Electric Car – Page 2 – My ActiveE Made Me Accidentally Environmental

Here, There, and EVerywhere – Day 19

A quick note of thanks to the Beatles for inspiring the title for this series of posts. This is the nineteenth in a series of posts written about our trip that will be published four weeks to the day of the trip.

Missed Day 18, click here.

Day 19 – Drive on Wednesday, May 20, 2015

As we discussed on our previous post, we decided to take a different route back West (I-70 as opposed to I-80/I-90.) From West Virginia, we were looking at going through Ohio, Missouri, Kansas, then Colorado. That’s a long drive with parts that are through “Tornado Alley.” Though to be fair, it would seem that I-80/I-90 is not spared of tornado activity either. Being, Southern Californians, we’ve grown with the expectation that earthquakes, tsunamis or the like are the “normal” things to fear from nature. However, as the weather warms up, the chances of tornado warnings seem to increase. Now it wasn’t just Deer, Moose, or Bears to worry about, I’m wondering about tornadoes.

With that in mind, today’s goal is to drive as far as we can West, and stop at whatever may be interesting along the way. We reached out to John, a high school friend, who lives near Dayton, OH, to see if he and his family can meet up for lunch or something.

Hampton Inn & Suites, Triadelphia

After arriving in Triadelphia, WV in the evening, we noticed lights below the hill that the hotel and supercharger is located in. The view from the hill looks like clouds and colder weather today. Not great for sunset pictures, but good to keep in mind when worrying about tornadoes, at least that’s what I tell myself is the upside to such days. (Another bonus, TWO water towers.)

Walking out of the hotel lobby, the superchargers are at the far right corner of the photograph.

We parked at a regular spot in the evening with the plan to move the car to the supercharger while we get ready to check out. This way, we’re able to maximize our time. As with any plan to charge away from the car, we’ve decided to use our handy dandy EVcard from Plug In America.

We lost 3 miles overnight. But we’re at the hotel with the supercharger, so it’s no big deal. Especially since the supercharger will fill it back in no time.

I moved the car to the supercharger, put the EV Card on the dash and started charging.

Triadelphia Supercharger

As we were leaving the superchargers another Model S with Virginia plates drove up to the superchargers. We acknowledged the other car, but we were unplugged and rolling out, so we didn’t make conversation.

We started on the way to Grove City, OH.

It was a quick drive from the Triadelphia Supercharger that just like that, we’re back in the state of Ohio.

Since we’ve decided to take I-70 West. As I previously mentioned, this route just became viable when Tesla opened its supercharger in St Charles, Missouri. So we decided to try it out. Besides, I was pretty sure that no one else has checked into those chargers on the beta of the (now released) Teslarati App for iOS at the routes along I-70.

Grove City Supercharger

The Grove City, OH supercharger is located on the rear/side of the shops. Hard to explain why I used the term rear/side it’s because the shops are in a curve and the SCs are technically at the side of the Giant Eagle, but in the rear of the other shops in the center.

The Giant Eagle is not directly adjacent to the stalls, it just happens to be open 24 hours and available for any traveler through this location that may need to use it. It’s a pretty full supermarket.

The supercharger is a very large installation with eight charging stalls. People coming to supercharge at this location need to be wary of the big dip in between the charging stalls. Either drive slowly when crossing them, or enter the charging area from the other side.

The drive to Dayton was quite EVentful. We saw London, but not THAT London ;-).

We were entertained by the “little things”, like this bird that we saw at a highway rest stop.

Additionally, we passed a truck half-full of Mini Coopers.

Which led me to three different EV thoughts.

1) The Mini E folks.

Before the Active E program that I participated in was launched, there were a few hundred folks that provided the phase 1 to the BMW electrification program. They all drove Mini Coopers that were all electric. Most Mini E drivers loved their cars, even though the fit and finish was nowhere near its descendants, the Active E and BMW i3.

2) Paul at SpeakEV.com

Paul, the owner and operator for SpeakEV.com is a “Mini Guy”. Apparently before he founded SpeakEV.com he owned and ran some of the more popular Mini focused Internet forums.

3) The Mini Superleggera.

The Mini Superleggera is BMW’s vision for an electrified Mini platform. It’s a very attractive little Roadster that has found itself in Go/No Go status over the past few months.

Either way, passing a truck full of ICE Minis make me think of the missed opportunity that BMW has in making a really awesome EV.

BMW should electrify the Mini, any of them. The Superleggera is plenty awesome, but an electrified Mini Cooper is ideal.

With those thoughts, I was distracted by…

Ooh a barn.

No, not the barn, I was distracted by spotting a very familiar headlight behind us.

An Ohio white Tesla Model S was behind us. As the car neared us, we were able to read the license plate 1STESLA. This Model S stayed with us all the way to the exit for the Dayton Supercharger.

As we were making our way to the Dayton Supercharger, I expected the OH 1STESLA to join us as we charged. It didn’t the White Model S continued driving away on its way after exiting at the same exit as the Dayton Supercharger.

Dayton Supercharger

The Dayton supercharger is located at another shopping complex. The Meijer store in Dayton looks like it’s in the middle of some construction. Just in front of the superchargers is a Chipotle, but we were not hungry for Mexican food.

As we previously mentioned, before we left for Dayton, I reached out to John, a high school friend, who lives near Dayton to see if he and his family can meet up with us for lunch. Aside from the fact that we arrived later in the afternoon, he was in the middle of a contract negotiations and couldn’t pull away to meet up.

A few years before, we had dinner with him and his family at this sushi bar (yes, you read correctly, a sushi bar in Ohio) in Troy, OH that was very good. So, I made sure to get the name of the location from him.

Sakai is located at 2303 W. Main Street, Troy, OH 45373.

After completing our charge, we proceeded to Sakai for dinner. The quality of the sushi and cooked Asian food is very good. Though we broke our usual rule regarding sushi restaurants (ocean adjacent AND/OR near a major airport (i.e. direct flight from the ocean)) we welcomed the meal.

The bibimbap was delicious and welcome on such a cool, cloudy day. After 19 days on the road, we were starting to miss home. And if there’s anything that Southern California does well it’s Asian food.

So, if you find yourself with a craving for very good Asian cooking near Dayton, OH, take the detour to Troy and hit Sakai. We’re glad that we did.

Can’t you tell by the photo below?

We didn’t catch the state line marker from Indiana, but did catch Ohio saying goodbye to us.

The drive to Indianapolis was uneventful.

Indianapolis Supercharger

The superchargers are located at a La Quinta Hotel.

The La Quinta hosting the supercharger in Indianapolis seemed like a “nice enough” hotel for a stop for the evening, except it was still rather early (around 8pm) when we got there and we wanted to have this be a “drive far” day, so we opted to see what was along the way to the St Charles, MO supercharger before we make the cross to Independence, MO.

The supercharger has eight stalls at this location. I wonder if there’s a large community of Teslas in Indianapolis or if it’s because these superchargers are at a major intersection of travel routes.

While we were parked and charging at the Indianapolis supercharger, I started doing searches for hotels along I-70. As I was fine tuning selections, I stumbled across a seemingly well priced lodging offer at Terre Haute, IN.

I proceeded to look at bookings and went to discuss this with my wife. Luckily she did a few things that brought about a new lesson learned from the trip. Just like universities (South Bend, IN) and major medical centers (Rochester, MN,) large federal correctional (i.e. prison) facilities are prone to have a good cluster of hotels near them. So, it’s a good idea to research why there are a lot of hotels before booking a hotel for the night.

I looked elsewhere for our lodging for the evening.

It turned out the Holiday Inn near the Effingham Supercharger was available. It was about double the price of the “deal” at Terre Haute, IN. I’m sure Terre Haute is a lovely place, but like they say is the three rules of real estate, “Location. Location. Location.” We opted to stay AWAY from the prison and book at the bargain 2x hotel near the Effingham Supercharger.

Effingham Supercharger

Don’t adjust your dial.

Boy was I glad to make that drive. Aside from being “prison-free”, Effingham, IL was located at the best place of all for a supercharger.

It was at the parking lot of a gasoline station.

The photo opportunities at night were plentiful.

We arrived at the supercharger after 518 miles of driving. The supercharger is less than a mile away from our lodging for the night. Not quite as convenient as this morning’s Triadelphia supercharger, but the juxtaposition of Tesla with BP is priceless.

Aside from the picture taking, for a good portion of time that we spent supercharging, a local young man (accompanied by his very understanding girlfriend), approached us and spent quite a bit of time talking to us about the car and Tesla and the future. It was reminiscent of the conversation we had with the group of young people at Rita’s in Cuyahoga Falls, OH. We spent a while talking to him (which is why I mentioned that the girlfriend was understanding) and made sure that we left a good impression to him about those of us who are lucky enough to be driving Model S.

To give us maximum flexibility for the next day, we supercharged close to full and headed to our hotel.

Holiday Inn Effingham

The Holiday Inn at Effingham was clean, comfortable, and provided a very good Internet connection. We didn’t choose the hotel for anything else other than that and were very happy with the location. (i.e. farther away from a prison than our choices in Terre Haute, IN.) With that, we went to bed and to plan the next day’s I-70 Missouri crossing.

Go on to Day 20. Click here.

Here, There, and EVerywhere – Day 18

A quick note of thanks to the Beatles for inspiring the title for this series of posts. This is the eighteenth in a series of posts written about our trip that will be published four weeks to the day of the trip.

