Had my first "oh sh*t, we're going to run out of charge" experience yesterday coming back home from visiting my folks up near Wausau. We charged at the Electrify America station in Schofield, had about 20-30 extra miles of range (beyond the 176 we needed to get home) on the guess-o-meter when we started, but the wind was fighting us the entire way. Averaged roughly 1.85 kwh/mile on the way home, ended up reducing speed to 69-70 mph to try and squeeze as much out of the battery as possible, but the wind proved too much and we had to make an emergency stop in Hartford to charge at the Festival Foods for nearly 2 hours so we had enough charge to get home.
3 big lessons learned:
3 big lessons learned:
- Check the wind direction every time! I usually do a good job of checking the direction of the wind by looking at flags near the highway, but I really need to look into it ahead of time to assist with planning.
- It's worth overcharging the battery more than needed for these longer trips. I need to not be penny foolish, my time is worth more than the $5 if would have cost to charge the battery up to 80%.
- Have better "emergency" stop locations mapped out in both directions. North bound I know of a few places I can stop, but I never looked into southbound along 41. If I I had I would have known of a decent charger in Fond Du Lac near the Target/Walmart that would have been a much better option than the 6 kwh charger at Festival Foods (but we were sharing with a Bolt, so only getting 3 kwh).
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