Here, There, and EVerywhere – Day 02

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

Missed Day 1, click here.

Day 2 – Drive on Sunday, May 3, 2015

So, what did the first day of 808 miles teach us…

It’s not that fun to drive so far in one day. So, we cancelled our scheduled hotels in Rapid City, SD and in Madison, WI and adjusted our plan to get to OH from Tuesday to around Friday, which is when we intended to get there after making a swing to the East Coast on Wednesday-Thursday.

It helps to have booked the first few hotels in a chain that we have “status” in and are able to appeal to the hotel chain’s loyalty program for help with the “non”-refundable first nights.

Doubletree Grand Junction CO

The Doubletree was very comfortable and the cookies were great. We were well rested, after getting to the hotel at an ungodly hour of 4:00 am local time, (3:00 am biological time, since we crossed from Pacific into Mountain timezone in our drive), we slept in.

We didn’t start to roll out until around 2:13 PM

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In looking at the dash and comparing it with the previous night’s dash, it looks like we didn’t have any vampire losses overnight in Grand Junction. We parked the car at 89 Rated miles, we rolled out at 89 Rated miles.

Grand Junction Supercharger

Since we were staying in a hotel six miles away from the supercharger, we decided to go straight to the hotel the previous night. Even if the car were to lose ten miles on vampire losses overnight, we would have been able to make it to the supercharger.

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Our first supercharger stop in Colorado is located in the Mesa Mall. This was one of the first stops outside of California where we checked in on the beta version of the (now released) Teslarati App for the iPhone and there was already content there. (thanks to @DanielSparks for the content.)

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Didn’t feel like shopping, so we didn’t really go into the mall. There was a Taco Bell and IHOP behind the chargers. If you’re visiting this location with kids, there is a Chuck E. Cheese just across the parking lot.

So we spent the time figuring out what we needed to adjust to get to OH by the Friday deadline. Where we wanted to be by the “end of the day”. Our original plan was to be in Rapid City, SD, but we knew that wasn’t going to happen, so we had to come up with a new plan.

By the time we rolled out, we figured to target Cheyenne, WY for tonight’s stop. We didn’t want to be in Denver as we figured Cheyenne was closer to where we wanted to be and lodging would probably be less expensive than Denver.

So, we headed off toward Cheyenne, WY… A much more manageable approximately 350 mile journey vs the much longer drive to Rapid City, SD or the 808 mile drive the night before.

Went by our hotel as we headed East.

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Then the Colorado drive.  The drive to Glenwood Springs is a fairly mild climb and through “Colorado Wine Country”. We didn’t stop to try any Colorado Wines, because, namely, we’re in a drive and drinking and driving doesn’t really mix well.

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The drive was interesting, but not the most memorable one for Colorado, that’s upcoming.

Glenwood Springs Supercharger

We made it to the Glenwood Springs supercharger as the fourth car there…

We spoke with a local who just took delivery of an 85D a few months earlier and just getting a “top up” with his wife in between their kid’s Little League games and he was full of local information.   There was another car that parked beside ours, but she took off soon after we got there.

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The one car that hung out with us was an experienced Colorado owner that was on his way to Santa Barbara.  He gave us a piece of advice that we’ve found to be invaluable since.  We were discussing our relative difficulty of finding superchargers using Tesla’s navigation and he told us his trick for new charging locations.  He turns on the satellite view, and zooms in.  This gives him the perspective of what the area looks like from space and gives a better way of finding the superchargers with less challenge than using the map view.

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The Glenwood Springs location is another location that had at least one hotel attached to it.  So, if you need to rest on your journey, it is good to identify the superchargers with hotels next to it.  Glenwood Springs has a Courtyard and a Residence Inn adjacent to it.

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Additionally, you will note the huge cones that are at this location.  Apparently this has been the only proven way to minimize supercharger ICEing. So, if you arrive at this location and the cones are in the way, do not fret.  Chances are the superchargers are operational.

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Before rolling off, the view of the mountain behind the Residence Inn is quite spectacular, so take the opportunity to look behind it. There is also a community garden that seemed to be well taken care off in that vicinity as well.

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Off we go toward Silverthorne, CO.  This drive was stunning not only in the natural beauty but also in the engineering that was executed to create the split highway with the upper level going Westbound and the lower level that was headed Eastbound.

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Some of the Colorado cities and towns along the way were quite picturesque.

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Additionally, there was still snow in the beginning of May! Yes, you read correctly, there is still snow on the ground.

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One can still ski those runs, with beater skis, but still ski them.

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Really beautiful snow covered Rockies!

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And soon after that, we’re in Silverthorne.

Silverthorne Supercharger

Silverthorne is a different matter than Glenwood Springs.  We arrived at this Outlet Mall location as the stores had either closed or were closing.

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Another eight supercharger location at an outlet mall this time.

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The outlet stores may be closed, but Chipotle is still open.  So, if you need food, or other things, they’re normally open until late.

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Here is the view of the superchargers from Chipotle.  It’s an easy walk without snow or weather, but then again, I’m from Southern California, so not really the best judge of how far this walk will be in winter weather.

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Heading into Cheyenne, Wyoming…

A really blurry Wyoming State Line.  Probably a good idea to go to sleep when the state line looks this blurry.

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Hampton Inn Cheyenne Wyoming

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Checked into the hotel with 100 miles Rated Range.  It’s amazing to get a 305 Wh per mile for the day through the Rockies. That’s better than what we get in SoCal without the elevation changes.

Go on to Day 3. Click here.

02_Grand Junction to Cheyenne

Here, There, and EVerywhere – Day 01

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

A few weeks prior to the start of our trip, a bunch of Teslas decided to get together at Ocean City, MD for the third annual Tesla Road Trip.  These folks were the same group that set out to debunk the controversial NY Times Supercharging hack job that was written early in the Model S launch.

We wanted to join them, but didn’t have the time to do so at their event. However, this was without much consternation and effort to plan a Coast-to-Coast U.S. Roundtrip.  This is the first in a series of posts written about our trip that will be published four weeks to the day of the trip.

Day 1 – Drive on Saturday, May 2, 2015

Aside from the pre-trip planning that I wrote about in the previous post there were some things we wanted to do and document before we leave home.

How clean the car is (because, we don’t expect it to stay that way throughout the trip)

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And what the car statistics are… i.e.

The car’s mileage at departure is 34,697 miles and the Rated Range at 90% daily charge was 229 miles (didn’t do a Max charge for the start of the trip, but it has been around 254 to 255 miles the last time that we did.)  Additionally, our average consumption since the factory has gone back to 308 Wh per mile

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Figured to also use the Trip meters on the car for additional logging. So, we logged that Trip A is used from the statistics since we picked up the car at the factory. We will reset Trip B and used that for the current daily totals. And the automated Since Last Charge is exactly that. Which means, plug it in for a few minutes, and that counter resets back to zero.

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Additionally, we also were approached by our friends at teslarati.com to help with the beta version of the (now released) Teslarati App for the iPhone. Namely, help fill out the information for each spot as we get to it with hints. We committed to at least including a photograph for the site.

So, what is our route… Today? or in general? The answer is complicated. But, to map out scenarios, we used the EV Trip Planner website to help map out guidelines and what we could expect on this trip. So, we figured to use that as a draft and we plotted our trip.

So, to answer the question. The goal for the trip, at least in the immediate plan, was to make it to Grand Junction, CO for the evening. Furthermore, we wanted to be around Akron, OH by Friday, May 8, but felt confident that we could be there by Tuesday evening, so figured that we would go all the way to New Jersey and be back in Akron, OH by Friday and then head back to the East Coast on Sunday, May 10. Since we figured that all plans have to be flexible as to the situation, I only made two other hotel reservations after Grand Junction, CO.  They are, Sunday evening to be in Rapid City, SD and Madison, WI on Monday evening and not much else until we got on the road.

EV Trip Planner advised a stop at the Rancho Cucamonga Supercharger, but we’ve done the drive to Las Vegas and back before (as Southern California residents often do) and decided to just charge to 90% and roll out around 9am.

Of course as we rolled out of home on our trip, we realized that May 2nd may not have been the best day to travel toward Las Vegas. There are a ton of sports going on this day.

1) The Pacquiao-Mayweather fight was going on in Vegas.
2) Game 7 of the first Round NBA series between the Los Angeles Clippers and San Antonio Spurs
3) The Kentucky Derby

There may have been something else, but I forget. So, we rolled out anyway, with the expectation of traffic for these sporting events.

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Barstow Supercharger.

So, approximately 124 miles later…

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We’re in Barstow. Well, that was easy.

A few changes have happened in Barstow since we were last here.

1) The construction of the additional 4 Superchargers was completed.

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2) The location now has a solar panel canopy over the original four stalls.

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We arrived around 10:30 AM and Chili’s was closed until 11:00 AM.  Had to use the “facilities”, so I went to the Country Inn and Suites on the other side of the parking lot and they graciously let me use the “facilities”.

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Since we were still on a familiar part of our trip, we figured that we would test out the “Beta” Navigation through superchargers option that was rolled out as part of the latest Over the Air (OTA) Firmware upgrade

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One of the things it does is when you plug in, it gives you an estimate in time of how long to charge so that you get enough to continue your journey. Additionally, the latest version of the software also gives an estimate (while supercharging) of the time it will take to get to full.

With the latest release, the system will let you know when it thinks that you’re ready to go. It pops up with this message:

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We didn’t unplug right away, we added a few more miles, of “just in case miles”.

While waiting at Barstow, we met this nice couple from Nevada on their way to California.  They made some recommendations on the route and we made a note of their advice. They had a nice white Model S with some Carbon Fiber wrap on it.

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So, we rolled out toward Primm, NV with the recommended charge plus a small buffer and went merrily on our way.

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Even R2-D2 was happy…

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That is, until we saw the following message:

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So, we thought… That’s not a good sign. So, we slowed down. Experts have noted that 62 miles per hour is the “ideal” mix of travel speed and “refuel” time to optimize time spent “moving forward” with “stopped and charging.” We were going a bit faster than that.

My wife, who was driving at the time, did what we do when we need to “eek out” those miles and found a slower moving, larger vehicle. (Now this was easier back when we drove the Active E, a LOT easier in the Roadster, not so much in a Model S.)  However, being the experienced EV driver that she is, we did fine.

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So, she picked a few trailers, big rigs, and campers to get behind and the differential in what our expected State of Charge (SOC) on reaching Primm, NV will be. The nasty “slow down” message went away, but the feeling that it gave stayed behind. That is, until we hit some “traffic.”

We never did hit the “now” expected traffic for the “sports” day for Las Vegas betting, but between Baker and Primm, NV, there was some traffic and we crawled to a stop. Now the beta software wanted us to slow down, but we were STOPPED.

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and we were operating with the margin that we added on top of the beta Navigation recommendations (plus a few miles that we added ourselves) so we did what any experienced EV users would do and lightened the accessory load on the car and turned off air conditioning, unplugged all devices and waited until the traffic cleared.

We passed the time by taking nice pictures out of the window.

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(as well as re-thinking our initial plan of following the Beta software.) Part of me was wondering if our trip was over before it even began at this point. (not going to lie to you, it was tense in the car, my better half wanted to go with our “usual” buffer of at least 40 miles, if not more, and I wanted to give the Beta a “chance”.)

Needless to say, after this “experiment” we went back to our “regular” method of adding at least 40-60 miles to the range. (since we’re on vacation and decided to have the option to “go off trail” we upped this to 100 miles, where possible, i.e. where the range to the next SC is lesser than 155 miles away.)

The downhill ride toward Primm, NV had a lot of regeneration on it that we were gaining rated miles as we neared it.  Took some fun shots of the rather impressive Solar Farm that was built and activated recently at the California and Nevada borders.

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Additionally, there were some folks that were enjoying the desert that fine Saturday. Now, if they used an EV to bring their land yachts/sand yachts then they could have been powered by all renewable energy. One could only hope. But considering the number of folks who bring ATVs, and the like, have to be thankful for those enjoying the desert with wind power instead.

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Primm Supercharger

So, our next stop was at “the Border”.  Primm, NV has been a popular Southern California to Vegas or back stop for as long as I’ve been an “adult” and it’s gone through a bust to boom to bust cycle.  The superchargers are located in the edge of the parking lot near McDonald’s and the gas station.  There are a total of eight superchargers there and there are “lots” to do in the area.

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The Primm Valley Casino and Resort has a factory outlet mall attached to it for those that do not feel like gambling or “gaming” as they call it.

Needless to say, with the challenge that we faced with the drive from Barstow and leaving with less than what we’re comfortable with, my wife had to be very efficient in her Model S drive, and as you can see, she was. Averaging 292 Wh per mile on a series of climbs and descents is pretty impressive.

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As you can see, our 40 mile “regular” buffer would not have been enough.

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So, this is where we decided to really just go ahead and up our buffer for this trip and not worry about it again. The algorithm that Tesla has created are for those that can follow the car and be as efficient as it wants them to be, but we’re not in a rush, and we’re on a vacation, for crying out loud.

Las Vegas Supercharger

The Las Vegas Supercharger is only 44 miles away from the Primm Supercharger. Not really worth a stop. But, when heading into Utah, and after our “experiment”, we both agreed to get a supercharge “security” charge in Las Vegas.

The Las Vegas Supercharger is in the middle of Downtown Las Vegas, in a “sketchy” part of town.

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As “sketchy” as the location is, it is quite busy. But like superchargers in the LA area, there are a lot of folks getting charge here.

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However, like in most urban superchargers, we all pretty much stayed in our cars and didn’t socialize with the other Model S charging at the location.

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I was surprised to enter Arizona on the way to Utah, didn’t really think about it.  But get camera ready as the canyon passes in the 15 are very iconic West

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St George Supercharger

So, the first supercharger stop outside of our “normal” range of travel is the supercharger in St. George, UT. This supercharger is different from others in that the location is deep within the city and further off the highway. Now, if we used the app from teslarati.com that we were beta testing or the fairly reliable plugshare app, it would’ve mentioned the Starbucks prominently, but we used the in-car navigation and it gets a little confusing to find superchargers in that way.

Regardless, we found the chargers.

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I would advise those that are backing into these chargers to be wary, as the curb is a hazard and they really should put air suspension on “high” as one backs into the spots. Additionally, the Starbucks drive-through is in front of these chargers, so watch out for the curving curb of the drive-through.

You can see the curved Starbucks curve here.

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This next shot is one of our favorite ones and have shared it on a few forums and Twitter. It’s as close to nature as we’ve been on the trip, so far. There’s a thread on teslamotorsclub.com called Model S Nature Pictures that I was hoping to post a few of our pictures in.

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The Tesla beta navigation recommend a very limited stop, however, we recommend a longer one because you get 75- 80 mph speed limit on the drive to Beaver. The inclines feel steep and we’re pretty inefficient in wh use, but a lot of fun to go Zoom, if you ditch Tesla’s recommended charging pattern. Additionally, Utah has some of the highest speed limits and MANY motorists tend to go faster.

Beaver Supercharger

Now, the navigation had us going to Beaver next and skipping Richfield, but, we had a heck of a day so far, so decided to hit both. Boy, was I glad to. The Beaver Supercharger had a Dairy Queen and one of the first ones to have a car wash adjacent to it. So, if you feel like washing your car, this would be a good stop.

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Trying to keep up with the speed limit at 80 mph, and a climb will yield a higher than normal average usage of 367 Wh per mile.

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However, stopping at this location can reward the traveler with Dairy Queen Ice Cream…

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So…

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What can I say? I haven’t had DQ in a while.

Richfield Supercharger

The next stop at Richfield has a brand new Holiday Inn Express at the location. We made a mental note of how friendly the staff was when I went inside to use the “facilities” and decided to swap driving duties at this location. The better half has been driving all day, and it’s my turn to drive.

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581.5 miles of driving and the stress between Barstow and Primm, I got lucky with finding my wife and partner-in-crime. 😉

If we had not already booked a hotel in Grand Junction, CO I would’ve proposed that we stop at Richfield, UT. However, we had booked a hotel in Grand Junction, CO and pressed on.

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Green River Supercharger

Now the next stop was a bit stressful because it was another of those locations that was difficult to find. Even harder in the dark. The four supercharging stations of the Green River UT Supercharger are in a dark parking lot of the John Wesley Powell River History Museum.

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Another one of those locations that we had to use plugshare.com to find the location.

We arrived here around 2:00 AM and boy were we tired. I took a quick cat-nap while charging, while my wife stayed awake.

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Doubletree Grand Junction CO

So, looking at our mileage and distance from our hotel, made us decide to drive directly to our hotel in Grand Junction for the evening.

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The hotel looked like a beacon in the desert and we decided to stop for the night.

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Parked the car with full 89 miles of range left and turned the car to full sleep mode (turned off the “always connected” option) as we turned in ourselves.

And the promise of “Doubletree cookies” at the end of this very, very long 808 mile day.

Go on to Day 2. Click here.

01_LB to Grand Junction

Preparing for a cross-country EV trip

So, you probably were wondering why I haven’t been posting much lately…

Well, if you follow me on Twitter, you would’ve realized that I had been on a Tesla Motors Model S powered roadtrip from Southern California to the East Coast…

Starting tomorrow, 9am Pacific (12 noon Eastern, 5pm BST, 6pm CET), I will be releasing a post on what I call “pseudo-real-time” basis.

