Be honest: is SCing on a long trip annoying?

[wdolson]

Between veganism and dislike of franchise fast food, I'm much happier just bringing a cooler along stocked with food from home. So to me the more important question is whether I can find a nice place near the SC to picnic.

There are a lot of vegans in the Northwast so almost every restaurant has some kind of vegan option, but I'm not a big fan of most fast food either. On my last trip the low point of the food options was having to eat at Burger King in Corning, CA. There had been a Quiznos close to the supercharger, but it was closed.

"Camper Mode" : picnic in the trunk!

I got one of these for my trip in October:
Amazon.com : Coleman 25-Quart Party Stacker Cooler, Blue : Coleman Ice Chest Stacker : Sports & Outdoors

It fits perfectly under the floor in the back with a bit of room to spare. It's not huge, but it met my needs on the trip.

 

[ohmman]

On my last trip the low point of the food options was having to eat at Burger King in Corning, CA.

I've mentioned this before and agree. That is one of the lowest I've experienced. The Olive Pit is a much better option there.

I've also walked down to get pizza but still think the Olive Pit is the best bet near that charger.

 

[David99]

Pertinent to the original question: I nearly found myself driving a cross-country unplanned road trip this weekend. It revolved around a medical issue that prohibited my daughter from flying, and we had plans to be back east. I thought I could work around the restriction by doing a blowout 3 day haul. The trip is about 45 hours plus another 11 for "ideal conditions" charging. This is exacerbated by the fact that Wyoming and Nebraska are incomplete, so I'd have to take the Colorado route. 45 hours I could have managed. That extra charging bit, on short notice, made it pretty hard to defend my idea against my wife's criticism. So we had to split the family for the holiday, which is a pretty big disappointment.

I hear you. That's about the length of trip I do about once or twice a year. Of course driving for 40 hours is annoying one way or another, unless you have weeks and stay at nice hotels. But if your goal is just getting from A to B having to add 10 hours of charging is painful. Yes with an ICE car you'd be stopping as well and get rest and food and so on, but not 10 hours. And same here, my family isn't a big fan of many charging stops. As I said earlier, often the annoying part is that the car pretty much dictates the stops and the length of the stops. I think with about double the range and double the Superchargers EVs would be just as convenient as then the amount of stops would match up with us humans needing stops.

 

[RogerHScott]

It seems that the supercharger with good food options is not the one you may be at during lunch time.

You just need to redefine "lunch" to be "the meal you eat when you're at an SpC with good lunch food".

 

[f-stop]

There are a lot of vegans in the Northwast so almost every restaurant has some kind of vegan option, but I'm not a big fan of most fast food either. On my last trip the low point of the food options was having to eat at Burger King in Corning, CA. There had been a Quiznos close to the supercharger, but it was closed.

I got one of these for my trip in October:
Amazon.com : Coleman 25-Quart Party Stacker Cooler, Blue : Coleman Ice Chest Stacker : Sports & Outdoors

It fits perfectly under the floor in the back with a bit of room to spare. It's not huge, but it met my needs on the trip.

Exactly my thoughts about the Corning SC! Not much in the way of appealing restaurants.... Had to resort to the Subway on the way down on our road trip to San Francisco last month (the Quizno's sign had my hopes up but I guess that's closed). On the return trip, we packed our cooler with a light lunch and drinks we bought at supermarket before leaving SF and ate while parked at the Corning SC. We did notice the Olive Pit on the return leg but only used their restroom.

I have an old vintage Coleman Oscar cooler that I've had forever which fits in my small "D" frunk, with room to spare for my other emergency/trip supplies

 

[wdolson]

Exactly my thoughts about the Corning SC! Not much in the way of appealing restaurants.... Had to resort to the Subway on the way down on our road trip to San Francisco last month (the Quizno's sign had my hopes up but I guess that's closed). On the return trip, we packed our cooler with a light lunch and drinks we bought at supermarket before leaving SF and ate while parked at the Corning SC. We did notice the Olive Pit on the return leg but only used their restroom.

