The Mother of All Road Trips is kicking off for our Wildest Adventure Yet!

The day is here! This is the mega road trip of road trips! This will shape all road trips to be! What started as a dream, has now become reality, as I’ve put my foot down and firmly decided - we are driving to San Francisco!

The drive from Palm Springs to San Francisco is just under 500 miles. The mileage is just a small part of the trip though, it's also about the comfort that you can sustain over what's going to be 8 hours of driving. I used to make this trip in my younger days. Even when I lived in San Francisco, I would drive down to Los Angeles occasionally. But now as the years have worn on, the idea of sitting in a car for 8 hours is not high on my list. Let alone, add several more hours to that time to charge your electric car. But now, with the Fisker Ocean One, I'm gues-timating that I can achieve around 300 miles per 100% charge. This is a game changer, as it would reduce charging to just one stop taking 30 to 40 minutes. That's something I could deal with. But more so, will the comfort of the Fisker Ocean One be something that I can deal with? The seats, or should I say, captain's chairs, are incredibly comfortable. The spacing of the car is perfect for me. Between the door armrest and the center console armrest, it presents a perfect alignment of where I want to place my arms for a relaxing drive. I don't have to reach, nor do I feel cramped. The smooth ride means I'm not feeling every jolt of the road, and between Bluetooth on my phone and Spotify in the car, I'll have a world of dance music at my fingertips. And on this trip, Nancy, needs to catch up on work, so she makes use of the passenger Taco Tray as a makeshift computer stand and turns the car into a mobile office uing the Ocean's WiFi. This is going to be awesome!

As I began planning the trip, breaking news comes my way: my wife's sister is in the states from the Philippines, and she's in Elk Grove visiting her daughter. Elk Grove is just 20-30 minutes south of Sacramento along the 99 freeway. No problem, as this doesn’t change the one-way distance, it just changes the trajectory. I start looking for charging stations along the 99, and I see Electrify America has two stations in Bakersfield, 217 miles north of us. I can make that easily and wonder if I should drive further before charging. I see Fresno would be our next stop for a major city, 271 miles away. That sounds good to me, but when I mention it, the Wifey is a little worried of what happens if something goes wrong. Good point. Hills along the route, traffic, wind, cold, are all things that can impact the range of an EV. And there's literally no other stops in between the two along the 99, so I decide to stick with the stop in Bakersfield.

We set out on a beautiful day and began to drive north. We hit Bakersfield no problem, and of course, the inevitable happens: 4 chargers and a line of 3 cars waiting. Oh boy. I look at the map and see that the other bank of chargers with 9 charges available are just 10 minutes away. We head over to the location and find that 11 chargers is actually 5 chargers. My mistake was that I was using Google maps, my trusted travel guide, which normally is inline and detailed in its reporting. But unfortunately, Google maps is now out of sync with Electrify America chargers, and Google is reporting 5 350kW chargers and 5 150 kW chargers, and 1 CHAdeMO charger. That's not the case as the 350 kW and the 150 kW are the same charger, only one cable. At least the one CHAdeMO terminal is shared with the 350kw terminal. Duh! Again, my mistake for not using the actual Electrify America app to look up these locations. This is all part of EA's ongoing effort to make all terminal 350kw chargers, but apparently, Google wasn't notified of this. Get with the program Google!

Anyway, we get to the second charging location and as luck would have it, there are open terminals, so we quickly pull in and begin charging. The chargers are located in a Target parking lot so we decide to head inside and pick up some chewing gum. By the time we get back out to the car, we only have an additional 15 minutes to get the car back up to 100%. That's when I also noticed a line of cars forming behind us, and they are four deep at this point. I'm looking forward to 2025 when more manufacturers will come online with access to NACS charging at Tesla supercharger locations. This will increase charging availability for all which will reduce the lines at the J chargers. There are other chargers in the Bakersfield area, BP fuel has some chargers, as well as EVgo and ChargePoint. But unfortunately, all of these chargers are charging below 100kW and would take double the time to charge. That may be OK for local residents, but for travelers trying to get from here to there, we need to go get going as fast as we can.

