They are saying that they got to the same place about 10 minutes apart which is not true because if they both drove for about 10 hours and had about 2 hours more of charging time how can they get to the same place 10 minutes apart
I feel like what they (NYT) did was waste time charging to 100% at every stop without having discharged the battery even close to 0. Many people I have talked to always ask how long it takes to charge from empty to full. It seems like many people don’t realize the battery won’t die if you don’t fully charge, you can only charge as needed and that you don’t want to fully charge if not needed because it takes much longer.
As an (new) EV owner for about a year this is so true. You can charge it when needed and it doesn't have to be full. Its like when you have and ICE car and you only put 5 or 10 bucks of gasoline in. It's not full but it will get you where you want
There is a small negative time delta between ice & evs when traveling, however the reverse is true for the huge majority of the time when home. Never having to go to a gas station is a big time saver for EV ‘s. Oh, & saving the planet, that too!!
If you try to drive to Vegas from LA on Friday afternoon it can take a crazy long time because the freeway becomes a parking lot almost the whole way. People going to spend the weekend in Vegas and come back on Sunday night. Friday night going to Vegas and Sunday night coming home are times to avoid I15.
Excellent video! Thank you so much for showing what it’s really like to make this common trip. I’ll watch the other channel’s video next to see what the BOLT’s trip was like.
I love that you guys have the friendly competition thing going, but still know who/what the real 'enemy' is and team up to show what's what. Really appreciate both of your perspectives and the rebuttal!
There are better places to stop than Baker. Yermo has Eddie's World, good food there and chargers are in their parking lot. Also Barstow, charge and walk to the outlets or choose from several good restaurants. There is a Chilies, two Starbucks, and a BUNCH of other stuff. By the time I order and eat, I have enough charge for the rest of the trip to or from Vegas from LA. After the Starbucks stop I sometimes have to pee before Vegas, and at State Line there is a bathroom and a charger. I plug in for an extra ten minutes while I am in the restroom and grab a little more juice.
That was a huge difference in charge times. This was a short trip too, imagine traveling across the country in a bolt. Not only are there less stations but they're way slower and less reliable. I wanted to like the bolt but its charging network isn't there yet to work for a single vehicle household. You would still need a ICE vehicle to do real trips. I've made several cross country trips in my Teslas and never had a problem.
The point thay really stands out to me, which i wish you both would have focused on more, was there was no overnight charging like most people would do. Those charging times could have essentially been zero as once you arrive at you destination your journey is over. You plug your car in, stay the night, and next morning when you need to make a second journey you can travel straight home. No need to stop during either leg of your journey. And if youre plugging in at destination theres no side trip/detour to look for a station
We stopped at this same one on our way from San Diego to Vegas. We kept hearing about one of the three having a lounge. We never found a lounge. But were happy to find stalls always open! The only bummer one was on the way back where we stopped at Barstow and it was not as nice of restaurant selection. It was early and some were closed.
The aerodynamic properties of the wheels do have an impact, but it's difficult to gauge in the wild (I've tried). It's probably safe to say that the efficiency difference between aero covers on vs. aero covers off for me is maybe a few percent. Tires and air pressure make a significant difference, though.
I read that article and immediately tweeted at the reporter about how misleading (and just negative) it was ... and found that many other /s/teslamotors people had already chewed him out :-). As a Model 3 owner, I am getting the sense that ICE drivers need to kind of un-learn some assumptions we have all grown up with and learn how things are mainly better with EVs. Sure, there's a bit of extra charging time these days, but as you say, the charging speeds are going up quickly. It's just not an issue.
Is it possible that the NYT reporter also added in the time to charge the Bolt before starting the trip and the charge time at the end of to return the Bolt to 100%?
Hmmm... I just mapped Thousand Oaks CA to Vegas on tesla.com/trips, selecting the Model 3 option, and it shows only stopping in Yermo CA to charge. Baker CA has 40 superchargers, but Kettleman City is the (considered the) largest supercharger location in the US because it has 40 superchargers and the lounge. I actually want to move to Bullhead City AZ, from Erie County PA, and have been wanting to meet a family that is now in the process of moving from Playa Del Rey CA. I've mapped from the address of the house I really want in AZ to PDR using the Model X long range option. It's not much mileage difference than you trip in this video, 300 miles (5h 28m), including one charge stop in Barstow CA.
