Southern California to Oregon and back 2000 mile road trip in 2021 Premium 4X Mach E

[leehinde]

Nice writeup!

I'm getting ready to take a similar trip. Starting in northern AZ and going into the LA valley and then up the 5 to the 99 to Redding.

Well, 5->99->5, if you're going to Redding.

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[DRCal68]

I did a similar trip recently riding as a passenger in a Model Y from Sacramento to northern Oregon. I was amazed at the Sutherlin stop to find 51 new Superchargers! Should be available to Fords next year.

The most pleasant stop was at Turtle Bay, Redding. It has 3 Chargepoint CCS and 8 Superchargers, plus many Level 2 chargers. It has walking trails, the beautiful walking/bike bridge over the Sacramento River, a museum, cafe, and restaurant.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Well, 5->99->5, if you're going to Redding.

Well, yes.

 

[mdolan92869]

Nice writeup!

I'm getting ready to take a similar trip. Starting in northern AZ and going into the LA valley and then up the 5 to the 99 to Redding. I'll be taking the 99 for similar reasons...also, it's just a less stressful highway for me. The trip will be a total of about 2300 miles for us since we'll be driving around at the two main destinations. It won't be the longest trip the Mustang has been on, but it'll be fun.

Northern Arizona meaning I-40? Unless you're stopping somewhere in the LA area, why not jump on CA-58 in Barstow to Bakersfield? I would hope a charge up in Barstow would get you there with no problems. Lets you avoid all of the LA traffic crap.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Northern Arizona meaning I-40? Unless you're stopping somewhere in the LA area, why not jump on CA-58 in Barstow to Bakersfield? I would hope a charge up in Barstow would get you there with no problems. Lets you avoid all of the LA traffic crap.

Normally we do go direct from Barstow to the 58 and up on the 99 from Bakersfield. But this time we have to make a couple day stop in LA for work and to visit family.

 

[Phil Martin]

This is why Ford made the right decision to adopt to the Tesla standard. I couldn't do this, plugging in at friends, waiting, getting a slow charge, a f'ing Rivian not even charging...wtf??. All this would piss me off big.

I'm sticking with gas for now.

 

[LUV_RED]

Nice write-up!
We just took a trip from San Diego to Fresno up 99, then up to Yosemite Valley and back to SD.

872 miles round trip and averaged 3.5 mi/kWh in a RWD Premium ER. Going up stayed between 70-75 mph but on the way back was 75-80 mph.

Charged in Santa Clarita at the Walmart EA. It was full and a Bolt was waiting, so ate lunch across the street first and when we returned the Bolt was the only EV charging. Just sat in the car for 30 min and then were on our way to Fresno. Several EA stations in Fresno to charge for our next days journey to Yosemite.

As soon as we pulled into the Yosemite Lodge parking lot, an Audi pulled out of one of the free Rivian L2 chargers, so we were able to charge up some while there. Made it back to the Selma Walmart EA station on the way back. Only one EV6 charging when we pulled up. Several places to eat across the street while we charged up. Made it back to Santa Clarita where we spent the night and charged there for the trip back home.

Yeah, on all of these EA chargers, only saw a max charge rate of 95kW. Also, saw the Bakersfield EA always full so avoided that.

Used the EA and plugshare apps. Used Android Auto for navigating to the next charging station. EA plug and charge worked the first time at all stations!

 

[kindofblue]

I keep ABRP, PlugShare, and ChargeHub on my phone for route planning, as each as some features the others don’t.

Thanks for the report. What does chargehub do that the others don't?

 

[HuntingPudel]

Thanks for the report. What does chargehub do that the others don't?

I guess I worded that poorly. ChargeHub and PlugShare are very similar. They are both crowdsourced, but since they likely have a different set of crowds with a large overlap they are complimentary sources of information with slightly different data sets.

 

[bbulkow]

Thanks for your writeup.

I did my first ever small road trip this weekend (bay area to reno and back), and my main move was to go EA only (I have all the other networks, but as a backup) because their stations are better for 400v architectures (unlike the 200kw EvGos which max at 75). With a few key destinations in mind on route, I could do the audible to decide whether to take a given one or the next... also calculating based on how tired I was and how much I wanted a break. I also had ABRP hooked up for realtime estimates with VEEPEAK bluetooth dongle, but I didn't use it much. If I had a tablet, I'd put ABRP on that. Right now only one app routes which is reasonable when you're driving, but I always want the one with the best routes.

Doing everything on the fly is annoying, but it is a roadtrip. You've got few other things to do. If I had a copilot it would have given them something to do, especially figure out of there were snacks near a charger.

Def. if there's an EA with 5 or 6 stations, and they're not maxed, that has to win over most possibilities. I was a little more nervous about Truckee (with only 3 stations), but it was perfectly fine, and there was a grocery store so I could stock up.

I was very nervous about range going over the i80 pass, just that it would be hard to predict. So right:, although also true in my gas cars. I now want a graph of elevation gain and loss vs efficiency.

Reno was a bit crazy: there is (literally) only one fast charger, which is a 50kw EVGO, although there is a small cluster of EA out in Sparks (10 minutes away, 3 working chargers). I found a bank of tesla destination chargers, but only by PlugShare (I have the converter) but it was full. in several drive-bys Finding a good L2 wherever you are staying seems hard.

I used Google Maps for actual point to point.

Picking up someone to draft behind is a massive major win, saw you talking about it too. Anytime I'd be worried about charge, grabbing a semi seems key. I was looking at CarScanner and the power output at 60mph behind a semi is almost nothing. OTOH, I was also drafting a new-model Ford Bronco at 75mph, and those are great windblocks. Even a motorhome didn't do as well for me.

 

[Doug&Julie]

Good stuff, thanks for the write up. Looks like the Northern California - Portland route is still pretty reliable. (?) We're likely doing that trip again this fall. Had no problems with it last summer...

 

[Deleted member 9461]

To my surprise the Rivian there was not charging and just idling. As time went on I was getting more p*ssed about waiting for no reason…finally he came out with his girlfriend, gave her a long kiss goodbye, and sauntered over to his truck. By this point an EQE had shown up and was now next after me…he tried to talk to me a bit about my car when I pointedly asked if he was done charging and got in and started my car to move into place………VERY frustrating that a local was clearly just not caring about others on road trips.

If you look in the rivian forum, there is some cali owners that aways gripe about other EV's on the 150 or 350 chargers in THEIR way... the BOLT on the 350,,,blah blah blah saw an altercation with a rivian driver and a military guy driving an ID4....
great write up....ARIGATO

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