Our first EV road trip - 5,000+ miles in the South West USA

We git our LR Y back in September but have only used it for local trips around the north Dallas area due to various challenges this year (very bad year for us so far).
We finally had a chance to go away and recover/relax so we decided on a route out to California and back and thought it would be worth recording it (new to YouTube) as new EV road trippers to see how the experience was in terms of convenience, charging, range, charger congestion, time, hotel charging experiences, autopilot, phantom braking and so on…

Part 1 already uploaded here:

 

[LoneStarEve]

Posted part 2 - Albuquerque to Las Vegas:

 

[LoneStarEve]

Part 3 - Las Vegas to Los Angeles:

 

[LoneStarEve]

Part 4 - Los Angeles to San Francisco via the Pacific Coast Hioghway:

 

[charlesoris]

I am really enjoying your videos of the trip. Keep 'em coming.

 

[LoneStarEve]

I am really enjoying your videos of the trip. Keep 'em coming.

Quick feedback question...

Would you prefer such roadtrip videos in future were the same, had a voiceover (or even in-car audio naration "live") during the driving parts or just music?
What about at the charging stops or destination? Text on screen or voice narration?

I never intended to make a public video from this trip so I didn't hacve as m,uch b-roll to work with as I'd like, plus I didn't make nearly enough notes on the charging stops etc. Learning experience...

 

[LoneStarEve]

Part 5 - San Francisco to Salt Lake City, 800 miles in one day:

 

[charlesoris]

Quick feedback question...

Would you prefer such roadtrip videos in future were the same, had a voiceover (or even in-car audio naration "live") during the driving parts or just music?
What about at the charging stops or destination? Text on screen or voice narration?

I never intended to make a public video from this trip so I didn't hacve as m,uch b-roll to work with as I'd like, plus I didn't make nearly enough notes on the charging stops etc. Learning experience...

Personally, I like the way you did in the first four episodes.
Thank you for spending the time collecting data.
Would you please elaborate on your video recording setup? I am planning a trip from a SoCal to Vancouver and back, about 3250 miles. I was thinking of attaching my iPhone on top of the screen - not sure about image stability.

 

[LoneStarEve]

The main camera is a GoPro Hero9 on an adhesive mount which is attached to the underside of the windshield camera.
The underside of that windshield camera gets hot, at least it does in the South West, and that caused the adhesive to start peeling off... Although granted these are 12 year old mounts so maybe I'll just try a new one or just cave and use the suction cup.

The handheld stuff is just my iPhone.
Stuff at places like the aquarium was a Sony ZV-E10 mirrorless camera.

I was thinking of putting an adhesive mount on the back of the center screen with the camera facing into the cabin...

I left the windshield camera filming continuously (256GB card in 1080p30 is good for over 10 hours) by powering it off USB instead of its battery, but its too much footage to go through so next time I'll turn it on and off when I think there is something worth filming. Would make a cool timelapse though maybe...

 

[EVChemist]

Thanks for the videos. I've been really enjoying them. I used to do long road trips with my parents when I was a kid and really disliked them. Now that I'm got my Model Y, my wife and I are planning a long road trip with the kids. These videos are great and really show what it's like. Thanks so much for putting them together!

 

[LoneStarEve]

Part 6 - Salt Lake City to Denver:

 

[charlesoris]

Part 6 - Salt Lake City to Denver:

Another great video.
Just a few comments/guesses:
1. Great optical image stability
2. Did The winds and high speed in WY require more stops and high battery charges?
3. Sushi place in WY? I am a sushi lover and am always very careful where I eat raw seafood.
4. Not many Teslas in that part of the country?
You got me hooked on watching the episodes and waiting for the release of the final ones.
Thanks again for the hard work putting these videos together.

 

[LoneStarEve]

Another great video.
Just a few comments/guesses:
1. Great optical image stability
2. Did The winds and high speed in WY require more stops and high battery charges?
3. Sushi place in WY? I am a sushi lover and am always very careful where I eat raw seafood.
4. Not many Teslas in that part of the country?
You got me hooked on watching the episodes and waiting for the release of the final ones.
Thanks again for the hard work putting these videos together.

What's impressive about the stability is that the camera mount was barely hanging on at this point with the whole thing bouncing up and down and twisting. I tried holding it on with painters tape and later Gaffa tape but even the glue on that got soft from the heat. The image stabiliser in the GoPro did better than I expected, I thought all of it from the 2nd half of the trip would be useless, but no!

The wind was mainly a side wind which did affect range a little, but I should say that in the first 2 parts I was doing the speed limit and the headwind was killing my range, I was down to maybe 180 from a full charge at one point and using like 390wh/mile . As I got more confident and the wind reduced I was up to 5mph over the speed limit all the way from Arizona to San Francisco. From San Francisco to home I set the cruise to 10mph over the limit, so 90 in some places. This probably had more effect on the range than the side wind... I think at this point our wh/mile was probably in the low 300's if not high 200's.

I agree with you on the Sushi... I am wary of seafood unless I can see the ocean and in WY... But my wife took the risk and was fine. That said it was at best supermarket grade.

Well, it was a strange conversation with that SUV that pulled up in the middle of the street... The guy basically asked where we had come from and then how much we paid for the vehicle, then started talking about rumors he'd heard of a cheaper model coming for 40 or 45k. But then the light changed and I was holding up traffic so had to move, but it felt a bit bizarre. At first I assumed he was going to have some sort of problem with EV's or Tesla's butthat's my bad as whether he did or not it wasn't apparent from the conversation. In fact at no time on the trip did we see a negative attitude from anyone. So I give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he wanted a conversation in that spot blocking traffic because he didn't get a chance to much otherwise? I don't know... It was a little weird.

 

[LoneStarEve]

Part 7 - Denver to Kansas City:

 

[charlesoris]

Another well-done video. Now that I have my own MYLR, I want to ask about what you use to keep track of the charging, miles driven, amenities, and so on. My first 3500-mile round trip is planned for July. TIA

 

[LoneStarEve]

Glad you got your car! I was so impatient back when I had to wait a little over 3 months for delivery...

I didn't do a very good job of tracking the stats on the first few legs, but later I would photograph the Trips and charge screen when I arrived somewhere, and again just before I left. That would give me the arrival charge, leaving charge, time etc, miles covered etc.

I will continue to do that, but now I have signed up to TeslaFi which tracks all that stuff anyway. I knew about that website before the trip but I was worried it might dran the battery by polling the car and waking it from sleep etc. Seems like that was an issue in the early days but not really now.
I tested it on a day trip to Houston and it seems to work well.

I hope you'll post your trip!

 

[LoneStarEve]

Part 8 - Kansas City to Dallas:

Just need to put my thoughts and final stats together in the next video…

 

[charlesoris]

Hi,
I have been checking this thread for the final part of this trip. I decided to drive from Los Angeles, CA to Vancouver, BC to Los Angeles in mid-July.

 

[SO16]

Nice. I just finished a 5,300 mile road trip from MI to WY, MT and CO and the states in between. Went very well using the Tesla superchargers exclusively.

Also can EASILY drive over 1,200 miles in less than two days while stopping for meals, only driving during daylight hours and staying in a hotel. This is very similar to how I drive a gas car.

Not to mention saving over 1k in gas was nice.

 

[LoneStarEve]

Apologies for the delay getting the summary part out, I’m working on it this week!