I have an old vintage Coleman Oscar cooler that I've had forever which fits in my small "D" frunk, with room to spare for my other emergency/trip supplies

I have a V-8 in my frunk.

 

[WannabeOwner]

The wife is skeptical about the delay and I need to win her over to make us a two-Tesla family.

Good luck!

The MS is my wife's daily driver. She leaves home every day with a full tank and never has to "pump gas" any more. She does about 25,000 miles a year, so the time saving is definitely "not trivial". She has not once stopped at supercharger (but every month or two she has driven home at a significantly slower speed, even though a SC was available 10 miles or so out-of-her-way).

She takes our small ICE when parking at train station etc. (tight-ish bays, she would not want to walk from far end of carpark - wearing shoes which I presume are less comfortable for walking and/or in the rain [i.e. by comparison those things would not be a consideration for me]

She prefers I drive when we are together, and we use SC about once or twice a month. Its never a "good thing" in her mind ... On my own I am inclined to stop and have a coffee when I SC, thus taking 30 minutes and getting charged to 80% (even if I don't need it), whereas Wifee is wanting to get going as soon as we have 1% spare range ("We can just drive slower if we need to" ...)

I don't get it ...

My only advice is

1) Stopping in useful places is without doubt a benefit. We don't have many Superchargers here, and rarely do I have a choice, so quite often all that is on offer is a hotel nearby - fine for coffee, but not for shopping. We then wind up also stopping at a GAS Filling Station because it has a decent shop (over here one of our more upmarket food supermarkets [M&S] has done a clever deal with a major Gas brand [BP] to put a quality grocery concession in the filling station; it works well, but the site has no incentive to be efficient at checkout (unlike the grocery company's own stores ) so the lines are often terrible - 5 minutes to pump gas and at least another 5 minutes for checkout, plus the 5 minutes to fill a basket ... heck! that would be a 15 minute charge right there ... if the grocery store was at the supercharger ...

2) We definitely would have no difficulty at all charging whilst eating a meal, so on a long journey that would be a "free" stop, and would get me a 100% charge, but the others (back in ICE days) would only be a driver-swap and loo-stop. Arriving more refreshed is hard to quantify subjectively (although as the primary driver think it is a definitely benefit, but for a passenger its just "more travelling time")

3) Money saved. Just not a factor for us ... Gas tax here is high, so electricity represents a huge saving already, taking that into account and THEN saving even 1,000 kWh a year at SCs is only 100-bucks-or-so, sadly I can't make a case that that, for us, is a tangible benefit.

 

[wdolson]

One advantage for supercharging here in the US is if you're driving for business, the IRS allows $0.57 a mile for business travel and with free "gas" that's essentially a free write off, though you are putting wear and tear on the car. On my trip to California I stopped in at the company I work for and spent a day there, so 1400 miles of the trip can be claimed as a tax deduction.

Not that I need too many deductions this year. I have the $7500 federal tax credit for buying an EV.

 

[LastGas]

Not that I need too many deductions this year. I have the $7500 federal tax credit for buying an EV.

I don't get as much deduction for charitable miles, but I'll have around 4,000 of those miles this year, plus the $7500, and the surprise sale price of my old Prius that I donated of $4,200, and the alternative fuel infrastructure credit. I need to watch out that I don't get hit with the Alternative Minimum Tax or something.

 

[sdorn]

One advantage for supercharging here in the US is if you're driving for business, the IRS allows $0.57 a mile for business travel and with free "gas" that's essentially a free write off, though you are putting wear and tear on the car. On my trip to California I stopped in at the company I work for and spent a day there, so 1400 miles of the trip can be claimed as a tax deduction.

Not that I need too many deductions this year. I have the $7500 federal tax credit for buying an EV.

Isn't that treated as an unreimbursed business expense that is subject to the 2% of AGI threshold? My unreimbursed business expenses never come close to that threshold.

 

[wdolson]

Isn't that treated as an unreimbursed business expense that is subject to the 2% of AGI threshold? My unreimbursed business expenses never come close to that threshold.

It might. Though I have written off business mileage in the past.

