Today I drove my Model 3 from Spokane to the port of Seattle. Matson will ship it to Maui, where, if there were a connecting road around the south end of the island, you could drive a LR Model 3 all the way around the island twice on a charge. So no more long drives.
Matson requires electric cars to be delivered with at least 3/4 of a full charge, though that seems an odd criterion, since 3/4 for a Leaf is about 75 miles, and for my car it's 225 miles. Anyway, I wanted to top up at Issaquah, so I put that supercharger into NAV, assuming the NAV would tell me I had to stop in Ellensberg for a charge. Instead it just told me to drive slower than 60 mph, to arrive at Issaquah with 3% charge. I got better than expected range when I drove to Canada last summer, but I wasn't going to count on that. And in fact on this drive it used more energy than predicted, probably because it was chilly out and I was running the heater. With the stop at Ellensberg, I had plenty of range and could afford to be comfortable.
Fortunately, the screen showed the supercharger at Ellensberg and when I touched it, it gave me the option to navigate there. There's a Starbucks there, and a Tacos del Mar, so I attended to some urgent business and then ate a burrito and returned to my car expecting to have another half an hour's wait, but lo and behold, it had given me another 130 miles in the time it took to eat a burrito! Insane!
It took longer at Issaquah because I wanted it pretty near full since it will now be unplugged for three weeks.
I took over the driving once when a semi next to me was so close to the line I wanted to give it more room, and another time when there was a big chunk of tire tread on the road and I didn't want to find out if the car would avoid it. I took over for freeway changes because I didn't feel like testing NoAP. And I did the driving in town. Otherwise I let the car drive, and it's a better driver than I am. Oh, yes, once when the lane lines got very faint it changed lanes, and I took over to get it back in the proper lane and let it take over again when the lines were better. It rained for part of the trip, and that didn't bother the car at all, except that the Auto setting on the windshield wipers didn't work. Nothing happened until there was enough water that I put them on manual.
I love this car. There won't be any more long drives because Maui. But the older I get the worse I get at driving, and the older the car gets the better it gets, and there will be some half-hour drives to shopping in Kahului. There also won't be any more use of the heater, but the A/C will get plenty of use.
Matson requires electric cars to be delivered with at least 3/4 of a full charge, though that seems an odd criterion, since 3/4 for a Leaf is about 75 miles, and for my car it's 225 miles. Anyway, I wanted to top up at Issaquah, so I put that supercharger into NAV, assuming the NAV would tell me I had to stop in Ellensberg for a charge. Instead it just told me to drive slower than 60 mph, to arrive at Issaquah with 3% charge. I got better than expected range when I drove to Canada last summer, but I wasn't going to count on that. And in fact on this drive it used more energy than predicted, probably because it was chilly out and I was running the heater. With the stop at Ellensberg, I had plenty of range and could afford to be comfortable.
Fortunately, the screen showed the supercharger at Ellensberg and when I touched it, it gave me the option to navigate there. There's a Starbucks there, and a Tacos del Mar, so I attended to some urgent business and then ate a burrito and returned to my car expecting to have another half an hour's wait, but lo and behold, it had given me another 130 miles in the time it took to eat a burrito! Insane!
It took longer at Issaquah because I wanted it pretty near full since it will now be unplugged for three weeks.
I took over the driving once when a semi next to me was so close to the line I wanted to give it more room, and another time when there was a big chunk of tire tread on the road and I didn't want to find out if the car would avoid it. I took over for freeway changes because I didn't feel like testing NoAP. And I did the driving in town. Otherwise I let the car drive, and it's a better driver than I am. Oh, yes, once when the lane lines got very faint it changed lanes, and I took over to get it back in the proper lane and let it take over again when the lines were better. It rained for part of the trip, and that didn't bother the car at all, except that the Auto setting on the windshield wipers didn't work. Nothing happened until there was enough water that I put them on manual.
I love this car. There won't be any more long drives because Maui. But the older I get the worse I get at driving, and the older the car gets the better it gets, and there will be some half-hour drives to shopping in Kahului. There also won't be any more use of the heater, but the A/C will get plenty of use.
