Google Photos link to album: https://photos.app.goo.gl/cCz9quh3hRsgKngh8
Well, I done did it, I bought a new i3. But getting it home to Oakland from San Antonio was an effort.
(a) cheapskate (b) impatient (c) up for a challenge, ABRP gave my plan a (mostly) thumbs up, so I decided to wing it. So did my wife, for the purchase, but I "neglected" to disclose the San Antonio aspect of it with her until after I paid my airfare. Her thumbs-up turned into the stink-eye.
Tuesday 4:00 AM wake up for a 5:45 flight out, and drove away from the dealership at 4:30 under the afternoon Texas sun, a cling-wrapped spare tire and change of underwear in the trunk.
Electrify America charge stations dominated my route, particularly along I-10 which would take me through El Paso, Tucson / Phoenix, and into LA. On rough average they were spaced maybe 100 miles apart, more than doable for the i3's 150+ mile range. But with posted speed limits of 80 MPH, in addition to elevation gains up to 5,000 feet, ABRP had its doubts, and it gave me five "speed restricted" legs -- one suggesting I drive no faster that 45 MPH!
Most of the EA stops were in Walmart parking lots. But I was surprised to find one at a run-down off-the-highway EconoLodge in Junction TX, another in a nicer Hampton Inn parking lot in Ozona, and others at truck stops, Shell & Chevron stations, and one under the neon red glow of a Target sign in the Los Angeles suburb of Baldwin Park. But Walmart ruled the roost. That was fine -- Walmarts tend to have early/late opening hours, restrooms at the front of the store, fresh fruit and/or McDonalds inside, and sundries such as toothpaste, deodorant, sunglasses, USB-C phone chargers (mine died out of the gate), and always the best prices on Mobil 1 Synthetic, which I needed two jugs of for my Flex's oil change once I arrived home.
I quit caffeine two days before departing. ABRP predicted a 38 hour trip including 11 hours of charging. I wanted to try to nap while charging to avoid any long overnight shut-downs, to make this trip as quick as practical. Surprisingly, it worked! I didn't keep any detailed logs, but the Timeline feature of Google Maps does a pretty good job of tracking my whereabouts, and these are my charge & rest stats:
I really didn't know what to expect with this "plan" not a plan, but it worked amazingly well. I didn't set an alarm clock, I pulled over if I felt drowsy, and getting into LA just ahead of the morning rush, I picked a charging stop closer than what I needed because I wanted to nap.
The i3's adaptive cruise control was indispensable! I've used it regularly at home on my 2017, despite its shortcomings, and on a long highway trip like this it reduced my workload so much that I'm not sure how I would have done without it. On my speed-limited legs, ACC made sure I stuck to the plan. On regular legs, rather than play the lane changing game, I'd just find a big-rig also on cruise going about my speed and fall in-line behind it. If I had slow reaction times (and lets face it, I probably did), it was there as a tailgating prevention device as well as a panic-braking sensor (although it never came to that).
On the topic of the car, it's worth noting that the LCI headlights are dazzling. The refreshed bolstered seats are... are... not as uncomfortable? The steering wheel texture is grippier.
What seemed like an intolerably long journey as the first day settled into night, and the silent desert lightning was beautiful yet eerie. It very quickly seemed manageable mid-morning of Wednesday as I crossed into New Mexico and approached the 700 mile mark. I felt alert despite the my scattered sleep. The first two "speed restricted" legs were behind me and the car was performing well, beating ABRP's estimations (I didn't really get the app dialed in until day three). My biggest concern up front was that one single out-of-service charge station could land me on the bed of a truck, but to my relief, only single dispensers were out of service or acting up. This luck would prove to hold up (mostly) for the rest of the trek.
Morning commute hour traffic into El Paso showed one of ABRPs weaknesses. The app decided my planned charging stop was no longer valid. I was sure it was wrong, and I hadn't yet had an opportunity to replace my non-functioning USB charger. So I plugged "El Paso Walmart" into iDrive nav and meandered across the city as directed. Upon reaching, I circled the store, looking for the telltale green glow of a bank of EA dispensers. Nothing. After quick consult with the EA app, I discovered to my amazement (gasp!) that the city is big enough to warrant more than one Walmart, and the one I wanted was 8 miles in my rear view mirror. After acquiring a new USB cord and a banana at the wrong Walmart, I backtracked with about 16 miles charge remaining, and got back to the business of charging and dozing.
