Chicago to Florida Roundtrip Complete!

[Drippy20]

Headed from northern Chicago burbs to Satellite Beach near the Space Coast after Christmas. Went through Knoxville, TN and hit up a waterpark, then on to Savannah, before the last day to FL. Fun trip, tried about every brand of charger along the way.

Favorites were RAN, FPL (Florida Power and Light? ), and EV Go. Did a lot at Electrify America as well which seemed to be the busiest. Oh, solar powered chargepoint chargers at Kennedy Space Center didn't work at 9:15am. Apparently no solar stored? So no charge while sitting there all day. Dumb.

Drove home in 1 shot, 25 hours with charging. I think the frequent stops made it slightly less tiring, but not worth the extra time. Charging stations overnight need bathrooms and garbage cans! I would do it again, but think 2-3 stops and 10 hours of driving is about right. Navigation was overly conservative throughout. I used it as a start, then adapted as I went. Seemed to be off by 30 miles of range. Also weird it would suggest significantly different routes in all purpose vs conserve mode. Did most in conserve, but liked the ride better in all purpose. Wasn't going to waste more time on the way home for a cushier ride. And thankfully made the last leg without a final charge stop.

Happy to answer any questions.

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[moosetags]

Great trip! Thanks for the write-up.

Brian

 

[shap]

Thank you for the report!

I have a strange question for this community - I love EVs and like Rivian, but I also have a nice ICE car. Many folks that do road trips have ICE cars as well.

What may be the reason for taking an EV instead of an ICE car? and spend more time on the trip (charging) and more money (about 50% more than gas)? I am puzzled. I did several road trips with EV, and it was just to see how this would go. And it went not so well (time and price-wise)...

 

[emoore]

Thank you for the report!

I have a strange question for this community - I love EVs and like Rivian, but I also have a nice ICE car. Many folks that do road trips have ICE cars as well.

What may be the reason for taking an EV instead of an ICE car? and spend more time on the trip (charging) and more money (about 50% more than gas)? I am puzzled. I did several road trips with EV, and it was just to see how this would go. And it went not so well (time and price-wise)...

It wasn't 50% more last summer when gas was near $4/gallon. Even now I can't see the it being 50% more. Average gas price is $3/gallon and at 20 mpg (which is high for a truck or big SUV) it costs $150 to go 1000 miles. I paid an average of $0.36/kWh and it costs $165 to go 1000 miles.

 

[shap]

It wasn't 50% more last summer when gas was near $4/gallon. Even now I can't see the it being 50% more. Average gas price is $3/gallon and at 20 mpg (which is high for a truck or big SUV) it costs $150 to go 1000 miles. I paid an average of $0.36/kWh and it costs $165 to go 1000 miles.

Interesting ... I used EA and EVgo here in TX, and with all paid plans, I averaged 0.51c. So for me, it is 50% more (gas is $2.6 per gallon in TX). But regardless of the price (that is anyway higher, even in your case), time spent at the charger just creates inconvenience IMHO. Especially in some sketchy places at Walmart...

 

[emoore]

Interesting ... I used EA and EVgo here in TX, and with all paid plans, I averaged 0.51c. So for me, it is 50% more (gas is $2.6 per gallon in TX). But regardless of the price (that is anyway higher, even in your case), time spent at the charger just creates inconvenience IMHO. Especially in some sketchy places at Walmart...

I disagree that time spent at a charger is an inconvenience. I didn't noticed that my stops were any longer than my ICE stops since I like to stop for 15-20 minutes anyway. And I have yet to run into any "sketchy" chargers at Walmarts. Most are well lit in the parking lot.

 

[ndmiller]

I think it's more about the vehicle, features and capability rather than ICE versus EV.

350 miles range is 100 more than my old Lexus LX570, so would have to stop every 3 hours and now have to stop every 3-5 hours. With a little planning gas/electric stops are a wash and price wise aren't materially significant compared to the initial price of the vehicle ($80K-$110K).

BUT from a feature/space/comfort standpoint the R1T is light years ahead of the LX, even through the LX was AMAZING at 150K miles. R1T is just a vehicle designed without the ICE powertrain packaging constraints which probably drove a significant portion of the LX design.

FWIW I'm installing a second charger in the garage as even with just over a month with the R1T, I can clearly see our family's future in EV's. All the major manufactures have a great offering with 300+ miles and the ICE maintenance going away is liberating coming from other high priced ICE vehicles.

 

[shap]

I think it's more about the vehicle, features and capability rather than ICE versus EV.

350 miles range is 100 more than my old Lexus LX570, so would have to stop every 3 hours and now have to stop every 3-5 hours. With a little planning gas/electric stops are a wash and price wise aren't materially significant compared to the initial price of the vehicle ($80K-$110K).

BUT from a feature/space/comfort standpoint the R1T is light years ahead of the LX, even through the LX was AMAZING at 150K miles. R1T is just a vehicle designed without the ICE powertrain packaging constraints which probably drove a significant portion of the LX design.

FWIW I'm installing a second charger in the garage as even with just over a month with the R1T, I can clearly see our family's future in EV's. All the major manufactures have a great offering with 300+ miles and the ICE maintenance going away is liberating coming from other high priced ICE vehicles.

Interesting observation. Fully understand your point of view.