We hit the road, and the charging station has placed us on the 5 freeway. We run into quite a bit of traffic, but of course, and I realize we'll need to do a quick stop in Stockton to top off so that we have range available once we get to Elk Grove. Oh crap, now things are about to get a little weird. We’re on the 5 Fwy, but now we have to cut across the 152 to get back to Highway 99 for Stockton. The 152 exit is just before Santa Nella, where there's an Anderson Split Pea restaurant. I remember those Anderson Split Pea restaurants from when I was a kid traveling up to Mammoth, California, and the thoughts of that trip and the restaurant reminds me of how much I love long road trips. I start remembering the billboards of the big fat guy with the axe and the little guy holding the pea. It also reminds me… oh shit… I just missed the exit!

What follows is a series of bizarre back-road switchbacks going down super dark narrow single lane, back country roads. As if it couldn't get any crazier, throw in two road closures and associated detours, some huge puddles from rain earlier in the day and all of this in pitch black darkness. Not a street light in sight. This drive is getting bat shit crazy!

We make it to Stockton and the chargers are located at a Walmart. Seems EA and Walmart have some sort of partnership going on. The comic relief comes in the form of the parking lot is close to a strip mall that had an Ono Hawaiian Barbecue shop. Nancy was just talking about this with Scott and Joe a day earlier, and now she has to have a barbecue chicken plate. We get a couple of plates to go, and off to the chargers. We sit at the charger for about 20 minutes to top off and then it's back on the road.

The drive was smooth sailing to Elk Grove. The in-car TomTom map lined up pretty well with the phone Google map as far as directions are concerned. And yes, I said TomTom. And no, unlike Fisker, they did not go out of business. The main difference between TomTom and Google maps, I notice is that the ETA changed a couple of times on the TomTom map. When we left Stockton, Google stated our ETA as 8:48 PM to arrive at our niece's house. The TomTom map said we would be there at 8:38, until about 8:20 when it flipped over to 8:48 PM. Well, at least the turn-by-turn directions were aligned. ETA is just something I'm gonna have to deal with until I find a way to get more updated maps or real time traffic on the TomTom. It's also at this time that I realize I'm not tracking any of the travel points, so I had no references of the miles driven in comparison to the charge amounts. Oh well, guess I'll worry about that on the trip home.

A few days in Oak Grove are spent visiting family, and on our departure day, we decide to head down to Lodi for lunch at one of the wineries. We choose Harney Lane as recommended by friends as one of the better tastings Zinfandels. We have a charcuterie board and a glass in before hitting the road. No officer, I wasn't drinking, my wife was. Anyway, the Zin was great so we pick up a couple bottles and head onto to San Francisco.

We get to San Francisco and I'm having a great time visiting my favorite old spots, reminding me of my life in San Francisco. Driving up and down the hills in the Fisker Ocean was effortless. We snap some pics at some of our favorite tourist spots. Our friends took us to lunch at Cavallo Point. That provided an excellent shot with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. Next, we head over to the Palace of Fine Art. This art deco park is such dark contrast to the rest of the Hampton Bay design of the Marina District in San Francisco. It's such a quirky little place, so beautiful and relaxing. Well at least it is when it's not full of people taking pictures of their Fisker. From there, we head over to the windmill at Queen Wilhelmina's Botanical Garden. This spot was always so confusing to me. What are windmills still doing in existence, anywhere other than Holland? We tried to get back in time to get a pic with the Painted Ladies, but unfortunately, it took a lot longer with the traffic and got a lot darker. But the darkness worked perfect for the next stop. City Hall is lit up, Red, White and Blue, which makes no sense. Well I mean that's great for Fourth of July, but this is Christmas. It should've been Red, White and Green. Oh well, I grab a couple of pics and say goodbye to the fair City by the Bay.

The drive home the next day is a wet one. Good thing is that now I've signed up for the Electrify America annual monthly pass. And charging this time I save an actual $13 off the normal $42 charge price. Duh! Why didn't I do this before the trip? The pass is $7 and I save 15%, so it literally paid for itself on the first charge. And now you know, in these modern times of Covid-flation, a penny saved is a penny earned and anywhere I can save a penny, I'm gonna take it.

