Road trip from Fayetteville NC to Dallas TX and back

[Zapitgood]

My family and I drove to spend Christmas and New Year in Dallas. We drove the lightning and want to share feedback about the charging to and from Dallas and back to Fayetteville, NC. The trip was approximately 2200 miles round trip. The Highways that were used were I-95 and mainly I-20. My goal for the trip was to test the charging stations' availability of multiple vendors along the Interstate. I used Electrify America, and they worked every time somewhat pricy. Tesla Worked very well but had derating issues in Bessmer, Alabama. It would start out charging well, but after a few minutes, it derated. I moved three times and had the same result; ultimately, it was no big deal other than that Tesla chargers worked as expected. They had the most reasonable prices with membership. I also used the EvGo Pilot Center charging. I used plug and charge, and it worked well. They charged at reasonable speeds but were the most expensive. I only used these on the way to Dallas. I used the trusty ChargePoint destination chargers at my destination and 60kw in Boligee, Alabama. I think a Loves/Tesla is coming to the area per Plug share, which is needed in that stretch of I-20. I used one Circle K charger, which worked as it should, with no issues. My charging experience was excellent overall compared to driving this route during the summer of 2023. My goal was to use the battery from 80% to 20%; even though there are adequate chargers along the interstate, there are not enough stations to maximize that battery range consistently; once again, this was not a concern during the trip. The lowest temperature was 30 degrees, and the highest was 64 degrees, so the impact of temperature had some effect but was not significant, in my opinion. Battery preconditioning helps with charging and range; do it when you can. My goal was to drive 500-600 miles daily, which was easy to attain. I could have gone farther, but I was not driving and charging efficiently, which was not the focus. I wanted to charge with minimal effort. Looking for and hoping to make it to a charger wasn't an issue. I usually don't drive for efficiency or Mi/KWH, and I drive "with" traffic unless I need the range to make it to the next charge. I changed my charging strategy to start to charge from around 30% to 80%. I drove with traffic, which I prefer to do. If I had run out of electrons, I would not have heard the end of it, eh eh! I kept a buffer to drive faster, and it worked out. I still got decent charging speeds and could drive for about two hours, or about 100-145 miles. I was good with that. There was no fatigue driving the lightning; it was an easy, pleasant drive. My only frustration was that the public charging app could not be accessed while driving or that public stations were not displayed in the navigation app (that would be great and the best option, I think). The charging prices were high overall, but charge options were available, which was more important during this trip. I was expecting it to be colder, so I had more range than expected at times. Louisiana was a challenge to find charging in 2023; this time around, not at all. Other than that, I was able to go and charge. I have a Tesla adapter, which I used on the trip. I attached a spreadsheet of data I thought was important to share.
2022 Lariat extended range.

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[astrand1]

Nice write up. I’ve driven from Los Angeles back home to Michigan. And will be going back out to La La land in a couple weeks. I also just finished a 2k road trip to St. Louis for work. I’ve consistently found that with the Tesla membership they always seem to be the cheapest cost wise. I paid for the premium yearly for ABRP and have a Bluetooth adapter so that ABRP can use actual data from truck and used their routing and charge planning on this last St. Louis trip and was quite pleased with how it worked. Was pretty accurate within about 4-5% with arriving SoC. I like ABRP as it seems to choose SC for the most part unless one is not available.

 

[Zapitgood]

Nice write up. I’ve driven from Los Angeles back home to Michigan. And will be going back out to La La land in a couple weeks. I also just finished a 2k road trip to St. Louis for work. I’ve consistently found that with the Tesla membership they always seem to be the cheapest cost wise. I paid for the premium yearly for ABRP and have a Bluetooth adapter so that ABRP can use actual data from truck and used their routing and charge planning on this last St. Louis trip and was quite pleased with how it worked. Was pretty accurate within about 4-5% with arriving SoC. I like ABRP as it seems to choose SC for the most part unless one is not available.

I have permit ABRP and an adapter. I was hesitant to use it I think some testing is in order. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Jimbalf]

My family and I drove to spend Christmas and New Year in Dallas. We drove the lightning and want to share feedback about the charging to and from Dallas and back to Fayetteville, NC. The trip was approximately 2200 miles round trip. The Highways that were used were I-95 and mainly I-20. My goal for the trip was to test the charging stations' availability of multiple vendors along the Interstate. I used Electrify America, and they worked every time somewhat pricy. Tesla Worked very well but had derating issues in Bessmer, Alabama. It would start out charging well, but after a few minutes, it derated. I moved three times and had the same result; ultimately, it was no big deal other than that Tesla chargers worked as expected. They had the most reasonable prices with membership. I also used the EvGo Pilot Center charging. I used plug and charge, and it worked well. They charged at reasonable speeds but were the most expensive. I only used these on the way to Dallas. I used the trusty ChargePoint destination chargers at my destination and 60kw in Boligee, Alabama. I think a Loves/Tesla is coming to the area per Plug share, which is needed in that stretch of I-20. I used one Circle K charger, which worked as it should, with no issues. My charging experience was excellent overall compared to driving this route during the summer of 2023. My goal was to use the battery from 80% to 20%; even though there are adequate chargers along the interstate, there are not enough stations to maximize that battery range consistently; once again, this was not a concern during the trip. The lowest temperature was 30 degrees, and the highest was 64 degrees, so the impact of temperature had some effect but was not significant, in my opinion. Battery preconditioning helps with charging and range; do it when you can. My goal was to drive 500-600 miles daily, which was easy to attain. I could have gone farther, but I was not driving and charging efficiently, which was not the focus. I wanted to charge with minimal effort. Looking for and hoping to make it to a charger wasn't an issue. I usually don't drive for efficiency or Mi/KWH, and I drive "with" traffic unless I need the range to make it to the next charge. I changed my charging strategy to start to charge from around 30% to 80%. I drove with traffic, which I prefer to do. If I had run out of electrons, I would not have heard the end of it, eh eh! I kept a buffer to drive faster, and it worked out. I still got decent charging speeds and could drive for about two hours, or about 100-145 miles. I was good with that. There was no fatigue driving the lightning; it was an easy, pleasant drive. My only frustration was that the public charging app could not be accessed while driving or that public stations were not displayed in the navigation app (that would be great and the best option, I think). The charging prices were high overall, but charge options were available, which was more important during this trip. I was expecting it to be colder, so I had more range than expected at times. Louisiana was a challenge to find charging in 2023; this time around, not at all. Other than that, I was able to go and charge. I have a Tesla adapter, which I used on the trip. I attached a spreadsheet of data I thought was important to share.
2022 Lariat extended range.

Thank you for the write up. I did a 3000 mile round trip after Christmas from Austin to Charleston but this time I stuck with Tesla almost 100%. However I did see an unexpected derating like you did, The first time was in Auburn Al at the Buc-Ee’s. Plugged in and started off at 170kw as expected, but while in the store I saw my charge rate dropped to 24kw. Never seen that before. It was cold, (for Alabama) about 26 degrees with frost covering everything. I switched chargers and the same thing happened after a few minutes. It took me 4 chargers to get to 65% which was what i needed, but it was painful. I wondered if the charger cable cooling was frozen so it overheated, but that sure would be crazy if so.. Anyway, that derating happened one more time on the trip, but for the 22 other charge stops I made, Tesla worked great.

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