Sounds like a nice trip. Re North Carolina, I have made the trip (South Jersey to Florida) multiple times and I'm pretty sure that most of NC north to south is a slow, steady increase in elevation. So you don't really notice it but it's a slight uphill route through most of the state.

The CarPlay/USB issue is such an annoyance. I finally was able to show it happening at my dealer and they deemed it a warranty issue (which of course it is) and ordered the parts (or so they thought they did). I left the car off for the repair and half way through the day got a very apologetic call that they thought they had the right part but were wrong. So it's being ordered again and I continue to wait patiently....

 

I have used HDA plenty of times and have liked it. I REALLY LOVED it for this trip. Used it for 99.9% of the time. Made the 12-14hour driving stretches sooooo relaxing. I've done 12 hours and more of driving before with cruise control but this made it a lot easier and made the time go faster with the lane keeping. HDA was fine with tractor trailers and traffic on all sides. HDA is also great in stop/go traffic. Don't have to pay too much attention. The car automatically stars, crawls along and stops. The I5 was very comfortable.

It's really a testimony to how far charging has come CCS wise that you made this trip at a time that many youtube reviewers are working really hard to convince people to be afraid to drive 500 miles, let alone 3,500.

Your feedback on HDA is spot on, I love how it lets of the accelerator when someone moves in front of you instead of jamming on the brakes! I've got another 1,000 mile trip coming up for the July 4th weekend and will give your strategy of 80-85 with stops every 150 miles to top off a try.

 

73-75 was the speed for most of the trip. Speed limits were mostly 70. (In my ICE I normally keep it to 10 above or less. Police won’t bother you). Down in south Florida there were a lot of cars doing 80+. I also never am the first car going that fast. Let any police pick off that first guy

 

Curious about how close you are drafting trucks? Having a hybrid, I don't get instant energy readouts on methodology, but trying to draft 1 to 3 car lengths behind trucks resulted in intolerable buffeting. Getting inside 1 car length reduced buffeting but is of course tremendously unsafe and would be a ticket magnet doing it for any length of time.

 

Distance is HDA minimum which is I guess 1 1/2 car lengths. Nothing illegal there. That is the distance I keep it set at 100% of the time.

 

South East FL has loads of EA as well as other brands. West FL around FT Myers and going across central.....EA desert. Wow.

F'in Car Play. Another saga (and posts elsewhere). Solid for a week and a half of driving, then it just would not connect for several days! I was getting pissed because I wanted waze up on the display......and it decided to work when we were leaving.

Complete CCS charging desert. Half the random chargers installed (Duke, Greenlots, etc) are broken or in one case in Sebring the CCS connector would NOT lock but allowed me to charge. This is a giant safety issue as I could wiggle the connector and yank it out and it would be spewing 50kW of power (and probably arc-ing and scarring me). Basically stay on the interstates when traveling with an EV.

As for CarPlay... it's Satan's spawn.

73-75 was the speed for most of the trip. Speed limits were mostly 70. (In my ICE I normally keep it to 10 above or less. Police won’t bother you). Down in south Florida there were a lot of cars doing 80+. I also never am the first car going that fast. Let any police pick off that first guy

80+ is nothing. I-75... towards Gainesville.. the regular speed is 85mph.

Heck the i-95 stretch towards Jacksonville...80mph is slow.

Also once you go over 75mph the front motor engages and AWD efficiency takes a crap - so 73-75mph is probably the best speed for us.

 

Also once you go over 75mph the front motor engages and AWD efficiency takes a crap - so 73-75mph is probably the best speed for us

Not in Eco mode, I thought? (Or if the cruise control / HDA is engaged)

 

Nice! I've made the same trip, South Jersey to Charlotte, orlando, then back. I found that was the best way to road trip, drive fast and charge fast. I have an SEL so smaller 19" wheels, I was able to employ a couple hypermiling tricks including overinflating the tires to 46psi for an extra few miles of range. I'd generally get around 180-200 miles on a charge with speeds between 75-90 and temps between 40 and 70.

