Hello Francie, so happy to see your new EV road-trip adventure with "Spring Roll" VinFast VF8 Eco. You're so down to earth, honest, fearless, and your videos are so informative. I've been driving my VinFast VF8 Plus everyday since 3/18/2023. My wife and I just got back from our own wedding anniversary's 1,200-mile VF8 adventure to Las Vegas from Sacramento, in extreme heat wave across the Death Valley. I hope to meet you and your "Spring Roll" VF8 some day if you ever come to northern California. Note to OOS staff: please do not delete my comments. I am a real person and a VF8 user/owner. No, I don't work for VinFast. Thanks!!!
Francie as a more normal driver provides a good counterbalance to the EV/Car nerds on the team. Thanks for sharing the trip. It makes me feel better about my upcoming EV road trip.
@@heyfrancie Super fun trip! Thanks for putting this together and bringing us along for the ride. You're an absolute hoot and I was getting such a kick out of your various voices as you drove along. Can't wait for the Model 3 trip back!
Really good road trip coverage. Shows the good and not so good EV experience, you have be willing to game it, but for those willing to game it, it is worth the effort. Thanks Francie
Francie that was a great video and whoever did the video edit did a great job too. Love the content on the VinFast, I'm a M3 owner myself but I root for the underdog EV. Looking forward to more road trip videos with Rafiki.
No offense to everyone else at OOS, but I think you better represent what I would do on an EV road trip! I haven't done any significant distance in my ID.4 yet, I will be doing an 800-900 mile trip in September.
These Chargepoint, EVGO, Electrify America and other brand charging encounters make me more confident in my choice to only use Superchargers if at all possible while road tripping with our Model 3 or Y. Just plug in and charge reliably with very few exceptions.
About Wichita is. There is an electrify America charger station at town east square (7700 e Kellogg rd, 4 (350) chargers) which was aright across from the hotel you were in And a charge point at the Wichita state university
I just did a 1400 mile VF8 Roadtrip from Canada to USA back to Canada. EA was pretty solid but they were so far off the highways and in random spots. Covered stalls would be so freaking nice because charging in 40c+ heat was not fun. Even a Tree would have been nice... had derated charging twice because of heat. Besides that EV Charging in USA was actually pretty good (east coast) and the VF8 was comfortable
Francie your first dcfc after picking up from the dealer you were getting 107kW at 64% SOC, that's really good. sure it didnt stay their long but reassuring that theVinfast can reach those speeds at that high soc . You did great on your charging stops and EA worked well for you , they are making progress as well. Charging speeds fit right in the 20-80% in 30 minutes which is perfectly fine . 2.7m/kWh not so great but good enough for 2 1/2-3/12 hours of driving depending on speed/weather. You had mentioned that the APP said 3 m/kWh did you guys ever do the math to see which is correct ? Just watched Coleton and Kyles body fit/ interior etc.. Above expectations with exception of interior materials. Overall VinFast looks like a very good vehicle Middle of the pack ..paint brings it up a notch or too, looks sharp
Little tric for level 3 charger ( its apply on all ev’s ) Once plug in, Push on the cable until the session starts The retriving cable system is pulling to hard on the cable and make the session to fail. You need to keep the cable in place for the session to start… It should solve the problem.
Who edited this video? I am loving it, (or is it just Francie? Ive l've listened to all your podcasts but I keep then audio mainly as I enjoy them when I can only ... listen=). Quite different to the regular Out of Spec motoring edits
Hey Francie, love the video. We just got a new VF8 from the same dealership you did. Had a question about what routing system you are using to find the chargers. I know the vinfast navigation has that but it is not as good as Waze or Google maps but it does do the math for charging, destination, etc. Did you use the vinfast maps on your trip and set it for the chargers you wanted to use or did you let it make suggestions on which level 3 to stop at?
“Canopies are expensive” and yet pretty much every gas station I’ve ever been to has them even though one hangs out at gas pumps for not much time. And replacing charging hardware the sun kills isn’t cheap either
Hi Francie, another great video, I am not sure if you know this but your dogs name Rafiki in Arabic means my companion or my friend. I speak 4 languages and one of them in Arabic.
Yes! I used to be able to speak Swahili quite well when I lived in Tanzania. Rafiki means “friend” in that language too. He is my best friend best Rafiki
The oft-stated notion that you should never charge over 80% on roadtrips is nonsense. You were blocking no one and in some cases being able to charge higher to mitigate an additional stop makes sense. For example, for me, I make a trip to Rochester NY 2-3 times a year. I stop in Binghamton NY and it’s the only stop I need to make. The EA station is seldom crowded and it just makes sense for me to load up there and drive straight through. Etiquette is important, but blanket rules are nonsense, every scenario is different. It’s far more important to monitor all the slow charging Fords, GMs, VWs, Mercedeses, and all the rest that aren’t Hyundai, Kia, Porsche, Lucid, or Rivians plugging into chargers way above their class.
26:29 going 80 instead of 60 would drain any EV battery, and would guzzle any ICE car's gasoline or diesel too. The energy needed to push the air out of the way of the front of the car is the speed squared, so if you double (x2) the speed it's four times the energy need (2²) and if it's 3 times the speed it's nine times the power needed (3²). If some certain distance driven at 60mph uses 36kWh of electricity or 36 liters or 36 gallons of ICE fuel to overcome wind resistance, at 80mph it would use 64kWh / 64 liters / 64 gallons. As the speed goes up, energy need goes up squared - it's not a uniquely EV thing, it's a Laws Of Physics for anything moving through a medium thing.
What an interesting glitch with the sunlight. I never gave it much thought, but do any mainstream EVs use the invisible parts of the spectrum for vision? I'm sure it would be useful if they were able to go up and down the spectrum in tough lighting for better fidelity
Francie, your podcasts are entertaining, but you really come into your own when getting out of the studio and out in the field! BTW, OOS really should ante up and upgrade your ride instead of the Model 3 hand-me-down. 😉
Totally felt that when you got to your last stop at i70 diner. I roadtripped from IL to Denver a month ago and took a nap in my car at 1am while the car finished up its final charge at i70 diner. Good feeling!
I have a suggestion, instead of a spreadsheet how about ABRP, it has Vinfast car profiles and you can fine tune the average consumption to make for great trip planning!
She lost me when she stated that she need to go to the dealer for a software update.... I have 2 Teslas and since the very beginning my software updates have been over the air while it sits in my garage at night....
@@Lee-vb4vh I generally update it from home since it is much quicker, but I have used hotel and restaurant WiFi. I actually updated a loaner care through the Tesla connectivity.
Good observation. I think AC pet / camping mode works better when electric fan blows over condenser to cool refrigerant. I have a 2006 Hybrid and pet camping mode cools better when engine starts. But when idling warm in hot weather, sometimes AC only blows warm. Then I have to shut engine off for at least 15 mins to reset AC to blow cold.
