FAILED Electric Cannonball Run Attempt! (Budget EV Road Trip Woes) 

A few things to consider when it comes to EV charging and speed-versus-efficiency of ALL vehicles, for anyone considering doing this... 1 - the temperature of your battery greatly affects the optimal charging speed (which us usually up to 60% State Of Charge (SOC)). The optimal temperature is 70s Fahrenheit / low 20s Celsius. If you're around 25ºC / 77ºF it's ideal. If the weather isn't doing that, you'd have to use the onboard Battery Management System (BMS) to ensure your EV battery gets up to temperature (a decent BMS will get the battery up to 21ºC / 70ºF and the act of charging will warm it up further). If you can do your run at a time of year when the outside temperature is warm but not too hot, that optimizes it. 2 - for ANY vehicle (car, truck. train), your vehicle is presenting the equivalent of a 2-dimensional area to the air it's trying to push through when you're driving. Yes, it's a 3D car, but you're always pushing the same face through the air and it's like a cross-section. As your speed increases? The amount of energy you need to use goes up AS A SQUARE OF THE SPEED. What does that mean? If you are increasing yoiur speed from 30mph (50km/h) you'd use FOUR TIMES the energy to get through the air drag if you're going at TWO TIMES the speed of 60mph (100km/h) in the same vehicle. Get up to 90mph (150km/h) which is TRIPLE the original speed, you need to use NINE TIMES the energy to resist air drag than you did at 30mph (50km/h). You have to find the sweet spot of how far your EV can go at a certain speed, and how long it takes to charge it up to a SOC that will get you to the furthest DC Fast Charger on the route so you can maintain a fast average speed. And as you say at 6:05 - rain affects range. That's because you're not just pushing air out of the way... you're pushing wet air out of the way. A duffel bag full of dry towels is much easier to carry than a duffel bag full of dripping wet towels. Wind makes a difference too... it's easier to carry a duffel bag with the wind at your back than it is to walk into a headwind carrying that duffel bag. If you can draft behind another car or a big truck at 60mph, the air you'll be pushing out of the way may be like you're driving at 50mph. If you're lucky to be behind that truck for hours and you're conserving energy, it may be the difference between getting 200 additional miles or 288 miles. 3 - planning is essential. The charger apps will tell you how many places are available and how fast you can charge there. PlugShare will tell you how they're working, updated by people at all hours of the day. A Better Route Planner will give you a routes with charging stops, giving realistic times. Google Maps or Apple Maps will give real-time traffic data to help you plan on the run itself and tell you what food options there are near the chargers (and when they're open). 4 - if you're going it solo, you should consider sleeping in the car. Many truck stops (TA, Pilot, Flying J, Love's) have shower facilities and you can get some shut-eye in the parking area. You're not going to break the gasoline Cannonball Run using current EV tech - they can have a car with a 20 gallon fuel tank and fit a fish-tank-size secondary fuel tank in the back but battery weight doesn't allow you to do that in an EV. If you don't have an 800-Volt architecture, you're charging the car at under 150kW maximum. That time will add up, so give yourself more of a chance with a faster charging EV. There was one RU-vid user, thelondonbroiler , that did the run in a Chevy Bolt in his "Bolt Across America" - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-O8hyzmS5GM4.html - he completed his run in 78 hours 59 minutes (3 days, 6 hours, 59 minutes). If you're in a slower charging car, that's the solo record to beat. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= To plan, you'll need something like this spreadsheet on Google Docs. It includes Electrify America charging locations only, but gives a lot more data a person will need to do a Cannonball Run. Accurate Google Maps links for the charger locations; route and Interstate numbers with exit names and numbers to get there; distance and time from that main route to the charger; where you can get food a walking distance from the charger; how far it is to drive to go one / two / three chargers away from the current location. docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-cizTXu8XjVFN-0R0Em8oLLaGjZzTPMx12zmK3b7sEw/edit?usp=drive_link It has two tabs - New York to Los Angeles on the northern route (mainly Interstate 80 going via Chicago and Denver), and Los Angeles to New York on the southern route (sticking close to historic Route 66 for a lot of the route via Gallup and Indianapolis). Use it, drive safe, break the record, and good luck.

Good on you for trying it solo. Better than all those weenies that need “teams” just to drive a friggin car

That’s two joysies…aaaayyyy!!!!!

Hyundai, get this guy an ioniq 6 and he’ll beat the record for shiz