After completing Phase 1 (click here to start at Phase 1) of this trip. We had an overnight pause before the start of Phase 2. The second phase of the trip was a trip to Morro Bay for the 4th BMW Active E North-South Meetup in Morro Bay. This was on June 4, 2017. Long-time readers remember when we had our last one that culminated in the Active E Wake.
Phase 2 – Active E Reunion – WxNS4
June 4, 2017
In previous years we had done this drive from home to Morro Bay. Morro Bay was chosen several years ago because it was nearly halfway for all the Active E populations from Northern and Southern California. The other three times that we drove for this meetup, we drove North to Morro Bay, but this time around, we were staying in Silicon Valley and drove South to Morro Bay.
Before our first stop in Gilroy (more a “human” maintenance stop than anything else…)
We spot someone taking off at the airstrip by the freeway.
And here’s the route planned for us.
That’s not a route we normally take for this drive, but thought it looked easy enough.
If you remember from Day 1 drive up from the previous post. This is a pretty big location and it is interesting to see so much empty space. We were the only one in Gilroy.
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It was a quick stop, but glad to have the boost. It looks like the winds were blowing hard today.
Even Atascadero was relatively empty in the early morning. We caught up with one of our fellow ActiveE alumnus, Jack Brown, the proprietor for the Take Charge And Go EV Hang Tags that I use to notify folks of my charging intent. He was ahead of us, so he took off a few minutes before we were done with our charge.
Our first view of the Rock at Morro Bay.
Lots of EVs and one hydrogen in the mix. We met at the Grill Hut in Morro Bay for our brunch.
I even took the opportunity to tease my #EVBingo competitors on Twitter.
So, here’s a typical parking lot in California… #EVBingo …#NOTREALLY #EVMeetup #WxNS4 #ActiveE @bmwi #BMWActiveE #Electronaut pic.twitter.com/61EIkRV2u9
— Dennis Pascual (@dennis_p) June 4, 2017
Lots of friendly faces waiting to be served at The Grill Hut.
Here’s a better shot of that side of the table, George wasn’t moving…
And a shot of the other side of the table.
My good friend, Tom Moloughney made the trip out from New Jersey to hang with us for this meetup, he’s to the right of my empty chair.
We parked our S on the other side of the street, there were enough Tesla Model S represented, besides the car is so large that it sticks out of the lines. You can spot me in the picre below in the Orange. I’m between the White and Blue i3s.
It is a BMW Reunion, so we take a close up of the brave souls that stuck with them.
I suppose the groupcould have spread out a bit more, but we’re a friendly bunch.
A candid shot of us chatting away in the sunny Morro Bay day (it was appropriately cloudy during the Active E Wake.)
The other two Teslas that made this trip today.
The classic Tom and Dennis shot.
And with Todd Crook joining us. Todd’s just replaced his 2nd Gen RAV4EV with a Honda Clarity Hydrogen.
George brought his yearbook.
and we signed it.
And after our reminiscing and conversations, we head back North to some great California scenery on our drive.
And some not so great scenery… That’s a lot of oil wells.
But it changed back to great sights soon enough.
We were thinking of making the turn-off to get some points to plug into Monterey Supercharger, but saw how full the stalls were and with all the traffic, decided to head back and skip it.
We stop again at Gilroy. The Gilroy Supercharger on a Summer Sunday afternoon doesn’t look as empty as Sunday morning.
And then we were back in Fremont for our last night at the Marriott Fremont. If you squint, you can spot the EVs and chargers at the office building across the street of our hotel.
We head back to the re-opened Marriott Fremont Executive Lounge to get a great sunset shot of the Tesla Factory.
We also noticed that this destination had ANOTHER set of chargers in addition to the two that were outside. We figure to use those tomorrow morning.
Before turning in, we figure that our #EVBingo totals would be interesting to tally up on a long drive day.
| Total Spotted | Points Per Car | Total Points | |
| Tesla Model S | 38 | 1 | 38 |
| Chevy Volt | 14 | 1 | 14 |
| BMW i3 | 5 | 3 | 15 |
| Tesla Model X | 10 | 5 | 50 |
| Mercedes Benz B250e | 0 | 15 | 0 |
| Ford Fusion PlugIn | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Ford C-Max PlugIn | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| Nissan LEAF | 4 | 1 | 4 |
| Fiat 500e | 0 | 7 | 0 |
| Kia Soul EV | 1 | 15 | 15 |
| Volkswagen E-Golf | 1 | 8 | 8 |
| Toyota Prius PlugIn | 5 | 3 | 15 |
| Sonata | 0 | 15 | 0 |
| Chevy Bolt EV | 4 | 15 | 60 |
| Chevy Spark | 1 | 15 | 15 |
| Honda Fit EV | 0 | 50 | 0 |
| Honda Accord PHEV | 0 | 50 | 0 |
| BMW i8 | 1 | 15 | 15 |
| RAV4EV 2nd Gen | 0 | 30 | 0 |
| Mitsubishi iMiEV | 0 | 50 | 0 |
| Audi E-Tron | 0 | 12 | 0 |
| Golf Cart | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Total | 251 |
So, that’s 251 Total US points, or 125.5 California handicapped points.
June 5, 2017
We had a free day in-between phases on June 5, 2017.
Since we were re-positioning to a non destination charger hotel without ready access to a supercharger, we moved the car to one of the destination chargers in the morning and range charged it for our drive around the Bay Area. Here we are using the Take Charge And Go EV Hang Tags to notify anyone who drives up that we will be done by check-out time.
Even took the opportunity to check in on the TeslaratiApp and make a PSA Tweet from the OC Tesla Club account.
How to be a good citizen #EV Traveler publish your intent at public charger stations example – Fremont @Marriott @TeslaMotors destination pic.twitter.com/tNd3J3fMUE
— OC Tesla Club (@OCTeslaClub) June 6, 2017
Looks like the max for the car is at 252. That’s one less mile than last year’s trips, and 13 miles less than when we first picked it up from the factory. Additionally, there were several firmware changes, so not sure if that affected calculations as well.
On our drive to our new hotel for the night, we spotted a full car carrier full of EVs… Unfortunately golf carts are controversial for the #EVBingo points. There were at least 18 of them in that carrier.
We drove by Oracle Arena, jealous of the Golden State Warriors opportunity to win the NBA Championship for the second time in three years.
And enjoyed our night at the Hyatt House in Emeryville. It was less expensive than most hotels that we looked at that was located near the Tesla Annual Meeting. Besides, we used the re-positioning to have dinner and visit a friend that live on this side of the Bay.
So, the second phase of our three phase trip was complete and we have an extra day before the Tesla Annual Meeting and our drive down home. Click here for Phase 3 of the trip.
If you want to join us on some of our other trips, here’s day one of our cross-country trip from 2015 or last year’s Long Way Round to the Gigafactory which took us to the Vancouver, BC and back.