Missed Day 17, click here.

Day 18 – Drive on Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Hampton Inn and Suites in Christiana/Newark

We were prepared for a vampire loss overnight of -10 to +1 range, we found that the cool rain provided us with the upper end of the expected range. We gained a mile from the time we parked last night to the time that we decided to roll out.

I don’t have anything to add to this hotel location except to highlight the fact that this was the only hotel on the trip, so far, that we have visited for a second time. That, in itself, should be a positive endorsement.

We now stayed in Delaware twice that we were beginning to wonder whether we should start a corporation or something.

It’s interesting to see how empty the hotel looks from the window of our room. This place was packed last night. People really clear out early.

Newark Supercharger

With around a 3 mile difference, the drive from the hotel to the supercharger was quick.

The Delaware Welcome Center seems to be a very popular stop for buses heading on field trips (Washington, D.C. perhaps?). While we were sitting and charging at the location at least a dozen tour buses filled with teenagers had stopped by at this Welcome Center.

The Delaware Welcome Center is pretty full during this time of day and if you’re hoping to get some Starbucks, be prepared to wait. Even with two locations inside the Welcome Center, the number of people in line gets quite long.

Not sure with what we can expect at Hershey, PA, we range charged. The many routes to Hershey, PA from the Delaware Supercharger took us through many off-Interstate routes, and not knowing the area, we just randomly picked one. This time, on a lark, we thought to give Google Maps a try and used the turn by turn directions provided by Google’s iPhone app. We also put in our destination on Tesla’s in-car navigation, but decided to take the route that looked like it used the least amount of Interstates.

With that in mind, we went off to go to Hershey’s Chocolate World.

The recommended routes to Hershey Chocolate World on Google Maps and from Tesla Navigation were remarkably different. The Model S first tried to get us to take a Route North then West, whereas the Google Maps one had us go Southwest and then North. We stayed on the Google Maps and we were off the Interstate rather quickly. We got off the Interstate in Delaware and entered the Maryland border on surface streets/highways?

Not sure what this meant when we passed it, so we went ahead and searched for it on Google. We figured that it had nothing to do with fish & chips, and we were right. Apparently on some rural routes, its a method for repairing the road using chips of rock with oil.

The sign was followed with a progress at your own risk disclaimer which we found unnerving, but unsure of what we would encounter over alternate methods, we pressed on. The sealing method must have done its job properly because we were lucky enough not to have chips of rock flying free on us on this portion of the drive. That would have been irritating, to say the least.

Somehow we found ourselves crossing into Pennsylvania though we did not capture the welcome sign into the state this time.

Not really very knowledgeable of Pennsylvania geography, somethings lead me to think that we’re in Amish Country. Like the appearance of this sign that I was unfamiliar with.

Ooh, Cows…

That confirms it, we are in Amish Country.

It was a rather scenic drive. However, our friends at Google Maps navigation did try to send us to a closed road that we decided to turn around and use the Model S navigation about 30 miles into the drive.

Another set of cows.

We ran into another sign to remind us that we’re sharing the road with horse powered buggys.

A few more signs that remind us that we’re in Amish country.

This place looked to be a recreation rather than an actual Amish location. Having chocolate on one’s goal compelled us to press on.

Hershey, PA

And we find ourselves entering the town of Hershey, PA. A few signs that remind us of the importance of chocolate to the town and its history. Just like our experience in Maine, these guys are so friendly that they had TWO welcome to Hershey signs.

The one that had a chocolate bar in it.

And the other one that was all “official” and like.

A lot of the signs about town were chocolate related. Like the movie house below, it’s called the CocoaPlex.

Or the Cocoa Motel. Seeing that we’re strictly focused on staying at Hotels with an H and not an M. We skipped that spot. 😉

Tasty reading at the Hershey Public Library.

The town definitely has embraced the chocolate factory, take a look at the street lights/lamp posts.

Kind of a tight underpass toward the Hershey Chocolate World.

It’s interesting to contrast the drive into and around Hershey, PA with my other experience in the town of Slough, UK. Slough is the UK headquarters for Hershey’s competitor Mars, Incorporated (of M&M’s fame.) Aside from the tell-tale sweet smell of chocolate in Slough Trading Estate, the town didn’t seem to celebrate the Mars Bar or any ties to the candy as Hershey, PA does to the Hershey Bar. I would have enjoyed trying to visit either the Left Twix or Right Twix factory.

After this brief drive through the town, we enter Hershey Chocolate World.

Hershey Chocolate World

Hershey Chocolate World is a combination attraction and store. The thought to stop and visit Hershey, PA was borne from our initial drive through PA on Day 9. As we drove into PA, we thought how “cool” it would be to go to Hershey, PA. No real planning or anything. Since it seemed to be away from Tesla Supercharger highway, we dismissed it until we can figure out a way to it. And I was glad that we did.

Our later research into a visit to Hershey Chocolate World yielded us the information about four Level 2 J1772 Chargepoint chargers that were listed on Plugshare.com. Additionally, it seems that Hershey, PA also has other chargers installed throughout the town. So, armed with a bit of information, we were able to incorporate this drive to the return.

The theme park was closed when we visited, but we weren’t planning on going there anyway, so we headed into the Hershey’s Chocolate World store.

The selection of Hershey’s chocolate was incredible.

White, Milk, or Dark?

I was disappointed that they did not stock any of the international Kit Kat flavors.

There were some attractions and we chose the free one, the “factory tour.” I have this is quotes because we didn’t actually get to see the factory folks doing their work, just a bunch of exhibits describing the chocolate making process. However, it was a fun little ride and diversion.

It turned out that the Factory Tour is a ride.

Hershey’s chocolate starts with milk, and milk comes from cows, so the tour starts with introducing us to the cows.

So, we follow the tour to the various steps of the chocolate making process.

No matter where you go, it seems that they really like Kiss shaped lighting around Hershey, PA.

When we were done visiting the Hershey Chocolate World, it looks like it was just us charging here on this particular visit. I figure that in the peak season, these chargers will more likely be used more often. The parking lot was fairly empty.

We rolled out with 200 miles on our rated range and our first Level 2 charge of the trip. This means that we added 28 miles of rated range for the 100 minutes that we were inside the Hershey Chocolate World. That’s a rate of 16.8 rated range miles per hour to charge at these J1772 stations.

Taking the opportunity to check out destination charging and making an entry for the beta of the (now released) Teslarati App for iOS, we headed to the AACA Museum, about 2 miles away from Hershey Chocolate World.

AACA Museum, Hershey, PA

The drive was uphill, but short, so we used about 3 miles of rated range to get to the AACA Museum on the route toward Hagerstown Supercharger.

The chargers at this location were located in the driveway by the entrance to the museum. We plugged in to see what the rate is and to get another “places you’ve charged” into the Model S. Our experience at this location nets a 40A feed and not the 80A that we expected from these Tesla High Power Wall Charger (HPWC).

Just ahead of the Tesla HPWC is the Hershey Kissmobile. With Hugs, Almonds, and Kisses making up the main portions of the vehicle.

You can actually see our car charging on one of the two HPWCs just behind me and the Hershey Kissmobile.

Since we’ve been visiting many a car museum lately, (Nethercutt Collection and the Petersen Museum collection that was at the President Reagan Library and Museum) we decided to skip on actually going to view the exhibits in the museum.

We charged enough to get the 3 miles that we lost getting to the museum and continued on our way.

Hagerstown Supercharger

We sent notices to a few of the Maryland guys, but they were unavailable. So, we find ourselves in Hagerstown by ourselves again. Will just have to meet these guys “in real life” on another trip.

We decided not to eat at the Hagerstown Supercharger location this time. I did notice that we just passed 40,000 miles upon arrival at the Hagerstown Supercharger. 40,004 miles, to be precise. Long time readers know how much I enjoyed documenting “significant mileage” milestones.

When we set out to go to Hershey today, we discussed making the decision to go West and what route to take by the time we finished charging at Hagerstown. We decided to skip going South and Hagerstown, MD and Somerset, PA were the two superchargers that we will pass before we decide to continue back the same direction that we took to head East, or to take the just opened I-70 route.

The completion of the St Charles, MO charger on I-70 had made it possible to cross Missouri to Independence. After the completion of this supercharger, more aggressive drivers have been able to do this with one range charge. In fact, my former co-pilot on the Tour de Tesla 2013, Jim, tried to complete this in the April 2015 as an attempt via his much quicker “EV Cannonball Run“, he actually got a boost from @LithieTWTesla via an HPWC 30 miles toward Independence, MO from St Charles, MO that they share on Plugshare as opposed to our more leisurely roadtrip.

Heading to @LithieTWTesla to charge up a few extra miles just to be cautious #teslamotors

— EV Cannonball (@EVCannonball) April 22, 2015

So, we reached Hagerstown, discussed it and decided to add the I-70 route to our plans. I don’t normally correspond with @LithieTWTesla so, figured we would make a stop closer to the middle, it looks like Columbia, MO have some options.

We finally caught the state line crossing back into Pennsylvania on this part of the drive.

My wife decided to take a few more pictures of the car and the view from the side mirror again.

We headed into the tunnels through the Allegheny Mountain pass here. Though, we missed the A in this shot.

