3323 mile round trip Northern AZ to LA to Vancouver, WA -- Fantastic vehicle.

[Azgunguy]

Are you a fellow northern AZ resident?!

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[SpaceEVDriver]

Are you a fellow northern AZ resident?!

I am.

Near Flagstaff.

 

[Azgunguy]

I am.

Near Flagstaff.

Nice I am too kinda? I live 20 miles south east of Winslow down highway 99.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Nice I am too kinda? I live 20 miles south east of Winslow down highway 99.

I grew up on an off-grid ranch about 20 miles northwest of Winslow (I-40 to 99/Leupp Road).

I live up on the mountain now.

 

[Azgunguy]

I grew up on an off-grid ranch about 20 miles northwest of Winslow (I-40 to 99/Leupp Road).

I live up on the mountain now.

Nice. I don’t travel up Leupp but I’ve been up there before. I live off grid now down where I am. Almost to the new wind farm they put out here.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Nice. I don’t travel up Leupp but I’ve been up there before. I live off grid now down where I am. Almost to the new wind farm they put out here.

That's a nice-looking array behind your truck. I'm more than a little jealous. We're finally getting solar put in this year.

 

[lightspeed]

I didn't think I've ever had an EA or T DCFC cost me $0.50/kWh. I have seen the non-subscription prices for EA and T be as high as $0.64/kWh, but I've never paid that much. The maximum I've paid was $0.48/kWh. I included the $8 for EA and $15 for T subscriptions.

We got slow charging of 120 kWh for no additional cost to us. I included our at home 109 kWh at our local utility rate of $0.14/kWh (including fees and taxes). We got a free charge of 82 kWh worth $45 at an EA charger for some reason. We had L2 at a rental house that was covered by the rental fee.

Subtracting the 202 kWh of no-cost charging from 1429 kWh leaves me with 1227 kWh that we paid for directly. Subtracting the at-home charging of 109 kWh and $15.26 gives me 1118 kWh for $444.19, or $0.397/kWh average for the charging we paid for during traveling.

We paid $0.35/kWh at the hotels we stayed at--neither was free. Charging at a SC off peak can be as low as $0.22/kWh, and you can find those in the app.

Thanks for breaking that down.

At $0.397/kWh while using paid fast-chargers, that's about the same price as buying gas.

It's honestly a bit disappointing that the charge providers charge so much for electricity and it negates the "value" aspect of EVs when road tripping.

I can understand 40 cents per kWh in California where electricity is priced like champagne, but in low cost electricity states, why is it so high?

 

[invertedspear]

it negates the "value" aspect of EVs when road tripping.

EVs are not ideal road trippers, they are ideal commuters. If you drive several hundred miles each time you get behind the wheel, you should know that an EV is not your best choice. So yes "while road tripping" the value of an EV is slightly negated. But road trips are usually the exception, and the cost advantage of going EV for all your in-town miles is often huge.

What I will say is that road tripping in an EV is amazingly consistent in cost/mile. 100 miles in AZ costs me roughly the same as CA. The same can not be said for gas. And EV chargers for road trips are in the middle of nowhere. Sticking to my common road trips, places like Dateland, Yuma, El Centro and Blythe/Quartzite all have fast chargers. The Supercharger in Quartzite is a freaking huge installation. The cost of building and maintaining these facilities and ensuring I can get from Phoenix to L.A. justifies the cost. Now the question is, will NACS adapters mean competition will reduce prices, or will they just give Tesla the monopoly on DCFC?

 

[lightspeed]

EVs are not ideal road trippers, they are ideal commuters. If you drive several hundred miles each time you get behind the wheel, you should know that an EV is not your best choice. So yes "while road tripping" the value of an EV is slightly negated. But road trips are usually the exception, and the cost advantage of going EV for all your in-town miles is often huge.

What I will say is that road tripping in an EV is amazingly consistent in cost/mile. 100 miles in AZ costs me roughly the same as CA. The same can not be said for gas. And EV chargers for road trips are in the middle of nowhere. Sticking to my common road trips, places like Dateland, Yuma, El Centro and Blythe/Quartzite all have fast chargers. The Supercharger in Quartzite is a freaking huge installation. The cost of building and maintaining these facilities and ensuring I can get from Phoenix to L.A. justifies the cost. Now the question is, will NACS adapters mean competition will reduce prices, or will they just give Tesla the monopoly on DCFC?

