Phrozen
Well-Known Member
- First Name
- Henry
- Joined
- Feb 17, 2022
- Threads
- 10
- Messages
- 70
- Reaction score
- 104
- Location
- Fairbanks, AK
- Vehicles
- 2022 Grabber Blue Mach-E
- Occupation
- Engineer
- Thread starter
- #1
1100 miles in four days was maybe a tad too much, but oh well it worked and was fun.
Took delivery of the car on Wednesday, 7/6, with 7 miles. Couldn't leave town Thursday as planned due to forest fires, so left Friday instead.
Fully charged at home. Fairbanks sits at mile 365 of the Parks Highway (route 3, but we don't use those numbers much). Stopped in Healy (245) and added ~26kWh at the CCS1 ReCharge Alaska location there for $15. Added another 21kWh at ReCharge's location in Cantwell (214) for $13 to bring us back to 95%. Finally pulled in to Lithia Chevrolet of Wasilla (Parks mile 45) and added another 34kWh. That was the last fast charge we'd see for a while.
The city of Anchorage, population ~300,000, has zero fast chargers that aren't Tesla Superchargers. There are some on the way, but nothing there just yet. So we spent an hour adding 5.7 kWh at the Dimond Center, before concluding that the 190 miles shown on the Guess-Oh-Meter was sufficient for our remaining 150 mile drive. Friends, it was sufficient, but it was stressful and dicey as hell. We ended up arriving in Soldotna, at midnight, with 6% left on the battery. There were a couple times when the GOM indicated a lower number than the remaining distance, and when you have no cell service and are in a brand new car and it's late at night, that is not a pleasant feeling!
Plugged in overnight at our hotel on a normal NEMA 5-15 plug, and got back up to 23%, and had very little idea what we were going to do next. In the morning, we found the wonderful River City Books/Lucy's Market, which had a 40amp Leviton charger that would be our salvation on this trip. Two hours there over breakfast and wandering around town brought us up to 42%, which was enough to make the wedding we were attending in Nikiski (another 30 miles). That night we left the car at River City to fill up overnight, which it did.
We left Soldotna yesterday morning with 100% and 271 miles on the GOM, and arrived back at Anchorage's Dimond Center with 52% indicated. An hour there and an hour and a half at the Chevy dealer in Wasilla, plus 45 minutes at Talkeetna's Denali Brewing Co.'s 14-50 plug were enough for us to reach our cabin in Cantwell with a mere 4% battery life remaining.
This morning, we discovered JamJam's Sammich Stop in Cantwell, and his CCS charger, which allowed us to crawl back to 85% charge with 71kWh, for a mere $34. Very good sammiches, as well! Strongly recommend, 10/10.
Another final stop in Healy at ReCharge and we returned home.
The car performed brilliantly. The driver needs to learn a bit about how to do roadtrips in an EV, but I'm confident he'll manage that. A TeslaTap has been ordered, and we'll make sure to trust the battery gauge more than the GOM in future. Plus maybe stock some more foodstuffs in the car, just in case. Also we need to replace the windshield washer fluid Ford gave us because it smells like iodine antiseptic or something. Awful stuff.
All told we drove 1,100 miles and paid $79 for "fuel." Had we done this trip in our F-350 7.3l diesel, we would have spent about $350. If we can do this across Alaska with poor planning and a bad case of "not knowing what the hell we were doing," I think we've demonstrated that EVs can roadtrip virtually anywhere.
Took delivery of the car on Wednesday, 7/6, with 7 miles. Couldn't leave town Thursday as planned due to forest fires, so left Friday instead.
Fully charged at home. Fairbanks sits at mile 365 of the Parks Highway (route 3, but we don't use those numbers much). Stopped in Healy (245) and added ~26kWh at the CCS1 ReCharge Alaska location there for $15. Added another 21kWh at ReCharge's location in Cantwell (214) for $13 to bring us back to 95%. Finally pulled in to Lithia Chevrolet of Wasilla (Parks mile 45) and added another 34kWh. That was the last fast charge we'd see for a while.
The city of Anchorage, population ~300,000, has zero fast chargers that aren't Tesla Superchargers. There are some on the way, but nothing there just yet. So we spent an hour adding 5.7 kWh at the Dimond Center, before concluding that the 190 miles shown on the Guess-Oh-Meter was sufficient for our remaining 150 mile drive. Friends, it was sufficient, but it was stressful and dicey as hell. We ended up arriving in Soldotna, at midnight, with 6% left on the battery. There were a couple times when the GOM indicated a lower number than the remaining distance, and when you have no cell service and are in a brand new car and it's late at night, that is not a pleasant feeling!
Plugged in overnight at our hotel on a normal NEMA 5-15 plug, and got back up to 23%, and had very little idea what we were going to do next. In the morning, we found the wonderful River City Books/Lucy's Market, which had a 40amp Leviton charger that would be our salvation on this trip. Two hours there over breakfast and wandering around town brought us up to 42%, which was enough to make the wedding we were attending in Nikiski (another 30 miles). That night we left the car at River City to fill up overnight, which it did.
We left Soldotna yesterday morning with 100% and 271 miles on the GOM, and arrived back at Anchorage's Dimond Center with 52% indicated. An hour there and an hour and a half at the Chevy dealer in Wasilla, plus 45 minutes at Talkeetna's Denali Brewing Co.'s 14-50 plug were enough for us to reach our cabin in Cantwell with a mere 4% battery life remaining.
This morning, we discovered JamJam's Sammich Stop in Cantwell, and his CCS charger, which allowed us to crawl back to 85% charge with 71kWh, for a mere $34. Very good sammiches, as well! Strongly recommend, 10/10.
Another final stop in Healy at ReCharge and we returned home.
The car performed brilliantly. The driver needs to learn a bit about how to do roadtrips in an EV, but I'm confident he'll manage that. A TeslaTap has been ordered, and we'll make sure to trust the battery gauge more than the GOM in future. Plus maybe stock some more foodstuffs in the car, just in case. Also we need to replace the windshield washer fluid Ford gave us because it smells like iodine antiseptic or something. Awful stuff.
All told we drove 1,100 miles and paid $79 for "fuel." Had we done this trip in our F-350 7.3l diesel, we would have spent about $350. If we can do this across Alaska with poor planning and a bad case of "not knowing what the hell we were doing," I think we've demonstrated that EVs can roadtrip virtually anywhere.
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