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Good morning, Grid Connections listeners.

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We have an exciting story today that combines speed, endurance, and the cutting edge of EV
technology.

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Joining us today are the founders of the Electric Avenue newsletter, Janick Metzner and
Julius Wilhelm.

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Not only are these two experts in the EV space, but they recently set a new charging time
record for the EV Cannonball and Elucidair.

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That's right.

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These two EV enthusiasts made a coast to coast journey.

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Across the us and they're here today to share their experience on the road from navigating
charging infrastructure to making history in the lucid

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In this episode, we'll dive into how they plan this epic journey, discuss the differences
in charging infrastructure between the U S and Europe, and hear what it was like to take

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one of the most efficient EVs on the market for a long distance test.

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Whether you're an EV road tripper or just curious about the state of electric vehicle
charging, this episode has something for everyone.

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Before we dive in, I encourage you to share this episode with at least one friend or
fellow EV enthusiasts who enjoy this story as well.

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And if you're loving what you hear, please leave us a positive review on our podcast page.

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It really helps us bring more great content to listeners like you.

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With that, enjoy.

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Thank you, great to be here.

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my pleasure.

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So I guess let's kick it off.

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for those who are listening, can you share a little bit about your background and then how
you guys met and then we'll kind of get into the actual road trip.

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Yeah.

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I've been working in EV charging for about eight years.

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I'm originally from Germany, but the last five years or so I've been in California, worked
at Lucid Motors.

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Now I'm with a startup called Pionix.

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So always kind of approached it from like my main day job perspective, but I'm also just
an EV enthusiast and nerd on the side.

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And two years ago, Julius and I kind of started this newsletter together as a hobby.

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that we publish like once a week where we just follow our own curiosity and write about
topics.

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So that's kind of how I got into the topic of UVs and then Julius.

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Yes, I'm Julius and I also started working in the EV industry in Germany, in Munich in
2018.

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And that's also where Janek and me met the first time.

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And mainly I have been working in public charging, how to make that accessible and easy to
pay for public charging.

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And just recently I also started my own startup journey and trying to develop the EV
charging market further.

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No, I think this is what's going to be so great about today's conversation is both your
guys, not only knowledge -based, but hands -on experience in the industry and kind of

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approaching it from both sides.

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Obviously, Yanni working at Lucid and then Julius, your own experience with EV charging
and how that overlaps.

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I guess for our listeners, given your guys' experience, I think before we get in the road
trip, it would be kind of interesting to hear some of the things, maybe just in general,

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that you...

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going into this road trip that maybe you guys were aware of between the differences
between charging infrastructure in North America and Europe or did that really go into the

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planning for this trip at all?

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Congratulations.

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I think there's many things that I, for example, could only read about and not really
knowing what I'm going to experience once we go into the trip.

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Because unlike Janek, I didn't do a lot of road trips before in the US.

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I did hear about, for example, the reliability issues, which are also a topic in Europe,
but the discussion is much, let's say, hotter.

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around the reliability topics in the US, for example.

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On the other hand, for example, Janek and me, we also exchange frequently and ad hoc
charging, having credit cards is much less common in Europe until recently.

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Now there's a regulation in place that enforces all operators to offer credit card
terminals at the charging stations.

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But in the US, that has been, say, thing.

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They have been installed right from the beginning.

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So there were already some...

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differences I was expecting about just from reading and discussing with Janek and other
people.

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Anything you want to add to that Janick or is that something?

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yeah, I think having been in the market and having owned like a CCS EV for, for several
years, I knew, you know, the difficulties that we have with public charging reliability in

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the U S.

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So I went into the trip, I think a lot more, cautious, cautiously optimistic about
charging infrastructure reliability than, than Julius.

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but I think, yeah, I don't know, Julius, I feel like

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You heard from me that there are certain challenges, but then at the end of the trip, you
kind of recap that it was like worse than you actually expected.

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Is that fair to say?

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Yeah, definitely.

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think when we talk about the trip details, we will touch base on that, but maybe to tease
up, we actually tried one charging station that was perfectly located on our way, but that

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failed us completely, which led to us having one additional stop instead of six charging
stops.

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did seven stops on the charging journey and there were, for example, no alternatives at
that locations.

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that we could have used.

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yeah, that made the conclusion for me that reliability is really a topic.

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For sure.

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I think it's really interesting.

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You're talking about seven charging stops across the whole U .S.

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I'm actually looking at doing another road trip.

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That's about 2500 miles and even that or I am sorry closer to about 1800 2000 miles and
even that I'm probably going to be charging seven times at least in my car as it is.

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So let's let's talk about this.

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So I guess for anyone listening who's unfamiliar the cannonball run is essentially you go
from

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Manhattan I believe the it's called the Red Ball garage in Manhattan, New York City and
then you go to and I'm drawing a blank on the resort in LA but essentially right on the

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beach there and It's the goal is just trying to get across the US as fast as possible.

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There's been quite a few records set Obviously with combustion vehicles.

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There's definitely with those It doesn't you can do some pretty quick math and realize

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that speeds that are being done are definitely not of the legal variety to get some of
these records.

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But then obviously there's been the generation of electric vehicles doing this and how
there's been all sorts of different strategies of do you try and hit as many just really

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short trips.

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And I believe before you guys, the record had been set by Kyle Connor in a Porsche Taycan,
if I remember correctly.

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There's been a few people that have done it in a couple of different vehicles, but

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Yeah.

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What, so what was kind of the genesis of this idea?

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Like, was it kind of just joking around or what made you to decide you're like, okay,
we're going to do the cannonball and we're going to try and do it in a lucid and some of

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the strategy behind that.

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I had followed the other records that had been set.

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I think Kyle holds the record for a CCS car on the CCS charging network and a Porsche
Taycan, like you said, and then Ryan from the kilowatts YouTube channel holds the record

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in just any EV did a Tesla Model S long range in like 42 hours something.

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But they each had between 17 to 20 charging stops because like you said, they stopped
every one and half hours or so.

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I was thinking about, there any other categories that we can do that showcase a little bit
more efficiency and stay within the legal limits of the road?

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And came up with this one with the charging stops.

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So I told Julius about it.

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He got excited about it as well.

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We did a little bit more research.

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We planned out some routes with a better route planner.

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We actually saw that on the Guinness Book of World Records, similar categories of records
had been set for crossing Canada, crossing the UK and crossing New Zealand.

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But no one had really claimed or set a record for the US.

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And we figured if we try and do it with the Lucid Air, which is the most capable passenger
car at the moment in terms of efficiency and range, we might be able to set a record that

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holds for a while.

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Yeah, that's great.

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And I know you had previously worked at Lucid.

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Obviously that probably had a little bit to do with your kind of decision around it or
what was it primarily just the total range or were there any other things that kind of

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went into like, mean, looking at, Ryan's record using the S and obviously the supercharger
network, were there any other kinds of things like, well, maybe we could do this or it

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doesn't really matter what vehicle or what charge.

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And we just want to get across the U S the fastest in whatever vehicle that there is.

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So from the technical specifications, the Lucid Air Grand Touring, the vehicle that we
used, is the most efficient vehicle with a comparable big battery.

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So it has also the biggest range.

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There's a configuration that has a little bit more range than the vehicle that we used.

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And now they also brought out a new model update for 2025.

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But technically, the Lucid Air Grand Touring is the most efficient, most suitable vehicle
to set the record.

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We also evaluated using the Tesla Model S and the Mercedes EQS.

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But as I said, those are priority two and three for us.

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And we were able to get a Lucid Air Granting Rented in Los Angeles.

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So that has been the perfect fit for us.

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That's great.

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And so you said it was, I'm sorry.

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What was that?

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Yeah, just wanted to say we weren't sponsored by Lucid, so we were completely neutrally
just looking at the market.

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We ended up renting the car on Turo.

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And yeah, like Julie said, we evaluated a bunch of other cars as well, but just kind of in
this category of record, it is the most suitable vehicle.

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And we were just lucky that we were able to get our hands on one because we don't own one.

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And so the one you went with that was a 2022.

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I can't remember what model year was it.

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22 and 2 was 21 inch wheels.

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19 inch wheels would be more suitable or efficient.

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it was the Grand Touring trim.

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So that model year has a 112 kilowatt hour battery.

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And then Lucid just came up with the 25 model year, which has 118 kilowatt hours battery
in the same trim level.

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So it got even a little bit more capable.

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And then I think they've added like a heat pump and a couple other just kind of smaller
refinements to make it even more efficient.

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So there's possibly room for doing another one here soon.

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So we'll see.

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But OK, so you find the lucid, you get to it.

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And so I'm assuming you rent on tour or something similar.

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Do you tell the owner what you're doing or is it just like, we're going to rent it and
we're going to put some miles on it and just leave it at that.

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This owner offered the option to pay for unlimited miles on the car for like an extra
daily charge.

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So that suited our use case quite well.

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But in the end, we rented the car for quite a long time.

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So there was some expectation that there was going to be a lot of miles put in the car.

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And then we actually only drove it one way.

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On the way back, we put the car on a truck and shipped it back.

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So yeah.

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Yeah, because technically I guess you guys did like the reverse cannibal.

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You started in LA and then headed out to New York.

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I mean, it's kind of tomato, tomato, but just traditionally, I know they had started, they
start from New York.

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So, okay.

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We, get the car.

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What is, I mean, that's, that's great.

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That's huge, but obviously the biggest thing determining your ability to get across the
country is going to be the charging and

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Traditionally and I mean there's two points one is obviously the charging and then two is
maximizing the efficiency of this vehicle and With traditional cannonballs.