Great video but I think the charging cost should also have been included in the conclusion run down; I have a couple of people that I talk to about EVs and I think more people would be more ready to switch if they could also be shown how much money they would be saving per trip in addition to all the other EV benefits.
I think Eric should be covering cost for his charging sessions in his video. I didn't talk cost because I'd basically have to guess or estimate via better route planner or something because both of my Teslas have unlimited free Supercharging (doesn't show cost at all).
Alex Venz couldn’t it be calculated if you knew the total amount of energy drawn from the Tesla superchargers over the course of the trip, assuming the cost per kw at all the stations were the same?
Yeah, now that you mention it, I could have tracked it that way but it probably wouldn't quite match how I'd expect Tesla to bill (via energy out of charger rather than energy put into the battery).
@@AlexVenz I didn't really get into the cost, as it's not as transparent for EVgo at this point. Plus, I didn't have a direct comparison with your results. The entire trip was about $40 in charging fees.
@@AlexVenz I just bought a used Leaf because I have a longish commute. At $3.50 a gallon, even if I exclusively charge at home and never find a free charger (where I live most Level 2 chargers are free and a few DC fast chargers are too), the car will pay for itself after 3.75 years of ownership. As for the cost of DC Fast charging--20 minutes at an EVGo station is about $6. That's enough to go about 90 miles in my car. An Electrify America station, if you buy the $4 monthly plan, is $3.60 for 20 minutes. FWIW, even on a 30 kWh Leaf, the EA stations seem to charge faster than the EVGo stations. It's a pretty constant 45 kw in the Electify America stations while the older EVgo stations seem be to in the high 30s.
Why did you charge all the way to 90% in Baker on the return leg? I know you weren’t trying to do the fastest trip possible, but another stop later (Yermo, Barstow, Mojave?) might have saved 10 minutes or more.
I was just following the built-in trip planner, since this was meant to be a more "normal people" kind of trip. I can't say I really disagree with its guidance to charge to a high SoC at Baker, since Yermo and Barstow are both too close to Baker to shed much energy on the way and the time spent exiting the highway, driving to the Supercharger, parking, and then getting back onto the highway would have chipped away at much of the charging time savings (nevermind multiple moderate length stops being less convenient than a single longer stop).
if he was going to charge it would be at the victor valley mall i think that one of the only few places that have charging in the area. yes the town is call Vicvtorville. i live up in the desrt at one of the other citys there.
My Teslas have free unlimited lifetime Supercharging, but my charging cost probably would have been around $25 if I didn't have free Supercharging. As I recall, Eric's charging cost in his Bolt was around $35.
ccs is a lame joke,,, i have seen on plugshare that a ccs says 50kwh then there is sign stuck on to the charger that says,, charging reduced to 25kwh due ''Electrical capacity''',, so you re getting ripped off,, paying for 50 and then only get 25 per min .. and then waiting a day to charge
Nooooooooooooooooooo! Electrify america has 150 and 350 kw charging . Look at their map in 1 year. Hopefully chevy will upgrade the battery to take a faster charge rate. On ea it can get 70 kw. And dont forget tesla is a luxury car and you dont compare a chevy cruize to a Cadillac
Most ev’s cant get the full power of the dc charger. Even on 150 ccs there are not any that can get 150. It depends on weather and battery temp too. My old leaf never gets close to 50 kw. A 100 amp charger slows down fast. I know one thing it wont take ea 7 years like it has tesla. Look at there map before blanket ccs bashing.
I think a Standard Plus should be thrown in the mix as well... As the range is comparable to a Bolt... However, charge time would be similar to the LR AWD since it's the amount bof energy consumed would be very the same between a SPlus and LR AWD... But still.. a more apples to apples comparison.