We caught the whole sign, but the mirror image since we shot this picture through the side mirror.

Some compelling pictures of the sunset again.

Got a better shot of the windmills in Pennsylvania on this drive. I don’t understand why folks are against these things. Considering the alternative, I would say that they’re pretty cool.

The dusk offers us with the some of the most compelling shots of the trip.

And we find ourselves at Somerset location again.

Somerset Supercharger

At this location with a much darker time of day. Or dusk as it is more appropriate to call it now.

The long dusk period stayed with us as we departed Somerset on our new route Westward on I-70.

Under the heading of, we’ve never slept in… Oh wait, we’ve never BEEN to West Virginia before, we decided to find a place near to or on the way to the Triadelphia supercharger.

It turns out that this location is at a hotel, so we just booked there.

Spotted on the way to Triadelphia is California… Not the same one, apparently. 😉

And we find ourselves at another state line welcome sign.

Hampton Inn & Suites, Triadelphia

We chose to stay at the Hampton Inn & Suites, Triadelphia because the supercharger is located at the same place. We make it a point, when we can, to stay and sponsor those businesses that have decided to support the supercharger network. Besides, it’s most convenient to roll out of bed, and supercharge while getting ready for the day.

So, we checked in for the evening with 117 miles of Rated Range left, and a new state to add to the list of states that we’ve visited. At this point, the list of states that we’ve never visited is quite small.

Go on to Day 19. Click here.

Here, There, and EVerywhere – Day 17

A quick note of thanks to the Beatles for inspiring the title for this series of posts. This is the seventeenth in a series of posts written about our trip that will be published four weeks to the day of the trip.

Missed Day 16, click here.

Day 17 – Drive on Monday, May 18, 2015

Everyday we like to set out goals. One of my aunts in New Jersey is celebrating her birthday today. So, we decided to head down to Whiting, NJ to visit her and then continue on our way. We’ve decided NOT to go to the South on this trip as the weather reports don’t seem to agree with us. We’re thinking of positioning ourselves to get to Hershey, PA tomorrow and are looking to find ourselves either in Hershey, PA or on the way to Hershey, PA from New Jersey, depending on how today’s familial parts go.

However, before we get there, the goal is to get to Whiting, NJ.

First statistic we check for is to see what we gained by plugging in 110V/8A. Looks like we gained 27 miles overnight. Not bad. Those miles are enough to get us to the Edison Supercharger.

On the way to Edison, NJ. We spotted another Random NJ Model S. It was raining, trying to follow my cousin in his car in a caravan, and I was in unfamiliar territory, so I may not have been as friendly on the road.

Edison Supercharger

We took the other set of four from the last time we charged.

There were already two Model S in the other set and didn’t want to split anyone’s charge. And because I was curious to see if there was a difference in charge speed from this set than the other set. I didn’t perceive a difference.

Check out the “alien car” that I caught in the panoramic shot.

We stayed in Edison for a near maximum charge as we know we were going to probably be giving a ride to my uncle and aunt when we get to Whiting and wanted to not have to worry about the charge. The current New Jersey superchargers are all further from the New Jersey shore and Whiting is closer to the shore than the chargers. Considering the fact that New Jersey already has three supercharge locations in the state, it is quite confusing not to have one close to the shore. Atlantic City, Long Beach Island, Tom’s River, those would be good locations for the first shore-side New Jersey supercharger.

Originally, the navigation to Whiting, had us taking the Garden State Parkway, but by the time we were done charging, it changed to route us through the NJ Turnpike. The Turnpike would have allowed us a route through Hamilton Marketplace again for a 30 mile boost, but decided to skip it as we had enough charge to make it to my aunt’s, drive the car around a bit, and then get to Newark, DE and beyond. Besides, we’re now going through some superchargers and areas that we’ve already covered for our entries in the beta of the (now released) Teslarati App for iOS.

So, we headed to Whiting, NJ.

Whiting, NJ

Well, we did it again. I got confused by the exits to get to Whiting from the NJ Turnpike that I ended up having to take the next exit. Now, it’s not as bad as the 15 mile one-way that we experienced in Vermont on the way to Ice Cream (and neither was I distracted by any Bear, Deer, or Moose signs). I think I’ll blame it on jughandle turns.

For those unfamiliar with jughandle turns, aside from the Wikipedia link that I embedded, I’d like to define it. The jughandle turn is an oddity that seems to exist primarily in New Jersey. As I understand it, the theory is to take folks that would be making a left or U-turn and force them to make those turns along with traffic that is crossing a highway.

Either way, the exit we were originally meant to exit looked like a rest-stop to me that I ended up bypassing it. Luckily, we charged enough to do a LOT in Whiting and beyond, and it was no big deal. Our original route on the NJ Turnpike was supposed to take us 55 miles, so, it looks like we had another 15 mile diversion.

With 175 miles of range left we really didn’t need to charge, but I believe that it was a novelty for my aunt and uncle to see us plug a car into their house. Besides I do like to collect “places that we’ve charged” and it’s even cooler when it’s thousands of miles away from home.

We didn’t really do much driving, we drove around with a few of my cousins, a couple of my aunts and uncles in the Model S. We were able to charge at the full 12A at my aunt and uncle’s house. While we were visiting, we decided that we would just spend the night at the same hotel in Christiana/Newark, DE as we were impressed with how comfortable that hotel was.

We left my aunt and uncle’s house with 188 miles of rated range heading toward the Hampton Inn and Suites in Christiana/Newark, DE. That means that we gained 13 miles of rated range having birthday dinner.

Hampton Inn and Suites Christiana – Newark

We checked back in to the Hampton Inn and Suites Christiana – Newark. This was the same hotel that we stayed at on Day 9.

It was raining when we got here and we checked in with 104 Rated Miles on rated range and we know that we’re only three miles to the Newark Supercharger. Additionally, even if we lost the 10 miles that was the worst vampire loss that we experienced earlier in the trip, we will be fine.

In the parking lot of this Hampton Inn was a fellow Model S traveler, who I found out on TMC’s Random Model S thread was TMC user EdA‘s wife’s Red Model S.

So, a fine few days of Random Model S sightings for us and we made sure to report it on the thread on TMC. Now I had a few goals in mind for this trip, and one of those was to “be” the spotted Model S on that thread. So, as we head West on the return part of our trip, I’m a little disappointed that we have yet to make the Random Model S spotting thread. How often do folks spot a California Model S around here anyway?

Oh well, time for bed, dreaming of Hershey’s Chocolate on the next day’s drive.

Go on to Day 18. Click here.

Here, There, and EVerywhere – Day 16

A quick note of thanks to the Beatles for inspiring the title for this series of posts. This is the sixteenth in a series of posts written about our trip that will be published four weeks to the day of the trip.

Missed Day 15, click here.

Day 16 – EV Advocacy at Sustainable Morristown Sunday, May 17, 2015

Today’s plan is simple, hang out with my cousin in the morning and join the NJEAA guys at the Sustainable Morristown event in the afternoon.

The previous day, we took the time to figure out what the optimal rate of charge was for the Model S on my cousin’s 110V outlet. We placed it at 8A and the charge held. As I previously mentioned, the Model S will reduce the speed that it charges when it senses stress on the wire, and here is a picture of the Model S automatically reducing speed of charge (see the “Charge Speed Reduced” message on the dash below.)

To prepare for the Sustainable Morristown event, we decided to go ahead and wash the car. After all, NJ is not in a drought, so took the opportunity to clean the car and present it in the best possible light (if you want to see how I usually wash the car @ home, you can see my first Periscope (by Twitter) attempt to instruct folks on how to do a car wash of the Model S.)

In the meantime, before we went to the EVent, we found the communities near Morristown, NJ to be a Random Model S spotting bonanza.

The first one we spotted was at the church parking lot.

We spotted the LKTRFYD NJ plates parked across from us.

On the way to the Sustainable Morristown event, we spotted a blue Model S on Speedwell Avenue heading the opposite direction from us.

Sustainable Morristown

The event was held at the U Driveway of the Vail Mansion. The driveway was barricaded, but we were let in by Airton Azevedo. As soon as we parked the car, Chris Neff introduced me to a reporter covering the event for the Daily Record.

Unfortunately my comments didn’t make the reporter’s article. But darn, I was good. I wonder if she didn’t like my answer to the question regarding range anxiety. (I don’t really have it, notice the California license plate?)

Got a few good panoramics of the cars that participated in the event. Most of the NJEAA folks that was at the EV Meetup the previous Monday were here. Unfortunately, I missed Tom Moloughney’s “red” i3.

Pay attention to the 10 x 10 Green Tent that is at the left edge of the picture below. Michael and Pamela Thwaite do a lot of EV advocacy, and they were smart enough to set up some “shelter” from the sun as they interact and educate with the public.

While we were hanging out at the EVent and talking to the public, I spotted a third Silver Model S that drove by on the street. This car wasn’t participating on the EVent, it seemed to be a Model S that is just passing by.

At the EVent, I was fielding a lot of questions about range. Hopefully, bringing a California Model S to a New Jersey event hopefully helps hammer home the point that electric vehicles are not only limited to “short trips.” My wife and I met with a lot of people, both locals and folks from further away, like Westchester County, New York. People were intrigued by the cross-country travel aspect of the car as soon as they realized that we were there from California.