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I mean there's all sorts of things that people do they will have a car go ahead Maybe half
an hour ahead of them speeding purposefully to like get police attention So that they

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don't have to deal with getting pulled over they'll have radar.

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They'll have all sorts of things I guess was that at all in your team's strategy or it
sounds like it was just kind of you two in the car

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trying to get there in the most efficient way, maybe not the most fast in some ways, even
though that ironically kind of made it the most fast time for you guys.

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So technically, didn't have those preparations needed since we didn't go for time.

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And we only aim for the highest efficiency and the lowest amount of charging stops.

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Janek already told we were able to stay within legal road limits.

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Rather, we needed to ensure that we have the minimum speed on the interstates.

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Yeah.

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So our main preparations was really about what is the best route and what are the best
locations for charging.

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And that we were able to explore iteratively.

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So we didn't knew kind of how far we can actually go with the Lucid if we stretch, we
decrease our speed a little bit.

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For example, reference consumption models on the better route planner.

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That good or rather conservative for the Lucid air grantee ring, because probably not many
people.

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with that vehicle use a better route planner because usually you can, you need to take a
break and you can then charge before the vehicle needs to recharge.

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So we really on the route check then what is our state of charge?

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How much miles do we have left?

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Can we reach our stretch goal or do we need to use backup charging stations?

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And that became also a little bit more of a challenge.

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The further we got into the mid to the Midwest, because then the density of the charging
locations got

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fear and...

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sure.

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So it's interesting you mentioned you used a better route planner because I use that all
the time and I agree with you.

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Sometimes it's either a little on the conservative side or it's a little actually
optimistic and sometimes it does take in a lot of variables.

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So some of that has been my own driving speed.

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I think it assumes you're going like 65 or something versus like where I've had to drive
through Wyoming and Idaho it's 80 is the just speed limit and then you have people doing

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five to ten over

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So that obviously plays big into your efficiency.

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with that where you it sounds like you guys had said you're going within speed limits, but
I know on the video you guys had also mentioned are trying to shoot for like 60 65 is that

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When is kind of that was the ideal speed and that's due to efficiency or what what kind of
made that speed the ideal one for you guys?

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We varied speeds a little bit, usually between 60 and 70.

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Never really more than that because then the efficiency really falls off.

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And most of the time I'd say we were at 65.

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A better route planner actually lets you define the reference consumption at 65 and then
also set a maximum speed limit that you go and takes into account the speed limit on the

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route.

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So it's actually, you can nerd out and get into all the settings and can get

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Normally something out that's very accurate.

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think one of the caveats with the lucid air is that that car doesn't have any telematics
API that's open.

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And it also doesn't have an OBD2 port so you can't plug in any telematics device.

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So there's probably no one that can submit real world consumption data to a better route
planner.

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So they can't really improve their model.

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So I think that's kind of what led to the model being probably more conservative than what
we saw in the real world.

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And that's why we really had to just plan stop to stop, know, pick out.

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next charting stations that are between 350 and 450 miles from our last stop and then just
see as we get closer which one can we make it to.

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No, that's great.

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And so, I mean, I know a better route planner technically has been acquired by Rivian.

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Have you spoken with or know of any of the team at a better route planner to share some of
this feedback?

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Not yet, maybe in the future, but now at the moment we're just an enthusiastic user of the
product and happy that it seems also to get updates also after the acquisition from

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Rivian, which is good.

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No, like I said, I use it almost daily myself.

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I'm a big fan and you're right.

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You can get all sorts of crazy settings.

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I think where I sometimes, I don't wanna say struggle, but the issue I have is obviously
where I live, we have winter tires.

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00:17:06,639 --> 00:17:13,151
So you wanna save one version that's like the standard, then you have winter tires and
just trying to have the, and it's not really even their fault, just always trying to

201
00:17:13,151 --> 00:17:16,212
figure out what the most accurate version of that efficiency is gonna be.

202
00:17:16,212 --> 00:17:20,223
It can be a bit of a stretch, but no, I spend way too much time.

203
00:17:20,223 --> 00:17:21,083
I do.

204
00:17:21,451 --> 00:17:22,983
API connection, yeah, okay.

205
00:17:22,983 --> 00:17:24,223
I've used that.

206
00:17:24,223 --> 00:17:27,563
I've done, I did it for quite a while without it.

207
00:17:27,563 --> 00:17:30,363
And then I've recently kind of added it to it.

208
00:17:30,363 --> 00:17:33,843
And that is, it's interesting.

209
00:17:33,843 --> 00:17:37,343
I wouldn't say it's like a night and day difference when I kind of got some of these other
things dialed in.

210
00:17:37,343 --> 00:17:41,583
I just knew what my efficiency was going to be more like with winter tires.

211
00:17:41,583 --> 00:17:47,343
And in the end of the day, I'm running 19 inch winter tires that are non -studded.

212
00:17:47,343 --> 00:17:51,603
And so the biggest difference generally isn't even

213
00:17:51,603 --> 00:18:02,363
tires I've noticed in the end it is just it's gonna be a lot colder out and so you're
dealing with that air density and efficiency side of it but yeah I guess that'd be an

214
00:18:02,363 --> 00:18:08,689
interesting thing to talk with you guys too I mean when you did it it was pretty much all
sunny the whole way or what what was the weather like

215
00:18:09,722 --> 00:18:11,662
Yeah, it sunny and hot.

216
00:18:11,702 --> 00:18:18,582
was, I think, plus a lot of the days that we went.

217
00:18:19,702 --> 00:18:23,282
And yeah, we usually set the AC to about 78.

218
00:18:23,282 --> 00:18:29,322
So we were still comfortable, but a little higher than most people set their AC.

219
00:18:30,262 --> 00:18:31,458
But yeah.

220
00:18:31,458 --> 00:18:36,245
ventilated seats made it a little bit more comfortable, I think, at that temperature.

221
00:18:36,245 --> 00:18:37,375
nice that it helps.

222
00:18:37,379 --> 00:18:39,829
Yeah, no, I'm such a big fan of that.

223
00:18:39,829 --> 00:18:41,559
And it's crazy, especially on a road trip.

224
00:18:41,559 --> 00:18:45,259
I think a lot of people are saying about massaging sheets and I'm sure that's great and
all.

225
00:18:45,259 --> 00:18:46,529
I've never been that big of a fan of them.

226
00:18:46,529 --> 00:18:54,399
Some people swear by them, but I've just noticed how much of a difference just having that
kind of air, kind of like breathability makes just, especially once you're getting like

227
00:18:54,399 --> 00:19:02,379
around mile 800, 900 in a day, it just, makes such a difference in just your driving
experience.

228
00:19:02,619 --> 00:19:03,384
So.

229
00:19:03,384 --> 00:19:08,918
are dangerous because they relax you and make you more tired after like six hours of
driving.

230
00:19:09,596 --> 00:19:10,342
Fair.

231
00:19:10,342 --> 00:19:16,140
was a big fan on the third and fourth day, once the back started hurting after all the
driving.

232
00:19:16,140 --> 00:19:19,741
Yeah, they're great in the passenger seat if you want to just pass out and now.

233
00:19:19,741 --> 00:19:20,572
Yeah.

234
00:19:20,572 --> 00:19:21,022
Fair.

235
00:19:21,022 --> 00:19:22,414
No, that's a good point.

236
00:19:22,414 --> 00:19:22,925
So, okay.

237
00:19:22,925 --> 00:19:24,476
We've kind of talked about the planning.

238
00:19:24,476 --> 00:19:28,881
Let's talk about, actually kicking off the trip and just how that went.

239
00:19:28,881 --> 00:19:37,561
And once you were on the road, you were probably still kind of checking with a better
route planner and, maybe Google maps or some other thing for traffic conditions.

240
00:19:37,561 --> 00:19:41,515
But what, did getting in the car and just getting on the road look like for you guys?

241
00:19:42,657 --> 00:19:57,757
So as we started in Los Angeles and we needed to avoid the big traffic in the morning on
Friday morning, we started at like 5 .30 leaving the hotel and then recharging the last

242
00:19:57,757 --> 00:20:06,457
percentage at the EVgo station right or close to the Portofino Hotel, which is the
official starting point kind of.

243
00:20:07,037 --> 00:20:12,575
And then we left after some recording at 6 a in the morning and

244
00:20:12,575 --> 00:20:22,463
went out and luckily we were early enough so traffic wasn't really bad for us and we were
in Las Vegas already midday I think.

245
00:20:25,211 --> 00:20:28,201
And I think then, yeah.

246
00:20:28,201 --> 00:20:32,544
in Vegas, were also before, we crossed Vegas before rush hour as well.

247
00:20:32,544 --> 00:20:38,678
we kind of crossed both major metropolitan areas in the first day without hitting traffic.

248
00:20:38,678 --> 00:20:39,648
that was great.

249
00:20:40,393 --> 00:20:41,266
Yeah, that's huge.

250
00:20:41,266 --> 00:20:47,927
I mean, with that, were you seeing pretty open chargers once you had a charge or how was
that looking like?

251
00:20:48,993 --> 00:21:03,529
So once we were on the road, we switched more towards Plugshare, just because the
database, as compared to a better root planner, a little bit more complete, has a bit of a

252
00:21:03,529 --> 00:21:04,960
better coverage.

253
00:21:05,220 --> 00:21:16,365
And for us, really important was also having the reviews of the people and the users and
to know about when was the last successful plug -in.

254
00:21:16,589 --> 00:21:22,391
and what is the reliability at the station that we can expect.