Standard Plus Supercharges significantly slower than the long range pack. The slightly higher efficiency isn't enough to compensate for that. Net result is longer charging stops (1 hour 3 mins vs 1 hour 34 mins for LA to Vegas and back): abetterrouteplanner.com/?plan_uuid=11350be1-12ae-4373-9d6c-c305138df19b vs abetterrouteplanner.com/?plan_uuid=f792dc75-349d-45e0-a5b4-bc0c05668a54
You mentioned the bathrooms at Baker....the bad thing is the tour buses stop there and 100 "tourists" all come flocking to use the bathrooms. One will be shut down and your chance of peeing is slim to none. LOL
I'll generally use tools like better route planner and EV trip planner for hypotheticals or optimizing specific trips. I use Tesla's built-in trip planner while on the road and, depending on the trip, I'll either follow it or manually set Supercharger destinations.
Why? The NYT “reporter” deliberately chose to use much slower chargers than many of those that are available, & chose not to use the “destination chargers” at any of the hotels in Vegas (something most EV owners would have done). That’s pretty much like telling an ICE owner to fill his tank using a single gas can - I hope you can understand just how long a fill-up would take if you tried to do that.
I'll say you did a good job on the video the problem I have with EV is you have to plan your trip you cannot just go. And going from Northern California to West Texas I lost a day in charging. One place in New Mexico Was a little worrisome at night. Any savings you made not using gas you lost in a hotel room. So I'll stick with a real gas powered vehicle for a long trip because time is money. I'm not trying to start a fight EVs just don't work on a long trip.
'Long trip' means different things to different people and your comment is a good example of that. For many, any trip involving more than about 8 hours of driving time each way means taking a flight instead. For that definition of long trip (3-8 hours of driving), EVs are starting to fit the bill pretty nicely. It is possible to drive EVs much further, but charging time does start adding up and how much that matters depends on your use case. That said, Fremont to Midland, as an example, is something like a 22 hour drive that would require around 3 hours of charging on Tesla's network assuming one is taking the trip in a rear wheel drive long range Model 3? With that long of a trip, you'd be out the hotel money anyway and it's hard to argue the monetary value of time when you're opting for a 22 hour drive over a 5 hour flight (including layover). Obviously, there are situations where a flight wouldn't be ideal but that just brings us back to singling out a specific use case (or, arguably, an edge case) as a means of invalidating the broader case that EVs do work well for. As for planning, I was under the assumption that people planned long trips rather than dropping everything and deciding to leave town on a quarter tank for a 20+ hour drive... no?
I don't have a set of the 20" performance wheels to test with, but they'd just reduce the efficiency some and potentially add a little bit to the charging time.
As mentioned in the video, the distance traveled between Thousand Oaks and Vegas was ~300 miles each way. That's too far for any Model 3 once you take elevation change into account. Leaving from LA proper would be a little different if you were using a rear wheel drive Model 3 LR... it would hypothetically be possible, but you'd be driving slower than the speed of traffic and would arrive in Vegas with basically nothing left (assuming the SoC calculation was accurate).
@@AlexVenz Yes sorry, forgot about the Monsoon season in the deserts. Went over to Eric's to catch his footage of the trip, but at 27 minutes long, I don't care enough about a 2017 Chevy EV to watch it 🤔. You gotta agree, Tesla is the NFL, while the rest of the EV market is like Arena Football. Only 60 minutes of charging time....amazing.
No, but there was a discussion about Eric staying in Primm during that part & what it meant for the trip. Had we done the trip on a random non-holiday weekday, I probably would have booked a 2 bedroom suite or something.
@@AlexVenz Oh, so you wanted to get a 2-room suite so you guys could share a room? I see... so next, what was your supercharging cost for this trip? And how would it compare with a gas car cost?
Really more of a matter of convenience than a want, but whatever. Not sure why one would fixate on that. Anyway, Supercharging cost was $0 because both of my Teslas have free unlimited lifetime Supercharging. Without free Supercharging, the trip probably would have cost ~$25.
