600 Miles In A Day Feasible?

[TGIF]

Taking the 4X MME south for the winter from SW Iowa to Destin, FL around the New Year for the first time. We usually do the drive in two days, stopping in Paducah, KY at a hotel that accepts dogs and has an EV charger. I’ve checked ABRP and they’ve added a couple stops likely due to cold temperatures. I get that. But one is only for a 3% charge increase from 47 to 50%! It will take longer to detour than to charge. I have done the route multiple times and have checked out the charging locations. I use ChargePoint. ABRP and PlugShare to map my route and alternate charging locations.

Anyway, does anyone have experience with high mileage days? I’m okay with a 12 hour road trip. Is there something I’m missing? I can time the trip somewhat for better weather. Is this car not appropriate for a road warrior style trip? And, do I really need a 3% top up when the next stop is at 15% and there are other chargers before that?

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[NotGreen75]

Have put many 600+ mile days on ours (15.5K in < 6 months) criss crossing the country west to east and back. Definitely possible and a non issue.

A couple tips:
1. Always check PlugShare the day of to ensure where you’re planning to stop is up and working.
2. Optimal method for minimizing time is starting at 100% each day (home or hotel with a charger) and then going down to 5% and up to 80%. After 80% the charging slows so don’t bother unless you really need the extra range (or are eating a great meal, etc.). To answer your question - yes, no problem to skip a 3% charge if the next is 15%. The algorithms are conservative so people don’t get stranded but do the math and you can be fine.
3. If available on your route use 150kW chargers preferentially (EA is most common today). It’s worth the time even if a bit further to charge so much faster.
4. Be mindful of range loss in the cold and plan accordingly. When near 10 degrees we experienced ~30% range loss.
5. Have fun! These are amazing machines!

 

[hybrid2bev]

Taking the 4X MME south for the winter from SW Iowa to Destin, FL around the New Year for the first time. We usually do the drive in two days, stopping in Paducah, KY at a hotel that accepts dogs and has an EV charger. I’ve checked ABRP and they’ve added a couple stops likely due to cold temperatures. I get that. But one is only for a 3% charge increase from 47 to 50%! It will take longer to detour than to charge. I have done the route multiple times and have checked out the charging locations. I use ChargePoint. ABRP and PlugShare to map my route and alternate charging locations.

Anyway, does anyone have experience with high mileage days? I’m okay with a 12 hour road trip. Is there something I’m missing? I can time the trip somewhat for better weather. Is this car not appropriate for a road warrior style trip? And, do I really need a 3% top up when the next stop is at 15% and there are other chargers before that?

We’ve done 500+ miles per day going from Detroit to Gulf Shores AL, it’s easy. Look for amenities nearby your charging stops (walking distance) to plan for lunch and dinner.

Adjust the ABRP settings to allow for a lower charger arrival percentage, that should eliminate the 3% stop.

 

[Pioneer74]

What charge percentage is the stop calling for before the 3% stop? Can you stay there a little longer to negate it?

I took our Lightning from Detroit to Baltimore in October. I found ABRP to be conservative and skipped 2 stops it said I needed.

 

[HuntingPudel]

I did 600 in a single day going up to get my dog and on the return trip. I thought my sister was going to be mad, but she was happy with the drive. I was way more upset than her on the way back since the GT-PE has summer tires and it was in the low 20s and snowing.

 

[Haven]

I’ve done 600 miles a day from Kalamazoo Michigan to ft. Myers Florida and back a few times. It’s definitely doable. I’ve skipped charging stops when I’ve done the math and don’t need it.

I agree with @NotGreen75 good points So I won’t repeat.

I recently travelled on thanksgiving weekend, which was busy and a few of the stops the chargers were all in use. In one situation, the only charger open was the one not working well. We lost time at that stop, barely got much of a charge and had to limp 90 miles south to barely make the next stop. We lost an hour of time.

I’ve travelled on New Year’s Day last year and not many charging on that day.

good luck on your trip and have fun!

 

[TGIF]

What charge percentage is the stop calling for before the 3% stop? Can you stay there a little longer to negate it?

I took our Lightning from Detroit to Baltimore in October. I found ABRP to be conservative and skipped 2 stops it said I needed.

The 3% stop is the first stop. I plan to start with 100% charge. There are a couple chargers further on the route I could use if the weather really hits my range before the next scheduled stop.