255
00:21:22,872 --> 00:21:26,033
We didn't struggle with any like wait times.

256
00:21:26,033 --> 00:21:34,797
Even so, the first station in Utah that was an Electro -America station, once we arrived,
it was quite empty.

257
00:21:34,797 --> 00:21:40,269
But after we came back to the car, there was actually a line of four EVs charging.

258
00:21:40,269 --> 00:21:43,100
So a lot of EVs out there in Utah charging.

259
00:21:44,842 --> 00:21:48,426
But for the rest of the trip, waiting times hasn't been a topic for us.

260
00:21:48,426 --> 00:21:53,121
So it was mainly about where are the stations located and are they functional?

261
00:21:53,121 --> 00:21:54,803
Can we access the station?

262
00:21:55,775 --> 00:21:55,865
Yeah.

263
00:21:55,865 --> 00:22:03,428
And it seemed like with your video, you, obviously getting out of LA and Vegas and
avoiding the rush hour, what's it kind of the big thing.

264
00:22:03,428 --> 00:22:13,912
then once you get past that, at least even in my experience, just the more you had ease,
the less of an issue it is, but, really around just getting kind of off peak times always

265
00:22:13,912 --> 00:22:16,622
helps, but especially getting out of the Southwest.

266
00:22:17,103 --> 00:22:17,558
So

267
00:22:17,558 --> 00:22:26,290
In New York, then the traffic picked up again, like before arriving in New York City, then
it got more dense and dense, but we didn't have big traffic chams.

268
00:22:26,290 --> 00:22:30,074
I think only in the Lincoln tunnel or something like that.

269
00:22:30,716 --> 00:22:31,596
Yes.

270
00:22:31,992 --> 00:22:37,485
The first time I ever went to LA, or LA, New York City, I had gone on a flight.

271
00:22:37,485 --> 00:22:38,456
It was a five hour flight.

272
00:22:38,456 --> 00:22:39,886
I think it was even slightly delayed.

273
00:22:39,886 --> 00:22:45,253
I get there and we go through the Lincoln Tunnel and there was some sort of accident.

274
00:22:45,253 --> 00:22:50,868
I'm stuck in this Uber and I feel so bad for the Uber driver because he was literally
telling me right as I get in, like, you're my last one for the night.

275
00:22:50,868 --> 00:22:53,630
I decided to pick you up and then I'm going to go see my kid.

276
00:22:53,630 --> 00:22:54,691
All this stuff.

277
00:22:54,691 --> 00:22:58,655
Well, we get stuck in the tunnel and we're in traffic for almost as long.

278
00:22:58,655 --> 00:23:03,338
I'm in the backseat of this thing for almost as long as my flight from Portland to New
York City was.

279
00:23:04,961 --> 00:23:07,543
Admittedly, I'm just on my phone, just kind of hanging out.

280
00:23:07,543 --> 00:23:12,521
Unfortunately, I to use the bathroom when we landed, but I felt so bad for the guy.

281
00:23:12,521 --> 00:23:16,777
does that increase the Uber price because it's by the minute or as a fixed price?

282
00:23:16,777 --> 00:23:21,190
yeah, was, it did increase, but fortunately, it was a business trip.

283
00:23:21,190 --> 00:23:23,332
So I wasn't paying it either way.

284
00:23:24,564 --> 00:23:26,315
but yeah, I know exactly.

285
00:23:26,315 --> 00:23:28,948
It was, it's, can get you.

286
00:23:28,948 --> 00:23:29,758
And that was random.

287
00:23:29,758 --> 00:23:31,630
Cause that was like a Sunday night.

288
00:23:31,630 --> 00:23:34,102
It was pretty much the absolute time.

289
00:23:34,102 --> 00:23:38,876
It shouldn't be bad, but, no, I've been caught in that tunnel a few times.

290
00:23:39,277 --> 00:23:40,708
So, okay.

291
00:23:40,708 --> 00:23:41,639
So you.

292
00:23:41,961 --> 00:23:45,655
take this first charge and now you're on the road, you're seeing the car is getting a bit
more efficiency.

293
00:23:45,655 --> 00:23:50,010
What are some of the things that you're noticing maybe as you're driving that's having
like the biggest impact?

294
00:23:50,010 --> 00:23:58,811
Is it really just the speed or were there other kind of little things that you were guys
now starting to kind of dial in and get the car going as far as it could on a charge?

295
00:24:01,903 --> 00:24:03,544
We tried to optimize for everything.

296
00:24:03,544 --> 00:24:06,826
So we reduced the screen brightness of the infotainment.

297
00:24:07,607 --> 00:24:11,209
We put the AC temperature higher.

298
00:24:11,630 --> 00:24:21,056
At some point we started trying to draft a little bit behind trucks, usually towards the
end of a leg when we tried to make it to our stretch goal charging stations.

299
00:24:22,117 --> 00:24:25,719
The night before we had put a lot of air in the tires.

300
00:24:26,800 --> 00:24:29,745
Yeah, I think those are the main optimizations.

301
00:24:29,745 --> 00:24:36,625
yeah, and then lastly, we also didn't use the lucid navigation system because we didn't
want the vehicle to preheat the battery.

302
00:24:36,625 --> 00:24:46,885
That would also, I mean, the navigation system wouldn't lead us to the stretch goal
anyway, because we tried to go for one or 0 % arrival, state of charge.

303
00:24:46,885 --> 00:24:52,289
And we didn't want the car to preheat the battery to not lose the energy.

304
00:24:52,932 --> 00:25:01,806
So did you find, well the interesting thing too is with the time of year you guys are
doing it, it's so warm out anyway that it's not really gonna be as big an issue like

305
00:25:01,806 --> 00:25:03,617
especially in the winter.

306
00:25:03,617 --> 00:25:06,532
So there really is not as big a reason to use the preheating.

307
00:25:06,532 --> 00:25:12,123
And we didn't want to, like we didn't optimize for the shortest driving and charging time.

308
00:25:12,123 --> 00:25:23,463
So we didn't care too much if it's like, we even got at one point, I think 295 kilowatt,
but we didn't care if the vehicle is charging at its maximum rate.

309
00:25:24,223 --> 00:25:25,523
Gotcha, gotcha.

310
00:25:25,523 --> 00:25:30,675
So now you're starting to kind of run into these chargers and use them.

311
00:25:30,675 --> 00:25:32,736
What were you noticing?

312
00:25:32,736 --> 00:25:40,798
Because what I thought was really cool is you just use just about every major brand of
charger there is out there.

313
00:25:40,798 --> 00:25:43,729
Everything from Electrify America to Tesla to Chargepoint.

314
00:25:43,729 --> 00:25:49,731
What did you guys notice kind of dealing with the different charging infrastructure in
your experience with that?

315
00:25:52,609 --> 00:25:59,995
So I think it was quite unplanned that we put in a big variety of chargement operators in
our route.

316
00:25:59,995 --> 00:26:06,699
It just happened because they have had the best location to stretch out each rack.

317
00:26:08,021 --> 00:26:15,056
I think there hasn't been, I have to think about the big difference.

318
00:26:15,056 --> 00:26:18,709
I wouldn't say that they.

319
00:26:18,877 --> 00:26:28,704
are different in terms of are they better located to the interstate or less close
proximity to the interstate, which you usually see, for example, in Germany that there

320
00:26:28,704 --> 00:26:31,306
some operators that are at the highway.

321
00:26:31,306 --> 00:26:42,773
And then others, for example, Tesla, is not that many times at the highway itself, but you
need to go out at an exit because the locations are just cheaper to acquire.

322
00:26:44,535 --> 00:26:47,627
do you see any major difference

323
00:26:47,627 --> 00:26:51,475
except from branding and maybe the hardware they have been using.

324
00:26:54,795 --> 00:26:57,566
Another difference was the amount of chargers.

325
00:26:57,566 --> 00:27:05,440
So, you know, there's a site in the middle there that caused us a lot of issues because it
only had one charger and that charger failed on us.

326
00:27:06,081 --> 00:27:10,223
Another site that we hit only had two chargers of which one was broken.

327
00:27:10,904 --> 00:27:18,988
So ideally when we do these road trips in our normal life, we try to hit a site that has
at least four fast chargers or something if we have our pick.

328
00:27:18,988 --> 00:27:21,429
But in this scenario, we didn't have that.

329
00:27:22,298 --> 00:27:32,322
For us it was more important to pick the ideal charger in terms of miles distance versus
the one that has the best plug share rating or has the most amount of backup chargers.

330
00:27:32,481 --> 00:27:32,951
Yeah.

331
00:27:32,951 --> 00:27:44,721
And also if you like really go for speed, you're pretty much left with Electro Fire
America because none, except from the EV GM Energy EV Go station, they were always like, I

332
00:27:44,721 --> 00:27:51,261
think 150 kilowatt max and only Electro Fire America offers the 250 kilowatt.

333
00:27:51,261 --> 00:28:01,157
So that's why I think you see many people going on road trips reporting about Electro Fire
America because just if you want to optimize for the

334
00:28:01,157 --> 00:28:10,855
a shortest charging time, that's your preferred choice or the only choice left especially
in between.

335
00:28:10,855 --> 00:28:20,628
too was it really was for a long time just them and the supercharging network that were
cross country that you could just have one, especially on some of the interstates for a

336
00:28:20,628 --> 00:28:20,988
long time.

337
00:28:20,988 --> 00:28:25,459
Now you're starting to see that with the EVGO and kind of GM partnership, which is great.

