The wait for the Level 2 charge to finish wasn’t that entertaining so in an effort to minimize the sit time I calculated an absolute bare minimum charge.

Caution: Before attempting this stunt, realize that any detour or missed turn will put you at risk.

The challenge was to traverse the mapped out 80 miles and arrive with at least some energy left in reserve. So, I stopped the charge at 93. I figured the 3 bonus miles for my own inefficiencies or for squandering. The 10 miles on top of the 80 was for cushion. Dipping into this minimal reserve would be a Fail.

To achieve a 1:1 exchange of battery range miles for map miles required reduced speed (55), Cruise Control On, HVAC off (Brrrr) — basically wearing knit cap, gloves, and coat jacket while watching the traffic whizz past in the fast lane.

A good monitoring method is to compare predicted range remaining with distance to go. Subtract the map distance from the reported range every few miles or so. This mental arithmetic will keep you alert to a growing or shrinking reserve. If you discover your reserve to be dwindling then further adjust speed.

Interstate 10 through Louisiana is flat and this was cooberated by the realtime energy graph display which was flatlined. This is rare to see for me seeing that the Eastern states have hills always. I felt emboldened with my 3 bonus miles, one of which disappeared early on for some reason, to try an experiment. This was spurred on by the cold tingly feeling in my toes 🙂 Wanting to see the energy consumption diff I switched on the heat. The increase was marked at 50 WH/mi. I had to switch it off, too big a hit, but was able to run the seat warmer on lo in lieu of.

I was able to arrive with the 10 miles intact. This exercise was good experience but ordinarily 30 as a hold back is a good practice.