LA to Milford, UT in the RAV4 EV

[smkettner]

Can you tell if the battery is actively cooling using the air conditioner while you charge?

It doesn't seem to be, at least it's not making any noises during charging that it doesn't normally make - no sound like the regular AC compressor that I observed at least.

This is fairly disappointing considering all I hear about active cooling.
I suppose most of the cooling was done while driving :?

 

[fooljoe]

It was still pretty warm (about 90 degrees out) and I wanted to use pre-climate to cool the car down a bit using the mains power but since there was no cellular data service I couldn't do it. We cracked the windows and enjoyed a warm night. It occurs to me now that we should have just left the car on and unplugged with the AC running overnight (we had over 50% SOC) and charged up fully in the morning.

FYI I just hopped in my currently-charging car and turned on the AC and it seems to work fine. When you try to turn on the car it says "Ready ON not available due to charging cable connection" but you can still turn on the AC / radio / etc. - it just won't let you drive it away!

 

[DevinL]

It was still pretty warm (about 90 degrees out) and I wanted to use pre-climate to cool the car down a bit using the mains power but since there was no cellular data service I couldn't do it. We cracked the windows and enjoyed a warm night. It occurs to me now that we should have just left the car on and unplugged with the AC running overnight (we had over 50% SOC) and charged up fully in the morning.

FYI I just hopped in my currently-charging car and turned on the AC and it seems to work fine. When you try to turn on the car it says "Ready ON not available due to charging cable connection" but you can still turn on the AC / radio / etc. - it just won't let you drive it away!

It gives you that illusion, yes - but the catch is that even though you may have the AC "on" the compressor is not actually running, just the fan, which is fine as long as it's cooler outside than you want it to be inside.

Anyhow, I've got more photos and such to post but the internet here is unsurprisingly lousy so I probably won't be able to upload until Monday or Tuesday.

Yesterday we drove to Bryce Canyon from Milford with a stopover at the Beaver KOA to top up. Charged for an hour on our way to Bryce and for an hour on our return. The Beaver to Bryce round trip is about 140 miles with rather steep elevation gains, but I made it back to Beaver with 15 GOM miles to spare. This morning I turned the car on and after an extended charge it is showing 152 GOM miles available!

 

[Dsinned]

Outstanding!!! Needless to say, you MUST be doing "extended" charges at every overnight stop! What is displayed on your center console for the running average of miles per kWh? To get 152 on the GoM after a full charge, MPK must be nearly 4.0! Are you hyermiling as much as possible on this trip? :mrgreen:

 

[fooljoe]

It gives you that illusion, yes - but the catch is that even though you may have the AC "on" the compressor is not actually running, just the fan, which is fine as long as it's cooler outside than you want it to be inside.

Ahh well that's lame. I must admit that I didn't stay long enough to see how cold it got, it being 2am.

 

[fooljoe]

It was still pretty warm (about 90 degrees out) and I wanted to use pre-climate to cool the car down a bit using the mains power but since there was no cellular data service I couldn't do it. We cracked the windows and enjoyed a warm night. It occurs to me now that we should have just left the car on and unplugged with the AC running overnight (we had over 50% SOC) and charged up fully in the morning.

To help with such situations, I just added the ability to send commands via SMS to RavCharge. I've often experienced the frustration myself of not being able to do things like remotely activate climate control when I have poor cell reception. You can usually get an SMS through if you have any reception at all, so hopefully this well help with such situations. Of course the car needs to be able to get a connection too, but we can't do much about that.

Give it a try, and make sure you associate your phone number with your account before heading out into the wilderness, as you do need to visit the site to complete a one-time verification of your number.

 

[DevinL]

Alright, we're home! Now I can upload the rest of the photos and video.

I made extensive use of the Ravcharge SMS interface on our way back and it worked perfectly. It enabled me to use remote climate and check the status even with poor reception at Valley of Fire.

The trip home was mostly uneventful and we cut out the charging stop in Las Vegas.