I don't disagree with anything you said. Though I'm not sure that is it a benefit that EV charging is consistently expensive.

Maybe robo-taxis will replace commuter EVs for most city people. In the future, when self driving proves itself to be more safe than human drivers, it would be irresponsible to let people drive.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Thanks for breaking that down.

At $0.397/kWh while using paid fast-chargers, that's about the same price as buying gas.

It's honestly a bit disappointing that the charge providers charge so much for electricity and it negates the "value" aspect of EVs when road tripping.

I can understand 40 cents per kWh in California where electricity is priced like champagne, but in low cost electricity states, why is it so high?

I don't begrudge a DCFC provider making some money--we live in a world where it's expensive to provide commodities like electricity for EVs. The installation investment isn't nothing. In CA the average cost of a kWh of electricity is about $0.199/kWh. If the DCFC provider charges $0.48/kWh, their immediate margin on the kWh is $0.281/kWh. Let's say it was $4.2M to install, operate, and maintain a 6-vehicle, 350kW station over 5 years*. If they want to make back 10% ROI, they have to get a return of $4.6M.

They need to sell 16.4 million kWh of electricity at that $0.281/kWh margin.

If their average provided power is 100 kW and they're providing that to 6 vehicles at a time, that's 27,333 hours of 6-vehicle charging they need to provide to cover the costs of installation, operation, and maintenance. That's 1139 days, or about 3.1 years before they can recover their installation costs. And unlike fossil fuel convenience stores, those capital costs aren't subsidized at the same rate as c-stores (which receive 100% depreciation in the year the capital costs are incurred).


*The capital costs as evaluated in 2017:
https://www.itskrs.its.dot.gov/2017-sc00381

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

EVs are not ideal road trippers, they are ideal commuters. If you drive several hundred miles each time you get behind the wheel, you should know that an EV is not your best choice. So yes "while road tripping" the value of an EV is slightly negated. But road trips are usually the exception, and the cost advantage of going EV for all your in-town miles is often huge.

What I will say is that road tripping in an EV is amazingly consistent in cost/mile. 100 miles in AZ costs me roughly the same as CA. The same can not be said for gas. And EV chargers for road trips are in the middle of nowhere. Sticking to my common road trips, places like Dateland, Yuma, El Centro and Blythe/Quartzite all have fast chargers. The Supercharger in Quartzite is a freaking huge installation. The cost of building and maintaining these facilities and ensuring I can get from Phoenix to L.A. justifies the cost. Now the question is, will NACS adapters mean competition will reduce prices, or will they just give Tesla the monopoly on DCFC?

I will disagree with your first statement. We enjoy our road trips in the Mustang and Lightning far more than our previous ICEs. The only vehicle that's ever come close was a Toyota Sienna--if Toyota had kept their promise to go to all-electric, we would have a Toyota Sienna EV instead of the Mustang.

I agree with the rest of your comment.

I am a data nerd who gathers too much data and overanalyzes everything before making a decision. Before purchasing a new vehicle, I run, literally, millions of Monte Carlo simulations trying to understand where the break-even Total Cost of Ownership of a particular vehicle is compared with either a vehicle I currently own or from a set of choices I'm considering. I ran the simulation with the Lightning vs the Tacoma vs a F-150 ICE vs the R1T. The Lightning breaks even compared with our Tacoma (which we had already paid off) within 3-4 years of ownership and compared with an ICE Lariat within 1-2 years of ownership. These simulations include dozens of variables like the price of energy, maintenance costs, up-front costs, costs of consumables, resale values, etc., etc., etc. For example, I allowed the price of gas to vary (in a normal distribution manner) from $1.00 to $6.00 per gallon with a mean similar to the mean price of gas in AZ over the past 10 years, and allowing the price of electricity to vary from $0.15/kWh to $1.00/kWh (and similarly for a bunch of other variables).

 

[invertedspear]

I will disagree with your first statement.

I should have said "Not your best choice financially" because yeah, I love the lighting over my previous F150 when it comes to road trips because it forces me to relax a bit more and not push for "making good time" and instead we have a good time.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

I should have said "Not your best choice financially" because yeah, I love the lighting over my previous F150 when it comes to road trips because it forces me to relax a bit more and not push for "making good time" and instead we have a good time.