338
00:28:25,459 --> 00:28:30,301
But even then that's still kind of like almost divided by the I think that's the Missouri
River.

339
00:28:30,301 --> 00:28:36,123
There's so many on like the eastern half of the US, but kind of on the west side and then.

340
00:28:36,575 --> 00:28:40,415
especially middle America, you start running out of that charger density.

341
00:28:40,595 --> 00:28:45,075
So you roll up to one and it's almost, well, it sounds like it fails you completely.

342
00:28:45,075 --> 00:28:48,415
Are you at like zero or 1 % when that happens?

343
00:28:48,415 --> 00:28:51,557
What's going to go through your minds when you get to this one?

344
00:28:52,526 --> 00:28:52,946
Yeah.

345
00:28:52,946 --> 00:28:57,867
So there was a station in Colorado shortly before Nebraska.

346
00:28:58,988 --> 00:29:03,189
That was just the ideal one for us in terms of, in terms of miles.

347
00:29:03,249 --> 00:29:11,511
And it was a single free wire boost charger battery power behind some very rural gas
station with very little other infrastructure around.

348
00:29:11,511 --> 00:29:13,502
And it was in the afternoon.

349
00:29:13,502 --> 00:29:21,634
It was very hot outside over a hundred and we plugged in, got the station to work.

350
00:29:22,042 --> 00:29:31,282
walked away trying to get lunch and just out of fear and a habit checked the mobile app to
see if the station was still running and the session had stopped.

351
00:29:31,282 --> 00:29:32,552
So we walked back.

352
00:29:32,552 --> 00:29:36,062
I think at this point we had gotten, we arrived at 0%.

353
00:29:36,062 --> 00:29:42,862
We had gotten maybe to 10 or 15 % state of charge and we weren't able to reinitiate a
session really.

354
00:29:42,862 --> 00:29:47,062
Or we tried three times on both cables that the charger had.

355
00:29:47,342 --> 00:29:49,562
It was very hard at that point.

356
00:29:49,562 --> 00:29:52,542
Our GoPro and our iPhones kept crashing because of the heat.

357
00:29:52,542 --> 00:29:54,202
So it was hard to even document.

358
00:29:54,202 --> 00:30:01,902
And we think the station just overheated because it would start charging, deliver like 0
.1 kilowatt hours and immediately stop charging.

359
00:30:02,882 --> 00:30:09,102
the next station was the Electrify America site in Ogallala, Nebraska, which was about 50
miles away.

360
00:30:09,102 --> 00:30:12,202
So we just about had enough energy to go there.

361
00:30:12,202 --> 00:30:19,086
it had failed on us earlier, we would have had to either wait until later in the day until
hopefully the heat.

362
00:30:19,086 --> 00:30:23,651
goes down if that was the actual issue, or we would have to get towed.

363
00:30:23,651 --> 00:30:26,844
I'm not sure what the issue actually was.

364
00:30:26,844 --> 00:30:31,308
I don't know if it was maybe something else, but presumably the heat plate effector.

365
00:30:31,923 --> 00:30:39,349
Yeah, I do know, I mean, I know this is also improved, but one of the areas the Lucid has
had issues with is sometimes charger compatibility.

366
00:30:39,490 --> 00:30:43,073
And do you feel like that's something you ran into at all?

367
00:30:43,073 --> 00:30:52,081
I mean, part of its efficiency is it has this really high pack voltage, but then part of
what kind of works against it at charging is it has this really high pack voltage.

368
00:30:52,081 --> 00:30:59,007
And I'm kind of curious if that kind of played, how much that played into your strategy
and then how much that played into your experience on the road, you think?

369
00:30:59,841 --> 00:31:06,061
Because of that fact, and we were aware about it, we also wrote an article in our
newsletter about it.

370
00:31:06,061 --> 00:31:13,121
We excluded the Tesla network from the beginning because the Tesla network is limited to
400 or 500 volts.

371
00:31:13,341 --> 00:31:18,621
As you said, the Lucid has a voltage range of around 800 volts.

372
00:31:18,621 --> 00:31:22,321
So at those stations, we get like 50 kilowatt max.

373
00:31:22,721 --> 00:31:28,929
But still, the free wire station was also a limiting factor there because it also supports
only

374
00:31:28,929 --> 00:31:30,529
for 500 volt.

375
00:31:30,529 --> 00:31:41,369
So that came on top to the board session that we already knew that we will be charging
here for three hours probably because of the lower charging power that we are getting.

376
00:31:42,689 --> 00:31:50,489
But except from Tesla and that free wire boost charging stations, most charging stations
support up to 1 ,000 volts.

377
00:31:50,489 --> 00:31:54,185
So that isn't a problem so much for the Lucid.

378
00:31:54,884 --> 00:32:07,661
Yeah, I think in terms of interoperability, think a lot of car brands have issues with
certain chargers, often like the more obscure chargers that just have less deployments.

379
00:32:07,661 --> 00:32:13,544
you know, a lower priority in interoperability testing and sometimes that leads to issues.

380
00:32:13,605 --> 00:32:16,406
We were a little bit worried about that.

381
00:32:16,406 --> 00:32:23,864
Like when we rolled up to the tritium station and it didn't work at first, there's a
moment in the video where I...

382
00:32:23,864 --> 00:32:26,739
suspect that it might be an incompatibility.

383
00:32:26,739 --> 00:32:31,736
then on second, I think first we tried with credit cards, second try was with the app and
then it suddenly worked.

384
00:32:31,736 --> 00:32:37,195
So in the end, I don't think we had any charging interoperability issues.

385
00:32:37,195 --> 00:32:39,808
It was usually more reliability.

386
00:32:40,863 --> 00:32:51,490
So in your experience having kind of charged in the US and now in Europe, would you say
the reliability and this kind of interoperability issue is still similar in Europe or is

387
00:32:51,490 --> 00:32:55,927
it much more just kind of plug in and forget it?

388
00:32:56,817 --> 00:32:58,619
I wouldn't say it's plug -in and forget it.

389
00:32:58,619 --> 00:33:08,387
So there are also reliability issues in Europe, but the discussion is not that much
centered.

390
00:33:08,387 --> 00:33:15,754
I have the feeling that in the US, it's really reliability is the core issue in charging,
in EV charging.

391
00:33:15,754 --> 00:33:24,747
While in Europe, reliability is also a topic, but there are other topics as well,
especially when it comes to like in Germany, for example,

392
00:33:24,747 --> 00:33:26,998
public charging is much more expensive.

393
00:33:27,058 --> 00:33:35,942
So people that can't charge at home or at the work that are dependent on public charging,
it's not really an option to switch to EVs.

394
00:33:35,942 --> 00:33:43,444
So there's other topics as well that the industry is fighting with, let's put it that way.

395
00:33:43,445 --> 00:33:54,189
And also from the personal experience now charging the S, I got much more worried about
having a session stopped while we are away getting lunch.

396
00:33:54,271 --> 00:33:59,589
big problem of ours was that we rented the vehicle, so we didn't have the vehicle app
access.

397
00:33:59,670 --> 00:34:09,255
So we tried to start the charging sessions with the app of the chargement operators,
because that's the only way that we get remote information from the charging session.

398
00:34:10,111 --> 00:34:16,031
Yeah, that's actually a really good point because I need to do this again.

399
00:34:16,031 --> 00:34:24,831
But the trip I've done out to specifically Iowa a couple times along I 80 and I 90.

400
00:34:26,291 --> 00:34:32,971
I there were sometimes there'd be like an EA charger or something that would charge
faster, but repeatedly.

401
00:34:33,643 --> 00:34:37,052
cause it might be like a level two or a version two superchargers.

402
00:34:37,052 --> 00:34:39,633
So like tops out at one 50, but there'd be a EA.

403
00:34:39,633 --> 00:34:40,063
So, know what?

404
00:34:40,063 --> 00:34:40,863
I'll give it a try.

405
00:34:40,863 --> 00:34:51,303
And I just found repeatedly that between not just how long it, even though I had like the
app downloaded, I had all my information just like to get the difference between just

406
00:34:51,303 --> 00:34:58,183
plugging and walking away and then getting it all figured out and working, eight into so
much of that time difference.

407
00:34:58,183 --> 00:35:01,599
And then, both times.

408
00:35:01,599 --> 00:35:10,639
I would walk away and I fortunately had the app and so I would just get a notification,
like five minutes into it that it failed or it stopped.

409
00:35:10,639 --> 00:35:15,079
And both times, now I don't want to be such a hater because it's obviously improved.

410
00:35:15,079 --> 00:35:22,469
I've talked to a lot of people about this, but I would then go back to the charger and
instead of getting 350, obviously I couldn't get that much.

411
00:35:22,469 --> 00:35:31,547
could do like 250, but I would get it would now it would either be inoperable or the other
time it just topped out at 50 kilowatts.

412
00:35:31,764 --> 00:35:34,179
And that was just like such a big experience.

413
00:35:34,179 --> 00:35:35,201
like, okay, I've got enough anyway.

414
00:35:35,201 --> 00:35:37,034
I'm just going to go the next one.

415
00:35:37,236 --> 00:35:38,589
And it's kind of interesting.

416
00:35:38,589 --> 00:35:40,412
I'm sorry.

417
00:35:40,412 --> 00:35:49,228
out non -tesla chargers with your tesla for the thrill of it or was it really the best
station in the moment for you?

418
00:35:49,954 --> 00:36:01,295
both, just because where I was at, there were, was, in South Dakota, there's pretty much
just a straight shot of all of just V2 chargers.