One hiccup we did run into on our way home was that we tried to charge up at the Desert Willow RV Park in Victorville instead of the Mojave AQMD but were rather rudely turned away since we arrived a half hour after their main office shuts (but several hours before their check-in ends). We ended up going back to Mojave AQMD but the detour cost us some electricity and had to wait at AQMD longer than we'd have liked. I did some math and determined that we'd need 25kWh to get us the 88 miles home with a bit of cushion so we stayed there for over 3 hours. My math was sound and we made it home with a little extra juice to spare thanks to the decrease in elevation.

Charging stops on the way back were:

• - Start: Milford, UT
  - Zion West RV Park, Leeds, UT ($5)
  - Overnight: Atlatl Rock Campground, Valley of Fire State Park, NV ($10 for RV hookup + $20 for entry/camping fee)
  - Clark Mobile Home Park, Baker, CA ($10)
  - Mojave AQMD, Victorville, CA ($0)
  - End: Van Nuys, CA

 

[DevinL]

I logged the data for the trip on the way from LA to Milford. A/C was on LO with fan on 1 or 2. Exterior temperatures were between 95-110 degrees fahrenheit.



https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jOEyVrVxbvXLOxhJIeH8xRXUIFLUekYbdcY2TRbgCgQ/edit?usp=sharing

 

[DevinL]

Some photos...

RAV4 EV Camping



Just like a tiny RV



OpenEVSE: Ground Wires & Ground Squirrels



Charging at Zion West RV Park in Leeds, UT



The car is still somewhat clean at this point



Dixie National Forest, en route to Bryce Canyon



Bighorn sheep in Valley of Fire State Park



You can get really close in an EV - I actually started to back up once they noticed the car

 

[DevinL]

Can you tell if the battery is actively cooling using the air conditioner while you charge?

It doesn't seem to be, at least it's not making any noises during charging that it doesn't normally make - no sound like the regular AC compressor that I observed at least.

This is fairly disappointing considering all I hear about active cooling.
I suppose most of the cooling was done while driving :?

Update on this. On our way back temperatures were much hotter (>110 degrees). When we reached Valley of Fire on the return trip and plugged in it was 108 degrees and the car was absolutely running the AC compressor during charging. Noticed this again the next day while charging up in Baker at the same temperature.

 

[Dsinned]

Welcome home! Nice pictures!

A few questions . . .

How comfortable were your sleeping quarters in back of a RAV4 EV. Plenty of room for two adults? Did you leave your RAV4 EV in 'Ready' while parked and sleeping inside to keep the A/C running at night (while plugged in, of course)? If so, did that do a good job of keeping the interior cool enough to sleep comfortably during the night? Did you find that most "RV" Parks and roadside rest/camping places had L2 EVSE to charge from, or where they more likely to just have regular AC outlets. If you had your own "portable" L2 EVSE with you, would it have been even easier to recharge using "RV" electrical hookups at 240V (i.e. NEMA 14-50R style outlets)?

Did you only do "normal" recharges, or take the extra time to do any "extended" charges? From your itinerary chart, looks like you managed to get close to 120 miles on the GoM after recharging about separate 3 times is the reason I am asking. What was your overall average miles per kWh during this trip?

 

[DevinL]

How comfortable were your sleeping quarters in back of a RAV4 EV. Plenty of room for two adults?

Yes, it was more comfortable than I expected. I'm 6'0" and my SO is 5'9" and we fit with room to spare. In fact, the RAV4 can accommodate a slightly larger mattress, but I think next time I will cut some foam inserts for the areas around the wheel well and rear doors. That way it'll have a more even surface without taking up too much space.

Did you leave your RAV4 EV in 'Ready' while parked and sleeping inside to keep the A/C running at night (while plugged in, of course)?

The RAV4 EV won't enter "Ready" mode while plugged in, and thus the AC compressor will not run (the fan will work though). The first night we cracked the windows and dealt with it. Next time we were in Valley of Fire, I charged the RAV4 to about 85%, unplugged, and then just left the car running in "Ready" mode all night with the air set to LO and fan speed 1. That worked really well and the draw was about 1kW. Then we charged right back up in the morning as we were getting ready and showering and whatnot.

Did you find that most "RV" Parks and roadside rest/camping places had L2 EVSE to charge from, or where they more likely to just have regular AC outlets.

The only L2 EVSE we used was the one at Mojave AQMD. No RV parks or rest stops had them installed - although we did spot a couple Tesla Superchargers en route but that doesn't do us any good.

