Reno <--> Boise: Bridging the Gap

[Rocky_H]

I used abettertripplanner to plan trip.

Which one are you referring to?
www.evtripplanner.com or
www.abetterrouteplanner.com ?

What I learned, will do differently: Spent 2+ hours charging. Have 72 AMP charger = 14.5% per hour 14 Kw. So the extra few min I saved driving fast with lots of passing, was heavily penalized with the slower charger time. For example if I can save 50 Wh/Mi for the 183 Miles = 9.15 Kw or 40 Mins. That is with the 72 AMP charger.

Yes, this is very interesting for people to learn. When you have to rely on level 2 charging to refill during traveling, high speed driving is killing you. There's a little bit of an intuitive way to think about this. When you are using Superchargers, you're refilling at somewhere near 300 miles per hour, so during the driving, sure, go nuts at 70 or 80+ miles per hour, as long as you can reach your next station. But if your recharging is like 30-40 miles per hour like this, you really don't want to waste energy during the driving part because you're looking at a 1:2 driving to charging ratio, which is pretty unpleasant.

I only have the 40A charger, but I got to do this trip when it was a nice pleasant 70ish degrees out, so I knew I wouldn't be losing a lot of energy from heating. Here's the other thread on this topic where I wrote about that.
Winnemucca, NV to Boise ?

 

[SageBrush]

What I learned, will do differently: Spent 2+ hours charging. Have 72 AMP charger = 14.5% per hour 14 Kw. So the extra few min I saved driving fast with lots of passing, was heavily penalized with the slower charger time. For example if I can save 50 Wh/Mi for the 183 Miles = 9.15 Kw or 40 Mins. That is with the 72 AMP charger.

This is in general true but keep in mind that longer trips in the Winter consume more juice for cabin heating. You can probably figure on a 2 kW heating load at 25F

 

[obe1]

www.abetterrouteplanner.com


This one.

 

[obe1]

Another update on the Winnemucca to Boise route.

Speed limit, X100D, 100% in Winnemmuca -> Say When Casino McDermitt NV. Used 31% 27.6 kWh Avg temp 41 deg, 364 Wh/Mile.

Charged 41 Min added 10%, 29 Rated miles, 9.6 kWh (dual chargers 70 amp)

70% S.W. -> N End Boise, Used 71%, 64.6kWh, 347 Wh/Mile, Avg Temp 32 deg.

Running range mode and heat on 60 deg, with seat heater to 3 with steering heater as well.

I think: if warm and maybe do some drafting, favorable winds, this could be done X100D without stopping very close to speed limit. S100D would think no problem. Not sure about the X75, S90, 75, 70 and 60, could get tricky.

 

[M3Tim]

Another update on the Boise to Winnemucca route.

55mph the entire way, M3LR, charged to 96% in Boise -> Say When Casino McDermitt NV. Arrived with 16% remaining. Snow and strong winds, 2 adults, 3 children, plus luggage. Temperature around 21 deg F, +/- 305 Wh/Mile.

Charged 210 Min up to 36%,

Arrived in Winnemucca with 2% remaining
.
Heat set to 69 deg on low just to defrost windshield.

This was much closer than I would have liked. We watched a movie while we waited. Free charging was nice and it was better to watch a movie than be on the road for those 2 hours but the slow speed and cold temperatures made this a really long stretch of road. It was a huge relief to get to the Super Charger in Winnemucca.

 

[SageBrush]

55mph the entire way, M3LR, charged to 96% in Boise -> Say When Casino McDermitt NV. Arrived with 16% remaining. Snow and strong winds, 2 adults, 3 children, plus luggage. Temperature around 21 deg F, +/- 305 Wh/Mile.

Interesting data, thanks. I think I have internalized the message to be conservative in bad weather but another reminder is always welcome.

Google maps says 183 miles between Boise and Mcdermitt. At 305 Wh/mile that is 55 kWh per 80 SoC, or 55/0.8 = 69 kWh per full battery. Bjorn Nyland has calculated similar numbers although a small voice in my head keeps hoping for closer to 75 kWh in my car. I may choose to just not know ;-)

 

[TMeister]

Another update on the Boise to Winnemucca route.