419
00:36:01,295 --> 00:36:07,165
And so, there were a couple of times where I could just go in a year and I was like, well,
this will give me up at least a two 15.

420
00:36:07,165 --> 00:36:13,971
That should make a bit of a difference, but, between just trying to get the thing to
actually start charging and then.

421
00:36:13,971 --> 00:36:15,092
the issues I ended up having.

422
00:36:15,092 --> 00:36:26,198
was just consistently, even though it kind of annoyed me because it took a little bit more
time, it was just so much more, it was much more worth it just to just go to the version

423
00:36:26,198 --> 00:36:30,320
two supercharger and charge at the slower speed than deal with a third party.

424
00:36:30,320 --> 00:36:33,313
And EA has definitely gone better.

425
00:36:33,313 --> 00:36:40,529
The other interesting part of it too to me was one, just to have that opportunity to test
the charger, but.

426
00:36:40,529 --> 00:36:43,000
Two was the price.

427
00:36:43,040 --> 00:36:55,066
Consistently the Tesla chargers were a lot cheaper and I even had the EA electrify pass
where you pay a few bucks and it comes down and even then it was still more expensive to

428
00:36:55,066 --> 00:36:57,607
charge on the EA ones I found.

429
00:36:58,375 --> 00:37:03,699
And so like by the second or third one I had done on that trip and it failed me and I just
had wasted so much time.

430
00:37:03,699 --> 00:37:04,560
I just said, screw it.

431
00:37:04,560 --> 00:37:08,933
I'm going to deal with the, the Tesla ones and not even deal with it.

432
00:37:08,933 --> 00:37:16,889
but I, I don't want to hate on it I do know a couple of people who have done that trip,
that route specifically recently and had a much better experience.

433
00:37:17,790 --> 00:37:23,894
so it's good to see that they're improving, but it is one those things that, especially
when you're trying to cover miles, you're just like, okay.

434
00:37:25,555 --> 00:37:27,487
This is the plan on paper.

435
00:37:27,487 --> 00:37:31,761
In theory, this should work a lot faster and be the ideal thing.

436
00:37:31,761 --> 00:37:36,145
But just in practice, you realize now I'm just going to go to the slower charger and it'll
work.

437
00:37:36,145 --> 00:37:37,245
It'll be done.

438
00:37:38,006 --> 00:37:49,346
You can do flawless runs on CCS infrastructure sometimes, but I would say the average
experience is probably there's a little bit more anxiety involved in using that CCS

439
00:37:49,346 --> 00:37:56,512
infrastructure because the user flows are different, the payment flows are different, and
the reliability is a little bit different.

440
00:37:56,541 --> 00:37:56,701
Yeah.

441
00:37:56,701 --> 00:38:01,935
And one of the big things I always tell people is like for a new technology to be
successful, it doesn't have to be just as good.

442
00:38:01,935 --> 00:38:05,156
It has to be better than the existing technology.

443
00:38:05,418 --> 00:38:13,074
And I think whether it's Tesla's form of it or like plug and charge, that's literally the
most ideal thing.

444
00:38:13,074 --> 00:38:14,295
You just plug it in and walk away.

445
00:38:14,295 --> 00:38:17,747
That's better than gas where you have to still swipe a card.

446
00:38:17,747 --> 00:38:20,229
It's simple, but it's still that where it's like this.

447
00:38:20,229 --> 00:38:21,940
You just plug in and walk away and

448
00:38:21,940 --> 00:38:24,016
You don't need to remember the zip code.

449
00:38:24,411 --> 00:38:25,352
Exactly.

450
00:38:25,352 --> 00:38:36,902
And so it just, makes one, not just a better experience, but two, it makes it so that,
yeah, you just don't have to deal with all this.

451
00:38:36,902 --> 00:38:37,462
Will it work?

452
00:38:37,462 --> 00:38:47,610
And the, the downside of the plugin charge thing is obviously then it's not just on having
a charger that can accept it, but then having a vehicle that has that built in and,

453
00:38:48,093 --> 00:38:56,568
I guess that was just a really long -winded way of me to say that it does make a big
difference and it can be a critical difference by having that app access to your car so

454
00:38:56,568 --> 00:38:58,409
you do get those notifications.

455
00:38:58,409 --> 00:39:07,623
And I think it was really smart what you guys were doing by having at least the charger
app where possible to kind of give you those updates because it's just really frustrating

456
00:39:07,623 --> 00:39:09,234
to plug it in.

457
00:39:10,963 --> 00:39:13,795
deal with everything, which I mean, in the scheme of things, that's a first world problem.

458
00:39:13,795 --> 00:39:19,319
It's not that much work, but just to get it going and then for it to fail like so quickly
is just so frustrating.

459
00:39:19,319 --> 00:39:21,050
Yeah.

460
00:39:22,465 --> 00:39:32,249
And to point it out, mean, yes, it's kind of somewhat of convenience problem, but at the
same time, the industry needs to mature and tackle those problems to make EVs accessible

461
00:39:32,249 --> 00:39:38,242
to masters because like most of my friends, they don't want to bother with that.

462
00:39:38,242 --> 00:39:43,034
We are fascinated and interested about it and we can do it out of it.

463
00:39:43,034 --> 00:39:46,055
And to be honest, that's also a little bit the experience.

464
00:39:46,055 --> 00:39:49,796
We also cover it with our video, but most people don't want to have that experience.

465
00:39:49,796 --> 00:39:51,817
EV charging just needs to work.

466
00:39:53,087 --> 00:39:54,747
No, I'm 100 % with you.

467
00:39:54,747 --> 00:39:56,837
mean, it's for something for me, it's really fascinating.

468
00:39:56,837 --> 00:40:04,727
But for my mom, know like I can download all the apps and do all that stuff and she'd be
lost in the dust by just having to download an app.

469
00:40:04,727 --> 00:40:09,887
And until it's just that simple where it's just like you put in your payment info in the
car once and then you can walk away.

470
00:40:09,887 --> 00:40:13,267
There's still a big hurdle for others in the space.

471
00:40:13,494 --> 00:40:22,477
And both kind of issues that were inhibiting us with the Lucid, which was like some of the
charge point operators just didn't give us the option to remotely monitor the session.

472
00:40:22,477 --> 00:40:26,778
And we didn't have access to the companion app of the vehicle because it was a rental.

473
00:40:27,098 --> 00:40:36,361
Tesla is really thinking about those and solving those because you can, with the Tesla
Hertz collaboration, you can just scan a QR code in the Tesla that you rent from Hertz and

474
00:40:36,361 --> 00:40:41,762
you have like a temporary companion app on your phone so you can monitor the session.

475
00:40:41,818 --> 00:40:51,224
Plus there's the Tesla automatic payment integration where you just plug the rental car in
and it gets built to your Hertz account at the end through a Tesla Hertz integration.

476
00:40:51,224 --> 00:40:59,810
So they're really thinking about making it seamless even for this kind of niche use case
of a rental car where other companies still have a long way to go.

477
00:41:00,371 --> 00:41:10,156
Yeah, I mean, that kind of reminds me of another thing too, where kind of different, but a
friend of mine let me borrow their Tesla the other day to go do an errand I had to run.

478
00:41:10,437 --> 00:41:14,049
And they just did it through the app.

479
00:41:14,049 --> 00:41:16,680
So I get in the car and they also had a Model Y.

480
00:41:16,680 --> 00:41:26,436
I sit in it and I would not know, everything just goes exactly to how I have my settings
in my car, even to the point that it literally started playing the same song I've been

481
00:41:26,436 --> 00:41:28,567
listening to on Apple Music.

482
00:41:28,719 --> 00:41:31,446
in that car, like the instant I get in.

483
00:41:32,612 --> 00:41:36,361
I know like Rivian and others are doing, are trying to get there.

484
00:41:36,435 --> 00:41:42,610
But yeah, it still is kind of like really impressive experience for the end user to just
have that kind of simplicity.

485
00:41:42,610 --> 00:41:49,106
I think that is what's really cool about Tesla, Rivian, and I think to an extent Lucid.

486
00:41:49,106 --> 00:41:57,393
I'd say they're a little further behind, but they're definitely taking that same kind of
approach to really try and personalize and make a really standard experience for the

487
00:41:57,393 --> 00:42:02,076
driver, even if you guys didn't have the app access, unfortunately.

488
00:42:02,997 --> 00:42:04,258
But yeah, so.

489
00:42:06,719 --> 00:42:09,049
We're kind of by the end of the first day.

490
00:42:09,049 --> 00:42:11,478
You guys had, how far had you guys gotten?

491
00:42:15,457 --> 00:42:20,437
think we did cross then, we crossed into Utah.

492
00:42:20,437 --> 00:42:23,237
That's where we took our first charging session.

493
00:42:23,237 --> 00:42:30,317
And then at like midnight, we arrived in Colorado, a WorldBox Starbucks charger.

494
00:42:30,417 --> 00:42:41,293
And that's where also we kind of arrived with 0 % state of charge and then did an
extensive late dinner and charged up to 97%.

495
00:42:42,815 --> 00:42:44,607
So yeah, I guess that brings up my next question.

496
00:42:44,607 --> 00:42:47,821
So you're kind of getting to the end of the first night.

497
00:42:47,821 --> 00:42:53,647
What was the strategy for like sleeping and staying rested to just keep going through all
of this?

498
00:42:55,713 --> 00:43:06,633
So also that we didn't plan really ahead because we didn't know like how exhaustive it is
to drive and how kind of tired we are getting and how good we can sleep in a car.

