mi (3.64 miles/kWh)
07:40-17:49, so 10 hrs, 9 mins trip time.
Actual drive time was 8 hrs 16 mins (61 mph).

Totals for the trip:
4,234.4 miles, 1,002.4 kWh, 236 Wh/mi (4.23 miles/kWh)
76 hrs 2 minutes, 55.7 mph (including lunches & dinners)

West Bound - Day 1

It was hard saying goodbye to everyone, but we headed southwest across Georgia by the back roads toward Freeport FL, where we were going to have dinner with dear friends. We stopped in Tifton, Georgia and in Tallahassee & Defuniak Springs Florida. We saw quite a bit of cotton being harvested as well as pine trees and some peanuts.

Driving West on I-10 was very interesting because of the absolutely stunning number of trees that were blown down by hurricane Michael! I grabbed some dash cam video, but I'm not sure if it will show the magnitude of the destruction...

Our friends had set up a low-country boil of assorted seafood and it was awesome! When I told him about plugging into the dryer outlet at the farm, he said we had to do it here too... So we pulled his dryer out from the wall and plugged in the car. Boom: 22 miles per hour charge rate. We were going to be there for 2.5 hours, so that added enough to get us all the way to Mobile.

The hotel in Mobile is one exit from the superchargers, so I dropped Suzanne off at the hotel and added enough to get us to Slidell Louisiana tomorrow morning on our way to Southwest Houston.

Here are the charge and drive details:

 Our route for the day:

Our route so far:

Totals for the day:
523.9 miles, 136 kWh, 260 Wh/mi (3.85 miles/kWh)
08:12-22:19, so 14 hrs, 7 mins trip time.
Actual drive time was 8 hrs 54 mins (58.8 mph).

Totals for the trip:

3731.4 miles, 864.4 kWh, 232 Wh/mi (4.31 miles/kWh)

67 hours 53 minutes, so 55.0 mph (including lunches & dinners)

East Bound - Day 5

What a great day!  Much shorter this time and with a wonderful bonus in the middle.

We left Meridian earlier than usual, just because we got up and were ready.  We knew the day was going to be slower paced because we were only going to be on interstate highways for a little at the beginning and at the end.  Our drive from Meridian to the first (and only) supercharger in Auburn took us through Selma and Montgomery.  We actually drove over the infamous Edmund Pettus bridge. If you aren't familiar with it look here. On March 7th, 1965 (bloody Sunday), the police brutally attacked marchers who were attempting a freedom march to Montgomery. It was televised and the country finally awoke to what was going on.  This was the turning point of the the civil rights movement in the US. We drove the route to Montgomery that the marchers did.  There are historical markers at the sites of the camps as they walked the 50 miles to Montgomery. This triggered some very strong memories for me. Unfortunately we were not able to stop at the memorials there in Selma or Montgomery.  One day we will...

We were on the way to Auburn to see a very dear, and dare I say old, friend... Larry and I met when I was in 7th grade in Auburn and he and his family welcomed me into their world. It became quickly apparent when we met that we were kindred spirits.  Larry and his wife Anne met us at the Auburn Supercharger and took us to lunch where we reminisced about the old days and got caught up on each other's lives. His brother Jake tried to join us, but got called back to the hospital where he works. We, of course, had to drive by all the places where I lived in Auburn and pick up some Auburn "swag".

After a wonderful lunch with them (and test drives because Anne wants a Tesla... bad) we had to head out east to the farm. It was an easy drive to East Georgia to the old family farm.

At the farm my sister was waiting for us and I set up a charging station using an unused dryer outlet in the "tree house".

There's a lot of work to do here, and of course the rest of the family will be arriving soon, but I'll post a mid-trip summary in the next day or two with some observations about how the car performed and some suggestions for Mr Elon Musk (@elonmusk) and the excellent engineers at Tesla.

Now for the engineers out there, here are the charge and drive details (as of right now):

Our route for the day:

Our route so far:

Totals for the day:
432.3, 108 kWh, 251 Wh/mi (4.0 miles/kWh)
07:49-18:53, so 11 hrs 4 mins trip time.
Actual drive time was 7 hrs and 44 minutes (55.9 mph), but at least an hour of that was driving around Auburn looking at how much it has grown.

Totals for the trip:
3207.5 miles, 728.4 kWh, 227 Wh/mi (4.4 miles/kWh)
53 hours 46 minutes, so 56.7 mph (including lunches and dinners)

East Bound - Day 4

It was a shorter day today, so we slept in. It was another easy drive, but this time the speed limits were quite a bit lower. In the towns it dropped to 60 and on the road it was 70.  Not 75 all the way, like Arizona, New Mexico, & Texas...

When we got on the road in Tyler, the car said that we could get to Pearl Mississippi (east of Jackson) with just 5% charge left. I didn't think that was enough since up to now we had been getting quite a bit less less than the "rated miles". As I write this I think it would have been fine since the speed limits are 5-10 MPH lower.  Across Louisiana and Mississippi I was getting pretty much rated range.  We stopped at Lindale to get some coffee and 13 minutes of electrons and then we were on our way.

We stopped in Shreveport for a few minutes for a bathroom break (which ended up taking 33 minutes). When we got to Monroe it was time for lunch and there was a restaurant very close by, so we charged while we ate and went from 46% to 92% while we ate. Then it was off to Meridian.

In Meridian I checked us into the hotel and got Suzanne settled then went to the Supercharger (one exit north) and filled all the way up. We needed to be completely full so that we would have enough to make it all the way to Auburn, and from there to the farm with just the one stop. It's only 428 miles, and most of it on Hwy 80, not interstate highways so the speed will be lower (the car is estimating 51 mph average).

Here are the details of the drives and charges:

Our route for the day:

Our route so far:

Totals for the day:
432.5 miles, 113 kWh, 262 Wh/mi (3.8 miles/kWh)
08:17-19:30, so 11 hours 13 minutes trip time including lunch & dinner.
Actual drive time was 6 hours 37 minutes (65.4 mph)

Totals for the trip:
2,275.2 miles, 620 kWh, 272 Wh/mi (3.67 miles/kWh)
48 hours 42 minutes, so 46.7 miles/hr (including lunches & dinners)