Transiting the bottom of New Mexico was brief with only two charging stops, and about 170 miles of highway. State borders are great mileposts, so that was two down, one to go. The other notable change was the cost of charging: Texas and NM EA stops were costing me 12¢ per minute; crossing into Arizona this reverted to the 31¢ / kWh I'm more familiar with at home. (I joined EA Pass+ just for this trip, a $4 monthly fee.) If you're wondering, the price per minute structure into the i3 worked out in my favor, averaging out to 14¢ per kWh.
All told my driving expenses were $135 for 470 kWh of electricity.
On my approach to Tucson, the sunny skies developed into a broken overcast. A gray brushstroke of virga looming ahead of me gradually touched the desert, and within 30 minutes became a dark curtain which I had to penetrate. Once inside I was treated to a brief, torrential, near zero visibility downpour. Driving away from Phoenix, my phone alarmed with a severe weather alert, proclaiming there may be zero-viz dust storms ahead, instructing drivers that, if encountered, to pull off the highway, turn off any lights, and stay strapped in. I don't get such invigorating weather in Oakland!
The final night I took my 2-hour nap in Indio, California, at a somewhat posh strip mall just off the Sonny Bono Memorial Freeway (albeit anchored by a Walmart). The flavor of the drive changed, as I descended the high desert into the LA Basin, my so far linear route exploding in front of me into a dozen freeway choices and even more dozens of charging options, and the big rigs that had been escorting me were slowly outnumbered by thousands of commuters all in a hurry -- just like me -- to get to where they need to go before the real LA rush hour traffic began.
This was a weird sensation as a city guy who is comfortable navigating busy freeways, because in the predawn chaos with few visible cues, I basically lost any innate sense of direction. I gave all authority over to my dueling navs -- iDrive on the left, ABRP on the right, neither doing a great job, one talking over the other. As if I had transitioned from meandering down a slow and stead river to a stick being sucked along in a fast moving stream, at this point I just wanted to wash ashore on a nearby embankment to stop, charge, nap.
A 75 minute stopover / nappy-nap outside of LA did the trick to refuel me for the for the morning slog. Actually, LA traffic wasn't too bad. However, despite daybreak and having a clear view of the landscape, my sense of direction hadn't yet returned, so I continued to rely on the arguing twins to guide me out. Until I got to the Grapevine. Then I knew I was in the home stretch.
I don't actually know if the Los Angeles side of the Grapevine is known as such. Doesn't matter, it's the route out of the basin where Highway 5 stops being a freeway (sort of) and gives me a straightish shot towards home. This is where ABRP could have gotten me into trouble. The app kept insisting on me charging at Harris Ranch, the second of three planned stops for this final leg. Yet ABRP simultaneously showed the charger here as grey, "status: unknown." Except it should have known -- the EA website listed this stop as "sorry, unavailable." I'm happy to have checked; I might have been stranded otherwise. Instead, after my first stop in Bakersfield, I charged again a mere 35 miles away, insurance to make it to my next planned stop near Tracy, where Interstate 5 connects to 580 and doglegs towards the Bay Area.
This unplanned EA stop -- Lost Hills, Ca -- was the most unusual one. It consisted of a single charging stand, one solitary dispenser, accompanied by a unassuming fire extinguisher standing sentinel for the next exploding battery. Thankfully the charger worked perfectly. PlugShare lists toe location as "partial repair" and photos show there were three dispensers at this location, but other photos show just the one that I experienced. Had it been inoperative, I wouldn't have been stranded -- as noted, the previous stop was a 35 mile back track, but I probably could have conservatively driven to another stop, maybe out of the way. Maybe there was a separate bank of stands elsewhere nearby? Very Twilight Zoney as I know I'm not mis-remembering, despite neglecting to take a photo of this stop.
Leaving Lost Hills with Patterson, CA in mind, I let a platoon of fire trucks in ahead of me on the highway on-ramp. I was in "pace mode" trailing big rigs for this leg, so the fire trucks stayed ahead of me. 45 minutes in, a messy rollover accident occurred 20 cars ahead of me, right in front of the fire brigade. The freeway stopped cold while emergency responders tended to business, and I was cocooned in my meek little i3 amongst angrily idling tractor-trailers. After expending some kilowatts keeping the car cool while not moving, I decided to hit a closer station in Firebaugh then press onward to Pleasanton for my final charge, mere miles from home.
