Taycan road trip report: LA to Bay Area

porsche_coyote

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I drove my Taycan back home to the Bay Area today from Los Angeles (I took delivery last week at PEC LA and had protective film installed on the car right after).

First, to report on my Electrify America experience: in the past three days that I was in LA and then driving back, I used Electrify America chargers 4 times.

Santa Monica: Success
Burbank: Success
Camarillo: Success
Pismo Beach: Success

I would love to say that it's my charmed life, but everything seemed to be working today, and I heeded advice from other forum members and didn't bother even launching the Charging NA app--I initiated all of the sessions from the Connect app.

We left West LA for a stop at Blinkie's Donuts in Woodland Hills. Just a mile off 101, and some damned fine donuts. Then back to 101.

My first charge today in Camarillo was to 93%, which was really out of conservatism: I probably could have made Pismo with far less, but I was planning on doing some spirited driving, leaving US 101 in Ventura and heading up CA 33, which is one of California's great drives. CA 33 did not disappoint, and I strongly recommend the drive to anyone who can get there. The stretch between Ojai and the intersection with CA 166 is absolutely a fantastic drive, with twisty switchbacks, tunnels, breathtaking views, and just enough long straights to really stretch the car's legs.

We got back on US 101 in Santa Maria, and made it to Pismo with tons of charge to spare.

I ended up putting more of a charge into the car in Pismo Beach than I originally planned because my son wanted to buy some shoes at the Nike Outlet store (it's right next to the EA chargers there) and the shopping detour delayed our departure from the charger. Anyway, I left Pismo with a 98% charge, intending to stop again in either Salinas or Gilroy. But after a while on the road, the Taycan nav system informed me that I could get home with a 7% charge without stopping if I activated Range Mode and limited top speed to 80 mph. The reality of occasional traffic, lane closures, etc. is that I wasn't really going faster than 75 very often, so that sounded fine to me. Bottom line: made it from Pismo Beach to my home in San Mateo (229.1 miles) with over 25 miles of range to spare, at an average speed of 68 mph.

Porsche Taycan Taycan road trip report: LA to Bay Area IMG_0899


The bottom line: the Taycan is an awesome road trip car. It's awesome to drive on a great road, and comfortable and quiet when you're droning on long stretches of highway. Range? EPA, shmEPA. I got more than adequate AC and seriously loud stereo with over 240 miles of range at nearly 70 mph. That will do.

The total trip tally:
Porsche Taycan Taycan road trip report: LA to Bay Area IMG_0898
 
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KensingtonPark

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As a long-time West Coast resident, your drive brings back great memories. Thanks for the report, good to hear that there are also good experiences with the EA chargers.
 

PanameraFrank

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One additional data point: the car in question is a Taycan Turbo on 21" Mission-e wheels with all-season Continental ProContact tires.
Very nice. Based on your data, I'd say the 21" wheels over the 20" aero wheels only adds 1-2 kWh/100miles.
 

Kevin2dx

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Interesting read. I plan to be doing multiple trips between the Bay Area and LA/OC (Hence why my car is currently getting full body PPF) . Mainly though I'll be using the 5 freeway for majority of the trip. Preemptively i've been using PlugShare to see what stations I would be using ahead of time.

Bay to LA
1.) Gilroy Premium Outlets
2.) Shell station on Panoche Rd.
3.) Castaic Town Center

Apparently 1. and 2. have the 350kW chargers :) Hope the planning works out well for me
 
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ron_b

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Interesting read. I plan to be doing multiple trips between the Bay Area and LA/OC (Hence why my car is currently getting full body PPF) . Mainly though I'll be using the 5 freeway for majority of the trip. Preemptively i've been using PlugShare to see what stations I would be using ahead of time.

Bay to LA
1.) Gilroy Premium Outlets
2.) Shell station on Panoche Rd.
3.) Castaic Town Center

Apparently 1. and 2. have the 350kW chargers :) Hope the planning works out well for me
I highly recommend looking at http://abetterrouteplanner.com (or Android app). Select the Taycan and change efficiency to 300 or 325 depending on conservativism and tire width. I would think you would skip Gilroy if you leave with any decent charge. You really want to try hitting chargers with 5 to 10% soc (to get optimal charging rates), though I know that will take sometime with the car to know its behavior and trust it. I do love plugshare also to verify the success at the stations that are recommended by a better route planner.
 
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Miwa

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It's not so much trusting the car, it's trusting the chargers will be functional when you get there. I was pretty conservative on my recent SJ-Vegas trip. The car charges pretty fast anyway, so an extra stop wasn't a big deal.

That said, all the chargers worked flawlessly, and I even used the Charging America app.
 


blue-GT

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I agree @Miwa, that is why it's always a good idea to check PlugShare (the Yelp of EV chargers) for successes at the location you plan and also alternative locations if a problem arises.
So is that what everybody's doing before a roadtrip? As @Miwa above mentions, it's the fear of arriving at a broken charger that will prevent me from calling it so close (goal to arrive with 5-10% SOC). Not that I have had the chance yet to try.... car is being produced right now ;-)
 

Reg

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So is that what everybody's doing before a roadtrip? As @Miwa above mentions, it's the fear of arriving at a broken charger that will prevent me from calling it so close (goal to arrive with 5-10% SOC). Not that I have had the chance yet to try.... car is being produced right now ;-)
for this route, there are so many different locations along the route that it really isn't needed. But yeah, I do this route often and I just check before I leave if a location has all the chargers down (since locations have multiple chargers) - which would indicate a big issue at that location vs. just one charger not working. Hasn't happened yet, but if it did, I would just adjust locations.

check out the EA map - you can see how many different locations and they have a lot more coming.
 

dickp

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So is that what everybody's doing before a roadtrip? As @Miwa above mentions, it's the fear of arriving at a broken charger that will prevent me from calling it so close (goal to arrive with 5-10% SOC). Not that I have had the chance yet to try.... car is being produced right now ;-)
The only thing missing is what kind of charging rate were you getting from the EA chargers. I have had no luck getting more than around 180 kWh max.
 

notsofast

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The only thing missing is what kind of charging rate were you getting from the EA chargers. I have had no luck getting more than around 180 kWh max.
The Taycan is weird in that the charge curve depends on initial SOC. If you plug in at higher SOC you will get an overall lower charge curve. I think the cutoff is somewhere around 20%. If you plug in below that it will hold >200kw into the 50% SOC range while if you plug in at 30% you will get hardly more than 150kw. The result is that charging from 40%->80% can take as long as charging from 10%->80%.
 

AddAlfa

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Driving from San Francisco to San Diego for first road trip in my GTS ST. Any thoughts on best charging intervals at Electrify America. Probably going doe on I5.
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