Our first drive to Vegas via I-15, the long way! Non-stop!

What's one of the main reasons as to why I bought the Fisker? It’s advertised range of 360 miles! Now mind you, I am well aware that Fisker is using EPA estimate for that range. Therefore, I am subtracting 15% from that range, and betting that still will get me 305 or so miles for long distance driving. This is the range needed for the one trip I need to do in an EV: Palm Springs to Las Vegas nonstop!

Back in the old days, when dinosaurs roan the Earth and I drove a Polestar 2, driving to Las Vegas meant we had to stop in Baker for the Electrify America station there. Except that one time driving on my birthday in 2024, when it was 115°, we couldn’t even make it to Baker, which is a mere 184 miles away. I say mere because that’s not even 200 miles, and at the time the Polestar 2 was rated at 230 miles. And remarkably, I could drive the car for 225 miles on long distance drives on a regular basis.

But driving to Vegas, well that's another beast altogether. Electric cars are temperamental little bitches. They don’t like hills, they don’t like traffic, they don’t like heat, they don’t like cold. And for some reason, the EPA continues to rate these cars based on calculations and simulations, and not real-world driving. So, any car you see advertised for 300 mile range, knock off 15%, now let’s make it 20% and right off the bat you’ve lost 60 miles which means in the real world, you can drive 240 miles. Subtract from that the location of your next charging station which can be anywhere from 10 to 50 miles away and suddenly you realize on a long-distance trip, your range from one station to the next is really about 200 miles. Now you see why it was important to get the EV with the second longest range in its class.

The Fisker Ocean One, with its EPA 360-mile range, at the time, was second only to the Lucid and its massive 400 mile range for its base model, the Lucid Pure. Throw in another $40k, and that's gets you the Pure Grand Touring and its 512 miles, which they actually did a San Francisco to Los Angeles 480-mile trip nonstop. Yeah, but that’s gonna run ya some $110k, so no thank you very much, I’ll go with the Fisker. One little gotcha though, I didn't realize or pay attention to or make note of or whatever you want to call it, the simple physics fact that cars on larger tires get lower range. Dooh! When EPA states 360 miles, they calculate so on a car with 20" wheels. Of course, the 20" wheels also came with a hideous wheel cover, so I chose the mighty 22" wheels. I now realize that the 20" wheeela results in a 5-10% loss of range. Something abut the rotation of the circumference of the tire, the latency of rotation, carry the 7 and Bob's your uncle. I can expect about 320 miles with normal highway driving. Oopsy.

If you read my other blog, Vegas baby, Vegas Road Trip, we have in fact, previously driven from Palm Springs to Las Vegas nonstop. But that was taking the back route: From Palm Springs, we head up past Joshua Tree, through Twentynine Palms, then north to Amboy, then north-east over to Kelso then we hit Nipton Road, over to the I-15 and onto Vegas. But I want to use the main road: the 10 freeway, to the 215, to the I-15 into Vegas. Even with a 305-mile range, we should in fact make the 270 mile trip with charge to spare. So let’s do it!

We kick off the trip during the worst fire catastrophe LA has ever seen. The winds have whipped up with gusts of over 100 miles an hour, snapped powerlines which started fires, and now thousands of homes have been burnt to the ground. Here in Palm Springs, we had mild winds and I worried if this would impact the drive. We head out on a nice 70° day in January, thank you, Palm Springs, and I do realize that once we start hitting altitude in crossing the mountains of the Cajon Pass, we’re gonna start hitting temperatures in the 50s and maybe even High 40s. The wind is gusting like crazy so I do the best I can to draft as many cars and trucks as possible. I work to keep the speed under 75 miles an hour, and try to be as relaxed as I can in the driving. “Don’t get cocky kid, “ Han Solo reminds me. By the time we clear the pass and approach Victorville, we've driven about 90 miles. I checked the odometer, and oh damn! We have 167 miles remaining. Wait, 167 miles remaining!?! Oh oh…that's only 257 total, 13 miles short of Vegas. Ok, maybe the summit climb sucked more juice than expected and the computer was over calculating the impact. Let's hop on down and see what Baker measures out to.

By the time we reach Baker, there's a country song in there somewhere, we have only 58 miles left. It's 90 more to Vegas. No way we're going to make it. And when driving an electric car, the last thing you wanna deal with is being short. That is too far of a distance to overcome, and pretty obvious that we are not going to make the full trip. Something was amiss here. All over the place. The car states we drove 177 miles. The map states Palm Springs to Baker as 185 miles. With 58 miles remaining, we're looking at 243 miles (185+58). But what if it was wrong. What if we had more miles than the computer calculated. Shouldn't we be closer to 300 a mile range?

Then my mind starts replaying what happened on the drive from San Francisco. We drove 270 miles, with 55 remaining, by the time we stopped in Bakersfield, for a grand total of 325. This was the range I was expecting. Even with the steep grade of the Cajon Pass, I thought we could make it non-stop. Maybe get to Vegas on fumes and head straight for the EA chargers at Caesars Palace. Nope, not even close. You see, the problem is that once you leave Baker, and its 12 chargers, the next stop is Stateline, behind the creepy old mall, with 4 Electrify America chargers there. And as more cars come online, more people may try to make it to Stateline to charge, meaning there's more of a chance of having to wait in line for a charge. And since that's 50 miles away, making it any further is really chancey, as the next charging stop is M Resort, another 30 miles away, but they only have slow chargers. No time to mess around, stop at Baker, charge up, and hit Vegas.

So we stopped in Baker, charged to 80% in about 20 minutes, and then on to Vegas. Well, at least I don't have to worry about maintaining 75 mph anymore. I cranked it up to 77 and we kicked ass getting there. Although disappointing, it is a valuable lesson to learn about hills, head winds, cold weather and EV range. But wait…there's more. Spring is around the corner, and soon we'll attempt this again. This time, in 70-80 degree weather, no head winds, and yes, I shall have my revenge!

Author's note: In reviewing photo evidence from the trip, it seems we were doomed to fail anyway. I did a screen shot of the app, that showed 97% charge, with a range of 261 miles. I figured by the time we hit the road, and started getting miles under the belt, the computer would start recalculating distance, and would display a range closer to 290 miles, and not the 226 miles we were currently rated. Funny story on the way home: due to the traffic back up taking an extra hour to get home, we drove the back route, 225 miles total, and got home with 64 miles, same as our trip in November. So 290 miles total. And also, coming through Twentynine Palms, the range was estimated at 60 miles. 24 miles later, the estimator stated we had 64 miles remaining by the time we got home. Hmmm...now how did that happen and how to make it happen again.

Trip Results:

• Calculated Range at Start: 261 miles
• Total Miles Driven: 185 miles
• Remaining Miles: 58 miles*
• Real World Range: 243 miles*
• * factoring in the 22" wheels, the miles remaining seem to be less than actual miles possible to drive.