499
00:43:06,633 --> 00:43:17,793
So we tried to drive as long as possible, but we also figured out and kudos to the people
that go for like the 42, 43 hours doing it in one stretch.

500
00:43:17,793 --> 00:43:25,831
It's really exhausting in my opinion, but because we knew that we will take much more time
for the total trip.

501
00:43:25,985 --> 00:43:34,985
And it's not really hurting us that much if we get a proper rest and also mitigating the
dangers of falling asleep while driving.

502
00:43:34,985 --> 00:43:48,045
That we tried to go into a hotel at between, I think the latest was 4 a in the morning and
the earlier ones was like 1 .30 and then sleep for five to seven hours.

503
00:43:48,045 --> 00:43:54,217
We didn't charge the car while we were in the hotel because the break was just too short
to make a significant...

504
00:43:54,217 --> 00:43:59,741
significant advantage for the trip because it would count as an additional charging stop.

505
00:43:59,761 --> 00:44:03,584
That's why we relied on the DC charging stations.

506
00:44:03,967 --> 00:44:07,357
No, I think that's a good way to do it when you're trying to do like across the country.

507
00:44:07,357 --> 00:44:15,927
I mean, it's a safe way to do it one, but two, then I think there'd be a lot of issues
with people like, well, you're AC charging and it's not quite the same, but I am such

508
00:44:15,927 --> 00:44:19,807
personally such a big fan of AC charging because that really does make the difference.

509
00:44:19,807 --> 00:44:28,247
I find very few people actually will drive more than like five to 800, like 600 miles a
day is a lot for most people.

510
00:44:28,427 --> 00:44:29,527
And

511
00:44:29,567 --> 00:44:33,647
I'm a weirdo that'll do like anywhere from 800 to 1200.

512
00:44:33,687 --> 00:44:43,027
And even then you just really, is so crucial to have that overnight AC charging at a hotel
too, because then that next day you can just start with a full battery and get a real good

513
00:44:43,027 --> 00:44:45,447
chunk going in that first run.

514
00:44:45,447 --> 00:44:52,967
Let alone with a car like Elusa that yeah, then you can go pretty much the whole day close
to without ever even having to charge it.

515
00:44:53,762 --> 00:44:58,108
It would be great if more hotels build out AC infrastructure, definitely.

516
00:44:58,589 --> 00:45:02,269
And if there were easy ways to filter for it and all the major booking sites.

517
00:45:02,269 --> 00:45:03,500
Yeah.

518
00:45:03,500 --> 00:45:12,777
We actually had Steve Burkett on from Plug and Play EV a couple of weeks ago and he was
talking about his road trip across the US and how, even in my own experience, it's kind of

519
00:45:12,777 --> 00:45:16,030
a, especially for AC charging in hotels, a bit of a desert.

520
00:45:16,030 --> 00:45:23,897
You have to kind of reel, if you're going to do that, you have to plan in advance which
hotel you're going to go to and then use PlugShare to verify if the system is up or still

521
00:45:23,897 --> 00:45:24,897
running.

522
00:45:26,439 --> 00:45:29,331
So you get to Colorado on the first night.

523
00:45:29,331 --> 00:45:31,923
What does the second day look like for you guys?

524
00:45:33,278 --> 00:45:36,368
second day was what we already touched on a little bit.

525
00:45:36,368 --> 00:45:40,018
so we left grand junction, Colorado and made it through Denver.

526
00:45:40,018 --> 00:45:44,178
And then by the afternoon we hit that free wire charger.

527
00:45:44,678 --> 00:45:47,588
that kind of gave us a lot of trouble.

528
00:45:47,648 --> 00:45:58,978
so we got, you know, 10, 15 % out of that one, which is just enough to make the 50 mile
stretch to the next fast charger, which was the electric America station in Nebraska.

529
00:45:59,668 --> 00:46:01,882
so we arrived there.

530
00:46:01,882 --> 00:46:10,782
I had some lunch at Subway and charged to 98 % again or something like that and then
continued on.

531
00:46:10,782 --> 00:46:13,022
And I don't remember what we spent the second night.

532
00:46:13,022 --> 00:46:13,712
Do you remember?

533
00:46:13,712 --> 00:46:15,180
I'm it at Iowa.

534
00:46:15,402 --> 00:46:16,783
Yeah, it was.

535
00:46:17,023 --> 00:46:28,193
So at that evening night, we were heading for a station at a dealer because that was the
best located station.

536
00:46:28,193 --> 00:46:35,598
But it was then like Sunday morning and we were already reading that there were problems
in plug share.

537
00:46:35,819 --> 00:46:43,795
And then we called it a night, stayed in the hotel and in the morning we actually called
the operator, the customer support hotline.

538
00:46:43,817 --> 00:46:47,018
and wanted to verify if we can access the station.

539
00:46:47,199 --> 00:46:52,502
then luckily, the person on the line was really helpful.

540
00:46:52,502 --> 00:47:02,617
And he also reported that there was a file notice that there is service and it was like
nine days ago and there hasn't been a charging session happening on that station since

541
00:47:02,617 --> 00:47:03,467
then.

542
00:47:03,528 --> 00:47:11,492
So we said that this is too risky and there wouldn't have been any backup stations close
to that station.

543
00:47:11,492 --> 00:47:12,712
So we...

544
00:47:13,281 --> 00:47:18,801
charged at a, I think it was Mid -American Energy Station earlier.

545
00:47:19,241 --> 00:47:21,721
So we didn't do the full stretch.

546
00:47:21,721 --> 00:47:27,101
We usually aim for 400 miles per recharge.

547
00:47:27,541 --> 00:47:31,709
And at that stretch, we only made 370 miles.

548
00:47:33,048 --> 00:47:34,199
impressive.

549
00:47:34,399 --> 00:47:39,183
all in all you guys did it in three days correct?

550
00:47:40,065 --> 00:47:41,425
Four days actually.

551
00:47:41,425 --> 00:47:49,621
So we started Friday morning, in the early morning and arrived at I think 6 p in New York
on Monday.

552
00:47:50,367 --> 00:47:59,769
And then you guys kind of mentioned that you ran into some traffic going into New York,
but were there any other things that kind of came up in the final two days of that trip or

553
00:47:59,769 --> 00:48:06,687
just, seemed like then you kind of knew what you were looking for and what to avoid when
it came to the chargers, right?

554
00:48:08,693 --> 00:48:14,838
I think on the second last stop, had the issues Janick mentioned already with the
authorization.

555
00:48:14,838 --> 00:48:16,859
So the payment didn't work.

556
00:48:17,080 --> 00:48:19,562
still didn't, it was a Tretheum charger.

557
00:48:19,562 --> 00:48:24,226
Also, I think quite interesting because there are not so many installed in the US I've
heard.

558
00:48:24,226 --> 00:48:28,139
In the US they're quite common because Ionity, for example, deployed them early on.

559
00:48:28,139 --> 00:48:34,013
It's like the Electify America in Europe.

560
00:48:34,774 --> 00:48:38,657
And there we had some issues, but luckily there was a

561
00:48:38,657 --> 00:48:42,597
I'd say there were two stations, each with two charge points.

562
00:48:42,597 --> 00:48:44,537
So we were able to charge at that one.

563
00:48:44,537 --> 00:48:47,827
And I think the last stop was the most pleasant one.

564
00:48:47,827 --> 00:48:49,597
It was a Navy funded site.

565
00:48:49,597 --> 00:48:50,667
It had a roof.

566
00:48:50,667 --> 00:48:52,777
It has a nice lighting.

567
00:48:53,137 --> 00:48:56,117
We arrived there at like 4 AM in the morning.

568
00:48:56,117 --> 00:48:58,117
And it was a little bit rainy.

569
00:48:58,317 --> 00:49:00,657
it was also the first way.

570
00:49:00,657 --> 00:49:05,297
It was the only time it rained, But then the roof was really practical.

571
00:49:07,105 --> 00:49:14,745
That was a really pleasant trip and there we have our charging stop and we have had the
peak was like 295 kilowatts.

572
00:49:18,345 --> 00:49:21,737
Yeah, I I'm a big fan of canopies over charging locations.

573
00:49:21,737 --> 00:49:27,051
Even when it's sunny, it's really nice because it just keeps the chargers cooler than
getting out of the car.

574
00:49:27,051 --> 00:49:27,972
It's so much cooler.

575
00:49:27,972 --> 00:49:35,107
It just, yeah, I get that it's a bigger expense, but it's definitely something I hope to
see on more and more chargers.

576
00:49:35,871 --> 00:49:38,203
And heat is definitely a problem for the Chargers.

577
00:49:38,203 --> 00:49:51,944
think in total, in the recap, would say that heat is probably one of the biggest enemy
during those trips because most struggles we were having were related to heat at that

578
00:49:51,944 --> 00:49:53,575
trip.

579
00:49:54,656 --> 00:49:56,978
And the canopies can help.

580
00:49:57,218 --> 00:50:05,785
Alternatively, we could also, let's say, replan our route to not charge during lunchtime
or in those peak heat times.

581
00:50:05,899 --> 00:50:08,338
that will also mitigate that risk a little bit.

582
00:50:08,767 --> 00:50:09,534
interesting.

583
00:50:09,534 --> 00:50:11,814
It also helps with keeping the car cool.

584
00:50:11,814 --> 00:50:25,354
Cause one of the stops we were, know, in the 97, 96 % range, the car was only charging
with, I don't know, eight kilowatts, but it was like, it showed like 115 or something.

