Adventures of our Grabber Blue Space Pony...

[Whiskymaker]

If I run into issues, I'll post about them, but so far we haven't had any. Most importantly, I'll include solutions if possible.



I consider John to be a friend and Fran, Nick, and Erica as colleagues. I sometimes regret a decision not to move there early in my career. But, we're happy where we are and have been available to family who needed our help here.


That sounds wonderful! I have a pile of public talks that I'll have to dust off since I haven't given an in-person talk since before the pandemic.

Is this a seasonal thing or do you run it all year? I'll have some availability over the summer.
And your whiskey sounds great!

We run this program 3rd Thursday of each month - covid notwithstanding - all the time. So yes, over the summer is definitely an option. I'll have charging available at my house. Erica and Nick are in France, currently. In addition, there's an astrophysics conference at CU at the end of the month and we're expecting about 50 astrophysicists for cocktails and tours. If Brian May shows up, well, then I win!

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[Whiskymaker]

That is super bad ass. ?

A grabber blue GTPE is super bad ass, I'm a little jealous, again - our order is a premium, but a GTPE sounds SO MUCH FUN!

Definitely, our science event is by far the most popular tasting room event we've ever done. Shit, mention the Mach e forum, and I'll be happy to buy you a drink(s) if any of you all happen to stop by my place. We're in the process of adding a charging station at our distillery - a slow process at the best.

Cheers all!

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

We're at a family member's house. They don't have an EV charger (keep your pedantics), nor a 240 Volt outlet to which we can connect, so we're trickle charging on a 120V plug. This is almost painfully slow.

I had to do some shopping today so made the mistake of going to a Wal-Mart. When I was a teen, I worked at Wal-Mart and still hate it. Anyway, one of the reasons I went there was that there's a charging station and I thought it would be nice to get a bump up into the 90% range while I shopped.

The charging station is by EVGo. It was a fiddly mess. One other potential customer left because they could not get their Leaf to charge. And it is excessively expensive ($0.470/kWh + $0.99 per session). The total cost for 19.691 kWh was $10.24. I'm not sure why Those 19.691 kWh will get me about 60 to maybe 70 miles.

Of course, gas in this area is $5.90/gallon for cash or $6.00/gallon for credit; I would have been able to go about 29 miles in my truck for the same cost.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

We've only got 1200 miles on the Mustang and it already has a paint chip on the hood. I had thought this was a minor concern and I've never cared about paint before.

 

[kindofblue]

We've only got 1200 miles on the Mustang and it already has a paint chip on the hood. I had thought this was a minor concern and I've never cared about paint before.

Time to consider ppf grasshopper ;-)

We had it applied to our 2017 Volt 6 years ago and only have 1 chip down low that actually tore the ppf a bit. The only other chip is on the hood above the ppf towards the windshield.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

We recently took the Mustang on an ~1000 mile round trip from northern Arizona to southern California. I will post several comments on the trip report. This first comment will be some basic data about the trip. The following comments will be about our impressions of how the Mustang did on the trip.

We left around noon during a snow storm. Our drive through the storm lasted for about 120 minutes, although I did not time that perfectly.

Below are the stats for our drive out. I didn't take as careful notes for our return trip. The stops were mostly the same, but we left much later in the day and decided to stop overnight at the charging station with a hotel nearby. I'll talk about that in a later comment.

Start:

1. Odometer reading: 771.5 miles
2. Temperature: -2 C (28 F)
3. Time: 12:32
4. Weather: snowing, sleeting, freezing, icy roads.
5. Charge displayed: 100%
6. Range displayed: 241 miles
7. Range to next charger: 150 miles
8. Elevation: 7000 ft

First Segment:

1. Odometer reading: 919 miles
2. Miles driven: 147.5
3. Average speed: 62.4 Mi/h
4. Arrival time: 15:01
5. Temperature: 4.5 C (40 F)
6. Weather: Sunny, stormy, cold.
7. Charge level at arrival: 39%
8. Charge level when leaving: 80%
9. Charging time: 27 minutes
10. Added capacity: 40 kWh
11. CarScanner start energy to empty: 81.4 kWh
12. CarScanner start SOC %: 96.3%
13. Calculated start capacity: 84.5 kWh
14. CarScanner end of segment SOC%: 39.3%
15. CarScanner end of segment energy to empty: 31.8 kWh
16. Calculated end capacity: 81 kWh
17. CarScanner energy used: 49.6 kWh
18. Estimated efficiency: 3.01 Mi/kWh