My ICE car is actually more luxurious than my R1T and averages 25mph, can drive almost 500 miles on one tank. It is a plug-in, so in town, my wife uses EV engine, and the gas engine is used for trips only.

Everyone has their own preferences, I do not like charging stops, especially when many chargers are not working, derated, and there is a waiting queue. Had these enough in my recent trip. But it is me, your POV may be different.

 

[ndmiller]

My ICE car is actually more luxurious than my R1T and averages 25mph,

Oh definitely, my LX at 6000 lbs with a V8 got 13-15 mpg.

 

[Drippy20]

Thank you for the report!

I have a strange question for this community - I love EVs and like Rivian, but I also have a nice ICE car. Many folks that do road trips have ICE cars as well.

What may be the reason for taking an EV instead of an ICE car? and spend more time on the trip (charging) and more money (about 50% more than gas)? I am puzzled. I did several road trips with EV, and it was just to see how this would go. And it went not so well (time and price-wise)...

Just a different option. We have a Wrangler Rubicon (manual of course) that is fun to drive but people think we are crazy to drive that long distances as well. Rivian is awesome on the highway and cheaper by a bit at $3 gal gas vs fast charging. Definitely better than Jeep at 17mpg at $4 gal.
I figure we bought it, might as well drive it wherever we can. Almost 13k miles since May! It's been great. But a 4x4 convertible with a manual transmission is really tough to beat when the weather is good. We ran the top off of the Jeep a lot this Summer and used the Rivian if the weather was bad. If we both had to go somewhere and the weather was bad, I had to sacrifice and drive the 3rd car with the t-tops in and plan to wash it again soon.

 

[mike813]

Cool photos and great trip! We love FPL charging - typically $0.30 per kWh which is less than some, and they have several well-located chargers. Anyone reading this and traveling through Florida be sure to check them out on PlugShare as you're looking at routes. https://www.fpl.com/electric-vehicles/evolution.html

 

[fastwheels]

Interesting observation. Fully understand your point of view.

My ICE car is actually more luxurious than my R1T and averages 25mph, can drive almost 500 miles on one tank. It is a plug-in, so in town, my wife uses EV engine, and the gas engine is used for trips only.

Everyone has their own preferences, I do not like charging stops, especially when many chargers are not working, derated, and there is a waiting queue. Had these enough in my recent trip. But it is me, your POV may be different.

Now that I have been making charging stops for almost 2 years, I can say I much prefer them over gas stops in my ICE vehicles. Especially since most of my charging is done in my garage while I sleep. Plus, over the span of my R1 ownership the public charging infrastructure has been getting better every day - and will continue to do so. We can't say that for gas stations.
When you compare your road trip costs between EV and ICE you should at least factor in the cost of your oil changes (ignoring other ICE-only related maintenance costs).
My wife's PHEV Lincoln runs EV mode around town and accounts for nearly 90% of her annual miles, but we are still paying $125 for the obligatory annual synthetic oil change (1 year or 7500-mile requirement). That adds a significant amount (last year about $.15/mi) to gas-powered mileage costs, which runs around $.12/mi or $.27/mi combined for gas powered travel. Much higher than her around town EV cost/mi using home charging that's under $.05/mi.
I imagine you pay well over $100/oil change on your BMW which is going to be increasing your cost/mile for trips by at least a couple of cents/mile, depending on your total annual mileage. Add that to your gas cost for trips when comparing to EV costs - it may surprise you.

 

[shap]

Well, while I see your point, I do not see any problem with gas stations (never had a single issue in all my years driving). Opposite to CCS EVCharging stations that are working 50% of time (working and not derated).

You are correct about oil changes that are $240 for BMW at dealership. But I pay $200 EV tax, so it offset the benefit of not changing oil.

My point was - it is 50%+ more expensive to charge at public chargers (on average). And more and more videos are showing up about this:


this guy is an EV fan. And he is right that this make no sense (financially) to use ev on road trips with public charging.

 

[Brookliner]

What may be the reason for taking an EV instead of an ICE car? and spend more time on the trip (charging) and more money (about 50% more than gas)?

We take long trips in our EV all the time. As OP said, stopping becomes pleasant. We don’t use the built in travel planner; we know how far we can go and so make dinner plans or shopping plans to align with charging. On our current trip, we’ve mapped out shopping districts, clean bathrooms, and restaurants that are near DCFC chargers. We’ve gotten good at it making the travel as rewarding as the destination.

 

[shap]

We take long trips in our EV all the time. As OP said, stopping becomes pleasant. We don’t use the built in travel planner; we know how far we can go and so make dinner plans or shopping plans to align with charging. On our current trip, we’ve mapped out shopping districts, clean bathrooms, and restaurants that are near DCFC chargers. We’ve gotten good at it making the travel as rewarding as the destination.

Thank you - I do similar planning myself. My point was that unless your gas car is considerably worse than an EV - financially this makes little sense to do an EV road trip - you pay more for the charging than gas and you must do all the planning for charging. Definitely possible (I did many times), but I found that taking my ICE car is much more predictable and cheaper

Anyway, I see the point for and against it, and it was great to see why people still prefer EVs for road trips. I do EV road trips more for fun, to see how charging will work, etc. But I would never offer this to any of my ICE car friends or my wife - just not worth the hassle IMHO.

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