55mph the entire way, M3LR, charged to 96% in Boise -> Say When Casino McDermitt NV. Arrived with 16% remaining. Snow and strong winds, 2 adults, 3 children, plus luggage. Temperature around 21 deg F, +/- 305 Wh/Mile.

Charged 210 Min up to 36%,

Something's not right here...

If you arrived with 16% and got it up to 36%, that's 15 kWh in a M3LR. If that took 210 minutes you were changing at 15 x 60 / 210 = 4.29 kW. That's only 20 amps at 208 volts. Half of what the car should be able to do. This Level 2 charger is 80 amps and you should have a 40 amp charger in your car. Maybe you don't or it's not working quite right?

 

[M3Tim]

Something's not right here...

That's what I thought. Based on what others are saying I expected a faster charge. I just plugged the J1772 plug into the M3 with the adapter. I should have noted what the charging speed was on the display. My thought was that it was going slower because it was so cold. It was 15 deg in McDermmitt at the time we were charging. Do you think that would have made such a big difference?

 

[TMeister]

Being cold shouldn't make a difference since you arrived with a warm battery. Even in 10-degree weather my car keeps the battery around 80 degrees on long trips. AC charging isn't going to be reduced because of outside temp in this situation.

What could have made a difference is if you kept the climate control on to keep the car warm. That will consume upwards of 4 kW in those conditions and may account for the discrepancy you saw.

 

[Rocky_H]

Something's not right here...

If you arrived with 16% and got it up to 36%, that's 15 kWh in a M3LR. If that took 210 minutes you were changing at 15 x 60 / 210 = 4.29 kW. That's only 20 amps at 208 volts. Half of what the car should be able to do. This Level 2 charger is 80 amps and you should have a 40 amp charger in your car. Maybe you don't or it's not working quite right?

Yeah, the 210 minutes was sounding really strange to me already, but you quantified it with math. My old Model S has a 40A charger., and I've done this with just a one hour stop in really good weather. In a car with longer range, the three hours of charging time seemed weird, even with the cold. The Model 3 long range that is mentioned here has a 48A charger. It should have been more than double that charging speed.

*EDIT* Ooohhhhh, I just remembered something. The vast majority of the Plugshare checkins were from when they just had the one station there, which is 75A. I had heard recently that they did add another, so they have two now. It was starting to get enough people that they had multiple cars wanting to charge at the same time on a few occasions, so they added that second one. I have not seen any information yet on how many amps the new second station provides. Since they had already added a 90 or 100 amp circuit for the first one, the second one might be on a lower power circuit if they didn't have a lot of extra capacity. So maybe that's why this charging rate was about 20A.

*EDIT 2* Oh, nevermind. I just checked the Plugshare notes, and it says the second station is 15kW also, so that shouldn't have been an issue. Funny though, that I saw a checkin from September saying both stations were full. Damn, we need a Supercharger on this route.

Based on what others are saying I expected a faster charge. I just plugged the J1772 plug into the M3 with the adapter. I should have noted what the charging speed was on the display.

Yes, probably should pay attention to it at least a little when you are plugging into a station you've never used before.

 

[Rocky_H]

I open up Plugshare every once in a while to scan the routes near me to see if some new charging resource has been added, and a new Big Deal finally got added to this Winnemucca to Boise route on US highway 95, so I’m digging up a few of these old threads to add a comment to them. There is finally a CHAdeMO station available!


PlugShare - Find Electric Vehicle Charging Locations Near You


It’s in McDermitt, NV, and the stations are from Greenlots. They have two cabinets that are the dual-cable CCS + CHAdeMO ports. It looks like it just opened up in the past week or two, and the only checkins and pictures are from Chevy Bolts, so I don’t know if any Teslas have been there yet. It says it’s 50kW power level, so hopefully the 125A CHAdeMO version, rather than 100A limited.

 

[wws]

I open up Plugshare every once in a while to scan the routes near me to see if some new charging resource has been added, and a new Big Deal finally got added to this Winnemucca to Boise route on US highway 95, so I’m digging up a few of these old threads to add a comment to them. There is finally a CHAdeMO station available!

You could update this old thread of mine too: Nevada Electric Highway map

As an aside, the State of Nevada has a number of projects in the works for high speed EV charging out in the sticks. Look for a CCS/CHAdeMO charging site in Ely and more along U.S. 50 soon.