Feeling giddy and carefree to be so close to home, I got a little loose with my throttle for this last portion of the journey, but I also felt like I knew the car well enough that I wasn't **too** concerned. But familiarity didn't prevent ascending the Altamont Pass at 80 MPH from vociferously gobbling electrons, and descending it didn't recover nearly what I expected. This turned out to be my closest cut — I rolled into the Pleasanton EA with less than 8% remaining. I've routinely driven my 2017 down to less, so this wasn't really a big deal, and yet it demonstrated how big a role speed management plays into EV range.
I rolled up to the front of my house at 2:30 Thursday afternoon. Given the 2 hour time zone difference, almost exactly 48 hours after pulling away from the dealership 1,708 miles of asphalt behind me. Granted, I was 10 hours over ABRP's predicted "perfect" trip time. I felt great. After a quick nap, dinner with the family, and book time with the kiddos, I got a solid nearly 8 hours of sleep that night, and hit the ground running like it was just another day.
Well, I done did it, I bought a new i3. But getting it home to Oakland from San Antonio was an effort.
(a) cheapskate (b) impatient (c) up for a challenge, ABRP gave my plan a (mostly) thumbs up, so I decided to wing it. So did my wife, for the purchase, but I "neglected" to disclose the San Antonio aspect of it with her until after I paid my airfare. Her thumbs-up turned into the stink-eye.
Tuesday 4:00 AM wake up for a 5:45 flight out, and drove away from the dealership at 4:30 under the afternoon Texas sun, a cling-wrapped spare tire and change of underwear in the trunk.
Electrify America charge stations dominated my route, particularly along I-10 which would take me through El Paso, Tucson / Phoenix, and into LA. On rough average they were spaced maybe 100 miles apart, more than doable for the i3's 150+ mile range. But with posted speed limits of 80 MPH, in addition to elevation gains up to 5,000 feet, ABRP had its doubts, and it gave me five "speed restricted" legs -- one suggesting I drive no faster that 45 MPH!
- Let me just say something about ABRP: this was my first time using it, and that was a mistake on my part -- I should have practiced with it. But I was also driving a new-to-me car, and ABRPs estimations of its efficiency were off. They were WAY off. The base value was 3.6 mi/kWh. Suggestions on the ABRP forum were to increase this to 3.9 mi/kWh. By the time I got it dialed in, I landed on 4.5 mi/kWh as a good value. How that corresponds to reality, well... the car's trip meter disagrees, but this setting got my battery state of charge and ABRPs estimate of what it should be roughly in line. Yes, a OBD dongle and the Electrified app would have been good to have, but as I said, this was my first go at this, so I wasn't prepared.
- And a further comment, ABRP drove me nuts. It would reboot at the most inconvenient times. It would plan a leg then "this route is no longer valid" would pop up. Often, "a faster route is available" would display, but when I selected "replan" to okay the new suggested charging stop, the destination charger would remain unchanged, and keep navigating me to the old one. And urban freeways -- UGH! -- instead of saying "take 35 West" it would say "take the Pasadena freeway" and nowhere on any overhead sign is "Pasadena freeway" annotated. The name of the next charging stop is displayed in a FONT SO BIG that I can't read all of it, so it's next to impossible to decipher and plug in to Waze or Nav. ABRP seems like a pretty solid planner (once the car specs are dialed in), but really just awful as a real-time navigator. I'd love some Waze integration.
Most of the EA stops were in Walmart parking lots. But I was surprised to find one at a run-down off-the-highway EconoLodge in Junction TX, another in a nicer Hampton Inn parking lot in Ozona, and others at truck stops, Shell & Chevron stations, and one under the neon red glow of a Target sign in the Los Angeles suburb of Baldwin Park. But Walmart ruled the roost. That was fine -- Walmarts tend to have early/late opening hours, restrooms at the front of the store, fresh fruit and/or McDonalds inside, and sundries such as toothpaste, deodorant, sunglasses, USB-C phone chargers (mine died out of the gate), and always the best prices on Mobil 1 Synthetic, which I needed two jugs of for my Flex's oil change once I arrived home.
