Tesla Chronicles #51 - Business Trip to DC

I just returned from one of my way too many business trips to the southern portion of Washington DC, a trip that I execute frequently in my 2021 Model Y Long Range. I am here to tell you that driving an EV for this trip saves me BOTH time AND money over a comparable gas vehicle. I realize that here on the east coast, and in particular, in the DC area, I have access to an abundance of DCFC's that make this all possible, where doing a similar trip elsewhere might not. Let's get into the specifics.

This trip was a total of 6 days, 5 nights. I drove a total of 400 miles over these 4 days. 180 miles to travel one way to/from DC, and about 40 miles of local driving during the week. Unless I do this drive late in the evening, this drive is almost always about a 4 hour drive one way. This is too long for me to go without stopping to go to the bathroom at least once, but most of the time, I am also grabbing a meal or a snack, so I am almost always stopping twice. I also try to stay in a hotel that has free L2 charging, but on this last trip, the one that is closest to the area just didn't have any availability.

If I would have taken my wife's CX-5, I would be able to get roughly 22 mpg average for the trip. That would be 18.2 gallons of gas total. At $3.50/gallon, that would be $63.60 for gas for the trip, and it would take about 5-10 minutes of standing at a gas pump monitoring the pump while filling up. But if you take into consideration that this morning, my EV had a "Full Tank" after charging overnight, you would have to add a second gas filling stop to this trip just before I arrived home to top off the tank, which would take another 5 minutes or so.

IC Summary - $63.60 and 10-15 minutes of fueling to drive a gas vehicle. Also note in a gas vehicle, I would still need to stop for bathroom breaks as well.

Drive to DC

For this trip in my Model Y, I left the house with 100%. I hade to run a few errands first thing in the morning before getting on the road. My first bathroom stop was in Aberdeen MD at a Royal Farms right off of I-95 that I picked because it had Superchargers. In 5 minutes, I managed to add 9% to the car while I walked in to get a snack and use the restrooms. My second stop was at the Superchargers at the Tysons Corners Mall parking garage. I had many other options to pick from but wanted to try this one out because I hadn't been to this one yet (I have a side quest to try to visit as many different SuC sites as I can as I travel). I used this stop as an opportunity to grab lunch at the food court and use the restrooms too. This was a long stop, mostly because the Supercharger was on the opposite side of the mall as the food court. I added 63% over 40 minutes. But if I would have picked any of the many other Superchargers at a WAWA, Sheetz, or Royal Farms along 95 or the DC Beltway. For the purposes of this discussion, let's assume I could have done that with a stop of no more than 10 minutes which could have added about 15%. So on a typical trip to DC for me, two stops for the bathroom and to grab some lunch is a total of 15 minutes of stopping, and I can add 25% to the battery during these stops. In a gas car, I would still be stopping for 15 minutes. I arrived at my hotel with 86%. With a shorter second stop, I would have arrived with about 40%. Total cost for charging was $17.34

Work Week

As I stated, I usually pick a hotel that has on-site, free, L2 charging. This is great because I wouldn't even need to stop at all to charge on my way down to DC unless the temperatures are extreme, which they were. Above 80F, the AC needs noticable energy, and it was in the 90's on my drives this week. I may have arrived with single digit SOC without charging along the way. Every time I am at the hotel, I can ensure I leave with whatever SOC I want during the week and 100% before driving home. On this trip, I didn't have that luxury available to me, and had to rely on local DCFC chargers. There are two strategies that can be employed, many short charges, or one or two long chargers. Because there are 4 different DCFC sites between my hotel and the work site, all which have restaurants and/or grocery stores within walking distance, I could get a quick charge while getting food for my meals and snacks while at work. Using the slowest chargers (50kw) at the Wegmans Shopping center, I could easily net gain 10% per day with these quick 15-20 minute stops above and beyond my daily usage. If I would have used the chargers at the Mall, the daily gain would have been much higher. By the end of the week, I was easily able to leave with over 90% SOC. Because I arrived with such a high SOC at the beginning of the week, I only used this 3 times for a total cost of $17.31 (the EVgo station at the Wegmans is one of the more expensive options in the area, but it is very convenient).

Drive Home

The drive home was basically the drive down, but in reverse. I departed the area with 88% which was enough to arrive home without charging at all, but only barely. I stopped twice for charging and bathroom breaks at WAWAs along the way. 12 minutes and 4 minutes and added 32% in these two stops. Got a hotdog and snacks at the first stop. I arrived home with 39% (so I would have arrived without charging at about 7%). Used about 81% to drive 183 miles. $7.99 total cost for these stops. I probably would not have charged at one of these stops is I wasn't on my side quest to get charges at as many new chargers as possible, because arriving home after a long trip with more than 10% is just wasting money honestly.

To keep costs comparable to a gas vehicle, let's assume that I charged back up to 100% overnight. At $0.11/kwh, my cost to add about 43 kwh would be $4.75.

EV Summary - $47.40

Time Total = EV would be 10-15 minutes shorter

Total Cost = EV at least $16.21 savings

And my savings would have been $4 more if I would have arrived home with single digit SOC and few dollars less if I would have picked a different local charger. With free charging at a hotel, my total costs would be ONLY to fill up the car upon my return, which would be less than $7, or a $65 savings over an ICE vehicle.

Intangibles

Full Self Driving (FSD). I now pay $99/month for FSD and it is worth every penny in my honest opinion. I am working long shifts (14 hours), often at night (6pm to 8am) on these trips. I am no where near my most alert, best conditions for driving right after these nights, or on the last day after a short nap, driving home for 4 hours. I am thankful for having the autonomous driving features of FSD on these drives. It just gets better and better with each version. It has even gotten to the point where it knows the confusing roads and lanes you need to be in around DC better than I do. I am certain it has likely kept me much safer than any other vehicle I have ever driven.