Hi,
So far, we’ve had an uneventful drive from Spring to Austin to Deep Springs, then a reunion, and a final recharge for Evie. We’re ready to head home again (jiggety jog).
Day Three, Heading Home:
5-4-2025 — We had breakfast at the hotel again, no waffles this time, but orange juice, a bagel, hash browns, bacon, and coffee.
Rowland drove the first leg, from Deep Springs to Cedar Park. Since we had a full charge when we left Deep Springs, we just skipped the charger at the car dealership south of Deep Springs. In Cedar Creek, we charged to 80% at the charging station we were at yesterday. It was still fairly early, so we had “brunch?” at I-HOP, and I drove to Rowland’s house from there.
Here’s where I might have made a few mistakes. It’s 166 miles from Cedar Creek to my home in Spring, Texas. I could technically make that distance on one full charge, but I didn’t want to chance it. I planned to add at least a little charge somewhere along the way. After dropping Rowland off, my first stop was at a Cefco station in Giddings (69 miles from Cedar Park, 97 miles from home). I wanted to use their Tesla chargers, but it wouldn’t let me charge there. Some of the Tesla chargers can only be used by Teslas. So, I continued on to Brenham (another 33 miles).
Brenham is only 103 miles from Cedar Park, so even a half-charge there would get me home. I tried to use the charger at a local Ford dealership, but couldn’t get it to work. I’ve used their charger several times, but a few times it was flaky and needed an intervention from someone inside the dealership. Today was Sunday, though. The dealership was closed, so that charger was out of service for me. I kept going to the Buc-ee’s in Waller (where I had done my test charge on my way to Austin a few days ago). The Buc-ee’s is 32 miles past Brenham (135 miles from Cedar Park). I was down to 20% battery by then, so I used Buc-ee’s’ Tesla SuperChargers, and charged Evie from 20% up to 45% while I took a bathroom break. That Buc-ee’s is only 36 miles from my house, and 20% would have (technically) gotten me another 39 miles down the road, but left me with an almost empty battery. A 45% charge is easily worth 80 miles or so, so I felt much safer. I made it home with 30% charge left. Once I can charge to 100%, though, my whole planning process for out-of-town driving will change. That extra 50 miles or so will make a huge difference.
Mileage Purgatory Update:
5-4-2025 — I’m at home, and Evie says she’s gone 5,459 miles since I bought her (so she only has 741 more miles to go before the software lets her charge to 100%).
Michael
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