 

I found driving in Normal mode with brake regen 2 is my most efficient driving. This way when you are going up hills it doesn't accelerate too fast, sometimes I put it in 0 to coast/gain speed down hills. At one point I was at 3.1 mi/kWh (70mph or so) and then straight down a hill it recouped a lot of battery.

Thats awesome the amount of miles you put on and not have to worry too much and keep your speed up. Plugshare app is good for checking what stalls are working but you have to click on comments. I was glued to Plugshare because going from MD to upstate NY there was Harrisburg, PA (100 or so miles from our house - 15 mins out of the way) or Scranton, PA EA station which was 220 miles away in a charging desert, so if that didn't work it was Level 2 for 1hr+ to make it to Binghamton, NY.

 

I found driving in Normal mode with brake regen 2 is my most efficient driving. This way when you are going up hills it doesn't accelerate too fast, sometimes I put it in 0 to coast/gain speed down hills. At one point I was at 3.1 mi/kWh (70mph or so) and then straight down a hill it recouped a lot of battery.

Thats awesome the amount of miles you put on and not have to worry too much and keep your speed up. Plugshare app is good for checking what stalls are working but you have to click on comments. I was glued to Plugshare because going from MD to upstate NY there was Harrisburg, PA (100 or so miles from our house - 15 mins out of the way) or Scranton, PA EA station which was 220 miles away in a charging desert, so if that didn't work it was Level 2 for 1hr+ to make it to Binghamton, NY.

I was in HDA the whole time. Regen level setting is not applicable in HDA. The only consideration is how smoothly you want it to be if you pause or kick it out of HDA. For that Auto works best.

Yes i checked plugshare, but it is only as good as the review input. Status can change day to day. I did leave some reviews.

 

I`ve never driven an EV in the US but I may be visiting the US in the Spring with a possible EV rental. Route could be Eastern time zone only or could include Las Vegas (1-way) at the most. I may end up doing anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand miles.

If affordable, is a Tesla a no brainer when renting for long distance drives?

A lot of these EA sites have multiple chargers. How common is it that you can´t get a charge from any of them.

I am curious to know what % of the time you get a successful charge. Let´s define a successful charge as the car is charging within 15 minutes of arriving at the site, and the charge rate is at least 40kW to 80%. What % of the time do you get a successful charge at EA?

And what is the strategy - e.g. if the chargers are spaced 70 miles apart, would it make sense to always stop with 100 miles range so you can get to the next one if it fails? Whereas with Superchargers I believe it´s safe to arrive at a site with 5 miles range remaining and no backup plan.

 

I`ve never driven an EV in the US but I may be visiting the US in the Spring with a possible EV rental. Route could be Eastern time zone only or could include Las Vegas (1-way) at the most. I may end up doing anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand miles.

If affordable, is a Tesla a no brainer when renting for long distance drives?

A lot of these EA sites have multiple chargers. How common is it that you can´t get a charge from any of them.

I am curious to know what % of the time you get a successful charge. Let´s define a successful charge as the car is charging within 15 minutes of arriving at the site, and the charge rate is at least 40kW to 80%. What % of the time do you get a successful charge at EA?

And what is the strategy - e.g. if the chargers are spaced 70 miles apart, would it make sense to always stop with 100 miles range so you can get to the next one if it fails? Whereas with Superchargers I believe it´s safe to arrive at a site with 5 miles range remaining and no backup plan.

By your definition of successful, I have only had one failure at an Electrify America location: There was a line waiting for chargers at the South Las Vegas Premium Outlet location when we went through there last May. It took about 20 minutes waiting for my turn at a charger. All my other road trip EA charging stops have had at least one functional charger free when I arrived. I don’t recall getting as low as 40 kW when my SOC was less than 80%. Usually I am seeing at least 140 kW on the older 150 kW chargers and almost always above 200 kW on the 350 kW chargers.