Second Segment:

1. Odometer reading: 984 miles
2. Miles driven: 65
3. Average speed: 59 mph
4. Arrival time: 16:08
5. Temperature: 7 C (44 F)
6. Weather: Sunny, windy (15 mph sustained headwind, 25 mph gusts), chilly.
7. Charge level at arrival: 60%
8. Charge level when leaving: 80%
9. Charging time: 13 minutes
10. Added capacity: 19 kWh
11. CarScanner start energy to empty: 72.6 kWh
12. CarScanner start SOC %: 77.4%
13. Calculated start capacity: 93.8 kWh
14. CarScanner end of segment SOC%: 59.2%
15. CarScanner end of segment energy to empty: 54.4 kWh
16. Calculated end capacity: 91.9 kWh
17. CarScanner energy used: 18.2 kWh
18. Estimated efficiency: 3.4 Mi/kWh

Third Segment:

1. Odometer reading: 1126 miles
2. Miles driven: 142
3. Average speed: 56 mph
4. Arrival time: 18:37
5. Temperature: 13 C (55 F)
6. Weather: Dusty, sunny, very windy (35 mph sustained headwind, 45 mph gusts).
7. Charge level at arrival: 17%
8. Displayed charge level when leaving: 85%
9. Charging time: 44 minutes
10. Added capacity: 64.5 kWh
11. CarScanner start energy to empty: 72.8 kWh
12. CarScanner start SOC %: 77.6%
13. Calculated start capacity: 93.8 kWh
14. CarScanner end of segment SOC%: 20.2%
15. CarScanner end of segment energy to empty: 17.5 kWh
16. Calculated end capacity: 86.8 kWh
17. CarScanner energy used: 55.3 kWh
18. Estimated efficiency: 2.5 Mi/kWh

Final Segment:
We were tired and I forgot to trigger the CarScanner. It was about 90 miles and we arrived with more than 60% of a charge remaining.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Segment 1:

Leaving town we knew we would have a slow, wet, icy, and somewhat inefficient drive off the mountain. It went as expected and was just fine. We've done this kind of drive before in ICE vehicles and very little was different.

When we arrived at our first charging stop, it was off of the mountain. I had scouted this stop while we were waiting for our Mustang, so there were no issues finding it nor using it. There was a Kona charging when we arrived, but there are several stations, so no issues. Plug and Charge worked perfectly, we locked the car, went into the grocery store, used the restrooms (we'll probably cross the street for this next time), grabbed some snacks from our cooler, and the car was charged to 80%. I spent a couple minutes chatting with an elderly couple who were interested in the car and had the usual questions.

This segment was as easy as it ever is driving through a snow storm off a mountain.

One note to charging station developers: Please include the things we usually expect to see at a service station, most especially windshield washing bins, sponges, squeegees, towels, and trash cans. We tried washing the windshield grime off with some wipes, but it didn't work.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Segment 2:

This was a short, easy segment that I had considered skipping, but am infinitely glad we didn't.

We charged up to 80% in about 15 minutes, which barely gave us time to run to the McDonald's and go to the restroom and get a snack out of the cooler.

This is the last stop before an ~150 mile trek across the California desert. It's a good thing we stopped to charge and we should have charged to 85% and let the Electrify America idle grace period run out.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Segment 3:

This is an ~150 mile trek across the California desert. There are no emergency charging stations between this one and the one on the other side of the desert. There's really only one gas station between the Needles stop and the Barstow stop: Ludlow. This is much like how we used to cross this when I was a kid, but with the EV, there would be no way to get additional fuel if we ran out, no matter how far we walked. I can't remember how many times we ran out of gas on this trip. I ran out at least once on a motorcycle and had to push the last ten miles to the Ludlow station. It was the winds that killed our efficiency this time too.

At first things seemed fine. But as we pushed further along, the headwinds were so bad we could watch the battery charge % drop like a stone. We slowed to 70 mph. Then 65 mph. By the time we got to our charging station, we were drafting behind semis and going as slow as they were (a lot of trucks stopped because the winds were too dangerous).