I ran my route through gasbuddy. Their interface is garbage so I can't be certain the website understood the assignment. That said, they predicted a cost of about $150-$300 more for gas than I paid for charging.

 

[user-name-required]

I don't have the energy to write up the full report, so here's a summary of our 2-week trip for Thanksgiving:

General Trip path:

• Northern AZ to LA Valley
• LA to Ventura
• Ventura to Redding
• Redding to Vancouver
• Vancouver/Portland to Lathrop
• Lathrop to Northern Arizona

Total distance was 3,323 miles.
Total energy used: 1429 kWh.
Average efficiency: 2.33 miles/kWh.
Total cost: $459.45.
Cost per mile (just for this trip): 13.8 cents/mile.

No trouble with charging or driving. Winter storm in northern CA and Oregon mountains both up and back, bought chains for fear of chain requirements, but the roads were clear (if cold) both directions.

[ADDED: Approximate map and elevation profile for the trip.]

So....first off...holy moly!! Converting this from Freedom Units, here is my math

• 3,323 Miles = 5,317kms
• To get to base 100km: 5,317 / 53.17
• 1429 KWH / the same 53.17 = 26.9kw
• Overall efficiency then = 26.9kwh/100kms

That is absolutely WILD how good that is! How did you get this that good? Avg speeds? Tire pressures? Avg temps on the trip?

With that efficiency, that is nearly enough for 500kms range, which as a highway road trip, we would not normally expect to see that range actually hit.

Any tips appreciated!

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

So....first off...holy moly!! Converting this from Freedom Units, here is my math

• 3,323 Miles = 5,317kms
• To get to base 100km: 5,317 / 53.17
• 1429 KWH / the same 53.17 = 26.9kw
• Overall efficiency then = 26.9kwh/100kms

That is absolutely WILD how good that is! How did you get this that good? Avg speeds? Tire pressures? Avg temps on the trip?

With that efficiency, that is nearly enough for 500kms range, which as a highway road trip, we would not normally expect to see that range actually hit.

Any tips appreciated!

Speeds:
Average speeds were a few kph/mph below the posted speed limit except when traffic or environmental conditions required us to change that. We ran into some snow in the mountains, which required a slower speed (but we were also in cold and climbing in elevation, so...). We also encountered dense fog for about 145 km, and that required a slower speed than normal (about 70-80 kph--we had to be careful to keep up with traffic so we weren't rear-ended). On a couple of legs, we ran into some really pushy traffic so we sped up. But on those legs, we usually found a semi to draft behind and that helped. We don't do hard accelerations very often. We don't go much over the speed limit except when there's a valid reason to do so. We don't cruise at above the speed limit.

Tire pressure: Going out was 41 PSI (283 kpa). Return trip I increased it to 50 psi (345 kpa). I had intended to bump it up before we left, but didn't have time.

Cabin temperature: We don't mind lower temperatures in our living space (keep the home around 14 ºC / 57 ºF), so we kept the cabin at 60 ºF (15-16 ºC), though we usually just had it off because we never felt too cold. We used the seat heaters. We had to use heat when the snow was falling and when the windows would fog over.

Average driving-time temperatures on the trip were a bit below freezing in the mountains and farther north up to about 60 ºF (15-16 ºC) in central CA and AZ.

My tips for better efficiency when on a road trip:

1. Excess speed is a waste of time and energy. 130 kph is a waste of energy and it doesn't save you time. You will arrive at about the same time if you drive at 110 kph (80 mph vs 70 mph). And you save money. It's easy enough to do the math to show this.
2. Heating the cabin is energy-expensive. Start the vehicle when it's still attached to the mains and get the cabin a bit too warm. Then rely on seat heaters and use the cabin heater only when necessary. That said, your comfort is important because if you're distracted by being uncomfortable, you won't be paying attention to the road. But do you really need 25 ºC? Can you handle 20 ºC? 18 ºC?
3. Tire pressure is important. The OEM recommended pressure is for both safety and comfort. If you can handle a little rougher ride, you can safely increase the tire pressure. Check the details of your specific tires and don't over-inflate. Low pressure can cause a loss of a few % to 10% in your efficiency numbers. Under- or over-inflation can cause safety hazards.

These are the ones I can think of at the moment. It's mostly about speed in my experience.

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