A
Anonymous
Guest
So I finally got to do my oft-delayed trip to Northern California on April 14th:
I started from home in Valley Village of course fully charged and headed up the 170 to Interstate 5 driving in the HOV lane as the Friday traffic north was already picking up. A Tesla was showing off his "stuff" by zipping in and out of the HOV lane and I was tempted to follow, but I did not want to burn off extra KWh's at this point!
It was a mild day, so I only used the fan and not the air conditioner. Some times in the Central Valley, I opened the windows and I am not sure how to compute the air drag's effect on mileage, but it did not seem to drop off much compared to other similar drives.
At about 70 miles and 19KWh used, I was at the top of the Grapevine. I pulled over to the rightmost lane and followed an 18 wheeler down so as to be able to drive as slowly as possible safely and regenerate as much as possible. I regained 1.5 KWh in the 5 miles down the Grapevine at about 45 MPH downhill (I had previously regained 2.0 KWh behind a car carrier driving 35MPH).
I then drove up I-5 to Los Hills and moved over to Hiway-46 for the 60 mile drive west to US-101 and Paso Robles and The Granary Building Chargepoint DCFC. The drive as just under 200 miles and I had plenty of miles/KWh to spare. If this solo charger was not functioning my backup plan was to drive down to San Luis Obispo, admittedly out of my way, but workable. King City to the north appears to be too far on the original charge.
Plugshare comments indicated that this DCFC was charging at only about 24KWh and my experience was about the same. I reported it to the Customer Service Rep as I called it to start the charge. So my expected 1.5 hour charge took 2.5 hours. Normally I could stop after 1 hour as Santa Cruz is only 135 miles away.
The remainder of the drive was in the evening. As I was being passed by some black hot 2 seater sports low to the ground sports car, and having plenty of KWh, I decided it was time to follow in close pursuit! Speeds went up into the 90s and of course my governor kicked in! I watched as my mileage gauge burned off mileage quickly!
I made it into Santa Cruz with only 23 miles left on the mileage gauge, but never felt any range anxiety getting there! It was easily the high speed pursuits that burned up my expected extra range!
I had my AV TurboCord with me and my host only had 120v available. Since we were going to be driving up to Benicia together, I needed a quicker chargeup. The normal DCFC at Whole Foods was not functioning according to Plugshare, so we went down the road to Capitola and used the EVGo to get up to 80%, at 3-30 minute intervals! We then topped off at 120v at home in preparation for the drive to Port Costa and Benicia. (Hiway 17 to 280 to 680)
The 90 mile drive to Port Costa and then later to Benicia was uneventful. I plugged the AV TurboCord in at 120V and was able to have the 36 hours necessary to achieve a full charge for the drive back to Santa Cruz.
For the drive home from Santa Cruz, I wanted to do a full Central Valley route to mimic my normal driving pattern, once DCFC's are available on Interstate-5. I like the "scenic route" so I drove Hiway-1 through Watsonville to Hiway-129 through Hollister, with a slight bit of US-101 NORTH to Hiway-25 through San Juan Batista to Hiway-156 ultimate catching up to Hiway-152 through the Pacheco Pass.
Normally this would take me to Interstate-5, but this time, I continued past Los Banos to Hiway-99 and then south through the many towns of the Central Valley. I expected to stop at the DCFC at the Holiday Inn in Selma CA and then another charge at the Bridgeport Marketplace down in Newhall.
But unexpectedly, I was making great mileage following trucks in the right lane at 55-60 MPH and was able to make it all the way to the Delano DCFC EVGo at Walmart, 225 miles total, with 6KWh to spare! This boost gave me the added advantage of being able to make it all the way to Hancock Park (my destination, 9 miles past my home) without the need for an additional stop for charging with 50 miles to spare!
I will analyze the cost of the Chargepoint vs. EVGo and post later.
I started from home in Valley Village of course fully charged and headed up the 170 to Interstate 5 driving in the HOV lane as the Friday traffic north was already picking up. A Tesla was showing off his "stuff" by zipping in and out of the HOV lane and I was tempted to follow, but I did not want to burn off extra KWh's at this point!
It was a mild day, so I only used the fan and not the air conditioner. Some times in the Central Valley, I opened the windows and I am not sure how to compute the air drag's effect on mileage, but it did not seem to drop off much compared to other similar drives.
At about 70 miles and 19KWh used, I was at the top of the Grapevine. I pulled over to the rightmost lane and followed an 18 wheeler down so as to be able to drive as slowly as possible safely and regenerate as much as possible. I regained 1.5 KWh in the 5 miles down the Grapevine at about 45 MPH downhill (I had previously regained 2.0 KWh behind a car carrier driving 35MPH).
I then drove up I-5 to Los Hills and moved over to Hiway-46 for the 60 mile drive west to US-101 and Paso Robles and The Granary Building Chargepoint DCFC. The drive as just under 200 miles and I had plenty of miles/KWh to spare. If this solo charger was not functioning my backup plan was to drive down to San Luis Obispo, admittedly out of my way, but workable. King City to the north appears to be too far on the original charge.
Plugshare comments indicated that this DCFC was charging at only about 24KWh and my experience was about the same. I reported it to the Customer Service Rep as I called it to start the charge. So my expected 1.5 hour charge took 2.5 hours. Normally I could stop after 1 hour as Santa Cruz is only 135 miles away.
The remainder of the drive was in the evening. As I was being passed by some black hot 2 seater sports low to the ground sports car, and having plenty of KWh, I decided it was time to follow in close pursuit! Speeds went up into the 90s and of course my governor kicked in! I watched as my mileage gauge burned off mileage quickly!
I made it into Santa Cruz with only 23 miles left on the mileage gauge, but never felt any range anxiety getting there! It was easily the high speed pursuits that burned up my expected extra range!
I had my AV TurboCord with me and my host only had 120v available. Since we were going to be driving up to Benicia together, I needed a quicker chargeup. The normal DCFC at Whole Foods was not functioning according to Plugshare, so we went down the road to Capitola and used the EVGo to get up to 80%, at 3-30 minute intervals! We then topped off at 120v at home in preparation for the drive to Port Costa and Benicia. (Hiway 17 to 280 to 680)
The 90 mile drive to Port Costa and then later to Benicia was uneventful. I plugged the AV TurboCord in at 120V and was able to have the 36 hours necessary to achieve a full charge for the drive back to Santa Cruz.
For the drive home from Santa Cruz, I wanted to do a full Central Valley route to mimic my normal driving pattern, once DCFC's are available on Interstate-5. I like the "scenic route" so I drove Hiway-1 through Watsonville to Hiway-129 through Hollister, with a slight bit of US-101 NORTH to Hiway-25 through San Juan Batista to Hiway-156 ultimate catching up to Hiway-152 through the Pacheco Pass.
Normally this would take me to Interstate-5, but this time, I continued past Los Banos to Hiway-99 and then south through the many towns of the Central Valley. I expected to stop at the DCFC at the Holiday Inn in Selma CA and then another charge at the Bridgeport Marketplace down in Newhall.
But unexpectedly, I was making great mileage following trucks in the right lane at 55-60 MPH and was able to make it all the way to the Delano DCFC EVGo at Walmart, 225 miles total, with 6KWh to spare! This boost gave me the added advantage of being able to make it all the way to Hancock Park (my destination, 9 miles past my home) without the need for an additional stop for charging with 50 miles to spare!
I will analyze the cost of the Chargepoint vs. EVGo and post later.