If you had your own "portable" L2 EVSE with you, would it have been even easier to recharge using "RV" electrical hookups at 240V (i.e. NEMA 14-50R style outlets), instead of (S L O W L Y) charging on the 120V cordset that came with the car?

We did have a 40A capable OpenEVSE that I put together a few days before we left. Aside from the L2 at Mojave AQMD, we always used the OpenEVSE to charge with NEMA 14-50 outlets at the RV parks. If we had to rely on the 120V L1 cordset that came with the car, we wouldn't have made it to Utah yet. At our destination I used a NEMA 14-30 dryer outlet by cutting off the neutral pin from my 30' RV extension cord and set the OpenEVSE to draw only 24A. This worked really well.

Did you only do "normal" recharges, or take the extra time to do any "extended" charges? From your itinerary chart, looks like you managed to get close to 120 miles on the GoM after recharging about separate 3 times is the reason I am asking. What was your overall average miles per kWh during this trip?

I left the car set to extended charge while travelling but we didn't always wait for a full extended charge to complete before moving on. On the itinerary chart, full extended charges are those indicated with 90 minutes over normal charge.

I reset the trip computer between charging so I don't have the trip average miles/kWh off the top of my head. As I always did with my LEAF, I find it easier to determine how many miles/kWh I need to make it to my destination and target that or higher on the trip computer while keeping elevation changes along the route in mind. This way is much more reliable than comparing the GOM and the nav miles-to-go although that can give you some idea at a glance.

 

[Dsinned]

So, would I be correct in assuming, your Open EVSE, capable of the full 240V, 40A charging current limit of a RAV4 EV, is the ONLY really effective way to travel cross country? Anything less would just be too agonizing waiting for a recharge, or would you say that ANY L2 EVSE (240V) charging capability - even at say, 24 to 32A - is almost just as good, given enough allotted and reasonable amounts of stop over time at the various RV Parks, etc, in-route?

 

[DevinL]

So, would I be correct in assuming, your Open EVSE, capable of the full 240V, 40A charging current limit of a RAV4 EV, is the ONLY really effective way to travel cross country? Anything less would just be too agonizing waiting for a recharge, or would you say that ANY L2 EVSE (240V) charging capability - even at say, 24 to 32A - is almost just as good, given enough allotted and reasonable amounts of stop over time at the various RV Parks, etc, in-route?

For the most part, yes. Anything less would be pretty agonizing, especially during the heat of the summer. In spring or fall it may not be so bad as you could easily walk around town (if applicable) while waiting to charge. I would say that I wouldn't want to do a trip that would require more than 25% of charging stops below 240V/40A. Ideally, if you have to do slower charges you would plot them such that they occur overnight or in interesting places so at least you (or your travelling companion) aren't bored to death waiting.

 

[DevinL]

Here's the first finished time lapse video of the first day! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjN6qB4TiJ0

 

[ufojoe]

Here's the first finished time lapse video of the first day! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjN6qB4TiJ0

Awesome video!! Thanks so much for sharing!!!

 

[Dsinned]

Terrific HD video and sound track! Thanks! :mrgreen:

 

[fooljoe]

Great video (and soundtrack)! I want to see the charging though! If only there were some way to make it look exciting somehow - like animation of a battery filling... I suppose a time lapse of those two little lights by the charging port wouldn't be too exciting.

 

[smkettner]

Update on this. On our way back temperatures were much hotter (>110 degrees). When we reached Valley of Fire on the return trip and plugged in it was 108 degrees and the car was absolutely running the AC compressor during charging. Noticed this again the next day while charging up in Baker at the same temperature.

Thanks for the confirmation. I was thinking it should have been hot enough to trigger the cooling at some point.

 

[DevinL]

Great video (and soundtrack)! I want to see the charging though! If only there were some way to make it look exciting somehow - like animation of a battery filling... I suppose a time lapse of those two little lights by the charging port wouldn't be too exciting.

Good suggestion - maybe I'll get something figured out for the charging segments of the BC2BC rally. Maybe recording the dashboard while charging. One easy cheat for this would be to record the charge once and then just cut into the clip based on how many bars of beginning and ending and then just blacking out the GOM number. Will have to ponder this further.