So the Bolt you didn't get to use level 3 for all charges? That definitely would make it slower. That's the one massive advantage to the Tesla is the supercharger network
Eric did use CCS for his charging sessions in his Bolt. It was the original NY Times reporter who, inexplicably, skipped over a CCS station to charge at L2 in their Bolt.
For me? Yes, but that's because my Teslas have unlimited lifetime Supercharging. For newer Tesla owners without free Supercharging, the trip probably would have cost about $25 and Eric's cost was around $35.
So, 1.45 hours difference in charging yet left and arrived at nearly the same times...... the math does not add up to me..... what am I missing?? Hello from Canada
I arrived in Vegas significantly before Eric, was in Vegas with Eric during his charging session at the Electrify America site, we staggered our day 2 departures, & I still arrived in Thousand Oaks before Eric. I cut the parts where I was waiting since it wasn't relevant. The point of the video wasn't Bolt vs. Model 3--timing was discussed a bit, though.
First let me say that this is a well done response to the NY Times piece. BUT the nonsense of 3 to 1... 4 to 1 ratio of a load of crap. Until I retired I would regularly drive (in my IC vehicle) 365 miles without stopping on a single take of gas. I never would have considered stopping just to stop for a break. That ratio claim is pure rationalization.
Wow, only 3.7 miles/kWh? I'm surprised the Bolt's miles per kilowatt was so poor. I would have thought it was better than my old Leaf which would get 238Wh/mile (4.2 miles/kWh). Was it simply because you were driving over 65 mph?
We were driving at 70-75mph whenever traffic would allow, which does use quite a bit more energy than driving at 65mph (granted, our average speed worked out to around 60mph). Also keep in mind that there are significant elevation changes involved in this trip and desert winds.
I had a free NYT mobile subscription. But, after that article, I was definitely not continuing, even for free.
They are saying that they got to the same place about 10 minutes apart which is not true because if they both drove for about 10 hours and had about 2 hours more of charging time how can they get to the same place 10 minutes apart
Thanks for the video Alex and Eric . You guys work well together and we needed a rebuttal video of the new york times trip.
I feel like what they (NYT) did was waste time charging to 100% at every stop without having discharged the battery even close to 0. Many people I have talked to always ask how long it takes to charge from empty to full. It seems like many people don’t realize the battery won’t die if you don’t fully charge, you can only charge as needed and that you don’t want to fully charge if not needed because it takes much longer.
As an (new) EV owner for about a year this is so true. You can charge it when needed and it doesn't have to be full. Its like when you have and ICE car and you only put 5 or 10 bucks of gasoline in. It's not full but it will get you where you want
Great job, Alex. I preserved a bit more of our Vegas conversation, but the conclusion will be almost identical (just a bit of a different format).
There is a small negative time delta between ice & evs when traveling, however the reverse is true for the huge majority of the time when home. Never having to go to a gas station is a big time saver for EV ‘s. Oh, & saving the planet, that too!!
If you try to drive to Vegas from LA on Friday afternoon it can take a crazy long time because the freeway becomes a parking lot almost the whole way. People going to spend the weekend in Vegas and come back on Sunday night. Friday night going to Vegas and Sunday night coming home are times to avoid I15.
Fantastic! I plan to do a drive like this in our SR+ to demonstrate the same thing. People need to know the truth! Great video!
WeBackTesla I drove my SR (actually an SR + currently) from Nashville to Charlotte at back, so almost 1000 miles with no problems at all.
Marc Benton is that thing ever going to be downgraded?
WeBackTesla at this point, I’m not really sure. Lol
Eh, it's Tesla... it'll either never happen or hit you out of the blue 6-9 months from now ;)
Love the team up for the cause! Enjoy and sub to both channels. Thanks guys 🤜🏼🤛🏼
Excellent video! Thank you so much for showing what it’s really like to make this common trip. I’ll watch the other channel’s video next to see what the BOLT’s trip was like.
I love that you guys have the friendly competition thing going, but still know who/what the real 'enemy' is and team up to show what's what. Really appreciate both of your perspectives and the rebuttal!
Outstanding overview! Missing those carneasada fries here in MD.