There have been times when it took several tries to get the charging started. I usually use the EA "card" in my iPhone wallet but sometimes that does not work and I need to use the app. Once I needed to call EA. And there have been a few times where I had to move from one charger at a location to another. That is annoying and contributes to the feeling that Electrify America chargers are unreliable and/or temperamental. But by your definition of a successful charging stop those would not be a fail as I was able to get a session started within 15 minutes and once started they have all been above 40 kW.

One Electrify America issue you don’t mention: They are often a bit out of the way, several miles off your route. It doesn’t matter what your route is, most of the EA chargers will require a detour to get to.

 

And thank you both for your comments.

I watched a couple of Youtube videos as well last night and it looks like the situation is a bit better than I had previously thought. I've heard a lot of negatives comments about EA - usually from my professional connections on Linked In - as I'm but when you look into it a lot of them are comments where although the experience was mediocre it did actually work, even if it took a phone call, moving to another charger, or trying a different payment method.

They key issue for me is that a lot of the EA sites in the US seem to have about 4 chargers and total failures across the entire site seem to be rare. Here in Chile when I've done road trips there is usually for now 1 charger at each site.

For me the only issue with Tesla is what if I need a car for so long it costs $2000 to rent a Tesla and someone is offering another EV for say $1200 for the same amount of time. Then using EA starts to look worth putting up with.

On one of the videos with EA it seemed to be charging automatically somehow, without taking a credit card out of wallet or opening an app on your phone (it was definitely EA, not a supercharger). Is that possible with EA if you preregister something? I read a couple of articles and it looks from the articles that you need a card or an app to make it work.

Here is the video:

Watch from 7.10 to 8.00 only
All he does is plug it in and it charges - with EA
Actually at 7.45 he does seem to be touching his phone in the reflection on the screen now I watch it again, he just doesn't mention it

Coming from abroad I would be worried that my phone might not work without wifi, or that payment card might be rejected. It does say they accept Visa and Mastercard and I assume they accept foreign cards but might be worth double checking with the rental company. Of course the other problem is that the banks often reject cards in foreign countries you've just arrived to, so there is that potential hassle. Usually having 3+ cards is the best solution for that.

I suspect in practice with EA 400 mile days would be chill, but trying to a 600 mile day would be better with Superchargers.

 

Esteban,

Traveling to a foreign country can be complicated enough (first time in the US?). Why complicate it even more with an EV? Get a conventional car.

There are a lot of other charger networks across the country. Download plugshare app which will tell you chargers in your travel area.

The complications list goes on and on. You are highlighting phone and credit card questions. The various charger networks will require different apps, methods of payment etc

If you must, Tesla would be the way to go, no question. Any other vehicle, you have to rely on apps to find chargers and a multitude of charging networks

Do you speak fluent english? If you need assistance with the charger, that could complicate it further.

 

I have rented exactly one EV (Tesla MY) on the mainland US for a whopping total of 2 days of usage, so my experience is extremely limited. I rented through Hertz, and my 3 supercharging experiences were flawless -- I plugged in, it charged, and the charges were somehow routed through Hertz and ended up on the same card I used to pay Hertz for the rental. I can't say if your experience would be any different using a foreign card -- I would think not if Hertz, for example, was able to successfully charge to that card to get the money for the rental fees, but no guarantees.

I am signed up now for another US mainland Hertz Tesla rental (M3) for 2-1/2 weeks. It was actually cheaper to rent this car than any other car, including a rinky-dink Kia Rio ICE. That may have been because of my rental location (non-airport in a not-EV-crazy part of Pennsylvania). I could have rented a Polestar from Avis for even less, and I would have (better car?!), but that would have forced me to CCS-charge in a pretty CCS-deprived area.

Good luck with your visit!

