2 weeks, 4410 miles, 31 Tesla charging sessions! Road trip to Texas!

[emichnov]

Last Saturday, my wife and I returned back from a 2 week road trip where we drove from Massachusetts to Texas, stayed at a cousin's in Washington DC, friends in NC, visited Montgomery, AL, partied in New Orleans, stayed at friends in Houston, hit San Antonio, met friends in Austin, camped west of Austin to see the eclipse, saw a nephew in Dallas, grooved at Graceland in Memphis, then beelined home over the last few days. What an amazing trip - one of our very first road trips, and by far the longest one we have ever done. The Mach-E is an incredible road tripping vehicle, and we had virtually zero trouble charging as we got our A2Z adapter just prior to the trip, and, after charging at Tesla stations twice, swore off all non-Tesla fast charging stations with one very small exception (One day in Tennessee, we were forced to do a 11 kWh charging session at an EV Connect station when we got reduced range driving through torrential downpours). The Tesla charging experience cannot be beat - almost instant start times, often starting at above 150 kW charging rate, plentiful locations, every location typically had 8, 12, or 24 stations stalls, and we never had to wait with one exception, on the day of the eclipse we have to wait 10 minutes. I thought I would switch off the trip between EA and Tesla, but trust me, once you go Tesla charging, you will never go back. For example, the EV Connect charge took 5 tries to get started - the app didn't work, and I resorted to a credit card. They charged me 5 times (but fortunately, refunded all the overage). A pain next to the instant start of a Tesla session.

I would bet, by the time we got back on Saturday, we had the record for the most Tesla charging sessions for a non-Tesla vehicle (or at least one of the most)!

Some stats:

• 80:04:14 Hours of drive time
• 4410.2 miles
• 45 charging sessions (some were very short)
  • Of those, 31 were Tesla supercharging sessions
  • In these 31 sessions, we were the only non-Tesla vehicle we saw charging.
• 1543 kWh of electricity used
  • 412 of that 1543 kWh was “free” (either hotel charging or level 1 charging at friend's houses)
• Averaged $0.20 / kWh overall but $0.32 / kWh for the kWh we paid for.
• Tesla membership saving varied, but for the most part, gave us a 26% discount over non-member rates. The $12.99 membership fee saved us about $120 in charging fees, and super easy to cancel , just click "cancel" in the app - done.
• $358.86 in total cost, or $0.08 per mile.
  • I calculate an equivalent gar car would have had to get 40 mpg to get fuel costs down to the same value. What car as nice as the Mach-E gets that kind of mileage?
• Average efficiency was 2.9 miles / kWh. My wife knocked it out of the park with this as she is a careful driver. She even learned to use the hands free driving!
• Average speed was 55 mph.
• Right after getting home, we hit 33,333.3 miles on our car! And I got a pic of it!

One of the friends we visited has been pretty successful and had a Lamborghini Huracán Sterrato in the driveway. Tried to show it up with the Mach-E, but no. Incredible car.

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[mkhuffman]

The roof rack on that Huracan is awesome and ridiculous at the same time. I love it!

Great write up, Eric!

 

[jamelski]

55 mph. You spent a long time on the road.?Would have cost a lot more just going the speed limit of 65. Going 55 that just hurts thinking of going that slow to save money. No offense even my grandma didn’t drive that slow.

 

[stealthytolkien]

$358.86 in total cost, or $0.08 per mile.

• I calculate an equivalent gar car would have had to get 40 mpg to get fuel costs down to the same value. What car as nice as the Mach-E gets that kind of mileage?

First off, great and detailed post. I am very glad that you were able to experience taking your Ford through so many Tesla chargers. Having owned a Tesla before and having done a 4k mile trip or two myself in it, it really was the most important reason to own a Tesla and now a Ford.

What you say above in quotes is true. I don’t think Mach-E is going for extreme comfort, but it is a fairly comfortable mini SUV and GT performance has the adaptive suspension greatly improving the ride quality.

But pure comfort-wise, especially for tall households, I actually found the hybrid SUVs from Toyota Honda Hyundai etc. more than a bit comfortable for long road trips, and they all do not quite 40mpg, but easily over 32mpg. Having done a road trip in one of those SUVs, I will take that experience every single time over Mach-E or any EV for that matter.

I won’t be worried too much about gas and go time saved in a ICE car but some might. But on a 4k journey it is a wash.

 

[emichnov]

55 mph. You spent a long time on the road.

You don't think we spent every mile on freeways, do you? We spent a ton of time on city streets in DC, Atlanta, Montgomery, New Orleans, Houston, etc. Plus, spend time on back roads in Texas. So, yes, 55 mph AVERAGE.