There are better places to stop than Baker. Yermo has Eddie's World, good food there and chargers are in their parking lot. Also Barstow, charge and walk to the outlets or choose from several good restaurants. There is a Chilies, two Starbucks, and a BUNCH of other stuff. By the time I order and eat, I have enough charge for the rest of the trip to or from Vegas from LA. After the Starbucks stop I sometimes have to pee before Vegas, and at State Line there is a bathroom and a charger. I plug in for an extra ten minutes while I am in the restroom and grab a little more juice.
OMG you guys drove from thousand oaks. Not like those idiots that drive from inland empire and claim they're leaving from Los Angeles.
That was a huge difference in charge times. This was a short trip too, imagine traveling across the country in a bolt.
Not only are there less stations but they're way slower and less reliable. I wanted to like the bolt but its charging network isn't there yet to work for a single vehicle household. You would still need a ICE vehicle to do real trips. I've made several cross country trips in my Teslas and never had a problem.
Nooooooooooooooooooo! Electrifyamerica.com
The point thay really stands out to me, which i wish you both would have focused on more, was there was no overnight charging like most people would do. Those charging times could have essentially been zero as once you arrive at you destination your journey is over. You plug your car in, stay the night, and next morning when you need to make a second journey you can travel straight home. No need to stop during either leg of your journey. And if youre plugging in at destination theres no side trip/detour to look for a station
We stopped at this same one on our way from San Diego to Vegas. We kept hearing about one of the three having a lounge. We never found a lounge. But were happy to find stalls always open! The only bummer one was on the way back where we stopped at Barstow and it was not as nice of restaurant selection. It was early and some were closed.
Kettleman City Supercharger is the site with the private lounge
That was a realistic and informative video...thank you.
Thanks this was great to see!
The new model S can go from LA to Vegas without stopping , because of the over 350 mile range
Good grief, a 10:1 driving to charging ratio is insane! Great video, I'll look under the table and find my way to the Bolt's story.
Chevy needs to figure out how to take advantage of the greater than 50KW chargers!
Do the rims on both cars have a signifigant effect on the miles per kWh that they get?
The aerodynamic properties of the wheels do have an impact, but it's difficult to gauge in the wild (I've tried). It's probably safe to say that the efficiency difference between aero covers on vs. aero covers off for me is maybe a few percent. Tires and air pressure make a significant difference, though.
I read that article and immediately tweeted at the reporter about how misleading (and just negative) it was ... and found that many other /s/teslamotors people had already chewed him out :-). As a Model 3 owner, I am getting the sense that ICE drivers need to kind of un-learn some assumptions we have all grown up with and learn how things are mainly better with EVs. Sure, there's a bit of extra charging time these days, but as you say, the charging speeds are going up quickly. It's just not an issue.
Is it possible that the NYT reporter also added in the time to charge the Bolt before starting the trip and the charge time at the end of to return the Bolt to 100%?
I like how the Tesla can super change
Every informative video!
Did you both have your A/C running during these trips?
Yes, we both had climate control on for the trip. Mine was set auto with a target of 71°F and Eric's was set about the same.
Alex, Your friend Eric looks like Louis C.K. Still love the Tesla because of the charging Infrastructure.
Hmmm... I just mapped Thousand Oaks CA to Vegas on tesla.com/trips, selecting the Model 3 option, and it shows only stopping in Yermo CA to charge.
Baker CA has 40 superchargers, but Kettleman City is the (considered the) largest supercharger location in the US because it has 40 superchargers and the lounge.
I actually want to move to Bullhead City AZ, from Erie County PA, and have been wanting to meet a family that is now in the process of moving from Playa Del Rey CA. I've mapped from the address of the house I really want in AZ to PDR using the Model X long range option. It's not much mileage difference than you trip in this video, 300 miles (5h 28m), including one charge stop in Barstow CA.
Excellent video. I have yet to take my model 3 on a road trip.
Great video but I think the charging cost should also have been included in the conclusion run down; I have a couple of people that I talk to about EVs and I think more people would be more ready to switch if they could also be shown how much money they would be saving per trip in addition to all the other EV benefits.