We were the “go-to” folks to field the question of range anxiety, which [Spoiler Alert] we don’t have. We had a lot of folks that approached us because, for a while, we were the only Model S at the event and they had questions for that, before they notice the California plates. To which many first thought that we worked for Tesla (to clarify, again, we don’t.)

Where’s the engine is another common question at these EVents, so we like to open the frunk and show the lack of an “engine.” Additionally, people really enjoyed seeing the little 18650 Panasonic battery (see below comparing it to a pen, AA, and AAA batteries, it’s the green one) that we carry around for these types of EVents.

My cousin and his wife hung out with us a little, since they had an event in the evening, we walked them back to where their car was parked.

The fourth Random Model S sighting. Though with the California Manufacturer’s plates, that tells me that it’s a Service Center Loaner.

The Sustainable Morristown event wasn’t all just cars.

Some great chalk art at the entrance of the event.

But, you know me, I’m kind of an EVaholic and Andrea Giangone and his blue Model S joined the EVent. Andrea’s Model S has a cool little mod.

There were some blue accents on the Tesla logo on the trunk of his Model S.

Ben Rich showed up later with his modified 2014 Zero Motorcycle.

This one is modified to have faster charging. Notice the two chargers on the side of the motorcycle. He obtained and installed two Elcon 2.5kW chargers from Hollywood Electrics. So, adding 5 more kW of charging to the built in 1.3kW charger of the motorcycle yields him 6.3 kW of charging speed. Not bad.

Many were quick to point out how sharp the mounts were that Ben installed to connect the chargers to his motorcycle. We guess he doesn’t need to carry a passenger with him.

Remember the 10 x 10 tent that Michael and Pamela Thwaite use for their EV advocacy, it’s even more impressive how they carry it. The trunk of a Tesla Roadster is one of the smallest trunks that I’ve ever seen. It’s design is such that people can fit one set of golf clubs in it. The Thwaites, however, are expert at packing things and their chairs and tent fit in the back of the roadster.

Aside from the ZeroMC, there was also a Fit EV that was parked beside our Model S. Airton’s 2nd Generation RAV4EV and then the Andrea’s Model S.

Sal Cameli‘s Nissan Leaf has a URL for his www.ubuygas.com website.

We spotted a second Ford Focus EV of the trip.

A great shot of the rears of the EVs.

A better shot of the second Ford Focus EV of our trip.

Michael Thwaite’s Roadster.

Chris Neff’s BMW i3.

Another shot of Ben’s Zero MC. Like we previously mentioned, watch out for those metal blades that he mounted those two chargers on.

Airton bidding us farewell until next time. Perhaps Tony Williams will figure out how to enable the 2nd Generation Toyota RAV4EV for supercharging. He’s already on his way to getting it running on CHAdeMO (or as he calls it the JdeMO).

Randolph, NJ

It was a full day and we plugged in for the night and started charging at 8A again.

Go on to Day 17. Click here.

Here, There, and EVerywhere – Day 15

A quick note of thanks to the Beatles for inspiring the title for this series of posts. This is the fifteenth in a series of posts written about our trip that will be published four weeks to the day of the trip.

Missed Day 14, click here.

Day 15 – Visit Northern New Jersey, Saturday, May 16, 2015

So today’s visit to New Jersey was really about just spending time with my cousin and his wife.

The location in Randolph New Jersey was the same one that we charged at 110V/6A (or approximately 1 mile per hour) on Monday evening (Day 10). We arrived the previous evening with 191 miles of range on the car (from the Paramus Supercharger) but we ended up driving to Rockaway, NJ and back and that consumed 17 miles of rated range.

We returned back to my cousin’s home with 195 rated range left. Since I forgot to take a photograph of the rated range when we left in the morning, I surmise that we added around 20-21 miles overnight.

One of the benefits of a casual day with family is we get to fiddle with things and found the optimum setting at my cousin’s 110V is 8A and not the 6A that I settled on Monday evening. The additional 2A (or 33% improvement in charging) raises the average mileage gain per hour from 1 mile per hour to 2 miles per hour. Since we figure to be “around Morristown, NJ” by Sunday, we’ve decided to join our NJEAA friends at their Sustainable Morristown event.

Now astute readers will notice that aside from my beautiful wife (and co-pilot), the only other folks that have driven our Model S on this trip have been my cousin in Ohio and my cousin in New York. Readers may wonder what about THIS cousin, the one in Randolph, NJ. He has both the other two cousins beat. He was the same one that visited us in Southern California during our Model S Pickup weekend. He and his wife were the first ones in the family to see and ride the Model S, he actually has driven our Active E and rode in my wife’s Roadster as well. Though I did offer for him to drive the Model S, he declined.

Driving Hybrid and Hybrid Garages

We decided to “drive hybrid” today and leave the Model S charging and we saw that this 8A held in the charge process.

Leaving the Model S in his garage to charge at 110V/8A reminded me of something that we did do to prepare for this long EV trip that we forgot to document on our Pre-Trip primer. As long time readers of the blog know, we don’t just drive Electric Vehicles. We have a hybrid garage that we’ve been running since we first acquired the Active E. In fact, we’ve been tracking the percentage of miles that we add on EV vs ICE as we were inspired by the tracking that Chevrolet Volt owners have published. We moved from approximately 80% EV/20% ICE in our first year of tracking to a 95% EV/5% ICE split in the second year. However, the danger of driving a hybrid garage with such a high amount of EV driving is that we have “killed” the battery on the ICE (and almost kill the battery two more times since then.) So, we figured with a long trip like this we needed to do something for our BMW X5 battery.

The simple solution was to plug the car in.

Basically, the contacts are connected to the battery posts of the X5 and plugged into the 110V outlet in the wall. Basically minimizing the need to start and drive the car once a week.

Blue Morel Restaurant and Wine Bar – Westin Governor Morris

We left the car to continue charging and rode in my cousin’s hybrid (non plug-in) for our night out. We went to the Blue Morel Restaurant and Wine Bar for dinner that night.

The Blue Morel has a great menu and the quality of the food and service was top notch. Normally, when we find ourselves this close to New York City, we go to restaurants in the City. But this trip we’ve decided to skip the City, so we picked a restaurant in Morristown and was duly impressed.

Being in a restaurant in a state located near major airports and the ocean, we opted for mainly seafood options. We imbibed in J.J. Prüm Kabinett Riesling, Wehlener Sonnenuhr, Germany, 2011 to pair with our appetizers. The wine was so good, that we carried this same wine choice forward to go with our dinner. I had the Swordfish and my wife had Chilean Sea Bass. For dessert, I shared the S’Mores that the Blue Morel had on its menu with my wife. The quality of the food and service rivaled some of the finer restaurants in the city and we were glad to have dined there.

Go on to Day 16. Click here.

Here, There, and EVerywhere – Day 14

A quick note of thanks to the Beatles for inspiring the title for this series of posts. This is the fourteenth in a series of posts written about our trip that will be published four weeks to the day of the trip.

Missed Day 13, click here.

Day 14 – Drive on Friday, May 15, 2015

Before we head North, we figured that this would be a good time to look at the map that’s been at the bottom of every day of the trip to review where we’ve been. It would seem that we’ve “reached our beach”, (an homage to those guys in Maryland that inspired us to take our trip by their “Reach the Beach” EVent in April. No matter where we go, we’re not planning on going any further East (even if we go South, all the other states will be further West than York Beach, Maine), so we’ve decided to color the lines Yellow now (to signify our Westward journey home to the Golden State.) At this point, we’ve traveled through 19 of the 50 states, supercharged 41 times (at 39 different Superchargers, one of which was un-reported to supercharge.info until I reported it via TMC), charged Level 1 (110V) on four occasions (at two locations) and yet to charge at Level 2 (either J1772 or Tesla HPWC.)

Today’s goal is to get to the Ben and Jerry’s Factory Tour, additionally, we figured to get a charge for both the car (and ourselves) at the Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (aka Keurig (or the K-cup) folks) visitor center in Waterbury, VT. Originally we thought that we would go to Maine today, but since we’ve already been to York for dinner the previous evening, it was time to think of either returning West or going South, so we thought to take the traffic filled route to go to the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, MA and/or the Pez Visitor Center that we saw advertised on our first stop in Connecticut.

But first, we had to get charging at the Hampton Inn, White River Junction.

We didn’t use much to get here from Hookset North Supercharger.

Additionally, we lost one mile of Rated Range from last night until this morning. Since we’re not sure of the charging situation ahead, and Plugshare comments on the CHAdeMO that has been installed in Vermont, seem to indicate that they were not very reliable and at lower power (25kW vs 50kW), we figured to range charge and just use whatever we can find.

The statistics before I moved the car to the CHAdeMO station.

Hampton Inn, White River Junction – CHAdeMO

When we initially purchased the CHAdeMO adapter for the Model S, it was as a convenience item. A “just-in-case” item that we got for Southern California. In fact the review and user-guide that I initially published a few months ago was written with that purpose in mind. However, in a state, like Vermont, that has only one supercharger 130 miles away from our destination, this convenience item quickly became a necessity.

The statistics after I moved it to the CHAdeMO station.

The NRG eVgo/Green Mountain Power CHAdeMO station at the Hampton Inn, White River Junction looked operational.

Model S charging door is open and ready to accept the Model S to CHAdeMO adapter and begin the charging session.