585
00:50:25,354 --> 00:50:28,354
So the AC was working really hard to keep the car cool.

586
00:50:28,354 --> 00:50:31,594
So it was probably wasting all, you know, the same energy was getting.

587
00:50:31,594 --> 00:50:38,450
So we weren't really like increasing an SOC anymore, but if you had a canopy, maybe the AC
didn't have to work so hard and you could.

588
00:50:38,746 --> 00:50:42,765
max out the battery a little bit more, but we never actually managed to charge to 100%.

589
00:50:42,765 --> 00:50:45,618
I think the highest we did was like 99.

590
00:50:46,369 --> 00:50:58,649
I think we got to 100 % on the last stop because we left actually something I would
usually not do, but we left the Lucid at the charging station, was the GM energy station

591
00:50:58,649 --> 00:51:06,756
and went to the hotel, slept for five hours at that night, came back in the morning and
then of course it was charged 100%.

592
00:51:06,756 --> 00:51:10,229
We made sure that they didn't charge idle fees at that location.

593
00:51:11,752 --> 00:51:18,038
And we didn't get a feel for that there was, that we would be blocking anyone like in the
middle of the night.

594
00:51:18,757 --> 00:51:22,764
The capacity was more than the EVs charging there.

595
00:51:22,973 --> 00:51:26,647
Right, right, All right, so then you get past that.

596
00:51:26,647 --> 00:51:28,029
You get to New York.

597
00:51:28,029 --> 00:51:31,782
You guys just, take it, do you go to hotel and immediately crash?

598
00:51:31,782 --> 00:51:37,978
Or what did you do once you finally got to New York to celebrate or sleep?

599
00:51:41,242 --> 00:51:46,622
yeah, we actually went to dinner with, one of our sponsors, S 44.

600
00:51:46,622 --> 00:51:54,062
They're based in New Jersey and their CEO invited us to dinner with some of the team in
Manhattan to celebrate.

601
00:51:54,062 --> 00:51:56,022
So that was great.

602
00:51:56,362 --> 00:51:59,189
and then did we go to the revel site the same night still?

603
00:51:59,189 --> 00:52:03,621
Yes, also went to the, because we didn't have enough of charging.

604
00:52:03,621 --> 00:52:13,056
No, we arrived with like, again, with a not really high set of charge and we needed to
recharge the vehicle before we leave for the night.

605
00:52:13,056 --> 00:52:14,586
It's not healthy for the battery.

606
00:52:14,586 --> 00:52:24,461
So we went to a reveled site and also was quite interesting experience because there were,
it was like midnight already and there were...

607
00:52:24,577 --> 00:52:27,977
Revell vehicles and Uber vehicles coming in and out all the time.

608
00:52:27,977 --> 00:52:31,437
Like I have never seen that high utilization at any site.

609
00:52:31,437 --> 00:52:35,897
I think that like 25 charging stations there.

610
00:52:36,117 --> 00:52:39,385
impressive what has been going on there.

611
00:52:40,937 --> 00:52:43,318
Yeah, that's definitely been a conversation in general.

612
00:52:43,318 --> 00:52:54,632
We've had a lot on this podcast and just talking to others about, especially in very dense
city centers, trying to figure out what that balance is for essentially commercial use.

613
00:52:54,632 --> 00:52:59,253
There are a lot of rideshare drivers that probably can't charge at home.

614
00:52:59,253 --> 00:53:01,204
And so they go to a lot of these stalls.

615
00:53:01,204 --> 00:53:05,195
I think that's where, especially here in the U .S., like when we had...

616
00:53:05,523 --> 00:53:10,609
There's a big story coming in Chicago during the winter and how all these people, were
lines and stuff to charge.

617
00:53:10,609 --> 00:53:15,334
And a big part of that is so many of those people charging were actually just like Uber
drivers and others.

618
00:53:15,915 --> 00:53:18,648
And that's definitely something that needs to get solved.

619
00:53:18,648 --> 00:53:26,427
But I still haven't been to a Revel charger yet, but it does seem like that is kind of the
model to hopefully solve that problem.

620
00:53:27,265 --> 00:53:32,100
Definitely interesting business case for any CPO offering urban fast charging.

621
00:53:32,100 --> 00:53:35,514
A few years ago, nobody built fast charging hubs in cities.

622
00:53:35,514 --> 00:53:38,938
Everybody was focused on the highways, interstates.

623
00:53:38,938 --> 00:53:49,168
But I think it really wants to make a profitable case, the urban stations and being
attractive for ride hailing drivers and taxis, but also maybe delivery bands is really

624
00:53:49,168 --> 00:53:50,139
interesting.

625
00:53:51,177 --> 00:53:54,064
So you get there, you go to Revel, you have dinner.

626
00:53:54,064 --> 00:53:56,070
Where'd you, I guess, I'm curious now.

627
00:53:56,070 --> 00:53:57,593
I used to go to Manhattan for work a lot.

628
00:53:57,593 --> 00:53:59,026
Where'd you guys go to dinner?

629
00:54:00,353 --> 00:54:01,933
It was an Italian restaurant.

630
00:54:01,933 --> 00:54:04,593
I can't remember from the top of my head.

631
00:54:04,613 --> 00:54:07,453
It was not far away from Red Ball Garage.

632
00:54:07,893 --> 00:54:10,753
So it was like five or 10 minutes.

633
00:54:10,913 --> 00:54:14,151
And then after the dinner, we went to Revil Station.

634
00:54:14,335 --> 00:54:17,237
There are a lot of amazing Italian places in New York, no question.

635
00:54:17,237 --> 00:54:19,638
So I'm sure wherever it was was good.

636
00:54:20,219 --> 00:54:21,439
So yeah, you do that.

637
00:54:21,439 --> 00:54:25,942
And then you guys have the car shipped back, correct?

638
00:54:25,942 --> 00:54:27,863
So how'd you guys get home then?

639
00:54:30,650 --> 00:54:31,663
Yeah, Julius was...

640
00:54:31,663 --> 00:54:33,904
I was basically arriving home at that moment.

641
00:54:33,904 --> 00:54:36,955
I came to the US because of private reasons.

642
00:54:36,955 --> 00:54:47,341
So I stayed in New York and also made sure that the car is loaded to the truck once the
driver was picking it up, I think two days later.

643
00:54:47,341 --> 00:54:51,923
And Janik needed to fly out again to San Diego.

644
00:54:52,026 --> 00:54:59,421
Yeah, I flew back on Tuesday, left the car in the keys with Julius and he was staying a
couple of weeks in New York and in Brooklyn.

645
00:54:59,421 --> 00:55:06,916
So he was able to stick around, you know, because we, by the time we arrived in New York,
we didn't have a carrier assigned yet.

646
00:55:06,916 --> 00:55:10,978
like truck broker was still trying to get someone to do the job.

647
00:55:11,179 --> 00:55:20,884
And then luckily two days later, someone, someone picked up the job and then, so I flew
back on Tuesday and the Sunday of that week, the truck arrived.

648
00:55:21,325 --> 00:55:26,772
with me, I live in San Diego, and then I drove it up same day to LA and returned it.

649
00:55:27,215 --> 00:55:28,075
you.

650
00:55:28,396 --> 00:55:36,711
So I mean I think we've already discussed a lot of the different things that stood out to
you but I guess to recap after completing it what were some of the high level or things

651
00:55:36,711 --> 00:55:38,882
that really stood out to you after the trip?

652
00:55:41,291 --> 00:55:50,003
think the biggest thing that we wanted to also prove a little bit was we have the
technology to make those long distance trips.

653
00:55:50,545 --> 00:56:00,479
We have really efficient vehicles that are suitable for long distance trips that a few
years ago, it was an adventure to go for a few miles out of the city.

654
00:56:00,479 --> 00:56:10,207
Janek and me joked around that we drove, for example, in I3 in Munich and there's like
from Munich to Lake Garda, it's like three hours of driving.

655
00:56:10,207 --> 00:56:11,518
And that was already a gamble.

656
00:56:11,518 --> 00:56:13,280
It was like a long distance trip.

657
00:56:13,280 --> 00:56:16,021
And with Delucid, that's like nothing.

658
00:56:16,082 --> 00:56:18,163
And we have the technology there.

659
00:56:18,163 --> 00:56:20,725
We need more charging locations, certainly.

660
00:56:20,725 --> 00:56:25,959
But even today, we can make those coast to coast trips, which is incredible, I think.

661
00:56:26,276 --> 00:56:26,946
Yeah.

662
00:56:26,946 --> 00:56:34,328
And the technology needs to kind of trickle down to the more affordable price range, where
the mass market really is.

663
00:56:35,589 --> 00:56:39,230
yeah, independent of price, the Lucid just eats miles.

664
00:56:39,230 --> 00:56:47,192
We were going six hours between needed charging stops, which was way longer than we wanted
to drive.

665
00:56:47,192 --> 00:56:51,714
So we had to do bio breaks to use the restroom, get some food and snacks.

666
00:56:52,862 --> 00:56:55,950
And yeah, it's just really impressive what this car can do.

667
00:56:55,950 --> 00:56:58,494
It's longer range than some gas cars have.

668
00:56:58,825 --> 00:57:00,756
Right, right, actually quite a few.

669
00:57:00,837 --> 00:57:04,741
So when you say things that need to trickle down, where do you see it being?

670
00:57:04,741 --> 00:57:06,239
it mostly the, I mean...

671
00:57:06,239 --> 00:57:08,479
There's a lot of really cool things about the Lucid.

672
00:57:08,479 --> 00:57:09,399
has a one.