I think Eric should be covering cost for his charging sessions in his video. I didn't talk cost because I'd basically have to guess or estimate via better route planner or something because both of my Teslas have unlimited free Supercharging (doesn't show cost at all).
Alex Venz couldn’t it be calculated if you knew the total amount of energy drawn from the Tesla superchargers over the course of the trip, assuming the cost per kw at all the stations were the same?
Yeah, now that you mention it, I could have tracked it that way but it probably wouldn't quite match how I'd expect Tesla to bill (via energy out of charger rather than energy put into the battery).
@@AlexVenz I didn't really get into the cost, as it's not as transparent for EVgo at this point. Plus, I didn't have a direct comparison with your results. The entire trip was about $40 in charging fees.
@@AlexVenz I just bought a used Leaf because I have a longish commute. At $3.50 a gallon, even if I exclusively charge at home and never find a free charger (where I live most Level 2 chargers are free and a few DC fast chargers are too), the car will pay for itself after 3.75 years of ownership. As for the cost of DC Fast charging--20 minutes at an EVGo station is about $6. That's enough to go about 90 miles in my car. An Electrify America station, if you buy the $4 monthly plan, is $3.60 for 20 minutes. FWIW, even on a 30 kWh Leaf, the EA stations seem to charge faster than the EVGo stations. It's a pretty constant 45 kw in the Electify America stations while the older EVgo stations seem be to in the high 30s.
Kill the FUD guys👍🏻
Indeed, seems we are facing the same uninformed media reports on both sides of the Atlantic.
Keep up the great work!
Why did you charge all the way to 90% in Baker on the return leg? I know you weren’t trying to do the fastest trip possible, but another stop later (Yermo, Barstow, Mojave?) might have saved 10 minutes or more.
I was just following the built-in trip planner, since this was meant to be a more "normal people" kind of trip. I can't say I really disagree with its guidance to charge to a high SoC at Baker, since Yermo and Barstow are both too close to Baker to shed much energy on the way and the time spent exiting the highway, driving to the Supercharger, parking, and then getting back onto the highway would have chipped away at much of the charging time savings (nevermind multiple moderate length stops being less convenient than a single longer stop).
if he was going to charge it would be at the victor valley mall i think that one of the only few places that have charging in the area. yes the town is call Vicvtorville. i live up in the desrt at one of the other citys there.
Maybe theyre saying time to initially charge to take the trip then any charging thereafter.
Great Video! Have a great day!
How much was it to charge the bolt vs the Tesla for the round trip?
My Teslas have free unlimited lifetime Supercharging, but my charging cost probably would have been around $25 if I didn't have free Supercharging. As I recall, Eric's charging cost in his Bolt was around $35.
Tesla's charging network and speed is far better than what's offered by everyone else's combined.
ccs is a lame joke,,, i have seen on plugshare that a ccs says 50kwh then there is sign stuck on to the charger that says,, charging reduced to 25kwh due ''Electrical capacity''',, so you re getting ripped off,, paying for 50 and then only get 25 per min .. and then waiting a day to charge
Nooooooooooooooooooo! Electrify america has 150 and 350 kw charging . Look at their map in 1 year. Hopefully chevy will upgrade the battery to take a faster charge rate. On ea it can get 70 kw. And dont forget tesla is a luxury car and you dont compare a chevy cruize to a Cadillac
Most ev’s cant get the full power of the dc charger. Even on 150 ccs there are not any that can get 150. It depends on weather and battery temp too. My old leaf never gets close to 50 kw. A 100 amp charger slows down fast. I know one thing it wont take ea 7 years like it has tesla. Look at there map before blanket ccs bashing.
@@markfitzpatrick6692 Tesla preconditions the battery before you charge to improve charge speed. I got 145kw for most of my charging session.
I think a Standard Plus should be thrown in the mix as well... As the range is comparable to a Bolt... However, charge time would be similar to the LR AWD since it's the amount bof energy consumed would be very the same between a SPlus and LR AWD... But still.. a more apples to apples comparison.