I signed up for the service, but the card will be arriving at home (in California) later in the week, so I’m hoping that they can do this remotely with a call. The screen requests the RFID card.

However, from the time that I attached the adapter,

read the Instructions to the side of the CHAdeMO charger,

the screen changed from waiting for the RFID card to “Preparing to Charge.” Well, that was a pleasant surprise, apparently the NRG eVgo/Green Mountain Power network partnership has not been officially launched yet and they were offering free 30 minute CHAdeMO service.

So, after timing out of the swipe screen it defaulted to “free charging mode” and we were able to start charging.

Now, we were planning a range charge, so I was going to check to see if we can extend the 30 minutes past the limit.

Per the Model S we’ll need 50 minutes to get to maximum.

Getting a decent 104 miles per hour.

If you notice, I placed my “handy dandy” EV Card from Pluginamerica.org on my dash for any CHAdeMO EV driver to contact me while I headed back to the room for the 30 minutes of the initial charge.

As predicted, it stopped after the first 30 minutes.

As big as the Model S battery is, I figured to start the CHAdeMO for the remaining 20 minutes and stop it part of the way and move to the J1772 chargers, the reasoning is CHAdeMO (and superchargers) slow down to a trickle on the charge for the last few electrons (so as not to burn out the batteries.) During this slow-down, the speed that the car will charge will be no better than a Level 2 connection. However, the Model S battery is very big and even at the last 20% the CHAdeMO can continue at its rapid speed for “quite a while.” Confident that I’m not inconveniencing anyone who might need CHAdeMO, I let the car charge a little more, and ensured that I still had the “handy dandy” EV Card from Pluginamerica.org still on the dash for anyone that might need the CHAdeMO. I returned a few minutes later to move the car to the J1772 stations.

I attempted to get the J1772 working remotely. However, the customer service at NRG eVgo is unable to remotely initiate on a network that is not yet active. Additionally, I had no card to start the J1772 session, so I just went back to the CHAdeMO and relied once again on my “handy dandy” EV Card from Pluginamerica.org should anyone else stop by and need to use the station. Needless to say, the movement between CHAdeMO and J1772 may seem comical to anyone who may have been watching me at the hotel parking lot, but I was trying to be courteous to any other fellow EV driver who may need a charge.

Alas, it was a wasted effort as I could’ve just stayed on CHAdeMO the whole time and been done sooner.

We rolled out of White River Junction, VT at near the maximum, basically, when we were all ready and packed into the car.

In driving toward Ben and Jerry’s I noticed the road in Waterbury, VT that the navigation was telling us to exit on is VT-100.

This made me chuckle because that was the old terminal emulation that was very popular on BBS days as well as early Telnet sessions. That was the old VAX Terminal (VT) 100 emulation protocol. For all you younger geeks and/or non-geeks, it’s a very geeky thing that made me snicker.

Either way, we were enjoying the evergreens and mountain routes without snow. (It’s May and we’re not in the Rockies, so it’s all good.)

I don’t know if it’s the construction by the exit for Waterbury, VT that confused me or was it the fact that the following sign was spotted on the drive to Waterbury, VT.

As readers of earlier posts know, since Minnesota we’ve been freaked out by the Deer Crossing sign, but to see a BEAR Crossing sign, that’s even more distressing. Either way, we ended up missing the exit. Of course, I thought that’s ok, I can always turn around.

Well, the sign for the next exit and LEGAL U-turn was 15 miles away. Luckily, with a Tesla a 30 mile detour is also “no big deal.” Had we been driving a Leaf, I probably would have made an illegal U-turn at one of the ones set aside for law enforcement and/or emergency vehicles.

So, that 30 mile detour was filled with more picture taking.

And even more stress, filled with our nemesis, the Deer Crossing.

And in Vermont, apparently they “kick it up a notch.” At first they’ll warn you that they’re crossing, but the Deer brought a friend. And they’re crossing with Moose.

Then if that’s not enough. It’s just Moose.

Glad that the view wasn’t all stressful. A teepee?

Followed by a barn, are those solar panels we see? Good for you Vermont!

I’m stressed enough as it is, and sure am glad that we didn’t miss the Waterbury, VT exit a SECOND time.

Here’s the sign we were looking for.

Ben and Jerry’s Factory – Waterbury, VT

When we pulled into the Ben and Jerry’s Factory, we were surprised to see that the NRG eVgo/Green Mountain Power folks were busy installing a similar set-up as the one we left in White River Junction CHAdeMO/J1772 combination charging location in the parking lot for Ben and Jerry’s.

I approached the gentlemen that were working on the chargers and was told that they expected to complete the installation “later today.” They were somewhat non-committal on the completion of the location. We had a plan to catch some Level 2/J1772 charge at the Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Visitors Center (aka GMCR or Keurig) in town, so there’s that if they didn’t finish the charger by the time we finish our visit.

I looked back at the parking lot sending as many “good vibes” that I can to get the guys to complete the installation for us.

We went ahead to sign up for the Ben and Jerry’s Factory Tour.

We took a picture of this Ben and Jerry’s RV that was parked at the entrance to the factory tour. Apparently, early in Ben and Jerry’s history, they sent their Ice Cream across the country in an RV that burned down, which generated massive publicity that helped them launch their brand. It would seem that the RV tour is the direct ancestor for this year’s Tesla Model S powered #SaveOurSwirled tour.

A display explaining the same #SaveOurSwirled activism that Ben and Jerry’s has launched.

We were not allowed to take photos of the factory floor, so we didn’t take any pictures, but we could take a picture of the room that they served us our ice cream in.

No, I’m not giving you attitude, my better half just caught me with Ice Cream in my mouth as I was taking a picture with my favorite Ben and Jerry Ice Cream Flavor.

Can you figure out what it has in common with our stop in New Jersey?

Here are some of the top flavors.

A shot of the giant “secret” ingredients for Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream.

Even with Ice Cream flavors, Ben and Jerry are trying to retire their use of fossil fuels.

A few more flavors that have been “retired.”

I would’ve loved to try that Creme Brulee, but it’s retired. There were a few more in the “Flavor Graveyard“. We headed back from the tour to the parking lot, with our “fingers crossed” that the CHAdeMO will be operational.

Ben and Jerry’s Factory – Waterbury, VT – CHAdeMO

I like to say that it is better to be lucky than good. And boy were we lucky today. Apparently, we were very lucky according to Henry Sharp (whose response I received as we finished the Ben and Jerry’s tour) as it would seem that many had not been able to get the CHAdeMO at the White River Junction to work for them. Additionally Henry reported the same thing as Plugshare complaints that, many of the CHAdeMO installed in Vermont were all lower powered (25kW and not 50kW).

The guys that I had met with and were completing the installation spotted me and waved me over. They were complete, and though they’ve installed the others before without a car to test it with, I was there to plug in and test the installation.

Both the J1772

and CHAdeMO were available. Guess who is christening the new CHAdeMO.

Of course there was some set up before this very nice picture of you know who at the charger.

The NRG eVgo/Green Mountain Power CHAdeMO was also a willing participant to the 30 minute free deal. So, we charged away.

We got a respectable 121 miles per hour on CHAdeMO at Ben and Jerry’s.

We were waiting to meet up with the Green Mountain Power Company representative, so we charged as close to 100% as we could. In the meantime, we spent the time in the parking lot meeting people who were curious about the car and what we were doing. We met a nice young family and a set of their parents visiting from India. The family was from Boston and had just looked at the car at the store in Boston the previous week. We discussed driving to Vermont and Maine with the Model S and how much freedom it was to travel without a single drop of gasoline. Furthermore we discussed the economic benefits of EV driving vs. ICE.

After speaking time with the family from Boston, the Green Mountain Power representative, Jenn (whose title is Innovation Champion (how cool is that)) arrived in a company EV (a Volt, if I remember correctly) and we discussed our trip and ourselves with her. We thanked her, her company (Green Mountain Power) and NRG eVgo in providing the L3 CHAdeMO for us to use. Apparently they expect the “free” period to be until the end of May, so timing is everything. Since we had to travel 130 miles to the Brattleboro Supercharger, we stopped charging after our conversation and we rolled off.

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Visitor Center

Our next stop is to the Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR or Keurig) Visitor Center.

This visitor center was where we originally planned to stop for J1772 charge, but this time around it was a stop to get some coffee. We figured that they would have some varieties in here as well.

It was a good thing that we already got a charge at Ben & Jerry’s because there was one car charging and another waiting (a Ford Focus Electric Charging and Leaf waiting). This was the only Ford Focus Electric that we noticed on the trip.

Before we left the visitor center, an older couple asked “what the car was.” We told them that it was a Tesla. Though they’ve never seen a Tesla before, they were quite familiar with EVs, apparently their son drove a Leaf and they were impressed with the range of the Tesla. Apparently their son lives far enough that he is unable to reliably take his Leaf to visit them in Waterbury. I wonder if he will hear from his mother ~~extolling~~exhorting him to have purchased a Tesla instead so that he would have range to visit his parents.

Henry Sharp has listed his HPWC available on Plugshare and he has an adapter from Roadster to Model S at the location. Apparently a few Model S have already taken him up on it and he reached out to offer us a charge at his home. However, we were running late and we politely declined. We will have to meet the genius behind “The CAN SR/JR” some other time. We stopped at the Brattleboro Supercharger next.

