[Martinjlm]

Originally Posted by MSS1LE

Merry Christmas Eve everyone!

Merry Christmas!

[Martinjlm]

I made my first long distance trip, requiring public charging, over the past couple days. Here’s the good and the bad of that.

TRIP DETAILS (Usual): Detroit, MI to Buffalo, NY. Usually about 264 miles door to door. Usually about 4 1/2 hours with no stops (alone) or a little over 5 hours, 1 or 2 stops if my wife is also going.

Most of the trip is travel through Ontario, Canada. Detroit and Buffalo are both border cities. So the drive is usually from Windsor, Ontario (just south of Detroit) to either, Queenston, Niagara Falls or Fort Erie, Ontario depending on border crossing intel. For this trip we crossed at Queenston, based on info that cars had a 60 minute wait at the Ft. Erie / Buffalo border.

TRIP DETAILS (Outbound)
SUPERCHARGER STOPS: For the outbound trip charged at home to 100% and followed exactly what the car told us to do. It routed us through the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel. We usually cross at the Ambassador Bridge. From the tunnel we meandered through city streets to get to a 250kW Supercharger in Windsor. We drove like 30 miles from home to the charging station. Made no sense to me, but we committed to following the car’s “decisions”. Spent about 10 minutes getting back to 100%. Then we travelled about 130 miles to a Supercharger station near Woodstock, Ontario. I don’t recall now if that was 150 kW or 250kW. We spent another 35 minutes getting back to 90%. Then we were directed to our third station, about 25 miles away near Brantford, Ontario (don’t recall the rating but I’m thinking it was 150kW). Charged for about 10 minutes and continued on to Queenston. Border to border was about 4 1/4hours. Usually Windsor to Queenston is a bit under 3-1/2 hours. Arrived to our destination in Buffalo with about 30% charge. This made me think that the third stop was totally unnecessary. I also believe that the first stop in Windsor was totally unnecessary.

TRIP DETAILS (Return Trip)
SUPERCHARGER STOPS:Left Buffalo with 100% charge. Car wanted us to stop at a 150kW charger in Hamilton, Ontario. This would have been about 45 miles into the trip. I said “nope” and kept driving. It spent the next 15 minutes or so trying to route me back to that charger. Then it tried to route me to a charger in Brantford. This may have been the same charger we stopped at on the way to Buffalo. If so, this was definitely 150kW. I asked my wife to look at Superchargers near us and along Hwy 401 to see how far away they were and what they were rated at. So, we’re sitting at 203 miles range and the car is directing me to backtrack to a 150kW Supercharger in Brantford even though there was a 250kW Supercharger about 60 or 70 miles ahead in London. WHAT?!?!? Having slightly more common sense than I was born with, I decided we were going to the Supercharger in London. But the nav kept nagging us to turn around. So I ended the trip on the nav and started a new trip to the same destination and SURPRISE… the nav is now telling us to go to the Supercharger in London. If it were not that I know the route and the distances like the back of my hand for having travelled it over several decades, I might have just followed the car’s instructions.

So bottom line, we charged to 100% in Buffalo, drove through to London Ontario to the 250kW charger, plugged in, walked across the parking lot to McDonald’s and 20 minutes later were on our way to complete the trip home. Arrived home with 30% charge. 4 hours 20 minutes Ft. Erie to Windsor. A little longer than that trip usually takes. Maybe 10-15 minutes longer. Nothing worth whining about.

Funny postscript…As I was typing this post, I grabbed my phone and set up the same trip. It would have us cross at the Ambassador Bridge like we usually do, skip the Windsor Supercharger and go straight to London. Charge for 21 minutes, and complete the trip from there. That would take exactly as much time as the trip normally takes when I travel it with my wife. Why the h3!! didn’t it just do that in the first place?

[The Chief (tm)]

Jim,

Excellent "real-world" report.

I recall that Car & Driver did a similar experiment (perhaps on a 500+ mile trip?), resolutely determined to follow the car's charging-destination instructions to the letter. And they, too, were presented with some head-scratchers that demanded back-tracking, and/or which were different when they simply reversed direction (i.e., "came back").

And this is the part that really confuses me about the proh-cess via Tesla: I mean, they have the chargers, they have the software, and "they" (in this case, the computers) should know EXACTLY how to best route the car. Why this part falls through, in the fashion that you, C&D, and I'm sure many others have experienced, is really shocking...AND disappointing, because it provides semi-legit cause for concern for folks who may have been on the fence re: an EV, and range anxiety.

[Martinjlm]

Originally Posted by The Chief (tm)

Jim,

Excellent "real-world" report.

I recall that Car & Driver did a similar experiment (perhaps on a 500+ mile trip?), resolutely determined to follow the car's charging-destination instructions to the letter. And they, too, were presented with some head-scratchers that demanded back-tracking, and/or which were different when they simply reversed direction (i.e., "came back").

And this is the part that really confuses me about the proh-cess via Tesla: I mean, they have the chargers, they have the software, and "they" (in this case, the computers) should know EXACTLY how to best route the car. Why this part falls through, in the fashion that you, C&D, and I'm sure many others have experienced, is really shocking...AND disappointing, because it provides semi-legit cause for concern for folks who may have been on the fence re: an EV, and range anxiety.

The only thing I can think of that makes any sense at all is maybe they are trying to balance usage across their Supercharger network. That might have them direct drivers to lesser used Superchargers with minimal overall charge time impact. Major annoyance factor, though.

