Road Trip: 2570 Miles from Flagstaff to Houston and Back

[SpaceEVDriver]

I had a work conference in Houston. Usually I fly, but I wanted to push my comfort zone a bit and double my longest EV road trip by driving to the conference. I considered bringing my truck and travel trailer, but I didn't want to burn a bunch of gas and I have this wonderful EV. So, I packed up all my conference gear, threw some camping gear in and...

Well, first, I had to spend an extra couple of hours trying to finish preparations for my trip and didn't get going until much later than I had hoped. Which meant I would be meeting with my family for lunch later than I'd hoped and that I was probably going to end up getting to my hotel later than I'd hoped. Oh, well. It was cold and raining when I left Flagstaff.

The rough numbers for the trip are in a table at the end of this post. My average efficiency was 3.31 miles/kWh over the entire 2570 miles. That's an average range of about 304 miles, slightly less than the EPA-rated 312 miles my CR-1 is supposed to get in the EPA test. My average speed was 61 mph. I know a lot of you are going to look at that and think that's way too slow. But I suggest you look at your full trip data and not just at the time you spend on the freeway. Those 10 minutes at 25 mph you spend getting to the gas station cause your average speed to drop quite a bit. I kept my speed on the freeway at 73 mph when the speed limit was 75 and at 78 when the speed limit was 80. Otherwise I stayed at the speed limit. I did pass vehicles as necessary, pushing up into the 90s if the occasion warranted.

I decided for this trip that I would only look at ABRP if I really, really needed to. A week or so before I left, I'd looked at it and it wanted me to go all the way to Oklahoma City, OK, and I glanced at it again before leaving Houston and it was again giving me some terrible suggestions, so I just winged it.

There were a couple of instances where the charging wasn't perfect or nearly so. Sometimes my phone just didn't connect to the internet in time for the charger to recognize my payment, so I just tapped the payment reader with my credit card instead. That meant I paid a little bit more for the charge than I might otherwise have. Not a big deal. A couple of times a charging stall wasn't working, so I moved to another stall. Not once did I have a line or have to abandon a charging station.

Ford's navigation is poor. When I left the Woodlands toward Austin, I was lazy and asked Ford to navigate instead of doing my usual Google Maps until I was ~20 miles from the charger. Well, Ford navigated me to downtown Austin during SXSW and I could not get to the charger, so I had to reroute to a charging station about 20 miles north of Austin. That worked out just fine, but I really had to pee by the time I got there and ended up being a little rude to the poor woman asking me to buy some timeshare. Another instance of poor navigation was when Ford decided I was not going to make it to my destination in Deming, NM and rerouted me to a slower DC charger in Las Cruces. This was annoying, but I took the opportunity to get out and stretch and walk around. I needed the break, but the 40 kW charger was not my favorite so I only added 12% before I hit the road again.

I stayed at a hotel in Amarillo with a Tesla destination charger. I got there later than I had intended so I didn't get a full charge and ended up using the charger all night, which I felt badly for, but nobody unplugged me or otherwise bothered the Mustang.

I also stayed at the RV campground at the Caverns of Sonora. Only some of their sites had a 50A plug. I didn't know that and when I first parked, the outlets were a 30-TT (30A Travel Trailer) port and a 120 volt 15A port. I don't have a 30-TT adapter in the Mustang so I charged for an hour or so until I noticed some photos on Plugshare that indicated there were other ports and I went hunting for a 50A spot. I found one and got 3.3 kW for most of the night instead of 1 kW.

The last-minute decision to stay in Globe for the night meant I didn't have much luck finding a hotel with a slow charger, but I'd charged to 92% while eating dinner so it wasn't a big deal.

I didn't need to stop in Payson to charge, but it was a necessary stop for a bio break and to stretch my legs.

My stop in Albuquerque included some time chatting with a few other EV owners, including the owner of this Rivian R1T. This was their second R1T; they'd purchased the first edition and sold it for much more than they paid. They had not yet towed with it, which is what I want from an electric pickup.

In Tucumcari I charged next to another R1T, this one with manufacturer plates from Michigan, but the driver had a youngling with them so I didn't bother them with my burning questions.

A family with a Hyundai Ioniq 5 were towed into the Denton charging station. I didn't chat with them, but I did see them again in Huntsville, also being towed. I don't know what the issue was with their vehicle, but it must not have been just a charging issue.

In Austin, there were five Mustangs and a bunch of other EVs charging at the outlet mall. I didn't spend any time chatting as everyone was closed up in their cars. It was very cold and windy and had been raining between Houston and Austin.