At some point along this segment, the screen of the main display went dark and the thing rebooted itself. When it came back online, it seemed to be estimating range better. No idea what was going on there. It only happened once.

I would like someone to install some DCFCs in or near Ludlow. Heck, a friend who used to be a project manager for a power company wants me to cost out the installation of a solar-powered 6-stall charging station in that desert. They may know someone who would invest in such a project. I do the costing, but I have my doubts it'll be funded.

We arrived in Barstow with 17% on the stress-o-meter and a claimed ~40 miles or range left. The 17% was accurate according to my other real-time calculations. We grabbed dinner while charging. Said "hi" to a few EV owners (several other Mustangs, a Kona, and a Niro), and helped one person disengage their Mustang from the charger. They were on their first road trip too, from San Diego to Las Vegas.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Our stop after Segment 2 was Needles, CA. I have only ever stayed in Needles when I've had car trouble.

We stayed in Needles on our way home because we left the LA area early evening, a day early to avoid the midday and late afternoon winds between Barstow and Needles. When we got to Needles, we were too tired to continue driving. So, we plugged in at the EA DCFCs and checked in at the nearby hotel. About 30 minutes later, I went to move the car after it had reached 80% and noticed there are J1772 free chargers right next to the DCFCs. All four J1172s were open as were all of the DCFCs. So, I plugged in and told it to charge to 100%.

It finished charging around midnight. I normally would have gotten up to move the car, but we had reserved the hotel's last room and there had been nobody at any of the 8 charging stations when we'd arrived. There was still nobody there when I unplugged early in the AM. I know this is not the best etiquette, and I probably won't do that again.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

On the way out, we crossed the AZ-CA border. About 20 miles before Needles, CA, there are several gas stations. There was a 1/2 mile line of pickup trucks stopped on the freeway waiting to get into the gas stations to fuel up their trucks on the "cheap" AZ gas. I tried to grab a photo (my partner was driving), but didn't think about it until it was too late.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

General impressions about road tripping with an EV:

Infrastructure: The infrastructure for EVs seems almost similar to what I remember dealing with as a young kid with junker gas-guzzling cars. Before credit cards became huge, you could not get gas after hours unless the fueling stations had 24-hr service. We had farm trucks and junky cars that got 5-10 miles per gallon at best. We couldn't cross the Mojave or Sonoran deserts during the day when I was a kid, and the gas stations that existed didn't operate at night. So, we would pack 5 or 10 gallons of gas into the trunk of our car and hope that was enough to get across the desert. It often wasn't and we would end up sleeping on the side of the highway and then hitchhiking to Ludlow to get gas.

The major inconvenience of EVs is that there aren't refueling stations every 50 miles or less and there's no hitchhiking to the nearest station and picking up a battery to replace the low ones. If I run out of fuel, I'm out. I have to get a tow. Honestly, getting a tow is safer, so it's not a bad thing.

The vehicle: Mostly it performed flawlessly. It did what I asked it to do. The only weird things were the screen reboot on the way out and the This Trip meter acting up on the way home. Neither seems to have had any long-term impacts.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

While in the LA area, we were visiting someone who does not have a charger nor do they have a 220V outlet that we could tap. So, that meant trickle charging on 120Volts.

That seemed painful, but really, I've never been able to drip gasoline into my fuel tank while I was visiting someone either, so it was actually just fine. On the second day we were there, I ran to Wal-Mart to pick up some things and charged at an EVGo charging station. That was more expensive than I had expected. But our entire trip cost less than $11.00 so I'm not complaining.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

We make several road trips a year. And I don't mean 100-mile road trips. I mean 1000-mile+ road trips.

Overall, roadtripping in the Mustang is definitely do-able. That long, stressful drive across the desert facing 30-40 mph headwinds was tough, but I now know to charge to 85% at the DCFC in Needles, to keep my speed a bit lower, and to plan to cross that area after the afternoon winds have died down if necessary. There's another route that we'll test out next time. That will lengthen our overall drive but shorten the distance between chargers.

I hope next time we can also get a photo with a Route 66 sign.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

BlueCruise is a little bit worrisome. It's too easy. It makes the drive much, much less stressful, but it is way too easy to think the car will take care of stuff for you. I don't know if I'll leave it on for long road trips.

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