Costa Mesa to San Diego road trip today

I have family in town for the holidays and we had been kicking around ideas for a day trip somewhere, and today decided to head south to San Diego to beat the rain forecasted for Saturday. I'm still kicking around in my local dealership's rental Rav4 EV, but am planning to pick mine back up tomorrow.

Before leaving, I completed an Extended Charge in order to give myself maximum cushion. The trip down was relatively uneventful, with a brief stop near the Del Mar racetrack. I held the cruise control to 65 and was generally conservative with my driving. When we arrived in San Diego, we ran into major traffic around the surface streets near the Zoo (our original destination), and the parking lot was jammed. When I eventually found the 4 Blink charging stations, every single one of them was ICE'd. Super frustrating, but there were no "Reserved for EV Parking" signs or similar that I could find. Just 4 chargers sitting idle beneath a bunch of solar panels. We decided to head down towards the waterfront instead, and ended up using a Blink charging station near 4th & A streets. Paid $14 to park and an additional $9 in charging fees.

We knocked around the USS Midway and San Diego Maritime museums for the afternoon and had dinner in the area. The Blink charger completed its work after 5 hrs and 9 minutes, but did not report the kWh used either on the charger or the company's web portal (boooo!).

For the trip home, I was feeling a little spunky at the start of the trip and decided to set the cruise control at 75, but chickened out after a number of long uphills leaving the area and ended up setting it at 70 instead. Uneventful trip home.

Here are the details that I gathered along the way:

Trip start:
ODO: 773 mi
GoM: 113 mi estimanted range
SoC: 16 bars (plus extended charge)

Travel south on I405 and I5 towards San Diego. Cruise control set at 65 mph, climate control set to ECO HIGH with fan set on low.

Necessities break south of Solana Beach (Del Mar racetrack exit)
ODO: 841 mi
GoM: 55 mi estimanted range
SoC: 11 bars
Trip summary showing:
67.9 miles travelled
1:26 elapsed
3.2 mi/kWh

Travel on freeway was the same with cruise control set to 65 mph, but ran into major traffic on the surface streets in San Diego and near the San Diego Zoo. Ended up abandoning original Zoo plan and going down towards the waterfront.

Arrival at destination in San Diego:
ODO: 865 mi
GoM: 30 mi estimanted range
SoC: 6 bars
Trip summary showing:
24.0 miles travelled
1:28 elapsed
2.9 mi/kWh

Return Trip begin:
ODO: 865 mi
GoM: 117 mi estimanted range
SoC: 16 bars (plus extended charge)

Travel home via same basic route, but with cruise control mostly set at 70, while traveling at 75 for a portion of the trip. Climate control was off for much of the trip as there was no sunlight heating up the cabin.

Return Trip end:
ODO: 954 mi
GoM: 22 mi estimanted range
SoC: 4 bars
Trip Summary showing:
88.8 miles travelled
1:36 elapsed
2.6 mi/kWh

For the return trip, I also remembered to turn on my GPS logging app on my phone. If you click the link below, you'll see a map of the route I took along with the speed and elevation during the trip. There's one spike above 90, which I think must have been a glitch because I never went that fast during the trip home.
http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1957353&code=8a628775c73d18a625838050edec8f5a

Based on Tony's range chart, I think this all boils down to:
Outbound trip:
91.9 miles travelled
~27.8 kWh used (41.8 - 14.0 still available at 6 bars)
30-40 miles of range likely remaining after completing the trip.

Return trip:
88.8 miles traveled
~31.8 kWh used (41.8 - 10.0 still available at 4 bars)
20-30 miles of range likely remaining after completing the trip

If anyone has any other suggestions on how to interpret the data, I'm all ears.

-Chris

Chris, per Tony's chart, it's that last 2kWh of estimated range that is questionable. I think Tony even may have mentioned that can actually be as little as 0.5, not 2kWh! Also, I think each bar segment on the GoM represents slightly more than 2.0kWh; perhaps closer to 2.1kWh. However, it is easier to round off, although less conservative by doing so.

One conclusion from your trip is that the difference in driving efficiency shows up in freeway driving going to your destination at 65 and returning home at 70 mph. Just a 5 mph speed difference appears to have decreased you efficiency by roughly 0.5mi/kWh. THis is assuming starting and destination points were both at sea level, and therefore the effect of elevation changes on both legs of the trip essentially cancelled each other out by taking the same route in both directions. Actually, even at 65mph on the first leg, with cruise control set, you got pretty good efficiency (3.1mi/kWh) considering you had the climate control set to ECO Hi most of the time.

The increase in aerodynamic drag from 65 to 70 must be fairly significant!

Anyway, this is great world real data. Thanks for posting it! :mrgreen:

Start and end points are both near sea level, and close enough that we can consider them equivalent.

I think I also got pegged on going 75 in the first 10-15 minutes of the return trip as a lot of that was up hill on the freeway. I noticed a much faster depletion of the extended range buffer than I saw on the outbound segment, which is one reason I bailed on my 75 mph return trip plan.

The bottom end of the range chart is undefined on the chart. Now that I have been to turtle mode, and to VLB several times, I can make an educated guess.

Some day soon will be the next draft. Here a trip I'm planning for next week:

San Diego to Phoenix. It's 373 miles door to door. I could leave Sunday and arrive in Yuma Sunday night, and leave Yuma early Monday to arrive Monday evening in Scottsdale:

120 miles - Imperial, CA (two hours 40 amp charging needed on RV Park NEMA 14-50)
60 miles - Yuma, AZ (overnight, full range charge on any charger)

180 miles - subtotal, 3 hours travel, 2 hours charging during dinner Imperial, 5 hours total time


120 miles - Gila Bend, AZ (three hours 40 amp charging needed on RV Park NEMA 14-50)
80 miles - 6850 E. Main Street, Scottsdale, AZ

200 miles - subtotal, 3.5 hours travel, 3 hours charging during lunch, 6.5 hours total time


TOTALS each way - 380 miles, 11 hours enroute, 5 hours enroute charging, 6.5 driving at 60mph average

I'm going to play the Devil's Advocate here . . . How do you guys KNOW the charging places you plan to use are gonna be available when you arrive? Can you make reservations at a predetermined time? Worse yet, how do you know your RAV4 EVs won't get "iced" even if you do have reservations? This is the ONE thing about traveling long distance in pure BEVs that I think is the most unpredictable contributor to "range anxiety"! Of course, you can always use a 120V outlet someplace as an emergency backup, but then your scheduled itinerary goes in the toilet.

My "backup" is my VOLT! :mrgreen:

Dsinned said:

I'm going to play the Devil's Advocate here . . . How do you guys KNOW the charging places you plan to use are gonna be available when you arrive? Can you make reservations at a predetermined time? Worse yet, how do you know your RAV4 EVs won't get "iced" even if you do have reservations?

Click to expand...

Well, for me, I drove my Nissan LEAF from Mexico to Canada (BC2BC), June 12-20, 2012, so you just plan the drive and drive the plan. When contingencies pop up, you deal with it.

If you can't deal with surprises, I don't recommend driving an electric car more the half the vehicle's range away from your house. :mrgreen: