First big road trip with Cheddar! 21 GT

[tesla2mme]

im going up to big sur from orange this weekend. i have free charging with EA but they have too many broken chargers. Glad you didn't have to stop safely now

Man, we had a "stop safely now" scare a few weeks back where it had a number of "power train module" failures. Coincidentally, that was our first HOT (105 degrees F) day and the car had baked out in the sun at my wife's work. She didn't precondition the car so that may or may not have contributed to the issue.

I actually took Cheddar into Ford and they looked at her and said, "Can't see anything wrong with the car so... uhh, until it breaks... uhh... keep driving it..." Cool, thanks for that. We took the plunge to Pismo and did not have to stop safely now

I love EA chargers when they work. The infrastructure needs a lot of help. I think that and the 5 second rule are my biggest gripes in the switch from the Tesla to the MME. The screens get burnt out like old Redbox machines and you can hardly see if the station is on or not before you're actually out of the car. Ugh, so annoying, the app is rarely correct on how many are "X/Y available." I still have 300~ KWH "free" also in EA so we try to use those first when we elect to deep fry our battery

Safe travels to Big Sur, that's beautiful country!

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[tesla2mme]

Great write up and love the pictures. I went to school in SLO so I have fond memories of that area, but not of the drive from SLO to the Bay Area. Too long in my slow, non-air conditioned 1967 Mustang. I now know of three of us now in the Bay Area (hopefully more will chime in) that have Cyber Oranage GT's. Looks like your in Oakland, so we you (Cheddar) in the east bay, Mach-N-Cheese in Sunnyvale and me (still waiting on my custom plate to name my car) in the southbay.

SLO is gorgeous. The farmer's market was so cool! What a treat. I went to UC Davis and SLO reminded me of Davis, except near the coast and it didn't smell like cows. I made a similar drive in my similarly non-AC'd 1968 Mustang (T code Granada swap to V8) in those ancient days of the early 2000s... that was serious soggy-bottom days (more commonly known as swamp ass according to my 12 year old...) and that drive was way better this time. LOL

I got some great photos with MachnChz when @scoopman graciously hosted us to do FDRS work on our cars. That was the closest to a car meet I've been to since the FnF glory days of 1999-2003.

 

[tesla2mme]

Great pictures and trip report.

Many EA Walmart locations have Handicap accessible chargers located near the front of the parking lot and the main charging locations in the back corner.

I have been eying Walmarts now like they are In-N-Outs checking for the locations of the chargers. My wife thinks I'm crazy. It's all for science I tell her in case we need to use one in the future.

It's smart science. I did NOT do very much homework on our trip, we didn't use ABRP or anything, just on-board Nav and EA app thru CarPlay, just to see the most realistic interpretation of what "normies" probably do, not hardcore users like us who seek out Reddit and forum experiences ^.^ The whole ABRP thing reminds me starkly of the MapQuest days... I forgot to print out return directions once, what a nightmare, haha.

I encountered one WalMart in the central valley which had a full 50% of its spots dedicated to disabled vehicle charging. It would be nice if there's a way to not be an @$$hole and leave it open for disabled persons, but also avail ourselves of the juice if no one else is using it...

 

[tesla2mme]

Thanks for letting us live your trip vicariously! Great write-up. Sounds like you had fun.

Lots of fun. BEST part was, the kids were with grandma. LOL

 

[HuntingPudel]

In case you’re interested (probably not, but what the heck?) I posted my trip last month from the Bay Area to WA here:

https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/gt-pe-bay-area-to-washington-and-back.17557/

 

[macheez]

Lovely!! I'm a fellow CO GTPE owner in Oakland Hope to spot you on the road one of these days!

 

[Peaceowl]

Maybe we can find some great charger areas and not tell anyon! the net can ruin us! Lol

 

[JohnFoxeSheets]

Good on the OP for realizing his 3m/kWh was due to the combination of city and highway driving. My lifetime average over 10,000 miles I think is 2.9.

FWIW, my GT with 2,700+ miles on it has averaged 3.0m/kWh since "birth". This is in hilly San Francisco, though obviously our winter, such as it is, is far more mild than those in Wisconsin.

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