Road trip planning

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Quiet Mini

Quiet Mini

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I want to do a long road trip in my SE and I have not seen many threads looking for help planning charge stops. There are plenty of chargers around my location, but there are not many where I want to go so I’d like opinions. I want to drive round trip from Denver to Santa Fe. I’ve looked at ABRP and plug share and this is what I’ve come up with.

Option 1 - I-25 direct route. ABRP shows the last segment from Wagon Mound,NM to Santa Fe as a possible problem. It’s 109 miles with 1000’ of elevation gain. Supposedly there is a L2 charger about half way in Las Vegas,NM. It shows up on ChargePoint and Apple Maps but does not appear on ABRP or PlugShare, so hopefully it’s really there. I would not need a ton of charge at this point so even though it’s level 2 the time would not be long.

Option2 - HWY 285 out of Denver with charges at Fairplay, Salida, and Alamosa. This puts me in Taos with very little charge. Taos only has L2 chargers so likely the best option would be an overnight stay. Not the worst option since Taos is pretty nice but this adds a lot of time for a round trip.

My car always exceeds the rated range. At 70-75mph in the mid setting I get around 125 miles on the highway. I feel like slowing down and running in green, I’d be fine on I-25 even without the L2 charge. Thoughts? What have you done for road trips?
 
Quiet Mini said:
I want to do a long road trip in my SE and I have not seen many threads looking for help planning charge stops. There are plenty of chargers around my location, but there are not many where I want to go so I’d like opinions. I want to drive round trip from Denver to Santa Fe. I’ve looked at ABRP and plug share and this is what I’ve come up with.

Option 1 - I-25 direct route. ABRP shows the last segment from Wagon Mound,NM to Santa Fe as a possible problem. It’s 109 miles with 1000’ of elevation gain. Supposedly there is a L2 charger about half way in Las Vegas,NM. It shows up on ChargePoint and Apple Maps but does not appear on ABRP or PlugShare, so hopefully it’s really there. I would not need a ton of charge at this point so even though it’s level 2 the time would not be long.

Option2 - HWY 285 out of Denver with charges at Fairplay, Salida, and Alamosa. This puts me in Taos with very little charge. Taos only has L2 chargers so likely the best option would be an overnight stay. Not the worst option since Taos is pretty nice but this adds a lot of time for a round trip.

My car always exceeds the rated range. At 70-75mph in the mid setting I get around 125 miles on the highway. I feel like slowing down and running in green, I’d be fine on I-25 even without the L2 charge. Thoughts? What have you done for road trips?
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I don't have a Mini yet so not much help here. Although I have looked at this problem in my local area and it is challenging. Also enter the address for the Las Vegas charger into google maps and drill in real close, change to the layered look and see if you can find the charger.
 
Quiet Mini said:
I want to drive round trip from Denver to Santa Fe.
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Last time I was through that way I remember seeing chargers in Raton (but maybe just Tesla superchargers), would it work to head from there on 64 through Angel Fire area towards Taos? Are there any chargers between Raton and Taos? I do recall from personal experience northern New Mexico is quite desolate, with even the ranches being abandoned. I swore I'd never travel through that area without extra wheels on my roof, like a Saharan expedition :(.
 
There are L2 chargers in Raton. It seems like the best way to Taos is from the North with a L3 charge in Alanosa. Having only L2 charges in Taos forces a pretty long stay though. We are so spoiled in Colorado with L3 charger quantity.

ABRP seems to be very conservative the times I’ve tested it. Maybe I’m over thinking this.
 
What do you set as the reference consumption in ABRP? After a trip that brought me to a charger with less than 1% SoC remaining & every warning light imaginable flashing (it predicted I'd be there with 18%), I decided the default was not doing it for me, even with all the creature comforts turned off, & bumped it up to 330 Wh/Mile @65 mph.
 
I may try to do this trip this summer after I get my car. An overnight in Taos would be fine going down. Hopefully a shorter stop coming back. I'm pretty sure TFL went through Las Vegas, which is quite a few more miles but probably more access to chargers. I think actually finding open chargers on some weekends could become an issue this year.

One thing about the 285 route through Colorado is that it's at higher altitude and slower speeds, so should be more range.
 
What are your experiences with L3 chargers? Say you're at 10% SOC, would you be able to recoup another 50% or 16kWh in 20 mins on a short pit stop?


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simplex123 said:
What are your experiences with L3 chargers? Say you're at 10% SOC, would you be able to recoup another 50% or 16kWh in 20 mins on a short pit stop?
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You can look at the Fastned charging curve data: https://support.fastned.nl/hc/en-gb/articles/360006593418-Charging-with-a-MINI-Cooper-Electric

Assuming you aren't in a coldgate situation it's probably 30-35kW in the 20-35% SoC and then gets up to the 45kW range until 80% SoC. 20 minutes of 30kW would equate to 10Wh or 30.7% (10kWh / 32.6kWh gross battery). You would need pretty much 50kW for 20 minutes straight to get 50% SoC added. The short answer is no.
 
Thanks for the link! So it seems like if you can time it (given my battery is at an optimal temperature), the best bang for your buck to fast charge would be to charge between 40-80% SOC since I'm charged by the minute?

Am I interpreting it correctly, or would it still slowly ramp up if I start from 40%?


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There will always be a ramp up regardless. At $0.21 CAD/min in your location, it's still cheaper than $0.33CAD/min across Canada. Home charging is generally the most affordable but not available every driver.
 
teslarati97 said:
There will always be a ramp up regardless. At $0.21 CAD/min in your location, it's still cheaper than $0.33CAD/min across Canada. Home charging is generally the most affordable but not available every driver.
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I'm planning a trip from Vancouver Canada to Seattle Washington which is about 136 mile. I used to head down without thinking but with an EV I'll need to figure out where the best places to charge would be with my itinerary.

Guess I'll have to do some testing to see what works before I head down!


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simplex123 said:
I'm planning a trip from Vancouver Canada to Seattle Washington which is about 136 mile.
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That's almost within range of a single charge, weather and other conditions permitting. A single half-hour stop halfway (each way) for Level 2 charging should be more than enough.
 
Puppethead said:
That's almost within range of a single charge, weather and other conditions permitting. A single half-hour stop halfway (each way) for Level 2 charging should be more than enough.
Click to expand...

Did you mean level 3? I think I'll need it fully charged when I arrive in Seattle as it's 136 miles each way.


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I’m not sure I’d expect to make 136 miles with no charging in between at an honest 70+mph… presumably each end of that trip is not 70mph though which lowers your effective average speed.
I managed 132 miles in green+ mode (AC / heat not needed as outside temp was as requested) where 5 of those miles were suburban 40mph and the rest were an honest 70mph. And that was a round trip so no elevation change. There was a 7mph offside headwind gusting to 14mph though in the return leg.
If you try it make sure you do plenty of math on the way as your battery percentage drops. Yes you will have a few spare miles below 0% but that’s going to be very tight at high speed.
With an *average* of 55mph has though I wouldn’t hesitate.
 
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