Advice for driving into West Virginia?

[dan_meh]

Ok… just did it! From DC to Timberline in high oncoming winds with my 10 year old adventure buddy riding shotgun.

I‘ll post the full road trip in the right place, but suffice to say that it was a success. I feel like I crossed a (charging) desert. I did a few road trips already along major corridors and to major cities, but this was the first real charging gap I crossed. It’s given me a ton of confidence and so appreciate y’all.

Also, got the automated response from Circle K headquarters. The response said something like “I’m sorry you had a bad experience,” which is the opposite of what I was trying to say. I had such a good experience talking to the franchise owner and Circle K made it easy to provide feedback. Anyway, we’ll see how it goes.

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[dan_meh]

I‘ll post the full road trip in the right place, but suffice to say that it was a success.

https://www.macheforum.com/site/thr...est-virginia-through-a-charging-desert.43428/

 

[rreddy3]

Update for those who care: I have now followed up with Sheetz and Circle K corporate and location (Sheetz doesn’t franchise but Circle K does).

Circle K was the more promising interaction. If you would like to add your voice, you can write a polite message here: https://www.circlek.com/contact

And if you want to call the Circle K, please wait a week or two before you call. They are so kind that I don’t want to pester. I found it useful to tell them how often I drive through Moorefield and that each stop would be about half an hour of dwell time. The slower charging speeds in the MME are an advantage here. We can do our thing for the community ?.

I also invited the general manager to drive up to timberline to see how many Rivian‘s were hanging about. I saw no MME vehicles there but lots of Rivian R1S ?

I returned home to the Centreville/Chantilly area yesterday from a week at Snowshoe. I did take the ICE AWD Mazda 3 sedan in lieu of the MME because of the lack of en route high speed charging that doesn’t take you significantly out of the way. My 200 mile route I’ve always taken would grow to 250ish routing via available high speed charging. And then you have to figure in the ability to get a L2 charge once you’re at Snowshoe. There are around a half dozen L2s scattered among different locations. That’s not counting maybe another half dozen that are restricted to guesrs of specific lodging properties. That said, I did see a few Rivians and Teslas along the way and at Snowshoe. Maybe 8 or so all totaled.
I am going to do the Snowshoe trip in warmer weather with the MME just to do it. Future winter trips there with the MME …TBD.

I know this is a MME forum. But. I gotta tell you, on the 80-85 miles closest to and up/down the delightful alpine switchback access road to the top (Snowshoe being an upside down area with village/lodging/food etc on the top at an average of 4800’ +/- above sea level), the Mazda 3 AWD sedan is so sweet to drive. Turn the wheel and she just bends in and tracks without a twitch. Set it in “sport” mode, “manual”, use the paddle shifters and exponentially increase the fun factor.

It’s roughly 2400’ vertical from Cass to Snow to Snowshoe over 10 miles. The last 1000’ gain is in the final 3 mile push to the top. I’d say the middle 40% of that is the steepest grade with the real switchbacks. While not a crazy Alpine or western mountain road, it’s fun. The last three miles is the venue of a hill climb, WV Hillfest, looks like a great way to “test” a Mach E HVBJB …?

https://westvirginiahillfest.com/

I feel fortunate to have two daily drivers I really enjoy, the Mach E and, well, you know what the other one is …??

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