 

It was interesting to see the Ops remarks on SW Florida being a charging dessert. I took a trip last week from Ft.Myers to Winter Haven. Absolutely zero charging opportunities up the center of the state. The main 2 lane road had an accident and was shut down on return and I had to take a long detour. 230 miles round trip. Thankfully I drove conservatively on the way up and averaged 3.9 miles/kwh. Wound up with 30% left (RWD).

 

There’s one DC charger in Sebring lol.

On the north side of central Florida is the true charging desert. Not a single DC charger between Palm Coast across to Gainesville.

 

Thanks a lot for your comments.

As an environmentalist, I am not likely getting a conventional car. Driving ICE thousands of miles = 1 - 2 tonnes Co2 plus air pollution which by my rough calculations will cause days of life loss and suffering. This cannot be justified to save 15 minutes of stress here and there at a charging point or to arrive somewhere 2 hours earlier.

Also I cover electric vehicles in my profession so it will give me some good talking points for my business meetings in the US and experiences and I have a bit of the EV nerd about me so I probably enjoy the challenge in a weird way and am quite adventurous.

If anyone is wondering how I can justify flying to the US and then claiming to be an environmentalist because I used an EV then the logic of this is that I am flying from the UK to Chile and back anyway , and I will only go to the US on the way back. For complicated reasons total emissions will be about the same going via US as if I flew directly back to Chile.

The main reason for my US trip will be to meet customers and attend one or more trade shows. I am trying to get the right balance between avoiding flights vs being a success in my career.

And the reason I think I can justify flying from the Chile (where I live) to the UK (where I'm from) is because this single return trip - done for the first time in 4 years- will enable me to meet my colleagues, customers, family, friends,and take holidays to Europe. I am staying for months. Of course, no (practical) environmentalist option for flying over oceans.

 

If anyone is wondering how I can justify flying to the US and then claiming to be an environmentalist because I used an EV ...

Hah! You know you have posted your question in a forum frequented by people who own large, comfortable $50+K EVs (and in fact in many cases more than one), right? I should hope that no one here would be badgering you for your green card, so to speak. If you want criticism, maybe you could try a re-post on the vegan subgroup in the SmartEV forum ?

 

I hear you rbdavis808 I was just trying to answer the question raised by 2 people about a conventional car. Let's leave aside the environment then, and concentrate on the practicalities and address some other points raised.

I've been to the US many times before (back in the days when I had neglected to educate myself about climate change ) and driven a few times there so I've at least got past the stage of having to find an American in the parking lot to show the dumb Brit how to make the car go! I think my first time I literally couldn't move the car because I didn't realize you had to press on the brake to make it go. My longest trip is Las Vegas to San Francisco via Grand Canyon and Meteor Crater.

I am not an EV novice, either. I have done a few thousand mile road trips in Chile and even gone off the charging network by charging at a hotel. A few months ago I drove my Ioniq 28 through the Andes up to 12,000 ft (a better route planer judged the energy consumption well) - I drove it from Santiago, Chile to Mendoza, Argentina. There is a nearly 300km section that only has one 7kW charger in it. When we got to that charger, it was turned off and I had to open the fuse box, boot up the electrical supply, clean the dust off it and pray.

I think the US trip will be easier than the Argentina one. There wasn't a single fast charger in that whole region of the country.

Also, the Argentina trip was with my kids. US driving likely on my own. Without wife and kids in tow, the stress level of failed chargers is far more manageable, even at night, bad weather etc.

1 failed charge in 43 attempts FaN EV, and even that only counts as a fail by my definition because you had to wait 20 minutes. Thanks for checking as that is useful feedback. Sounds like it will be quite easy to me with proper planning.

Good to know that it just goes on the Hertz account. That is definitely a Tesla/Hertz benefit to consider.

I wlll check the plugshare app and have a think about the comments about the SIM.

I think that's all I need for now. The trip will be in the Spring of 2024 TBC. At this stage I only needed to check feasibility and find out partial info so I'm not left to learn everything from scratch at the last minute in a rush. I'll probably do the rest of the planning after I book something.