A pretty picture of the Mustang at my camp site a the Caverns of Sonora.

The campsite had several peacocks wandering the grounds.

The Mustang is too short for me to sleep comfortably.

At the slow stop in Las Cruces, a $125k Mercedes pulled up to charge. I noticed the flaking paint on its rear hatch. I don't think I'd have been too happy about that...

The Mustang sipping at the Payson charger while I got some needed walking in.

A view of the frozen Mormon Lake and my mountain home, Dook'o'oosłííd.

Some data for the trip:

Leg	Length (miles)	Time (minutes)	Average Speed (mph)	Start SOC %	Arrival SOC %	Leave SOC %	kWh Used	Average Miles / kWh
Flagstaff to Gallup, NM	180	157	69	98	37	80	55.9	3.22
Gallup to ABQ	141	129	66	80	39	85	37.6	3.75
ABQ to Tucumari	175	148	71	85	34	72	46.8	3.74
Tucumari to Amarillo, TX	130	98	80	72	20	92*	47.7	2.73
Amarillo to Erick, OK	120	106	68	92*	47	82	41.3	2.91
Erick to Lawton*	120	138	52	82	40	81	38.4	3.13
Lawton to Denton, TX	153	138	67	81	20	90	55.9	2.74
Denton to Huntsville	213	187	68	90	18	80	66.0	3.23
Huntsville to The Woodlands	42	47	54	80	66	95*	12.8	3.28
The Woodlands to Austin*	190	226	50	95	19	84	69.7	2.73
Austin to Junction	147	157	56	84	28	80	51.4	2.86
Junction to Caverns of Sonora*	73	65	67	80	53	96*	24.8	2.94
Caverns of Sonora to Ft. Stockton	144	140	62	96	32	90	58.7	2.45
Ft. Stockton to Van Horn	118	157	45	90	41	84	44.9	2.63
Van Horn to Las Cruces, NM	164	141	70	84	29	41	50.4	3.25
Las Cruces to Deming	60	60	60	41	21	84	18.3	3.26
Deming to Globe, AZ*	213	209	61	84	22	92*	56.9	3.74
Globe to Payson	82	93	53	90*	64	75	23.8	3.45
Payson to Flagstaff	105	127	50	75	43	--	29.3	3.58

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[Mach-Lee]

Yeah, the Ford nav just does not have that good of routing. I've observed some crazy nonsense routing too. I think it's because the map data they use sucks and has wrong or missing speed limits and road types. It may think a highway has a 35 mph speed limit (when it's actually 65 MPH), and instead route you on a frontage road that has a known 45 mph speed limit. When the nav does the calculation, the back roads route will appear faster than the highways because of the erroneous data. It's really a case of garbage in, garbage out. That's not going to change until Ford switches data providers or crowdsources their own speed limit data.

Unfortunately we have to use the Ford nav to get preconditioning.

 

[kennethjk]

Another issue I have had with Ford Nav, for example, it doesn’t always show Florida Power and light’s fast chargers.

I was just a few miles from one on the Florida turnpike and opened the Nav to look for chargers and the Florida P& L didn’t show up until we were right on them.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Yeah, the Ford nav just does not have that good of routing. I've observed some crazy nonsense routing too. I think it's because the map data they use sucks and has wrong or missing speed limits and road types. It may think a highway has a 35 mph speed limit (when it's actually 65 MPH), and instead route you on a frontage road that has a known 45 mph speed limit. When the nav does the calculation, the back roads route will appear faster than the highways because of the erroneous data. It's really a case of garbage in, garbage out. That's not going to change until Ford switches data providers or crowdsources their own speed limit data.

Unfortunately we have to use the Ford nav to get preconditioning.

Yeah. I don't trust Ford Nav most of the time and just had forgotten not to use it until just before I arrive. Many, many times it navigates me off the highway and then back on immediately. So bizarre.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Another issue I have had with Ford Nav, for example, it doesn’t always show Florida Power and light’s fast chargers.

I was just a few miles from one on the Florida turnpike and opened the Nav to look for chargers and the Florida P& L didn’t show up until we were right on them.

Are those part of the Blue Oval network?
Their filtering for charging stations is also terrible.

 

[kennethjk]

Are those part of the Blue Oval network?
Their filtering for charging stations is also terrible.

Don’t Know about the Blue Oval Network but you are right, filtering is terrible.