[Martinjlm]

Guess I should have added how much we spent.

Detroit to Buffalo: $36.51

• Charged to 100% at home (20kWh * $0.17 = $3.40)
• Windsor Supercharger: $5.76
• Woodstock Supercharger: $22.24
• Brantford Supercharger: $ 5.11

Buffalo to Detroit: $49.37

• Cheektowaga Supercharger (to get to 100%): $27.28
• London Supercharger: $22.09

So $85.88 in fueling cost for about 590 miles. That works out to $0.146/mile.

If I had driven my SRX, which gets about 20 mpg combined I would have needed 28.5 gallons. Gas is right around $3/gallon at the stations in my neighborhood. Gas is about $3.40/ gallon in Buffalo. So, averaging it out gets us to $3.20. That would have totaled out to $91.20. So the SRX would’ve been within $ 5.32 total cost at today’s gas prices.

[ABM2SS]

Should have driven the Camaro. I average around 23 MPG in my SS. But the price of the high octane would have offset the MPG improvement.

[Martinjlm]

Originally Posted by ABM2SS

Should have driven the Camaro. I average around 23 MPG in my SS. But the price of the high octane would have offset the MPG improvement.

True on the cost of 93. But I would’ve started the trip on E85 at $2.35. But my mileage on E85 is below 20. Then I would have had to pay New York State price for 93 coming back. Plus, no way my wife agrees to make that trip in the Camaro again, especially when there’s zero chance of top down driving. There’s also the no flat tire solution issue with the Camaro.

[Martinjlm]

Originally Posted by MSS1LE

Strange, I see a statement about the typical travel time, 4.5 hours. I see statements about all the detours on the way there. I see statements about how long segments of the trip took. I don’t see how long the outbound trip took in its entirety? That means I can’t make an apples to apples comparison…hmmm. Interesting.

That’s because the outbound trip was met with comedy at both borders and a huge accident related traffic jam at the merger onto QEW. The total trip door-to-door was a bit over 6 hours. Most of the hour and a half difference was border delays and the QEW traffic jam. Some of it was two unnecessary Supercharger stops. I felt no need to try to deconstruct all of that so on the way back I just timed border to border and it was within a few minutes of a normal trip. A total of 20 minutes charging time, which is on par with a normal gas / bathroom stop for this trip.

[ABM2SS]

Plus, no way my wife agrees to make that trip in the Camaro again, especially when there’s zero chance of top down driving.

Yeah, there's that wife thing. My wife sometimes thinks I like the Camaro more than I like her. And when we ride in it, she says it sits too low. Plus, since I went to the muffler delete and the 1LE suspension, she thinks it sounds bad and that there is something wrong with the suspension because she feels the bumps more.

There’s also the no flat tire solution issue with the Camaro.

My full-size spare is a solution, but I have to admit that I takes-up over half of he trunk space.

[Martinjlm]

Originally Posted by ABM2SS

My full-size spare is a solution, but I have to admit that I takes-up over half of he trunk space.

EXACTLY!! The Catch-22 of a convertible SS with 1LE wheels. No run flats. No spare. A spare would take more than half the trunk space of a convertible. The only times I really need what trunk space there is would be for baggage on long trips and that means no spare.

[Martinjlm]

Originally Posted by MSS1LE

Strange, I see a statement about the typical travel time, 4.5 hours. I see statements about all the detours on the way there. I see statements about how long segments of the trip took. I don’t see how long the outbound trip took in its entirety? That means I can’t make an apples to apples comparison…hmmm. Interesting.

Actually, now that I look at it again, the apples to apples is right there in what I originally wrote. For the outbound I wrote:

Originally Posted by Martinjlm

… Border to border was about 4 1/4hours. Usually Windsor to Queenston is a bit under 3-1/2 hours. Arrived to our destination in Buffalo with about 30% charge…

So about a 45 minute difference border to border. Some of that was unnecessary charging, some of that was accident traffic jam time.

For the trip home, again border to border, 4:20 vs 4:00. But the 4:00 is also usually traveling alone and not stopping at all. This time I was not traveling alone and made a 20 minute stop. I would’ve still had to make the 20 minute stop if I was travelling alone in the Tesla, but not if I was traveling alone in the SRX or Camaro. So the 20 minute difference is THE difference due to charging.

[Capricio]

Originally Posted by MSS1LE

Maybe we just need this new 'flow' battery.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/flow-battery-2666672335

the WEF crowd is already talking past EV's like they never pushed them in the first place, and is now raving about hydrogen.

[Iron Lung Jimmy]

As per the sales manager at a fairly large Ford dealership, they can't get anyone to even look at an F150 Lightning much less buy one.

[Iron Lung Jimmy]

Yesterday I got to drive a Mach E Premium. It was my first time driving a full EV. I wasn't expecting much but was most pleasantly surprised how good it was. As a car - take away all the issues around charging, cost, and whatever - as a car it is really nice. Given the right circumstances I would have no problem owning one. No problem at all.

One pedal driving, which you can set it up for, is pretty cool. The autopilot system is amazing and works really well. Very good sound system. If you like numbers, the car will give you a lot of info about itself. It is very comfortable and, quite frankly, the absence of engine sounds is no big deal. Besides, in a grocery getter if you are hearing very much engine sound you most likely have a problem.

My main takeaway - If or when they get the infrastructure and charging issues sorted out the switch to EV's is not the disaster you might imagine because the cars themselves are pretty darn good.

At least that one was.