109 miles on the freeway with 24 miles left.

We drove from central New Jersey to central Long Island New York yesterday. The trip was 108.7 miles, arrived with the dash board display estimating 24 miles remaining at 19% charge.

We thank the drivers of #351 for generously allowing us to use not only their 50 amp charger, but also a regular 120 volt outlet for a small cabin heater. I took data while the car charged, something I have long wanted to do. The graph is above, a larger image is here.The gap near the beginning was while I plugged in the cabin heater.

Both my wife and I were surprised how easy it is to drive 55 mph or less on the New Jersey Turnpike and all the roads through New York city and Long Island. I averaged under 40 mph from door to door, which explains the very good range of about 133 miles. I had one person honk at me near a toll booth and only two or three people flash their lights. But an astonishing number of other cars fell in behind me in the right lane at a comfortable distance back and just STAYED there! Being the thanksgiving weekend there was plenty of traffic, the Southern State Parkway backed up a couple times each direction. Not sure what this might be like during rush hour...

Of course we did not use the built in heater while driving until very near our destination. See my previous posts about staying warm on long drives. Of course on shorter trips we use the heater as in conventional cars since there is plenty of juice available.