I just looked at the car and it seems those selections have changed. Up to 22kw, up to 100kw and over 100kw

i wouldn’t mind - 1: 150 kw or more- 2: 50-150 as another one , also a combination of 2 of them would be good but I don’t think you can do that. It’s either all or 1 selection

 

[RKinWA]

I had a work conference in Houston. Usually I fly, but I wanted to push my comfort zone a bit and double my longest EV road trip by driving to the conference. I considered bringing my truck and travel trailer, but I didn't want to burn a bunch of gas and I have this wonderful EV. So, I packed up all my conference gear, threw some camping gear in and...

Well, first, I had to spend an extra couple of hours trying to finish preparations for my trip and didn't get going until much later than I had hoped. Which meant I would be meeting with my family for lunch later than I'd hoped and that I was probably going to end up getting to my hotel later than I'd hoped. Oh, well. It was cold and raining when I left Flagstaff.

The rough numbers for the trip are in a table at the end of this post. My average efficiency was 3.31 miles/kWh over the entire 2570 miles. That's an average range of about 304 miles, slightly less than the EPA-rated 312 miles my CR-1 is supposed to get in the EPA test. My average speed was 61 mph. I know a lot of you are going to look at that and think that's way too slow. But I suggest you look at your full trip data and not just at the time you spend on the freeway. Those 10 minutes at 25 mph you spend getting to the gas station cause your average speed to drop quite a bit. I kept my speed on the freeway at 73 mph when the speed limit was 75 and at 78 when the speed limit was 80. Otherwise I stayed at the speed limit. I did pass vehicles as necessary, pushing up into the 90s if the occasion warranted.

I decided for this trip that I would only look at ABRP if I really, really needed to. A week or so before I left, I'd looked at it and it wanted me to go all the way to Oklahoma City, OK, and I glanced at it again before leaving Houston and it was again giving me some terrible suggestions, so I just winged it.

There were a couple of instances where the charging wasn't perfect or nearly so. Sometimes my phone just didn't connect to the internet in time for the charger to recognize my payment, so I just tapped the payment reader with my credit card instead. That meant I paid a little bit more for the charge than I might otherwise have. Not a big deal. A couple of times a charging stall wasn't working, so I moved to another stall. Not once did I have a line or have to abandon a charging station.

Ford's navigation is poor. When I left the Woodlands toward Austin, I was lazy and asked Ford to navigate instead of doing my usual Google Maps until I was ~20 miles from the charger. Well, Ford navigated me to downtown Austin during SXSW and I could not get to the charger, so I had to reroute to a charging station about 20 miles north of Austin. That worked out just fine, but I really had to pee by the time I got there and ended up being a little rude to the poor woman asking me to buy some timeshare. Another instance of poor navigation was when Ford decided I was not going to make it to my destination in Deming, NM and rerouted me to a slower DC charger in Las Cruces. This was annoying, but I took the opportunity to get out and stretch and walk around. I needed the break, but the 40 kW charger was not my favorite so I only added 12% before I hit the road again.

I stayed at a hotel in Amarillo with a Tesla destination charger. I got there later than I had intended so I didn't get a full charge and ended up using the charger all night, which I felt badly for, but nobody unplugged me or otherwise bothered the Mustang.

I also stayed at the RV campground at the Caverns of Sonora. Only some of their sites had a 50A plug. I didn't know that and when I first parked, the outlets were a 30-TT (30A Travel Trailer) port and a 120 volt 15A port. I don't have a 30-TT adapter in the Mustang so I charged for an hour or so until I noticed some photos on Plugshare that indicated there were other ports and I went hunting for a 50A spot. I found one and got 3.3 kW for most of the night instead of 1 kW.

The last-minute decision to stay in Globe for the night meant I didn't have much luck finding a hotel with a slow charger, but I'd charged to 92% while eating dinner so it wasn't a big deal.

I didn't need to stop in Payson to charge, but it was a necessary stop for a bio break and to stretch my legs.

My stop in Albuquerque included some time chatting with a few other EV owners, including the owner of this Rivian R1T. This was their second R1T; they'd purchased the first edition and sold it for much more than they paid. They had not yet towed with it, which is what I want from an electric pickup.

In Tucumcari I charged next to another R1T, this one with manufacturer plates from Michigan, but the driver had a youngling with them so I didn't bother them with my burning questions.

A family with a Hyundai Ioniq 5 were towed into the Denton charging station. I didn't chat with them, but I did see them again in Huntsville, also being towed. I don't know what the issue was with their vehicle, but it must not have been just a charging issue.

In Austin, there were five Mustangs and a bunch of other EVs charging at the outlet mall. I didn't spend any time chatting as everyone was closed up in their cars. It was very cold and windy and had been raining between Houston and Austin.

