2019 East Bound - Day 6

Last day!

We swung by Atlanta to grab some boxes for my sister to take to the farm. That's why I didn't take the more direct route.

Totals for the day:
320.0 miles, 101.0 kWh, 315.6 Wh/mi (3.2 miles/kWh)

6 hrs 33 minutes total trip time (48.9 mph, including lunch & dinner stops).
Actual drive time was 5 hrs, 25 minutes (59.1 mph)

Totals for the trip:
2848.0 miles, 954.8 kWh, 335.3 Wh/mi (3.0 miles/kWh)
57 hrs 8 minutes total trip time (49.8 mph, including lunch & dinner stops).
Actual drive time was 43 hrs, 20 minutes (65.7 mph)

2019 East Bound - Day 5

Last year we drove all the way to the farm from Meridian.  But this year we decided to make this a very short day and spend the night with an old childhood friend of mine (and his lovely wife Anne). They live in a very interesting house.

The bedrooms on either side are cantilevered out from the central living areas.

Larry had over his mom &dad and his brother (and his wife). They were like my extended family when we lived two houses down from them. It was also my first time to charge on 120 Volts.  Wow it is slow... They all wanted rides in the car - who am I to say no?

Because of the cold temps, no aero covers, and less efficient tires I ended up diverting some to Greenville to have a healthy margin of charge when I got to Auburn. I overshot my target charge level because I got to talking with a model X driver at the supercharger.  Here are the details:

Totals for the day:
240.5 miles, 79.3 kWh, 329.7 Wh/mi (3.0 miles/kWh)

5 hrs 15 minutes total trip time (45.8 mph, including lunch & dinner stops).
Actual drive time was 4 hrs, 6 minutes (58.7 mph)

Totals for the trip:
2528.0 miles, 853.8 kWh, 337.7 Wh/mi (3.0 miles/kWh)
50 hrs 35 minutes total trip time (50.5 mph, including lunch & dinner stops).
Actual drive time was 37 hrs, 55 minutes (66.7 mph)

2019 East Bound - Day 4

A little longer drive today, but completely uneventful. As we worked our way East the speed limit dropped, and since I'm setting the cruise to 3-4 over, our speed dropped too. You can see it in the average speed and the drive efficiency (Wh/mi).

Here are the charts for the day:

This next drive is a long one, from Meridian to Auburn - 211 miles with no supercharger. The car says we will get there with 20% if we charged to 97%. So I charged to 100%, since it will be a couple of percent lower in the morning after the battery settles. Once we hit Alabama we are off the Interstate and the speed limits will be much lower, so I'm not worried...

Totals for the day:
555.0 miles, 181.3 kWh, 326.7 Wh/mi (3.1 miles/kWh)

9 hrs 57 minutes total trip time (55.8 mph, including lunch & dinner stops).
Actual drive time was 8 hrs, 0 minutes (69.4 mph)

Totals for the trip:
2287.5 miles, 774.5 kWh, 338.6 Wh/mi (3.0 miles/kWh)
45 hrs 20 minutes total trip time (50.5 mph, including lunch & dinner stops).
Actual drive time was 33 hrs, 49 minutes (67.6 mph)

2019 East Bound - Day 3

It was a much easier drive today since the weather cleared up. It was still quite cold (in the mid-30s) but the roads were dry and I didn't have to contend with spray off truck tires.

There were a couple of interesting things that happened at the Childress supercharger. As we tend to do, drivers talk and as we pulled up on driver noticed we had California plates and asked if we were going East. When I said yes, he said that I should stop at the new supercharger in Henrietta, TX. It is not yet on the Tesla map, so it does not show up in the car yet. That's a great place for one, because without my aero wheels I would have had to drive the speed limit (or below it!).

Not on the tesla map:

I notice that the ABetterRoutePlanner website shows it though:

Interesting...

A little later a car pulls up going West and I ask him about it.  He says that it is open and it's not on the Tesla map because it isn't commissioned as a v3 charger yet. He says that he spoke with folks working on the site, and they said that Tesla didn't want to publish it until the v3 commissioning was complete.

When we get to Henrietta, it is a v3 charger (v2 maxes out at 120 kW, v3 goes to 150 kW):

Also at Childress, I spent a long time chatting with some random guy in a Dodge Ram diesel dually. He wants to know all about the car and hints a couple of times for a ride. I decline because the back seat is full of our crap, but I told him to not be shy to strike up a conversation with folks he sees at superchargers. Everyone is happy to evangelize about Tesla (he got a kick out of my saying evangelize). I spent so much time chatting with people I overshot my 80% target and went into the low 90s.

Here are the drives and charges for today:

Totals for the day:
448.7 miles, 153.2 kWh, 341.4 Wh/mi ( 2.9 miles/kWh)
8 hrs 56 minutes total trip time (50.2 mph, including lunch & dinner stops).
Actual drive time was 6 hrs, 43 minutes (66.8 mph)

Totals for the trip:
1732.5 miles, 593.2 kWh, 342.4 Wh/mi (2.9 miles/kWh)
35 hrs 23 minutes total trip time (49.0 mph, including lunch & dinner stops).
Actual drive time was 25 hrs, 49 minutes (67.1 mph)

2019 East Bound - Day 2

What a crappy day. It started out in Kingman as just rain, but 100 miles West of Flagstaff it started turning to sleet then as we went higher in altitude it was snow and fog. It didn't start to warm up (to 35) until we got to Tucumcari.

We grabbed some dinner and I got Suzanne settled into the hotel and I filled up the battery for our morning departure.

Totals for the day:
669.3 miles, 233.4 kWh, 348.7 Wh/mi (2.87 miles/kWh)
12 hrs 57 minutes total trip time (51.5 mph, including lunch & dinner stops).
Actual drive time was 9 hrs, 47 minutes (68.7 mph)

Totals for the trip:
1283.8 miles, 440.0 kWh, 342.7 Wh/mi (2.2 miles/kWh)
26 hrs 27 minutes total trip time (48.5 mph, including lunch & dinner stops).
Actual drive time was 19 hrs, 6 minutes (67.2 mph)

2019 East Bound - Day 1

I charged up the night before to 96% (I didn't want to be completely full since I wouldn't get the benefit of regenerating all the way down the hill to sea level to get on the freeway). We left the house at 6:30 and grabbed coffee and breakfast at the Summit Store then we were on our way.

We drove to Kettleman City where they were upgrading the superchargers to 150 kW (from 120).

Driving from Kettleman City to Mojave I realized that I had forgotten to put the aero-covers on the wheels... DOH!  That's why we were consuming more energy than on the last trip. By that time we were 150 miles in, so I'm not turning around to go get them...

I guess I'll just have to be as energy efficient as a Model X for the rest of the trip. Note the Watt-hours/mile number below - I used 277 Wh/mi on the whole trip last year, now I'm using 365!

Here's the rest of the trip:

Notice how the consumption number (Wh/mi) goes up with the increased average speed. The speed limit in California is 65 and in Arizona it's 75. In parts of Texas it's 85, so I may have to be careful on that really long stretch across West Texas.

Totals for the day:
614.5 miles, 206.6 kWh, 336.2 Wh/mi (2.97 miles/kWh)
13 hrs 30 minutes total trip time (45.5 mph, including lunch & dinner stops).
Actual drive time was 9 hrs, 19 minutes (65.9 mph)