EDIT: I should add that the "early 2024" dates for GM and Ford to be using Tesla superchargers will have been reached by the time I get to the US, I am not sure how many of these cars will be available from rentals though.

 

Hope you have fun, whatever you drive!

 

Hey @Neil F , if you happened to charge in The Avenue Mall in Jacksonville, did you have any issues with the charger availability? It's a busy mall, and according to the EA app most of the time all chargers are in use. Sometimes one is available. With my luck I will be driving through on Friday night. The only way to avoid this charger is to either pay for EVGo or add one more EA stop.

 

Charged there both ways. The moments I was there no issues with availability. They are all 350s and I got 235 and 237

 

I get the sense that EA (and Superchargers) is probably similar reliability across the country. Perhaps it´s mostly the same hardware and software and customer support.

Possible locations I might go to for work are Indiana, Kentucky, Las Vegas, Michigan, Pittsburgh

If I don´t go to Vegas, then I may drive to Miami to catch a flight back to South America.

I may also fly into Boston or New York or Canada initially to see more places, reduce the flying distance and give me more options to get a better flight deal.

I wouldn´t drive 1000 miles between places purely to avoid the flight emissions. There are other advantages such as seeing places on the way, learning more about American culture, and interest in electric vehicles/charging etc both for work and a little adventure, as mentioned earlier.

Driving say 1000 miles in an EV won´t save any emissions if they end up flying someone out to return the car though and I would like to avoid that. It seems that sometimes they return the car to the original location and sometimes they don´t.

The problem is how to tell whether they will do that when booking. I imagine no way of telling at the time of booking and if you call the call centre probably they wouldn´t know either. Anyone with any ideas?

One way to judge it is to look at the price for 1-way trip vs returning to the same location. I did a few checks just now with Hertz, Budget and Avis and it ranged from same price to double. If it´s the same price to drop the car off 1,000 miles away as to return it to the original location, then to me that suggests than in such a case they won´t return it to its original location.

I am not sure how the businesses work but if they are franchising where each location is an independent business that owns the car and licenses the use of the car rental company name then the car presumably has to be ultimately returned to the original location. Is there any place to look up which locations are franchised and which are fully owned with employees of Hertz etc? Does anyone know which is more common?

 

There are other advantages such as seeing places on the way, learning more about American culture, and interest in electric vehicles/charging etc both for work and a little adventure, as mentioned earlier.

You'll probably find that the parts American culture that has the most distinctions are with differences between highly urban areas (city life) compared to differences in suburban life or rural life (amongst many farms). IMHO, that seems to impact cultural differences more than regional differences (i.e. northeast vs southeast vs midwest vs Pacific coast) or racial differences.

For example, I live near Birmingham, Alabama (southeast U.S.). Birmingham is not a large city, but it is somewhat urban relative to life just 20 miles away from Birmingham (where there are many suburbs, such as where I live). I'm white and attend a majority black church. We have much in common because most of us live in suburban areas, are mainly the same age, etc. We rarely talk about being different in race, though racial difference does often precipice a few differences (i.e. favorite sports among different races). But not as much as the our common suburban life helps us relate to each other (how many kids we raise in our homes, buying cars for our teenage kids to go to work in since public transportation is often non-existent in the suburbs, etc.) Likewise when I visit extended family in Massachusetts I'm usually in the western part of the state among suburbs. I often find more in common with them than I do with fellow Alabamians closer to the city life. And when I visit more extended family further north in Canada, because they live near farms and grew up doing farming, visiting them is a lot like visiting my paternal family members in north Alabama where my father grew up on the farm (and my cousins still farm), even though those two areas are about 1,800 miles apart from each other. Those are examples where the cultural differences have similarities and differences that align more with population density than with region or race or other things.

Likewise if you want to spend your days getting stuck in traffic, you can do it in big cities like Atlanta or Boston or Houston or New York City or just about any large city in the U.S. no matter what region it's in. LOL