We have 3 options to get home regarding charge stops: Option A is to drive 200 miles to Kettleman City. Problem here is that this stop would leave 280 miles to make it home, and I'm not comfortable with that range. Option B is to continue for another 30 miles to Lost Hills, which puts the drive at 230 with another 250 to get home. This would be a great half way stop, but another issue pops up then: charge time. The car can make 250 miles at 80%, so that’s cutting it close. So we would probably have to charge to 90%. The charge to 80% would probably take 20 minutes. But the 90% would take another 20 minutes, so we want to go with Option C. We'll attempt to go another 30 miles to a station in West Bakersfield on Enos Road that would be 260 miles total drive. I know the car can do at least 290 miles, so I'm settled on making it to Bakersfield. And if we can make it to Bakersfield, then we would need just a single stop to make it home from San Francisco. San Fran to Palm Springs with just one stop! Love it!

The drive down 5 freeway is madness. It's two lanes shared with truckers, so one minute we're doing 75 miles an hour, the next minute we're doing 55 miles an hour. The route used to go through fertile farm country where you would see orange groves as far as the eye can see. Those Orange Groves have been replaced by dystopian nothingness, as the trees have been ripped out and nothing else planted in its place. There's nothing to look at, except tumbleweeds blowing by every now, and then out of nowhere, this huge herd of goats chewing their way through the landscape. Of course everyone has to slow down to look at this, and sure enough we've dropped back down to 55 miles an hour.

We reach Kettleman with over 100 miles remaining, so I decide to continue past Lost Hills and head to Bakersfield. We get to Bakersfield after driving 260 miles with 55 miles remaining. That’s awesome! That puts my drive range at a solid 310 miles, beating my expectations by 10 to 15 miles! Hip hip hooray. Now I feel super confident of the range of the car. From this location in Bakersfield to back home is 220 miles, And I know that now I only need to get up to around 80% charge to get home, which should just take 15 to 20 minutes to do so.

Well, it should, once we get charging. As usual, Electrify America only has four charging stations here, and classic EA, one of them is out of order. The good thing is that there's a Hyundai and a Lucid charging and I know both of these will be fast charging and should finish up in about 15 minutes or so. Unfortunately, there's also a Chevy Bolt charging. Apparently, it's their first driving an EV, it's a rental, and the Bolt charges at a max of 50kW, so they've been sitting here over an hour. And now you know. We start chatting with the Lucid owner, Michael, and his wife, Lisa, a charming elderly couple from San Diego driving up to Sacramento. We chat for about 15 minutes and then they are finished with their charge, so we exchange pleasantries, and Michael backs out, I pull up, and we begin charging to 80%. I'm currently at 19% so this should be pretty quick. We head over to Taco Bell for a couple of Chalupa's to make full use of the newly christened Hamburger Stand. I guess we should go back to calling it the Taco Tray for now.

We actually take the charging up to 85%. We really didn't need to do so, and The extra 10 to 15 minutes to charge from 80 to 85 is a waste of time. But either way we unplug and head home. Now we are on more of a freeway than a highway, the drive home is pretty easy although a major slow down in Santa Clarita was annoying. We got home with 55 miles left. Plenty range left, and again, a reason why we didn't need to go to 85% and we could've left that much sooner. Just another variable to be aware of when traveling great distance in an electric car.

All in all, it was a great drive, and again the car was super comfortable. We were relaxed all the way home and the awesome music selection we had available to us through Spotify. With this road trip down, I am loving the car even more, knowing that I got a cool 320-330 range on highway driving, which is fantastic!

Editors note: While confirming details for this article, I had to go back and confirm routes on the map. When I look at the map miles from the Hyatt in San Francisco by SFO, to the Electrify America where we charged in Bakersfield, it’s actually 263 miles. And then I forgot to add the 7 miles from the Milbrae charge station in San Mateo where we charged up back to the hotel. So that’s 270 miles driven since the 100% charge. So now when you add the 55 miles remaining on top of that, that’s 325 miles! It seems my 22 inch wheels throws off my odometer by maybe 5% or so. So add another 5% on that, and the 55 miles left is more like 57 miles, and I could probably max out at closer to 330 miles! Love it!

Trip Results:

• Calculated Range at Start: 297 miles
• Total Miles Driven: 270 miles
• Remaining Miles: 55 miles*
• Real World Range: 325 miles*
• * factoring in the 22" wheels, the miles calculated could be less than actual miles possible to drive.