Brattleboro Supercharger

The Ben and Jerry’s location was approximately 130 miles one way from the Brattleboro, VT supercharger.

As late as we ended up in Brattleboro made us reassess the rest of our plans for the day, we decided to skip the Basketball Hall of Fame and Pez Visitor Center for this trip. This decision freed us up from going through what I expect is heavier Friday traffic through MA and CT to get to NJ for the evening, we decided to head to Albany instead.

As for the Brattleboro location itself, we were there later in the afternoon, and I am unsure whether the location is a “safe” one. There was “something” about the location that made me feel inherently unsafe.

Using the skip the Interstate rubric that we incorporated into this trip’s guiding principles from Day 5 yielded us a beautiful scenic route through VT-9 (which is North on I-91 by an exit or two).

It looks like there were a lot of antique stores (not that we photographed any) on this drive between Brattleboro and Albany superchargers. There was also a lot of beautiful country to be experienced.

Fun elevation changes and the like is not a big deal when you have enough charge and the destination is only 85 miles or so away. Which means Model S 40kWH drivers can enjoy this drive. (For that matter, an Active E driver/Leaf or whichever electric vehicle you choose would be fun on this leg between the two spots, as long as you can find an appropriate charger for you (even 110V as Thomas J. Thias aka @TheAmazingChevyVolt) often points out to other Twitter users. As long as you have access and time to charge.))

Before entering New York on this drive, there was an interesting Obelisk on the drive.

In doing some further research after the drive, it would seem that we had passed by the Bennington Battle Monument. Perhaps, if we were not in a rush to head back to Randolph, NJ, we would’ve stopped.

As opposed to the blurry Rhode Island or the obstructed Massachussets signs, here is the state line and sign for the Empire State. It looks a lot better than the one we had taken when we were going to Long Island a few days ago.

We found this interesting store at the side of the road. We didn’t stop, but there was something wildly compelling about it that we took a few pictures of it.

After the foray into Vermont, what we’re now saying about our old nemesis the Deer Crossing sign – “at least it’s not MOOSE or BEAR.”

Some more barns and the like.

Albany Supercharger

Another mall location. Met with a former Roadster, now Model S owner from New York as well as a couple more locals. They were quite friendly here and we had a good conversation with the mostly local crowd. We didn’t feel like dinner at a mall, so we skipped it, but did go to the large Whole Foods Market that was a short walk away.

By the time we left the Albany, NY supercharger to enter the New York State Thruway, it was getting very dark and we didn’t take any pictures.

However, as opposed to the drive to Vermont, we were never alone and there was always another car either ahead or behind us. Going at rather high speeds, but still, it was comforting to note that we “were not alone.”

Paramus Sales, Service, and Supercharger Center

Another place that tells us that “we’re not alone” is at the Paramus Sales, Service and Supercharger Center. The chargers are open 24 hours, the store and service are not. We drove in there later on a Friday evening and the lot was very dark. There were three other Model S charging when we pulled up and at least another four joined throughout the time we spent charging at that location. I tried to take panoramic shots in the dark, but that’s the best look you can see of the location.

The distance from Albany, NY to Paramus, NJ is slightly longer than from Ben and Jerry’s in Waterbury to Brattleboro Supercharger.

We charged “pretty full” as you no doubt remember, my cousin in Randolph was the one that had the outlet where we charged 110V/6A. And 1 mile per hour is fine for “holding off vampire loss” but not for continuing travels.

Randolph, NJ

Even so, plugging at 1 mile per hour, when we’re expecting to be here for a while means we’ll get above that 191 miles of Rated Range and onto the 200+ in no time.

Besides, tomorrow is a pretty casual day in New Jersey.

Go on to Day 15. Click here.

Here, There, and EVerywhere – Day 13

A quick note of thanks to the Beatles for inspiring the title for this series of posts. This is the thirteenth in a series of posts written about our trip that will be published four weeks to the day of the trip.

Missed Day 12, click here.

Day 13 – Drive on Thursday, May 14, 2015

As we mentioned, we had two definite goals for our trip to New England. The first is to visit one of the “Summer Cottages” for the “mega” rich of the Gilded Age. Looking at the list of Newport Mansions, we decided to “go big” for our one mansion and chose “the Breakers.” The additional goal for the evening is to find ourselves in Vermont in the evening so that we can go to the Ben and Jerry’s Factory Tour the next day.

It was another one of these “funny” overnights when the Rated Range went from 129 overnight to 130 in the morning. Probably parked the car with the charge “on the margin” or it could be the pack “settling in and balancing” either way the overnight swings between -10 to +1 on Rated Range when left outside, unplugged, overnight.

After checking in last night, it was interesting for my wife and I to note that we both have never slept in the state of Rhode Island. So, we’re making that a “small goal” for this trip. To find states that neither one of us has ever slept in and add it to the list. So far, this trip, that meant the stop at Delaware and this one in Rhode Island have made two additions to the “Dennis slept here” list. Not quite President Washington’s claimed locations, but a small goal met on our list.

So, our hotel, the Hampton Inn & Suites, Newport-Middletown was really close to our first stop at The Breakers, Newport, RI.

The Breakers, Newport, RI

The Vanderbilts built the Breakers as a “Summer Cottage” from New York. It’s a pretty impressive cottage. Now, for an even more ostentatious “house”, the Hearst Castle in San Simeon, CA takes the cake, but that is for another trip.

I took pictures of our mileage from the hotel to The Breakers.

We were not allowed to take photographs inside of the house, but took full opportunities to take photographs from the outside.

If you’re going to take a picture at a summer house, you must wear your sunglasses. It’s an unwritten “rule.”

I figured to take see if I can interest folks to check out Transport Evolved by wearing my t-shirt. It’s a conversation starter.

We took the opportunity to take some “nature” shots.

Newport has some tight streets, but without traffic, it’s a fun little drive. I wonder how busy these streets get in the summer, which I gather is the peak season.

Left Newport and headed to East Greenwich for a supercharge.

East Greenwich Supercharger

The supercharger in East Greenwich, RI is the only set of superchargers for the state. It was located less than 30 miles away from Newport, so getting there was “no problem.”

The superchargers were located at the edge of the shopping center.

The Connecticut local that we met at the Milford North Supercharger told us of the grocery store (Dave’s Marketplace) by these chargers and we figured that this would be a good time to replenish our supplies. It was this sort of hint that we hope to share as we assist in filling out the beta of the (now released) Teslarati App for iOS.

On the way to the grocery is our own little “hint” for those travelers that wish to replenish other “supplies.” The wine shop (the Savory Grape) next to the grocery is well stocked and has a great selection of wine. We went in to browse. They had a few notable bottles, but seem to specialize in Italian wines more, though they carried a good selection of other regions. What struck me in visiting their shop was the layout of the shop was not by region, but by “body style.” If you click on the link, they can explain it better, but I took it as how does the wine “play” in your palate.

After replenishing our supplies at the grocery store and browsing the wine shop, we were off to Massachusetts.

On the way to Auburn, MA, we spotted ONE windmill, not a wind-farm, just a windmill. Granted, it looked to be the most high-tech of windmills that we’ve spotted on this trip.

I wonder if that’s all that’s needed to power Rhode Island? 😉 After all, Rhode Island IS the smallest state in the Union and currently has the same number of Representatives as Senators.

We thought that we were taking a picture of the Massachusetts state line when we accidentally took a picture of this sign that was set up before the state line.

Though not a state sign, it is a very welcoming sign for our veterans.

Auburn Supercharger

We don’t know why there is a pond adjacent to the Auburn, MA supercharger that has a rocket model, but, if you see the rocket, you’re by the right place.

This supercharger is located at the edge of the mall, as many of them seem to be, and the nearest store is a Macy’s Home store, which leads to a less busy, less parked cars near the superchargers. However, the superchargers in Auburn, MA is pretty busy.

Like many chargers near big cities, we didn’t speak with the other three Model S that were there. They all had Massachusetts plates and were “locals” who didn’t get out of their cars, so we didn’t chat with any of them.

So, we went ahead grabbed some electrons and planned for our stay in Vermont.

We looked at Vermont and noticed that there were no superchargers on our route to Ben and Jerry’s. The one supercharger that was installed in the state was further South of the one we’re using in New Hampshire. There are, however, several CHAdeMO and J1772 stations, so we decided to pick a hotel that was near a CHAdeMO station and settled on the Hampton Inn, White River Junction, VT. I sent an email to Vermont resident, Tesla Roadster owner, creator of the “world famous CAN JR and its newer counterpart the CAN SR”, Henry Sharp to see if he has any recommendations. Beside, worst case scenario, we also planned on several J1772 routes as backups along the way. Besides, neither one of us has slept in Vermont before, so that’s a bonus.

The CHAdeMO at White River Junction is on the NRG eVgo network, so I figured to go ahead and open an account with them. Even though I won’t get the card until I get home, eVgo does have a pretty well staffed support line that can activate a CHAdeMO remotely, if needed.

With that in mind, we headed off to the last supercharger on our Route North (as we were not looking to cross the border into Canada) and to Vermont, the Hookset (North) Supercharger

and another state line crossing today.

It struck us as odd that New Hampshire has some really wide roads compared to some of the more populous states.

Hookset (North) NH Supercharger

We were surprised at how early we got to the Hookset (North) NH Supercharger. Realizing how close our stop at White River Junction, VT will be we figured to go into the rest stop.

