Fall Trip 2025 Day 16

This was a relatively easy day, just 311 miles on interstates from Painted Post NY to home with a stop in Albany for Second Meal™️. This was the view out of my hotel room window at 7:45am and you can’t even see the highway, much less the hills on the other side of it:

By 9:30am, you could at least see the highway — barely, although not in this photo — and a bit of sun, but still no hills (and sorry for the blur):

When I left just 10 minutes later, the hills were just becoming visible. By the time I’d driven 10 miles, I was entirely out of the fog and into full sun for the rest of the day.

My charging stop was in Richmondville NY at an Evolve NY (Electrify America) located at a Mirabito gas station. There are bathrooms and snacks, but it’s very rural to be sure. Out of 4 chargers, 1 was out of service and 1 was in use. I charged from 39-80% in 14 minutes, taking on 33.423kWh of energy and I saw a maximum charging rate of 215kW. This was plenty to get me the rest of the way home. While I was waiting, I took a photo of the hills across the road; the trees are past prime color season for sure.

After arriving home, I plugged in to charge from 29-80%, taking on 42.000 kWh in 5 hours at a cost of $13.55. I averaged 3.6 miles/kWh for the day’s drive, and because it wasn’t a super long drive, I maintained the 3.8 average for the entire trip. Here is the final tally:

Including the final charge at home last night, I took on 912 kWh of energy during this trip. 419 kWh was free, either at hotels offering free charging or at Electrify America chargers where I still have a few months left on my two years’ free plan. 289 kWh was at Tesla Superchargers for a total of $105, or an average of $0.363/kWh. The rest of the charging was at hotels that had charging-for-a-fee (VERY expensive) or on other charging networks (mostly IONNA), and this accounted for 204 kWh and a total of $112, or an average of $0.55/kWh.

Clearly, my choice to spend most of the trip doing shorter days on back roads contributed to the great efficiency. If I’d been driving an ICE vehicle and paying an average of $3.10 for gas (probably close to the average for what I saw) and spent the same amount — $217 — on gas, I would have been getting an average of 48 mpg. If I hadn’t made the painful decision to pay the exorbitant fees to charge to 100% at last night’s hotel in order to save a charging stop today, that average would have been closer to 52 mpg. That’s comparable to my previous vehicle, a Hyundai Sonata Hybrid (it regularly hit 50 mpg or slightly above on highways), but the IONIQ 6 is so much more enjoyable and relaxing (the QUIET!) to drive.