On freeways, I drove mostly 74 mph, my wife, probably more like 69 mph. My 74 mph seemed like a good compromise between making tracks and keeping the efficiency reasonable

 

[emichnov]

But pure comfort-wise, especially for tall households, I actually found the hybrid SUVs from Toyota Honda Hyundai etc.

Thank you. Never owned a true SUV, so I don't know. My wife and I are pretty short, so the tallness factor never entered my mind as it is not a factor for us. YMMV!

 

[emichnov]

The roof rack on that Huracan is awesome and ridiculous at the same time. I love it!

Totally agree! When my friend explained to me that the Huracan was an "off road" Lambo, I was like "WTF", then, wow, that is cool and crazy at the same time!

 

[RickMachE]

What nonsense! Everyone knows you can't take an EV on a trip!

 

[Billyk24]

Thanks for the report. One item not mentioned was how much easier it is to handle the Tesla charging cord compared to that big, thick and semi-rigid CCS DCFC cord.

 

[emichnov]

One item not mentioned was how much easier it is to handle the Tesla charging cord compared to that big, thick and semi-rigid CCS DCFC cord.

100% agree with this. When I had to use the EV connect cable, I wondered why all the other vendor's just didn't copy Tesla's design.

 

[zvez]

The roof rack on that Huracan is awesome and ridiculous at the same time. I love it!

Great write up, Eric!

the lights(?) mounted on the front bumper of the lambo are hideous tho!

 

[zvez]

55 mph. You spent a long time on the road.?Would have cost a lot more just going the speed limit of 65. Going 55 that just hurts thinking of going that slow to save money. No offense even my grandma didn’t drive that slow.

you know on any given road trip it's not a interstate only drive right?

 

[zvez]

this is a great writeup. Just from your writeup I think as everyone surmised, the attention of the 12k or so tesla chargers is a game changer for travel.

 

[circatee]

Last Saturday, my wife and I returned back from a 2 week road trip where we drove from Massachusetts to Texas, stayed at a cousin's in Washington DC, friends in NC, visited Montgomery, AL, partied in New Orleans, stayed at friends in Houston, hit San Antonio, met friends in Austin, camped west of Austin to see the eclipse, saw a nephew in Dallas, grooved at Graceland in Memphis, then beelined home over the last few days. What an amazing trip - one of our very first road trips, and by far the longest one we have ever done. The Mach-E is an incredible road tripping vehicle, and we had virtually zero trouble charging as we got our A2Z adapter just prior to the trip, and, after charging at Tesla stations twice, swore off all non-Tesla fast charging stations with one very small exception (One day in Tennessee, we were forced to do a 11 kWh charging session at an EV Connect station when we got reduced range driving through torrential downpours). The Tesla charging experience cannot be beat - almost instant start times, often starting at above 150 kW charging rate, plentiful locations, every location typically had 8, 12, or 24 stations stalls, and we never had to wait with one exception, on the day of the eclipse we have to wait 10 minutes. I thought I would switch off the trip between EA and Tesla, but trust me, once you go Tesla charging, you will never go back. For example, the EV Connect charge took 5 tries to get started - the app didn't work, and I resorted to a credit card. They charged me 5 times (but fortunately, refunded all the overage). A pain next to the instant start of a Tesla session.

I would bet, by the time we got back on Saturday, we had the record for the most Tesla charging sessions for a non-Tesla vehicle (or at least one of the most)!

Some stats:

• 80:04:14 Hours of drive time
• 4410.2 miles
• 45 charging sessions (some were very short)
  • Of those, 31 were Tesla supercharging sessions
  • In these 31 sessions, we were the only non-Tesla vehicle we saw charging.
• 1543 kWh of electricity used
  • 412 of that 1543 kWh was “free” (either hotel charging or level 1 charging at friend's houses)
• Averaged $0.20 / kWh overall but $0.32 / kWh for the kWh we paid for.
• Tesla membership saving varied, but for the most part, gave us a 26% discount over non-member rates. The $12.99 membership fee saved us about $120 in charging fees, and super easy to cancel , just click "cancel" in the app - done.
• $358.86 in total cost, or $0.08 per mile.
  • I calculate an equivalent gar car would have had to get 40 mpg to get fuel costs down to the same value. What car as nice as the Mach-E gets that kind of mileage?
• Average efficiency was 2.9 miles / kWh. My wife knocked it out of the park with this as she is a careful driver. She even learned to use the hands free driving!
• Average speed was 55 mph.
• Right after getting home, we hit 33,333.3 miles on our car! And I got a pic of it!

One of the friends we visited has been pretty successful and had a Lamborghini Huracán Sterrato in the driveway. Tried to show it up with the Mach-E, but no. Incredible car.

Thanks for sharing! The car icon in the top left corner of image 4, what does that represent?

 

[silverelan]

That was a fun read! Did you already have your HVBJB replaced with the latest version? How did Tesla drivers react to seeing your MME charging at a Supercharger?

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