Many of the restaurants at the rest area were unavailable that evening. Only the diner was open, or packaged sandwiches from the General Store.

We figured that we would range charge here and head to Vermont, where we didn’t have any supercharging options on our route to the Ben and Jerry’s Factory Tour. Inside the rest stop, we spoke with the gentleman at the tourist information booth and found out how close we are to Maine.

After this discussion, and paying attention to the time, we figured to go to Maine for a lobster dinner.

We went online to look for a restaurant for our lobster dinner in York, Maine. We targeted the Harbor Porches Restaurant at the Stage Neck Inn and made a reservation for dinner.

Calculating that we didn’t need a range charge to get to and from the Stage Neck Inn, we charged what we needed and headed out to “have lobster in Maine.”

On the way to Maine, we found these signs interesting because we don’t have them in California.

Dinner with a sunset view of the ocean is something that West Coast folks enjoy often. So, we rushed off to the restaurant for our dinner and hoping for a view of the sunset.

Another State Line crossing to Maine.

They’re so friendly in Maine that they provide TWO State line welcome signs.

And we got to Maine before sunset.

Stage Neck Inn, York, ME

Well, remember that thing I said about the sunset…

We’re in the EAST COAST. They get the SUNRISE here. (yes, I had a little “DUH” moment there.)

What do I care? We had LOBSTER in Maine for DINNER.

That’s a victorious look behind that bib.

We got out of dinner with the sun already set.

Another Tesla Motors random sighting at the Stage Neck Inn.

The car was parked outside of the Inn with the owner nowhere to be found, so we didn’t get to chat with them, but it was cool to see a Maine Tesla Model S.

A picture of our car in the dark.

Nearly 74 miles from NH to ME, means we have more than enough to get back to the Hookset (North) superchargers again.

We hit 39,000 miles on this drive, and yet another picture of significant mileage on the car.

And just like that, we’re back at the Hookset (North) Supercharger.

Hookset (North) NH Supercharger

Eagle eyed readers will note that the mileage between our to York Beach, ME and from York, Beach, ME is not exactly even. This is because of the oddities of these “rest stop” superchargers. We had to head North for several miles before we can turn around to head over to York Beach. Luckily, when one has a ton of miles, a little detour is only inconvenient and not “deadly” to the drive.

The drive to Vermont from New Hampshire was scary. The route was dark. REALLY DARK. There was hardly any traffic and our nemesis, the “Deer Crossing” sign kept popping up. But, we pressed on.

The darkness in the drive is striking in the lack of any “light pollution” that we normally experience in Southern California. Even when driving between Las Vegas and Southern California in the evening, the route is rarely as dark as the drive we experienced in Vermont.

Hampton Inn, White River Junction

We made it to our destination just passed midnight.

We parked the car with a 176 miles of Rated Range to make it to Ben and Jerry’s with a vertical climb ahead of us. Remember that we chose the hotel with a CHAdeMO at the location, since we can charge in the morning, we really don’t care what the charge level is since we expect to have enough to get there and back (assuming we can catch another charge on the way back South.)

Go on to Day 14. Click here.

We changed the color of the route map to go Yellow for our Westward journey. Since we reached the furthest Eastern portion of our drive, we’re now making the u-turn Westward.

Here, There, and EVerywhere – Day 12

A quick note of thanks to the Beatles for inspiring the title for this series of posts. This is the twelfth in a series of posts written about our trip that will be published four weeks to the day of the trip.

Missed Day 11, click here.

Day 12 – Drive on Wednesday, May 13, 2015

When we decided to go North a few days ago, we made a list of the things that we wanted to get to, and we had two things on the list, visit at least one of the mansions of Newport, RI and the Ben and Jerry’s Factory Tour in Westbury, VT.

A few weeks prior to our trip, Ben and Jerry’s sent a Model S that they customized to tour the country in what they are calling the #SaveOurSwirled tour. Well, they were in San Diego and Los Angeles, but I was never able to catch them anywhere close. As many readers may have noticed, I have a “thing” for frozen desserts, so, we decided to take OUR Model S to their factory and pick up some Ice Cream ourselves.

Our appointment with the Tesla Syosset Sales, Service, and Supercharger Center was at 1:00 pm so, we figured that we had the morning to sleep in and have some fun, so we did.

We left my cousin’s house with 176 miles of rated range left, that meant a two mile range loss from the night before.

Since I was inspired by one of the “best” threads on teslamotorsclub.com called Model S Nature Pictures, it was one of my goal’s for this trip to get the “best” Model S Nature Picture that I can for our car and we found a pond nearby to try to take pictures in.

We actually submitted one of these pictures to the thread. Though I have to admit that it’s funny to have a nature shot from Long Island. Considering how close we are to the city. Here are a few of the other shots from this “nature” shoot that we did that we didn’t submit to the teslamotorsclub.com thread.

We figure that we were in “nature” as this sign instructed us not to feed the wildlife. Once again, for those that actually live near nature, we’re city kids from Southern California, so I figured a “Please Do Not Feed the Wildlife” sign is a good indication that we’re right by nature.

Since we had time and wanted a better drive, we decided to take the Parkway back to Syosset.

Tesla Syosset Sales, Service, and Supercharger Center

After our leisurely drive in Long Island, we found ourselves about thirty minutes earlier than our appointment, but decided to check in and the service center was able to take us in early. We were playing this day “loose.” We hope to make it to Newport, RI in the evening, but will stop off along the way if we are unable to. So, having the service center take us in early will give us a fighting chance of making our goal for the evening.

We had the gasket repaired at the Syosset Supercharger, Store, Service Center and in the process they also repaired a lose nut that became lose and caused the window to not roll all the way up. The repair was adequate, however, the fit wasn’t great, so we made the determination to have this repaired (again) when we get home.

After 0.2 miles of turning the car in, we got it back, fully charged, repaired and ready to go.

We’re easily amused by wildlife signs for animals that are smaller than Deer. (As you remember, around Minnesota, we developed our “Deer Crossing” phobia.)

So, this sign was intriguing to us, and can be found in the street by the service center.

Not counting the Model S that we saw charging at the Syosset Sales, Service, and Supercharger Center, we spotted a “Random Model S” on our drive toward Rhode Island.

As we look behind on Long Island,

a few tolls later, we find ourselves in Connecticut.

On our way to our first supercharger in Connecticut, we spot the flag of something from our youth, though now called WWE, we used to call it WWF.

Darien I-95 North Rest Stop

Though the distance from Long Island to these superchargers is rather insignificant, we opted to stop at all the I-95 superchargers to continue to assist in providing content for the beta of the (now released) Teslarati App for iOS.

The traffic Northbound on I-95 into Connecticut is quite impressive. It was so slow that we were pretty efficient with less than 300 Wh per mile for our consumption efficiency for the approximately 50 miles from Long Island.

Going inside the rest stop, we saw this sign for the Pez Visitor Center, and penciled that in. We probably won’t be hitting it on this drive, but would make a note for either the return drive or the future.

After getting our charge and information on the Pez Visitor Center, we rejoin the I-95 traffic.

As with other Random Model S that we’ve spotted, we were excited to see the following Grey Model S in traffic ahead of us.

There was actually a white one that I spotted on the Southbound I-95 around the same time, but it was going too fast for me to take a photograph of.

Now, most people would be irritated with the bumper-to-bumper traffic that we experienced in Connecticut on I-95. However, after experiencing the agoraphobia of the earlier part of the drive, there was something comforting to be driving in orderly freeway rush hour traffic. Yup, it’s the weirdness of being away from home for too long.

And with that, we found ourselves at the Milford I-95 North Rest Stop.

Milford North Supercharger

We drove into this supercharger and found one of the stalls being used by a local.

We spoke briefly with the other Model S owner. Apparently, he had moved to Connecticut decades earlier from California and we were among the first Model S owners that he has met at this supercharger.

This supercharger was very close to the previous one, but we’re adding content to the Teslarati App for iOS so we figure a few minutes of stopping would be good.

We figured that we would be able to reach Newport, RI for the evening so we made arrangements to find and book ourselves a hotel to stay the night.

Along the way to Newport, we caught this “EV-friendly” license plate on a decisively non-EV Volkswagen.

I suppose that the driver could be preparing for an EV.

With a destination in sight, we determined that we could add a stop along the way.

We decided to go get pizza at Mystic Pizza. For those that are not Julia Roberts fans, Mystic Pizza is one of the first two movies of Julia Roberts’ career. It is also a real pizza parlor in Mystic, CT, so we figured to get pizza there before we headed to Newport, RI.

Spent the drive enjoying the view outside, as well as the view from the passenger side view mirror.

Some nice sunsets.

and then we find ourselves at Mystic, CT ordering Pizza to go.

A photo outside.

And another one inside.

And no, we didn’t spot Julia Roberts there. With pizza in hand, we continued on our trek to our hotel in Newport, RI.

As we crossed into the Rhode Island border, you know what it means when the signs are blurry.

And the bridge to get there

So, after 112 mile drive from the last Connecticut supercharge, we stopped off at the Hampton Inn & Suites, Newport-Middletown for the night. We’re pretty close to tomorrow’s first supercharger for the night, but we ended the night with 139 miles of Rated Range left and even if we lose ten miles overnight, we’re fine.

Go on to Day 13. Click here.