 

[RickMachE]

To answer your last question, no. 15 - 3 is 12. Simple math. You can tweak the settings in ABRP to set minimum charge levels for specific, or all stops. You can also go in and change the efficiency at 65mph from whatever it is now to a number say around 2.3 to ensure it's planning for the proper temps. And then you can look at the route and see if it makes sense to you given the amount of time it is adding.

I always look at a route in GoogleMaps and compare it to ABRP to see what route deviations it's trying to get me to take to charge.

WIthout adding in the hotel to get the end of day charge, ABRP shows that as a roughly 24 hour trip with nearly 5 hours of charging. So you'd be looking at 12 hour days, assuming you have no issues.

Personally, I find that 600 miles a day, 2 days in a row, is too much. Those days will likely turn into 14 hour days, not 12.

Me, I'd plan on traveling between 8AM and 4PM, 8 hours, which would be 6 hours of driving or so, taking 3 days, not 2, but to each their own.

 

[silverelan]

The 3% stop is the first stop. I plan to start with 100% charge. There are a couple chargers further on the route I could use if the weather really hits my range before the next scheduled stop.

Multiple 500mi trips in my MME GT, no problem. I’ll push back though on the suggestion to go straight from 100% -> 5%. That’s almost 4 hours in the car and may not align with your caffeine addiction and/or bladder.

Stop the car when your body tells you and get a charge during your stoppage time. A 10-15 minutes break will put another 50-75 miles of range (20-30%) back into your MME.

FYI: 15-20 mins charging sessions are the sweet spot. The extended range packs max out their charging curve for 20 minutes before declining to low 200 amps (75-80kW) for the rest of the way to 80%.

 

[NotGreen75]

I’ll push back though on the suggestion to go straight from 100% -> 5%. That’s almost 4 hours in the car and may not align with your caffeine addiction and/or bladder.

While 100% -> 5% is optimal for the minimal drive time, obviously everyone needs to optimize for themselves too so I agree. That said, in low temps with headwinds and/or elevation gain 100% -> 5% can be a lot faster than 4 hours.

 

[hybrid2bev]

The 3% stop is the first stop. I plan to start with 100% charge. There are a couple chargers further on the route I could use if the weather really hits my range before the next scheduled stop.

Another option is to slow down a little. Driving just 5 mph slower will increase your range.

 

[mrsiegfried]

Did a bit over 1000 mi in one day last Saturday. It was the most relaxing road trip I’ve ever taken and the dog was probably the most thrilled. A long day, for sure, but was up working at 7a the next day feeling totally fine (compared to the typical full body hurt after an ICE road trip).

 

[JSeis]

The S.O. and I’ve gone nearly 500 miles a day on several trips. I found ABRP very useful on hilly ground as it gave me the ability to go from Missoula to Great Falls on MT 200… if I kept my speed under 58 mph! We’d charged to about 88% at the EA site and I’d also not considered the ascent to Rogers Pass and even greater descent & recharge to Great Falls. Plus freeway type speeds suck power. Pretty easy to average 3.7-3.9 here on local roads but at freeway speeds, in the low 3’s or hi 2’s on Mi/KWh. Leave early too. We stopped every 2-3 hours or so. Potty breaks and food.

 

[kennethjk]

I believe driving 600 miles a day very doable in an EV. I have taking numbers trips of 275 miles but I have also driven from NY to Florida straight without staying over. Even though I do the bulk of the driving my wife drives some of the time so it’s not too much for me.

just do your homework and you should be fine.

someone mentioned that a 12 hour trip might turn out to be 14 in an EV and that could be correct but with all the stops you might end of being more refreshed, of course that is if all the charging stations work out well so you don’t blow a gasket, a personal one that is.

one last thing, on one of my trips I was going faster than normal in Florida about 77 mph. I burned a lot of KW and might have had some issues reaching a charger, I slowed down to 65 on alligator alley to conserve and didn’t have any issues, although I held up traffic and the alligators were going faster than me.

 

[KrazyEd]

Above are all good suggestions. In addition to checking Plugshare, Open the EA app to ( hopefully )
verify the status of chargers. I picked my SR RWD Premium in Austin. Having never seen or driven
the car, I started out back to Vegas on an unknown route. Arrived 1500 miles later the next night
with only one minor issue. 2 drivers. I took it to San Diego for the Fully Charged Live event in
September. This was in the middle of the EA Upgrade. Only 300 miles each way but no issues at
all.

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