A pretty picture of the Mustang at my camp site a the Caverns of Sonora.

The campsite had several peacocks wandering the grounds.

The Mustang is too short for me to sleep comfortably.

At the slow stop in Las Cruces, a $125k Mercedes pulled up to charge. I noticed the flaking paint on its rear hatch. I don't think I'd have been too happy about that...

The Mustang sipping at the Payson charger while I got some needed walking in.

A view of the frozen Mormon Lake and my mountain home, Dook'o'oosłííd.

Some data for the trip:

Leg	Length (miles)	Time (minutes)	Average Speed (mph)	Start SOC %	Arrival SOC %	Leave SOC %	kWh Used	Average Miles / kWh
Flagstaff to Gallup, NM	180	157	69	98	37	80	55.9	3.22
Gallup to ABQ	141	129	66	80	39	85	37.6	3.75
ABQ to Tucumari	175	148	71	85	34	72	46.8	3.74
Tucumari to Amarillo, TX	130	98	80	72	20	92*	47.7	2.73
Amarillo to Erick, OK	120	106	68	92*	47	82	41.3	2.91
Erick to Lawton*	120	138	52	82	40	81	38.4	3.13
Lawton to Denton, TX	153	138	67	81	20	90	55.9	2.74
Denton to Huntsville	213	187	68	90	18	80	66.0	3.23
Huntsville to The Woodlands	42	47	54	80	66	95*	12.8	3.28
The Woodlands to Austin*	190	226	50	95	19	84	69.7	2.73
Austin to Junction	147	157	56	84	28	80	51.4	2.86
Junction to Caverns of Sonora*	73	65	67	80	53	96*	24.8	2.94
Caverns of Sonora to Ft. Stockton	144	140	62	96	32	90	58.7	2.45
Ft. Stockton to Van Horn	118	157	45	90	41	84	44.9	2.63
Van Horn to Las Cruces, NM	164	141	70	84	29	41	50.4	3.25
Las Cruces to Deming	60	60	60	41	21	84	18.3	3.26
Deming to Globe, AZ*	213	209	61	84	22	92*	56.9	3.74
Globe to Payson	82	93	53	90*	64	75	23.8	3.45
Payson to Flagstaff	105	127	50	75	43	--	29.3	3.58

Great write-up! Thanks for this. I was thinking of taking a road trip from Seattle to Sedona, AZ. It says 29hrs driving and 11hrs charging. Not sure if I am ready for that commitment, might just rent an ICE vehicle instead

 

[AlpaChino]

You're lucky that peacock didn't try and mate with your car, or fight it.

Awesome post! Thank you.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Great write-up! Thanks for this. I was thinking of taking a road trip from Seattle to Sedona, AZ. It says 29hrs driving and 11hrs charging. Not sure if I am ready for that commitment, might just rent an ICE vehicle instead

In my experience, the EV route planners over estimate the number of charging stops and the length of each stop. I find a 6%-10% increase in time of travel is a good 1-day estimate.

 

[RKinWA]

In my experience, the EV route planners over estimate the number of charging stops and the length of each stop. I find a 6%-10% increase in time of travel is a good 1-day estimate.

Good to know. Still trying to get a handle on the route planning chargers.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Good to know. Still trying to get a handle on the route planning chargers.

For this trip, which I've never done before, I decided to avoid spending a ton of time on planning each stop before leaving. I just took a look at the spacing of the charging stations before I left. Then I looked for my next charger while I was charging, mostly using PlugShare because that gives me the most up-to-date information about charger status. Then I'd plug that location into Google Maps for navigation. If the charger was in the Ford Blue Oval network, I'd add it as a destination when I was about 30 km (20 miles) away.

It was a lot less stressful for me... Once I have a plan, I'm reluctant to (and stressed if I must) change it, so I just didn't make a full driving plan.

 

[azerik]

Oh hey! You made it back just in time for another snow lol!

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Oh hey! You made it back just in time for another snow lol!

Lolsob

I'm ready for sunshine.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Great write-up! Thanks for this. I was thinking of taking a road trip from Seattle to Sedona, AZ. It says 29hrs driving and 11hrs charging. Not sure if I am ready for that commitment, might just rent an ICE vehicle instead

Oh, also, chat with @TurboC who is running this trip right now. All the way down to Phoenix.

 

[RKinWA]

Oh, also, chat with @TurboC who is running this trip right now. All the way down to Phoenix.

Oh nice thanks

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