Appreciating the past and hopeful for the future of EVs.

This past weekend, my wife and I joined our fellow members of the Orange County Tesla Club on a visit to the Nethercutt Museum and Collection in Sylmar (Los Angeles), CA. [SIDE NOTE: For those not from Southern California, the city of Los Angeles is the largest city in Los Angeles County and within the city there are distinct neighborhoods that have their own identities, but are part of the city of Los Angeles. Hollywood is an example of such a neighborhood, as is Sylmar. West Hollywood, on the other hand, is its own city. As is Long Beach, where the Formula E race will be held on Saturday, April 4, 2015. (which is why I wrote Sylmar with (Los Angeles) in parentheses, that’s my own editorial on it, and not convention.) Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.]

The Nethercutt family are the founders and heirs to the Merle Norman cosmetic company and have built an impressive collection of automobiles and other “mechanical art”. The OC Tesla Club has been itching to have longer drives for our group outings and this venture into Los Angeles (City and County) was just one such drive.

So, the day was meant to appreciate the company of fellow Tesla enthusiasts and appreciate the Nethercutt Museum and Collection. As with most automobile museums, I was prepared to view beautiful and restored relics of the past… ICE cars.

Well, I was in for a surprise and a treat. (The benefits of not really paying attention to the marketing brochures and online information about what was in store for me at the Museum and Collection. The only thing that stuck to my head from the materials was the restored locomotive and Private Train Car in the back, and that was pretty much it.)

As was pointed out by some of my fellow OC Tesla Club members, as impressive as the car collection is, the automated music collection was even more impressive. Unfortunately they didn’t allow us to record the audio or video of the event, but here are a few photos from that

This piano entertained us while we strolled the car collection:

and the piece de resistance was this automated/programmable pipe organ that came from a movie theater (for silent films) from Denver

You can see the rest of the visit in my flickr album.

But what does the Nethercutt have to do with EVs? Well…

I love to play “EV Spotting” and in the guided tour portion of our visit (at the Collection this time, and not at the self-guided museum section) in the ground level of the visit were TWO EVs!

Front view

Back view

Most EV junkies would recognize the more modern EV as the pre-cursor to this generation of EVs and focus of the documentary, “Who Killed the Electric Car?” (and the movement which spawned Plug in America, the 1997 GM EV1. The other one is older and not as well known. The 1914 Rauch & Lang Model B4 Electric Brougham.

Both vehicles were shown with their respective chargers connected to the vehicle in the Collection.

Rauch & Lang

IMG_20150328_132918

Charger information

Interior

1997 GM EV1

Interior

One of the things that I noticed and would like to draw our attention to is the price of the GM EV1 at the time it was being leased out. Interesting that the price of the GM EV1 was $43,995 and the average car price in the US at the time was $14,000. That means that the EV1 is about 3.14 times the price of the average car.

So, the average car price in 2012 is around $31,000 and the Model S average is around $100,000, that means that the Model S is about 3.22 times the price of the average car. However, considering what you get in a Model S vs. an EV1. However, as was pointed out to me by David Peilow in my post at Speakev.com, “Just shows the jump with the Leaf or Volt in terms of value for money. I wonder how much of that is a reduction in the design price vs benefits of economies of scale, though.”

David’s point is made even clearer when one looks to see what the 2012 Nissan Leaf sold for in 2012. It started at $35,200 before the Federal Tax Credit of $7,500 for the purchase of a battery electric vehicle. So, that’s 1.13 times the amount of the average car without the application of the Federal Tax Credit. If the purchaser in 2012 was eligible for the whole credit, it also means that the Nissan Leaf at that point is 0.89 of the average car price. Food for thought.

The 2012 Chevrolet Volt had a MSRP starting at $39,145 when purchased new. I don’t remember whether it was eligible for the whole $7,500 Federal Credit, but let’s assume that it was. So, looking at the same ratios again. The Volt was 1.26 times the average car before the credit and 1.02 times the average car after the tax credit.

I used 2012 as my figure to compare as it was the easiest recent year for me to find the average car price for. Assuming mild inflation in the averages, it’s even more dramatic to see the drop in MSRP for the 2015 model years of the same two cars that I used for my example. The 2015 Nissan Leaf can now be purchased around $29,010 and the 2015 Chevrolet Volt starts at $34,185 before the tax credit.

It’s interesting that when one looks to the past, it really makes one appreciate what the future holds for us.

Range Anxiety? Not really…

Elon Musk’s tweet (“@elonmusk – Tesla press conf at 9am on Thurs. About to end range anxiety … via OTA software update. Affects entire Model S fleet. March 15, 2015“) to end “range anxiety” which has since been deleted, had me thinking not about the disappointing announcements regarding the 6.2 software patches, but about when the last time was that I’ve actually experienced range anxiety.

I must admit that it’s been a while for me. We decided to move to Tesla Motors electric vehicles because we didn’t want to have to worry about range. Both the Model S and Roadster have a range of at least 170 miles. As for recharging, using DC Charging, the Model S can Supercharge at over 300 miles per hour or quick charge using CHAdeMO over 130 miles per hour. Over AC charging, our Model S can go up to 80A (or approximately 58-62 miles per hour) and the Roadster can go up to 70A (or approximately 56 miles per hour). That’s plenty fast recharging. Besides, if you charge overnight, it’s time you’re spending sleeping anyway.

When we first started our adventure with electric vehicles with the Active E, range anxiety was a byproduct of moving from a nearly limitless range to one where each full charge lasted 80-100 miles. However, it wasn’t long that I was making the statement that the range of the Active E was limitless, as long as you can get charge and have the time to wait for a charge. If a charger was available, I plugged in, even at 110V when no L2 was available.

It was not uncommon for me to do 140 mile days in the Active E. It required charging at multiple places, but L2 at 6.6 kW and later at 5.2 kW is not exactly speedy, but it isn’t slow either, at least at the time. Now that I’m used to Supercharging, quick charging, 40 Amp/10kW charging over a NEMA 14-50 or 6-50 connector, it seems that approximately 20 miles per hour seems so slow. Public charging in 2012 was fairly plentiful and easy to use in Southern California. Rarely did I have to wait, and most of the places that I found to charge at Level 2 were relatively free. Things became relatively harder at 2013. One could say that projecting the pending difficulty in obtaining public charging with shorter range electric vehicles definitely helped contribute to the decision to get Tesla Motors vehicles.

So, Range Anxiety with the Model S? Not really. One of the first things that I did when we first got our Model S and Roadster were to get some of the available charging adapters. Aside from J1772, we got adapters for NEMA 6-50 as well as NEMA 14-50. so that we could charge the car at up to 40A. Though the Model S (with dual chargers) and Roadster can go to 80A and 70A J1772 if presented with that speed. Plus, as I recently wrote, I just got CHAdeMO for our Model S, that’s a really respectable 130 miles per hour.

Which brings me to hyper-miling and Elon’s announcement.

Hyper-miling is a skill that I learned about and learned to do when I first got the Active E. Getting the most miles per kWh was the goal (or consuming the least wH per mile as is the measure on the Model S, which I’ve measured at 307 wH per mile recently). In a nutshell, hyper-miling involves driving at a constant speed, or motor use and using larger vehicles, trucks, etc. ahead of you to lower the wind resistance that impacts your vehicle. With the Active E and the size of the 1-series that it was adapted from, it was relatively easy to find vehicles that are “larger” than it to “drift” behind and it was noticeable to see the miles per kWh climb. I’ve even hit a respectable 5.0 kWh (200 Wh per mile) on the Active E, as heavy as it is.

My most recent trip to San Diego from Los Angeles County gave me a long time to ponder this thought and put a few things to test with the Model S. Since moving to the Model S, I really haven’t given hyper-miling any further thought. Until now.

As more Model S roll off the factory floor in 2015 with Adaptive Cruise Control or Autopilot, I’ve been intrigued with the ability to set the number of car-lengths to the vehicle ahead of you (pictured below from a loaner I had driven a few weeks ago.) Figuring that such a feature really lends itself to hyper-miling.

However, a more fundamental question presented itself to me. Can I even hyper-mile a Model S? So, during this same trip to San Diego, I followed a smaller delivery truck that was the ideal candidate for my test.

I started the drive making note of my average 30 mile consumption that is constantly graphed on my dash (as a preference that I’ve set.) See the example below.

After getting my base (which, I did not record on photographs) I was in flowing traffic of around 75 mph at this point.

I decided to see what the effect was if I implememented hyper-miling techniques behind smaller vehicles. As predicted, it didn’t really help much. Too much of the wind resistance was not cut-down by the smaller vehicles.

Which leads me to try the test with the aforementioned small truck. I decided to pace the vehicle for about five miles and my average Wh per mile consumption during that period dropped at least 20 Wh per mile at a driving speed that was constant with the speed I was following smaller vehicles with. Is that a lot? Well, every bit counts and this was for five miles.

Physics doesn’t change, it’s just more difficult to find candidate vehicles to drift behind in a Model S. Next time, I’ll see if I can recreate the test using a loaner with Adaptive Cruise Control to see if I’m better than or if the Autopilot is at trying to hyper-mile. Granted, I have yet to set ACC at less than 2 car lengths for any distance, but that’s what I’ll have to do.

Oh and Range Anxiety, not really… I did that San Diego trip and back (220 miles RT) with no anxiety.