I quit caffeine two days before departing. ABRP predicted a 38 hour trip including 11 hours of charging. I wanted to try to nap while charging to avoid any long overnight shut-downs, to make this trip as quick as practical. Surprisingly, it worked! I didn't keep any detailed logs, but the Timeline feature of Google Maps does a pretty good job of tracking my whereabouts, and these are my charge & rest stats:
- 17 charging stops total averaging roughly 1 to 1.5 hours, where at many I'd throw a t-shirt over my face and at minimum try to get a short nap
- charging to 100% took near double time time as a charge to 80%, resulting in a higher likelihood I'd actually get a nap
- 2 of those charging stops were about 2 hours, both in the 2 am to 4 am slot, where I think I got a solid 90 minutes of sleep
- 3 "pull-offs" to a rest area, a random isolated off-ramp, and a community center parking lot, where I got 15 minute naps
- 1 pull-off just to get out and walk in circles
- I tried to combine my food stops with my charge stops, but picked foods I could eat while driving so I could nap while charging
- 0 loitering fees for not disconnecting upon completion of charge
- at least twice I woke to find the charge was exceedingly slow, and I'd have to restart -- once I woke to find it completely stopped (charger error)
I really didn't know what to expect with this "plan" not a plan, but it worked amazingly well. I didn't set an alarm clock, I pulled over if I felt drowsy, and getting into LA just ahead of the morning rush, I picked a charging stop closer than what I needed because I wanted to nap.
The i3's adaptive cruise control was indispensable! I've used it regularly at home on my 2017, despite its shortcomings, and on a long highway trip like this it reduced my workload so much that I'm not sure how I would have done without it. On my speed-limited legs, ACC made sure I stuck to the plan. On regular legs, rather than play the lane changing game, I'd just find a big-rig also on cruise going about my speed and fall in-line behind it. If I had slow reaction times (and lets face it, I probably did), it was there as a tailgating prevention device as well as a panic-braking sensor (although it never came to that).
On the topic of the car, it's worth noting that the LCI headlights are dazzling. The refreshed bolstered seats are... are... not as uncomfortable? The steering wheel texture is grippier.
What seemed like an intolerably long journey as the first day settled into night, and the silent desert lightning was beautiful yet eerie. It very quickly seemed manageable mid-morning of Wednesday as I crossed into New Mexico and approached the 700 mile mark. I felt alert despite the my scattered sleep. The first two "speed restricted" legs were behind me and the car was performing well, beating ABRP's estimations (I didn't really get the app dialed in until day three). My biggest concern up front was that one single out-of-service charge station could land me on the bed of a truck, but to my relief, only single dispensers were out of service or acting up. This luck would prove to hold up (mostly) for the rest of the trek.
Morning commute hour traffic into El Paso showed one of ABRPs weaknesses. The app decided my planned charging stop was no longer valid. I was sure it was wrong, and I hadn't yet had an opportunity to replace my non-functioning USB charger. So I plugged "El Paso Walmart" into iDrive nav and meandered across the city as directed. Upon reaching, I circled the store, looking for the telltale green glow of a bank of EA dispensers. Nothing. After quick consult with the EA app, I discovered to my amazement (gasp!) that the city is big enough to warrant more than one Walmart, and the one I wanted was 8 miles in my rear view mirror. After acquiring a new USB cord and a banana at the wrong Walmart, I backtracked with about 16 miles charge remaining, and got back to the business of charging and dozing.
Transiting the bottom of New Mexico was brief with only two charging stops, and about 170 miles of highway. State borders are great mileposts, so that was two down, one to go. The other notable change was the cost of charging: Texas and NM EA stops were costing me 12¢ per minute; crossing into Arizona this reverted to the 31¢ / kWh I'm more familiar with at home. (I joined EA Pass+ just for this trip, a $4 monthly fee.) If you're wondering, the price per minute structure into the i3 worked out in my favor, averaging out to 14¢ per kWh.
All told my driving expenses were $135 for 470 kWh of electricity.
On my approach to Tucson, the sunny skies developed into a broken overcast. A gray brushstroke of virga looming ahead of me gradually touched the desert, and within 30 minutes became a dark curtain which I had to penetrate. Once inside I was treated to a brief, torrential, near zero visibility downpour. Driving away from Phoenix, my phone alarmed with a severe weather alert, proclaiming there may be zero-viz dust storms ahead, instructing drivers that, if encountered, to pull off the highway, turn off any lights, and stay strapped in. I don't get such invigorating weather in Oakland!