Standard Plus Supercharges significantly slower than the long range pack. The slightly higher efficiency isn't enough to compensate for that. Net result is longer charging stops (1 hour 3 mins vs 1 hour 34 mins for LA to Vegas and back):
abetterrouteplanner.com/?plan_uuid=11350be1-12ae-4373-9d6c-c305138df19b vs abetterrouteplanner.com/?plan_uuid=f792dc75-349d-45e0-a5b4-bc0c05668a54
You mentioned the bathrooms at Baker....the bad thing is the tour buses stop there and 100 "tourists" all come flocking to use the bathrooms. One will be shut down and your chance of peeing is slim to none. LOL
Alex, do you rely on the tesla map on board computer for charging or do you use A Better Route Planner?
I'll generally use tools like better route planner and EV trip planner for hypotheticals or optimizing specific trips. I use Tesla's built-in trip planner while on the road and, depending on the trip, I'll either follow it or manually set Supercharger destinations.
They should have replicated the NYT route EXACTLY: Should have found out exactly where the NYT left from, exactly WHEN and exactly what ROUTE.
Why? The NYT “reporter” deliberately chose to use much slower chargers than many of those that are available, & chose not to use the “destination chargers” at any of the hotels in Vegas (something most EV owners would have done). That’s pretty much like telling an ICE owner to fill his tank using a single gas can - I hope you can understand just how long a fill-up would take if you tried to do that.
With the new V3 Supercharger in Vegas it'll be even faster!
Fantastic video!
I'll say you did a good job on the video the problem I have with EV is you have to plan your trip you cannot just go. And going from Northern California to West Texas I lost a day in charging. One place in New Mexico Was a little worrisome at night. Any savings you made not using gas you lost in a hotel room. So I'll stick with a real gas powered vehicle for a long trip because time is money. I'm not trying to start a fight EVs just don't work on a long trip.
'Long trip' means different things to different people and your comment is a good example of that. For many, any trip involving more than about 8 hours of driving time each way means taking a flight instead. For that definition of long trip (3-8 hours of driving), EVs are starting to fit the bill pretty nicely. It is possible to drive EVs much further, but charging time does start adding up and how much that matters depends on your use case. That said, Fremont to Midland, as an example, is something like a 22 hour drive that would require around 3 hours of charging on Tesla's network assuming one is taking the trip in a rear wheel drive long range Model 3? With that long of a trip, you'd be out the hotel money anyway and it's hard to argue the monetary value of time when you're opting for a 22 hour drive over a 5 hour flight (including layover). Obviously, there are situations where a flight wouldn't be ideal but that just brings us back to singling out a specific use case (or, arguably, an edge case) as a means of invalidating the broader case that EVs do work well for.
As for planning, I was under the assumption that people planned long trips rather than dropping everything and deciding to leave town on a quarter tank for a 20+ hour drive... no?
@@AlexVenz Good reply no name calling I appreciate that. I have to tell you we got a job in Pioche NV that area. I will not be taking one of the EV .
At 14:32 Tesla boy totally interrupts Bolt boy.
How many kW can the Bolt DC-charge at?
50
Around 55kW is about the best the Bolt can manage.
Can you do the same trip in performance wheels?
I don't have a set of the 20" performance wheels to test with, but they'd just reduce the efficiency some and potentially add a little bit to the charging time.
Awesome video
That Chevy charge port is huge, but not the battery
With a distance o 261 miles, could you not drive non stop with the tesla, making the tri hs an min?
As mentioned in the video, the distance traveled between Thousand Oaks and Vegas was ~300 miles each way. That's too far for any Model 3 once you take elevation change into account. Leaving from LA proper would be a little different if you were using a rear wheel drive Model 3 LR... it would hypothetically be possible, but you'd be driving slower than the speed of traffic and would arrive in Vegas with basically nothing left (assuming the SoC calculation was accurate).
Rain in July coming out of Vegas. Unless the story is super-odd, like that hail storm in Guadalajara MX, the mainstream media seams to be oblivious.
Random brief summer showers aren't that uncommon in the Mojave desert.
