Back in post
#359 of this thread, I asked if it was expected that the pads would rub on the rotors when the brakes were not active.
@titaniumdave responded that this was normal. I still had some concern because after 200 miles I could still hear the brakes rubbing with a bit of a once-per-revolution "whoosh" when I let the car roll along at creep speed. I was afraid this would reduce range.
I just completed my first long trip with the 3.0 battery; this was from Sunnyvale to Santa Barbara, 289.3 miles. I've made this trip a few times before with the original battery. I always drive it with the cruise control set at 62mph as shown on both the VDS and the JVC (they are about 0.5 mph different, so getting both to read 62 takes a few tries, but this means I know there isn't much variation in the setting each time). On the last trip down in June 2014 the ratio of real miles to ideal miles was 0.97 but this time it was 0.87, so I thought my concern might have been borne out.
However, on the trip back north (which is uphill, right?

) the ratio was 0.86 last time versus 0.94 this time. Perhaps the additional mileage on the trip down had further broken in the pads, suggesting improvement in the return leg. When I listened for the brakes rubbing after the trip I'm not sure I could still hear the sound. Of course, there are many other variables that can affect the range besides speed, such as wind speed and direction, ambient temperature, load weight and tire diameter (I recently put on four new tires). The elevation difference between the endpoints is nominal and the load should have been pretty close to the same for both trips except for the increase of 120 pounds for the 3.0 battery. I guess the conclusion has to be that there is not a problem with the brakes rubbing.
With the original battery, this trip required a 1-hour charging stop in Salinas and a 2-hour charging stop in San Luis Obispo. With the new battery it should be possible to make the trip with no charging stop, but to be conservative for the first trip, I planned a lunch stop in SLO where there is a good 240V 70A EVSE. After charging at home in range mode (337 ideal miles) I switched to standard mode for the drive, so I started out with 303 ideal miles. The distance to SLO is 195.9 miles but consumed 229 IM. The additional 93.4 miles to Santa Barbara consumed 102 IM, for a total of 331. That means I would have been down to fumes without the charge stop considering the 0.87 M/IM ratio. On future trips I could consider skipping the stop if time is more important than lunch and if the ratio is larger so that I have more like 130 IM remaining when I reach SLO.