Palm Springs to Vegas baby, Vegas!

OK, now the real road test is about to begin! Palm Springs to Vegas on a single charge! We've driven to Las Vegas plenty of times in the Polestar. The Polestar 2 was advertised at 230 miles when I bought it. But with Vegas being 270 miles, there was no way to make it on a single charge. Even the short route, going the back way through Twentynine Palms, and Amboy up to Kelso and across to Nipton Road, the route is still listed as 225 miles. One time we tried this, and with the hills and steep grades along the route, we wound up only making it to Nitpon Road and then coasted downhill to State Line with only 10 miles left of range. And 37 miles to go to Vegas. So previously, we would drive from Palm Springs and stop at Baker to charge. Now this was going to be fun to see whether or not we can actually make it to Vegas on a single charge.

For the uninitiated, there are four routes to Vegas from Palm Springs: The front route; the 10 freeway to the 215 to the 15 is 271 miles according to Google maps. The side route, Yucca Valley to Lucerne Valley to Barstow to Hwy 15 to Vegas, is rated at 254 miles. Then there are two back routes: Start by going through Joshua Tree to Twentynine Palms through Wonder Valley to Amboy then to Kelso. Once you reach Kelso, you can stay on the appropriately named Kelbaker Rd, head west, and 35 miles later, you hit Baker, where there's a large number of charging stations there. Electrify America has 12 and usually you have 9 of them are working, Tesla has over 60 charging stations there. That's crazy! From Baker, it's 87 miles to Vegas, and 258 miles total. But if you don't need to charge, you hang a right at the Kelso Depot, and follow Kelso Cima Rd past the Kelso Dunes to Nipton Road, turn left to Hwy 15, and 38 miles later, you're in Vegas. Total run is only a mere 225 miles.

My wife has been begging to take that back route for some reason and although it's the shortest route, it's also the most hilly and the most desolate. Sure, let's take a brand new car on the back roads, down the lonely desolate highway, past the haunted miners camp, what's the worst that can go wrong? Actually, we did, and the Ocean One performed like a champ. Comfortably, powerfully, it handled the hills, even in earth mode and got us to Vegas in 225 miles with 35 miles remaining on the computer. So that's a 260 total range. Nowhere near the 290 that I just did going to LA, but then also taking into account the number of hills we climbed and no drafting of trucks on the freeway, not too bad.

Getting to Vegas was not the problem: it's what to do about charging up once we got there. Or should I say, to get a free charge up once we got there. The MGM properties in Las Vegas have free ChargePoint chargers. The problem is that that only have 2 to 4 chargers per property. And with the number of electric cars on the road today, they're always taken. And when they don't show being taken on the app, it's a 25% chance that you'll get there and the charger will be out of order. This happened to us at Aria, and Luxor. The chargers at Park MGM, Bellagio and Mandalay Bay seem to be in order, but were in constant use. Oh, and did I mention they are slow chargers. So people charging may be on the charger for 10-14 hours. I know, I got lucky one time with the Polestar and plugged in at 11pm. By 1pm the next day, I was at 100%.

After reaching our hotel at Vdara, we drove around looking for chargers. The next day, we drove to The Venetian to see the B-52s (awesome!), and drove to check a few chargers again. Now we were down to 10 miles left, and blinking warning signs on the dash. OK, you win! Time to give up the free charge and head over to the Electrify America chargers behind Caesar's Palace. There's a bank of seven chargers there, one being a low speed, but the rest being the 350kw Hyper chargers. We pulled up and after a 10 minute wait, we spent an hour in the casino while the car charged to 100%. We figure let's just charge it fully and that way we don't have to worry about doing this again before going home. We gambled for a bit, lost and felt best to leave before this charge would cost us hundreds more! The charge just made it to 100%. That's the thing about Electrify America chargers, they start charging out super-fast but once you hit 80% they automatically start slowing the charge speed down to protect the battery. 25 minutes to 80%. Another 20 to 90%. Another 20 to 100%. But we got it there.

The next morning, we head out after stopping for lunch at In-N-Out. The drive home was pretty easy, and we actually had company on the desolate Nitpon Road route this time. Several people driving home were driving home at the same time kept us company. This also gave us an opportunity to do a little drafting. Very little. Not sure it made any difference, but it made it interesting. This time, as we made it to Twentynine Palms, I made a point to stop at the Rivian charging station I saw on the way up. I actually called Rivian when in Vegas, to confirm if I could charge there, and the phone had no idea what I was talking about. Turns out the new Rivian Adventure charging station is not scheduled to open until December. It's so new it didn't even show up on the map, and the Rivian help desk didn't even know about it. This station works out to be pretty cool, as its 45 miles from Palm Springs which means if we're ever heading home and are dangerously low on juice, we have a good spot to stop and do a quick charge to ensure a safe return home. It's also great for adventurers wanting to do EV off roading and camping in the national forest there.

By the time we get home, again, backs are well rested, and the ride has been comfortable, I'm surprised to see that we did the same 225 mile trip, but this time we had 65 miles left on the computer. That was awesome! Unclear as to whether or not the extra 40 miles came from drafting the cars on the way home, or the fact that Palm Springs sits about 1500 feet below Las Vegas, so for the most part, we're on a downhill trajectory. Or maybe just a computer glitch in calculations? Either way, I was happy to see that we were back into the 290 mile range.

For the next trip, I want to do another Vegas run but this time take the long route, the 271 mile route along the 10, 215 and 15 freeways. With the freeway driving, I'm able to do lots of drafting, and it will be interesting to see how the hills affect the range. I'm for sure can make it to Stateline no problem, we'll just have to judge it at that point to see if we can make it to our hotel, or need to make another stop before actually reaching the strip. Maybe this time, we'll leave it with the valet to charge up overnight. The $45 valet fee is cheaper than the $100 lost on the machine. Just not as much fun. 😊

Trip Results:

Palm Springs to Vegas:

• Calculated Range at Start: 280 miles
• Total Miles Driven: 222 miles
• Remaining Miles: 35 miles
• Real World Range: 257 miles

Vegas to Palm Springs:

• Calculated Range at Start: 270 miles
• Total Miles Driven: 222 miles
• Remaining Miles: 68 miles
• Real World Range: 290 miles