I thought it might be useful to have a thread for road trips. I'll start, and anyone else can feel free to contribute (or not).
I'm planning my first road trip on Friday, from Weston, FL to Tampa, FL with my son, and returning on Sunday. When I first decided to take this trip (before I even got the car), I started searching for places where I could stop and get some juice. After having commuted in the car for a month now, I feel much more confident in my range, and have decided to do it without stopping. The plan is to be conservative on the way up, but not to hypermile. I plan to max the speed at 60mph, and aim for rated range (270+ miles). Depending on how successful I am, and how much I have left over, I might be less conservative on the way back.
The route I have always taken with my ICE car has been I-75 all the way. This works out to 250 miles. That's a bit close for me, so at least for the way up I will take the alternate route of US-27 to SR-60, which is 227 miles. Across the street from my hotel is the Tampa Times Forum, which has two free Chargepoint stations (although entry to the lot is $8). Part of the point of this trip is to demo the car to some people on Saturday, so I'm driving up a day early so that I have have a full charge the next day.
In case things go awry, I have mapped out some spots where I can recharge along the way. Looking at Plugshare, you'd think there's absolutely nothing along the route, while there would have been plenty along I-75. But while investigating this, I learned that if you don't look at RV parks, you're missing a BIG part of the picture, and Plugshare doesn't show these. I downloaded Allstays, and filtered on 50amp service. There are TONS of RV parks on US-27. The one issue I have is that the ones that have the best location (towards the end of my trip) are all designated at "55+" (meaning they are for seniors). I plan to call them to see if they will accommodate me.
On Thursday night I will start a standard charge. When I'm an hour from being ready to leave on Friday morning, I will initiate a range charge, and will leave as soon as it completes, so that I start with the maximum before the vampire load kicks in. I will probably try out "range driving", as it should be cool (in the 70s) outside and the A/C shouldn't need to be as effective as normal.
US-27 and SR-60 are 65mph speed limit roads that go through some small towns where it goes down to 50, and occasionally 35 for a couple of miles.
From my commuting over the past month, I have averaged 327 Wh/mi, and that's with unconservative driving, and some very spirited demos. Even with that number, I shouldn't have a problem. But I should be able to get better than 327, and to get rated range I need somewhere around 304 (which I've done via experimentation over moderate distance). Right now the headwind component is forecast be somewhere between 4-6mph going up there, and is forecast to stay in the same direction coming back, for a tailwind.
If people are interested, I will update this thread enroute, to say how we're doing.
I'm planning my first road trip on Friday, from Weston, FL to Tampa, FL with my son, and returning on Sunday. When I first decided to take this trip (before I even got the car), I started searching for places where I could stop and get some juice. After having commuted in the car for a month now, I feel much more confident in my range, and have decided to do it without stopping. The plan is to be conservative on the way up, but not to hypermile. I plan to max the speed at 60mph, and aim for rated range (270+ miles). Depending on how successful I am, and how much I have left over, I might be less conservative on the way back.
The route I have always taken with my ICE car has been I-75 all the way. This works out to 250 miles. That's a bit close for me, so at least for the way up I will take the alternate route of US-27 to SR-60, which is 227 miles. Across the street from my hotel is the Tampa Times Forum, which has two free Chargepoint stations (although entry to the lot is $8). Part of the point of this trip is to demo the car to some people on Saturday, so I'm driving up a day early so that I have have a full charge the next day.
In case things go awry, I have mapped out some spots where I can recharge along the way. Looking at Plugshare, you'd think there's absolutely nothing along the route, while there would have been plenty along I-75. But while investigating this, I learned that if you don't look at RV parks, you're missing a BIG part of the picture, and Plugshare doesn't show these. I downloaded Allstays, and filtered on 50amp service. There are TONS of RV parks on US-27. The one issue I have is that the ones that have the best location (towards the end of my trip) are all designated at "55+" (meaning they are for seniors). I plan to call them to see if they will accommodate me.
On Thursday night I will start a standard charge. When I'm an hour from being ready to leave on Friday morning, I will initiate a range charge, and will leave as soon as it completes, so that I start with the maximum before the vampire load kicks in. I will probably try out "range driving", as it should be cool (in the 70s) outside and the A/C shouldn't need to be as effective as normal.
US-27 and SR-60 are 65mph speed limit roads that go through some small towns where it goes down to 50, and occasionally 35 for a couple of miles.
From my commuting over the past month, I have averaged 327 Wh/mi, and that's with unconservative driving, and some very spirited demos. Even with that number, I shouldn't have a problem. But I should be able to get better than 327, and to get rated range I need somewhere around 304 (which I've done via experimentation over moderate distance). Right now the headwind component is forecast be somewhere between 4-6mph going up there, and is forecast to stay in the same direction coming back, for a tailwind.
If people are interested, I will update this thread enroute, to say how we're doing.