Basically, I had drafted a bunch of posts that are set to publish four weeks from the time that the actual day “happened”.

However, the focus of today’s post is the subject of what things did we do before we even rolled off from home to go East.

1) Get a check up from Tesla.

A few weeks prior to the start of the trip, we had Tesla give the car a look over and verify its “road worthiness”. The car was around 36,000 miles at the time and some of the tires may need to be replaced, so it was a good idea to have them check it out.

It turned out that one of the tires did need to be replaced (this is one of those things that Teslas do go through a lot (a lot more for 21″ wheels and P series Models S).)

So, we took the opportunity to do the thing that is an option for Single Drive Model S models.

2) We bought a spare wheel and tire.

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And put one of the “old tires” in the frunk. Basically, we replaced the one tire that needed to be replaced and had them install that in the rear. The OTHER rear tire is the brand new wheel and tire, and the remaining tire with good tread was moved in the frunk. The two front tires had good and even treadwear to each other, so the tires were “somewhat” balanced (in terms of treadwear, etc.) so we left those in place in the front.

The service center put the spare in a plastic bag to protect the frunk, but during our trip, and many a down-time at a supercharger, we found out that we could also pick up the very stylish Tesla Tire Tote

Even though Tesla has a “loaner” program for tires that could be deployed by its fleet of third-party tow trucks to a Tesla owner that is in “tire distress”, we’ve found that all the “loaners” could be all deployed in a high density area such as Southern California, nor did we trust that this program may be in place in long stretches of “somewhat Tesla rare” Wyoming or South Dakota. So, it was “insurance” for the trip and the future. Besides, a larger frunk is an advantage that Rear Wheel drive Model S has over our Dual Drive younger brethren.

3) Scheduled bill payments.

4) Stopped mail delivery.

5) Arranged for someone to check on the house.

6) Notified our neighbors to keep an eye on the house (and let them know that someone will be coming by sporadically.)

7) Book several hotels in advance so that one has a goal and lodging already set up.

8) Pack all “extra” charging adapters.

We bought a CHAdeMO adapter, our JESLA (which we bought for the Roadster and Active E) but is basically a Model S Universal Mobile Connector with a J1772 head, instead of a Model S head. NEMA 6-50 adapter (because we have one) as well as spare NEMA 14-50 and NEMA 5-15 connectors.

9) Even a “really long” 120V extension cord, “just in case”.

Because you don’t want to have to stretch the connector like we did with our Active E, back when we first got it.

Visiting family with our new @BMWActiveE and using the included Level 1 charger stretched to the limit!

So, do yourself a favor and bring a LONG high gauge external extension cord.

(and here’s a picture with two extremes of “charging” L1 100 foot, 12 gauge extension cord (rated to 15Amps) and a L3 CHAdeMO adapter for the Model S)

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That’s it… We feel that we’re prepared and our daily posts from four weeks ago will start publishing starting tomorrow.

Enjoy our ride.

Go on to the first day of the trip.

MyEV for Tesla Model S:  A Hardware Installation Review.

Almost a year ago, on June 20, 2014, I contributed to my first, and only, so far, Indiegogo project. The project is the MyEV Electric Vehicle Logger and App.

We received the product in mid April and I got around to installing it a few days later. The instructions from MyEV are pretty straightforward, but it is somewhat disjointing having to remove the center console to access the Tesla proprietary cable to connect the logger to.

What do you get in the package?

1) proprietary Tesla to OBD 2 cable

2) Model S only OBD logger

3) the myEV window sticker (with QR code)

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A couple of pictures of the logger..

Note that this is only for a Tesla Model S

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The Micro SD card is 512mb so there’s a lot of room for stuff…

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I attached the OBD logger to the cable to get it ready.

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Accessing this part is the “scary” part because you have to snap it off.

First you snap the little shelf from the center console…  
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Find the proprietary cable and pull it out

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Here it is ready to plug into.

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Plug in the cable so that you can install the OBD MyEV logger.

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Snake it in, tuck some of the cable so that it is easier to reattach.

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It may have been scary to get it opened up to plug the logger in and installed, but…

It’s all good after it’s done…

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So, how’s the App?

Pretty good, actually.  But, I’ll cover that later.  It provides the gamification and competitiveness between owners of the system, as was originally planned.  Firer more, it’s supposed to provide a snapshot of the car’s battery health.  Have yet to see those estimates.