 

[wesley888]

It's more for the business side. The business can use either Standard Mileage method or Actual Expense method. Standard mileage method is a straight $/mile. No if or but. If you drive a lot, that's the way to go.

 

[CO2Saver]

OMG: only two hours of driving and then a whole hour of charging... BE HONEST: Aren't you stating the case in the worst possible light?

I drive at least three hours between stops, and I charge in 30-40 minutes, sometimes less, about the time it takes to stretch, relieve and hydrate. Recently made a Cal/SW tour with several mid-day SC stops. We found them convenient and refreshing, not annoying at all.

 

[cpa]

It might. Though I have written off business mileage in the past.

Also, the miscellaneous itemized deductions that are subject to the 2% haircut also are exclusion items for AMT. (That means that for
AMT they are not deductible much like taxes and the personal exemptions.)

But those who are self-employed deduct business miles "above the line" on their Schedules C, E or F or on their entity return (1120, 1120S or 1065.) There is no AMT hit for those miles as they are trade or business expenses under Section 162.

Pro tip: Always, always keep contemporaneous records of your business mileage. Where, when, who and why. Do not make them up in April when filing your returns. The courts do not like this. Ever.

 

[Chopr147]

I HATE the alternative minimum tax! Hits me every year!
OK, now that I got that out of me supercharging to me is almost always a good thing.
Yesterday I had an unplanned SC stop due to the cold and wind but took the time to stretch and get a snack. SCers are to blame for my weight gain. Other than that it was only a 15 minute stop since I just needed a little buffer. My wife? Not as understanding about SC stops but she's coming around.

 

[MountainHigh]

Not sure if this was mentioned, but, the Barstow supercharger station was out this weekend (maybe still?). If driving to/from Las Vegas to SoCal and didn't know about this beforehand, this would be a major bummer!

 

[MountainHigh]

Interesting discussion. We just got a 60 a couple of months ago and the first thing we did was take a road trip from San Diego to Santa Fe. Went fine. Were able to charge twice during the day (lunch & dinner), eliminating a 'wasted' stop. A couple of others were conveniently placed at needed bathroom stops. I figured it added maybe an hour each day. Our only complaint, if you can call it that, was the seeming lack of restaurants other than well-known chains, mostly fast food. We're heading out for a San Diego to Atlanta trip tomorrow and I'm going to keep a log of our charging experience. What could possibly go wrong?

I am curious which route you are taking for the San Diego - Atlanta trip. If relying on supercharging, this trip shows some major gaps in US coverage.

 

[WARP 10]

I am curious which route you are taking for the San Diego - Atlanta trip. If relying on supercharging, this trip shows some major gaps in US coverage.

Just so happens we're spending the night in Shreveport. You're right. The main problem (at least from San Diego) is the lack of superchargers between Casa Grande, Az. and Sweetwater, Tx. or Austin on I-10/20. So you go to I-40 and then OKC to Dallas. We left that track in Amarillo and went southeast to Denton on US287, but stopped overnight in Vernon where there's a destination charger. Got to Denton with 10% left but we have an S 60, so no problem, really, for most. The addition of the Childress, Texas and Birmingham superchargers take a lot of miles off of this trip. All told, it's about 200 more miles than the I-10/20 route. Except for the 10% in Denton, we never had any problems making it to the next supercharger, without having to charge to 100% several times. We'll see what happens on the way back, going into the wind. I'm going to be monitoring closely and will try to post a full report on our return.

 

[SageBrush]

And how are those Rocky Mountain picnics in, say, January?

Yup -- that's us.
Nothing like a nice snowstorm in January for a nice 500 mile jaunt around the state to exercise the wheels a little.

 

[wdolson]

Not sure if this was mentioned, but, the Barstow supercharger station was out this weekend (maybe still?). If driving to/from Las Vegas to SoCal and didn't know about this beforehand, this would be a major bummer!

There was talk about it on some other threads. Most is on the specific thread for the Barstow supercharger
Supercharger - Barstow

Rumor has it that it's out due to vandalism, but nobody has posted pictures. You're the only one who has reported being there since the SC went down. Did you see any damage?