The final night I took my 2-hour nap in Indio, California, at a somewhat posh strip mall just off the Sonny Bono Memorial Freeway (albeit anchored by a Walmart). The flavor of the drive changed, as I descended the high desert into the LA Basin, my so far linear route exploding in front of me into a dozen freeway choices and even more dozens of charging options, and the big rigs that had been escorting me were slowly outnumbered by thousands of commuters all in a hurry -- just like me -- to get to where they need to go before the real LA rush hour traffic began.
This was a weird sensation as a city guy who is comfortable navigating busy freeways, because in the predawn chaos with few visible cues, I basically lost any innate sense of direction. I gave all authority over to my dueling navs -- iDrive on the left, ABRP on the right, neither doing a great job, one talking over the other. As if I had transitioned from meandering down a slow and stead river to a stick being sucked along in a fast moving stream, at this point I just wanted to wash ashore on a nearby embankment to stop, charge, nap.
A 75 minute stopover / nappy-nap outside of LA did the trick to refuel me for the for the morning slog. Actually, LA traffic wasn't too bad. However, despite daybreak and having a clear view of the landscape, my sense of direction hadn't yet returned, so I continued to rely on the arguing twins to guide me out. Until I got to the Grapevine. Then I knew I was in the home stretch.
I don't actually know if the Los Angeles side of the Grapevine is known as such. Doesn't matter, it's the route out of the basin where Highway 5 stops being a freeway (sort of) and gives me a straightish shot towards home. This is where ABRP could have gotten me into trouble. The app kept insisting on me charging at Harris Ranch, the second of three planned stops for this final leg. Yet ABRP simultaneously showed the charger here as grey, "status: unknown." Except it should have known -- the EA website listed this stop as "sorry, unavailable." I'm happy to have checked; I might have been stranded otherwise. Instead, after my first stop in Bakersfield, I charged again a mere 35 miles away, insurance to make it to my next planned stop near Tracy, where Interstate 5 connects to 580 and doglegs towards the Bay Area.
This unplanned EA stop -- Lost Hills, Ca -- was the most unusual one. It consisted of a single charging stand, one solitary dispenser, accompanied by a unassuming fire extinguisher standing sentinel for the next exploding battery. Thankfully the charger worked perfectly. PlugShare lists toe location as "partial repair" and photos show there were three dispensers at this location, but other photos show just the one that I experienced. Had it been inoperative, I wouldn't have been stranded -- as noted, the previous stop was a 35 mile back track, but I probably could have conservatively driven to another stop, maybe out of the way. Maybe there was a separate bank of stands elsewhere nearby? Very Twilight Zoney as I know I'm not mis-remembering, despite neglecting to take a photo of this stop.
Leaving Lost Hills with Patterson, CA in mind, I let a platoon of fire trucks in ahead of me on the highway on-ramp. I was in "pace mode" trailing big rigs for this leg, so the fire trucks stayed ahead of me. 45 minutes in, a messy rollover accident occurred 20 cars ahead of me, right in front of the fire brigade. The freeway stopped cold while emergency responders tended to business, and I was cocooned in my meek little i3 amongst angrily idling tractor-trailers. After expending some kilowatts keeping the car cool while not moving, I decided to hit a closer station in Firebaugh then press onward to Pleasanton for my final charge, mere miles from home.
Feeling giddy and carefree to be so close to home, I got a little loose with my throttle for this last portion of the journey, but I also felt like I knew the car well enough that I wasn't **too** concerned. But familiarity didn't prevent ascending the Altamont Pass at 80 MPH from vociferously gobbling electrons, and descending it didn't recover nearly what I expected. This turned out to be my closest cut — I rolled into the Pleasanton EA with less than 8% remaining. I've routinely driven my 2017 down to less, so this wasn't really a big deal, and yet it demonstrated how big a role speed management plays into EV range.
I rolled up to the front of my house at 2:30 Thursday afternoon. Given the 2 hour time zone difference, almost exactly 48 hours after pulling away from the dealership 1,708 miles of asphalt behind me. Granted, I was 10 hours over ABRP's predicted "perfect" trip time. I felt great. After a quick nap, dinner with the family, and book time with the kiddos, I got a solid nearly 8 hours of sleep that night, and hit the ground running like it was just another day.