My apologies. 20 years in the airline industry causes me to use airport codes too much!
Nice I did a similar trip to Austin from Dallas. Which hotel did you end up staying at that head the free charging?Took my first road trip since putting wider GT PE wheels & tires onto my Premium AWD+ER, here's my review:
TL;DR: 211 miles each way with zero issues and my range seems largely unimpacted with these new, wider, stickier tires. BlueCruise is nice but not worth paying extra for IMO.
Details:
North Fort Worth to JW Marriot in Austin (right next to the Congress St. bridge with all the bats) and back.
June 17 outbound leg 211 mi:
The hotel valet charged my MME up to 100% via one of their Tesla Destination chargers (I have an adapter) which took about 8 or 9 hours.
- Left around 11:00 am
- Starting ambient temp: 95º F
- Starting SOC: 100%, GOM range estimate: 272 mi
- Apple Maps predicted I could make it without charging but I decided to stop at the Round Rock Outlet mall EA chargers just in case the hotel's L2 chargers weren't available.
- Arrived there with about 19% SOC and GOM showing ~50 mi range.
- Added 38kWh in 22 minutes bringing SOC to 62% and GOM showing ~150 mi
- Distance from start to EA station was about 189 mi
- Arrived at destination (27 more mi) around 3:00 pm
- Arrival ambient temp: 95º F
- Finishing GOM range estimate: 123 mi
- Subtract the 100 miles I added in Round Rock and I would have arrived with about 23 miles estimated. That's about 40 miles under the original GOM range but not surprising given the speeds I was driving (75-80 MPH most of the way)
June 24 return leg 211 mi:
As mentioned above, my speeds for most of the trip were between 75 and 80 MPH (5 over posted) except where traffic backed up in Waco (at the bridge they've been building for as long as I can remember) and as I entered the cities on each leg.
- Left around 10:00 am
- Starting ambient temp: 85º F
- Starting SOC: 100%, GOM range estimate: 254 mi
- Apple Maps again predicted I could make it without charging (and I did)
- Arrival ambient temp: 100º F
- Arrived home at 1:10 PM with 24% SOC remaining and GOM showing 63 mi range estimate
- That's about 20 miles better than the origin GOM estimation which is fairly surprising since there is a slight uphill elevation difference on this leg. (only 200 ft though)
This also was my first trip since getting BlueCruise added. It's nice, but I doubt I will pay to keep it after my free 1-year trial is up. It's just not that much better than standard lane-keeping and adaptive cruise control. Even with it active, I usually keep at least one hand on the bottom of the wheel anyway. It also is a little annoying when I put my hand on the top of the wheel for any amount of time because it complains that it cannot see my eyes.
Wow and lol. But then TX (I live in tiny NH). I've only had my car about a month (same trim as yours) so I'm driving it like a grandma and trying to hyper-mile like an EV nerd so I stress about going over 70 mph
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I was at the JW Marriot and, while the charging was free, parking there is extremely expensive. (My company paid for it hough
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Maybe I’m messing up Blue Cruise with active cruise control but Blue Cruise is totally worth it. Yesterday I followed a gas tanker (yeah, ironic) through some winding roads of New Hampshire and Massachusetts at 1am and just locked in behind him as he went about 6 miles above the speed limit. Made a late night two hour drive pretty easy.Secretly happy I hear another review that Blue Cruise is not worth it and glad I didn't pay to add it to my Select! Thanks for the story
The difference in efficiency between 70 and 80 mph is around 24%, which is very significant. However, if you have enough battery to make to your destination at 80 mph, don't worry about it. I only watch my speed when charging stops are farther away and am worried about making it.Wow and lol. But then TX (I live in tiny NH). I've only had my car about a month (same trim as yours) so I'm driving it like a grandma and trying to hyper-mile like an EV nerd so I stress about going over 70 mph
I'm apparently being very over cautious. Not to mention, I've taken no road trips over 90 miles one way. Most days I'm just doing my 12 mile commute. Setting the cruise control to 80 was my default in my Acura. I guess it is safe to say I could bump things up to 75 in my ME. In hindsight, for my lifestyle, getting the ER battery was likely overkill, added unnecessary weight to the car and set me back another $8K. First EV, live and learn.
Lastly, good to hear about the tires. Honestly, I'm fine with the stock tires (for now) with the exception of how they look (so skinny). Getting wider rubber would be more of a vanity issue for me right now. Maybe once the sting of the $990 registration and my first car payment in three years wears off, I'll splurge.
Thanks for your post!
Adaptive cruise control will do that and lane keeping does pretty much the same steering as BlueCruise but requires you to keep your hand on the wheel.
One of my trips yes! Very windy on my south trip. So windy was definitely a factor. On another trip, I actually could blame the heat (100F+) and lack of pre-conditioning. I added a scheduled departure only a little over an hour before I had to leave and the car was parked outside.
A steering yoke would help with that! There would be no other way hahaha[...] the safest would be both hands at 10 & 2 (or 9 & 3). [...]
Just messing w/ you. I’m a frequent flier and can track and get that completely.
