In anticipation of driving to Santa Cruz in mid-February, last Monday I drove from my home in Valley Village (North Hollywood) to Paso Robles (195 miles). Here are some of my observations:
My drive to Santa Cruz is about 330 miles and takes about 5 hours and 15 minutes of actual driving time, using Interstate 5, the fastest route and coming west either at the Pacheco Pass, Hiway 152 through Hollister to Watsonville to Santa Cruz or through Hiway 46 to US 101 (where James Dean died) and then taking 101 up to Salinas to Santa Cruz.
The problem is there currently are no DC Fast Chargers on Interstate 5 between Los Angeles (North of Castaic) and San Francisco. Hopefully NRG's EVGo and ChargePoint will fix this problem SOON!
This problem was alleviated when Chargepoint installed one at The Granary Building in Paso Robles near where Hiway 46 merges with US 101 and is about 196 miles from my home (and about 137 miles from my destination in Santa Cruz).
So, the question was, could I really make it to this charger in Paso Robles with the stated 220-230 mile capacity of the Chevy Bolt EV given the uphill drive North of Los Angeles through the Los Angeles National Forest to the Grapevine on Interstate 5?
Last Monday (January 30th) I determined the answer is easily YES!
I conservatively hypermiled the drive to be sure I would make it: no air conditioning (it was a mild day and I only used the fan). I usually drove 55-60 MHP and most of the time when not on the extreme uphill or downhill behind an 18 wheeler to get sucked into the vacuum created by his drive, with my cruise control at his speed of usually 60. I always drive in "L" to use regenerative braking.
I watched three gauges: the miles remaining on the battery (never completely accurate on my previous Chevy's Volt and now my Bolt EV as it is "environmentally" conditioned from previous days driving) but more accurately, the amount of KWh used (which will lower as the car regens electricity back into the battery) and of course the miles remaining to my destination on the NAV from my Apple CarPlay's NAV.
I started the trip with a 36 mile "gap" between battery range and actual miles to be driven. During the trip up towards the Grapevine this dropped to a minimum of 17. Once I passed the Tejon Summit and hit the downhill of the Grapevine, I got into the extreme right lane and was behind a car carrier that was going only 25-35 MPH (the speed limit for trucks in this lane is 45 to 35) with my flashers going.
I was able to regen a full 2 KWh's going down the Grapevine from 17.9KWh (having driven about 60 miles from home) back down to 15.9KWh about 5 miles later at the bottom. This added margin made the rest of the trip very comfortable even though I continued to hypermile, just to complete the experiment.
I reached Paso Robles at 3:10pm and started charging at 3:15pm with 70 miles "remaining" on the mileage gauge and 43.5 KWh used, so even if there was a problem with the single combo DC Fast Charger at this location in Paso Robles, I had plenty of juice left to backtrack 30 miles to San Luis Obispo to use one of the two combo chargers at the Marigold Center.

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While I was having "Happy Hour" ceviche at a local restaurant in "old town Paso Robles" down 12 Street, the charger had a "Fault-Interrupt" after about 40 minutes and stopped charging. I called Chargepoint and they restarted the charger and topped me off to 80% with no further charging. It appears that this DC Fast Charger will go past 80% (which is more important to me returning to Los Angeles, than it is going North to Santa Cruz), but with the interrupt it was not clear from this trip.
Cool Hand Luke's Steakhouse had by then opened for business (4pm) and I had some wings while the charging continued.
I will have more information when I make the full trip to Santa Cruz in about 10 days.
NOTE: I did stop for lunch at Chipolte at the bottom of the Grapevine and made a courtesy stop at the Tesla SuperCharger; the current chargees came over with interest and helped me out with a photo!