@@AlexVenz Yes sorry, forgot about the Monsoon season in the deserts. Went over to Eric's to catch his footage of the trip, but at 27 minutes long, I don't care enough about a 2017 Chevy EV to watch it 🤔. You gotta agree, Tesla is the NFL, while the rest of the EV market is like Arena Football. Only 60 minutes of charging time....amazing.
Try going to vegas without fastcharge on bolt in the summer when it's 115 degrees out there
You definitely aren't highlighting the range of the Tesla when you stop at two superchargers 50 miles apart (Baker CA and Primm NV).
How much of your trip was using AP?
TACC was enabled for nearly the entire trip, Autosteer was engaged most of the time, & Navigate on Autopilot was left disabled.
Not to sound weird, but ...Did you guys share the same hotel room (the shot of you guys in the same room)?
No, but there was a discussion about Eric staying in Primm during that part & what it meant for the trip. Had we done the trip on a random non-holiday weekday, I probably would have booked a 2 bedroom suite or something.
@@AlexVenz Oh, so you wanted to get a 2-room suite so you guys could share a room? I see... so next, what was your supercharging cost for this trip? And how would it compare with a gas car cost?
Really more of a matter of convenience than a want, but whatever. Not sure why one would fixate on that. Anyway, Supercharging cost was $0 because both of my Teslas have free unlimited lifetime Supercharging. Without free Supercharging, the trip probably would have cost ~$25.
@@AlexVenz Not fixated.. just curious. You're so lucky to have unlimited lifetime Supercharging... maybe Tesla will bring that promo back someday...
Wish my Mazda car could do that
So the Bolt you didn't get to use level 3 for all charges? That definitely would make it slower. That's the one massive advantage to the Tesla is the supercharger network
Eric did use CCS for his charging sessions in his Bolt. It was the original NY Times reporter who, inexplicably, skipped over a CCS station to charge at L2 in their Bolt.
I would hope the original author would have been willing to comment, did you ask him?
If I remember correctly, Eric did but didn't receive a response.
I GUESS LISTENING TO THE USERS PLAY LIST IS MANDATORY ON UA-cam. EVERYONE'S A FRUSTRATED DJ.
East coast has a lot fewer charge opportunities than west coast , I think?
is charging FREE
For me? Yes, but that's because my Teslas have unlimited lifetime Supercharging. For newer Tesla owners without free Supercharging, the trip probably would have cost about $25 and Eric's cost was around $35.
So, 1.45 hours difference in charging yet left and arrived at nearly the same times...... the math does not add up to me..... what am I missing?? Hello from Canada
I arrived in Vegas significantly before Eric, was in Vegas with Eric during his charging session at the Electrify America site, we staggered our day 2 departures, & I still arrived in Thousand Oaks before Eric. I cut the parts where I was waiting since it wasn't relevant. The point of the video wasn't Bolt vs. Model 3--timing was discussed a bit, though.
First let me say that this is a well done response to the NY Times piece. BUT the nonsense of 3 to 1... 4 to 1 ratio of a load of crap. Until I retired I would regularly drive (in my IC vehicle) 365 miles without stopping on a single take of gas. I never would have considered stopping just to stop for a break. That ratio claim is pure rationalization.
Wow, only 3.7 miles/kWh? I'm surprised the Bolt's miles per kilowatt was so poor. I would have thought it was better than my old Leaf which would get 238Wh/mile (4.2 miles/kWh). Was it simply because you were driving over 65 mph?
We were driving at 70-75mph whenever traffic would allow, which does use quite a bit more energy than driving at 65mph (granted, our average speed worked out to around 60mph). Also keep in mind that there are significant elevation changes involved in this trip and desert winds.
@@AlexVenz - Thanks Alex, that does explain a lot. If I drove the Leaf in a similar manner I'd be lucky to get 3.0 miles per kWh.
NYT, once again fake news!!!
I could make this round trip with zero stops, but that's what you get with diesel car and 15 gallons.
...and a few dead 18 year old kids fighting to keep diesel at a tax payer subsidized affordable price.
Call out the author by name!