Maybe Overkill?

Because this is my first drive all the way across the country in an EV, I’m perhaps erring on the side of over- rather than under-planning. In my defense, my route takes me through states with minimal charging infrastructure, certainly not the level of charging support I can expect in the East. So let’s kick that planning into overdrive!

I started by mapping out my general route, deciding how far to drive each day and where to stay each night. Then, using a mix of ABRP (A Better Route Planner) and PlugShare, with a lot of back-and-forth and what-ifs between the two, I figured out that not only is this doable but exactly where to charge all along the trip, what SOC (State Of Charge – the remaining battery percentage) I expect to arrive with at each location, and how much charge to put in (departure SOC). I also calculated the expected efficiency (expressed in Miles per kWh) on each route segment as a cross-check against my preconceived expectations; the car gives me the actual efficiency at each stop.

Each day’s drive, including charging stops and charging limits, is saved by ABRP so I can pull up each day’s plan at any time. The final piece of this is that I’ve created a half-page template for each day’s drive that is printed on stickers:

I have a Road Trip Journal that has two pages per day, and this sticker will perfectly cover up the second page for each day. The night before, I’ll prefill all the “Expected” values for the next day’s drive, do a last validation in the morning (along with a check for out-of-service chargers), then refer to these values en route to see whether I’m tracking to plan or need to stop and rethink something. ABRP’s live SOC and live expected arrival SOC values will be a big part of this progress tracking.

Was this a lot of possibly unnecessary work? Yes, absolutely! But as a result, I’ll be more relaxed during this trip through the charging wastelands and will come out of it with valuable data about how my car performs. What isn’t included in the template is that I also track temperature, average speed, and unusual factors such as wind or cold or terrain for each segment.

Check back here starting the 22nd to find out how this all works out for me!