673
00:57:09,399 --> 00:57:10,839
does have just a big battery.

674
00:57:10,839 --> 00:57:13,359
I mean, the top of line one is almost 120.

675
00:57:13,359 --> 00:57:16,399
It's 118 kilowatt hours, which is a really big battery.

676
00:57:16,399 --> 00:57:17,969
It's obviously really efficient.

677
00:57:17,969 --> 00:57:21,889
And then it also charges at a really high speed a lot of the time.

678
00:57:21,889 --> 00:57:27,239
So what what do you guys think are the big things that you would like to see more of that?

679
00:57:27,239 --> 00:57:34,039
And what do you think's maybe the most realistic price wise to kind of come down to more
vehicles?

680
00:57:35,333 --> 00:57:38,615
I think from a manufacturer point of view, it's quite interesting.

681
00:57:38,615 --> 00:57:43,577
you increase efficiency, you don't need to put in a big battery pack.

682
00:57:43,577 --> 00:57:46,398
And that can make EVs more affordable.

683
00:57:46,398 --> 00:57:52,100
So of course, it is more attractive to launch vehicles in the premium segments.

684
00:57:52,100 --> 00:57:57,022
Having SUVs, it's more comfortable for the people.

685
00:57:57,382 --> 00:58:00,284
So naturally, they are a little bit less efficient.

686
00:58:00,284 --> 00:58:04,105
But if we go to the mid -sized vehicle segment,

687
00:58:04,413 --> 00:58:15,269
We have much more sedans and there you can also work with smaller batteries, but still
have an electric vehicle, which is not like only the second household vehicle for the

688
00:58:15,269 --> 00:58:19,322
commute, but where you can also comfortably go to vacation.

689
00:58:19,762 --> 00:58:25,645
So I think the efficiency is something that BMW initially approved with the i3 can be
done.

690
00:58:25,726 --> 00:58:31,445
Maybe with fancy materials that have been used, which are not nice for mass production,
but

691
00:58:31,445 --> 00:58:36,627
I think efficiency is something really important for every manufacturer, because then
you're safe on the battery.

692
00:58:39,246 --> 00:58:50,525
Yeah, I'm curious where we will end up with like, what is the sweet spot of, of range that
people actually need where they're comfortable that this is not my second car.

693
00:58:50,525 --> 00:59:02,244
This is my main or my only car where every use case that I have from daily commuting to
visiting the in -laws on Thanksgiving or Christmas in like peak traffic.

694
00:59:02,795 --> 00:59:08,770
I feel confident enough that it's enough range, and that the charging infrastructure is
good enough.

695
00:59:08,782 --> 00:59:11,443
that it just meets all my use case needs.

696
00:59:13,325 --> 00:59:16,327
I don't know where that actually will end up.

697
00:59:16,327 --> 00:59:18,829
Of course, it's always better to have more range.

698
00:59:19,069 --> 00:59:28,176
So if my seven -seater SUV can have as much range as the Lucid Air, and it's still
affordable, that's great.

699
00:59:28,176 --> 00:59:31,178
But I don't know if we really need that much.

700
00:59:33,451 --> 00:59:42,495
And then you can also compensate battery size with charging speed if you have trust and
density of charging infrastructure.

701
00:59:42,495 --> 00:59:48,247
Because naturally people need to take a bio break and we try to stretch each leg.

702
00:59:48,247 --> 01:00:00,932
If you would take like normal speed and charge whenever we need to take a bio break, go to
restroom and also get something to eat, we wouldn't need the big battery of the lucid air.

703
01:00:00,932 --> 01:00:03,233
So in that time,

704
01:00:03,233 --> 01:00:10,333
you would expect that the first thing you do is you plug in your vehicle, you take your
thing, do your activities and then get back.

705
01:00:10,333 --> 01:00:17,253
And once you unplug your vehicle, you need to have 80 % of charge and you are good to go
for another three hours of drive.

706
01:00:17,893 --> 01:00:27,133
And whatever that size of battery is, it depends a little bit on the efficiency of the
vehicle, but I think that would be my best spec.

707
01:00:27,992 --> 01:00:30,093
You have a long range model?

708
01:00:30,093 --> 01:00:30,847
Why?

709
01:00:30,847 --> 01:00:38,587
Yeah, it's a all wheel drive long range, which I'm not exactly sure what the battery size
is.

710
01:00:38,587 --> 01:00:40,647
They say it's like 82 kilowatt hours.

711
01:00:40,647 --> 01:00:42,427
I don't think I've ever really come close to that.

712
01:00:42,427 --> 01:00:44,347
think it's closer to 70.

713
01:00:46,657 --> 01:00:47,666
always.

714
01:00:49,647 --> 01:00:52,727
don't get me wrong, it's a really good vehicle.

715
01:00:53,387 --> 01:01:00,031
I've definitely noticed when I'm road tripping with my wife, and especially if we have the
dogs,

716
01:01:00,031 --> 01:01:06,371
The charging isn't as much of an issue because she usually has to get up and do something
or the dogs need to go for a bathroom break.

717
01:01:06,371 --> 01:01:09,051
And so it's not bad.

718
01:01:09,111 --> 01:01:17,471
But I definitely would not say no to about 30 percent more range and about like 30 percent
less charging.

719
01:01:18,931 --> 01:01:24,333
And I think allegedly there's this new model Y coming out that.

720
01:01:24,543 --> 01:01:25,603
kind of gets close to that.

721
01:01:25,603 --> 01:01:27,263
So I'm going to, I'm very curious to see that.

722
01:01:27,263 --> 01:01:28,393
And I mean, it's kind of funny.

723
01:01:28,393 --> 01:01:31,033
You mentioned the battery pack and everything and efficiency.

724
01:01:31,033 --> 01:01:42,663
Cause if you, think in America, it's a little bit different, but I think, I think
realistically a car should have like 300 real world highway, 300 miles driving range.

725
01:01:42,663 --> 01:01:49,003
Like that's a lot of cars claim they do, but like when you put them on the highway, it's
not quite that.

726
01:01:49,003 --> 01:01:52,403
And so I think if you can get like 300, that's good.

727
01:01:52,415 --> 01:01:54,625
And we're kind of there.

728
01:01:54,625 --> 01:01:57,465
And I think over the next year or two, that'll become pretty much the norm.

729
01:01:57,465 --> 01:02:05,315
And then I think the next stretch goal would be like, if you can have 400 miles, it's like
what 400 miles at highway.

730
01:02:05,315 --> 01:02:08,145
It's pretty much there's no longer like really an argument.

731
01:02:08,145 --> 01:02:10,845
And I completely agree with what you guys say about infrastructure.

732
01:02:10,845 --> 01:02:17,441
And I know that sounds kind of absurd, but, lucid claims now admittedly.

733
01:02:17,663 --> 01:02:24,323
That's like if you're doing the right speeds and everything, but they claim that their new
ones are about like five miles per kilowatt hour.

734
01:02:24,323 --> 01:02:30,343
And if more, like you're saying it, more EV companies can get closer to that, then you
only need an 80 kilowatt.

735
01:02:30,343 --> 01:02:35,703
mean, it's still a decent size pack, but then you only need an 80 kilowatt hour pack and
you can go 400 miles.

736
01:02:36,143 --> 01:02:41,863
there's, and it still, it's crazy to me how far it's come in a decade.

737
01:02:42,963 --> 01:02:47,723
since like driving a model S in 2013 versus like what

738
01:02:47,845 --> 01:02:56,980
is now capable, not just even between charging and charging availability, but then also
like that pack goes in my model Y is smaller and goes farther than that thing ever did.

739
01:02:57,981 --> 01:03:07,346
And so I am definitely hopeful and I think we are pretty much at that point already, but
within I think the next few years and especially with some of the things that Lucid's even

740
01:03:07,346 --> 01:03:11,888
talking about bringing kind of a lower priced car to market Rivian's kind of talking about
that.

741
01:03:11,969 --> 01:03:16,411
They're still expensive, but they are

742
01:03:18,111 --> 01:03:27,271
There's definitely a path to like this being pretty unstoppable and a pretty practical
option, which I think there already is.

743
01:03:27,271 --> 01:03:33,211
I think it's much more so if you own your own home or you can charge either at work or at
your house.

744
01:03:33,211 --> 01:03:38,511
The argument pretty quickly makes it pretty easy to have a one car EV.

745
01:03:38,511 --> 01:03:48,071
But I think once you get to that solid 300 plus mile range and charging becomes more
prevalent than it really is.

746
01:03:48,403 --> 01:03:49,709
kind of inevitable.

747
01:03:49,709 --> 01:03:52,901
Some of it is a little bit of price, but we're so close already.

748
01:03:53,749 --> 01:04:01,533
There's one other argument for having those ranges in terms of battery size and charging
speeds.

749
01:04:01,533 --> 01:04:05,206
You're becoming much less dependent on public charging infrastructure.

750
01:04:05,206 --> 01:04:09,218
And that is going to become an issue, in my opinion.

751
01:04:09,218 --> 01:04:20,804
And if you have peak times that you get to the point where you need to queue at a charging
station with higher charging speed on the infrastructure and on the vehicles, you also

752
01:04:20,804 --> 01:04:22,345
have a higher throughput.

753
01:04:22,569 --> 01:04:23,052
Right.

754
01:04:23,052 --> 01:04:27,270
means you have also much lower need for charging infrastructure.

755
01:04:28,655 --> 01:04:33,079
Once we got to a state where more vehicles are on road.

756
01:04:33,079 --> 01:04:34,679
But no, I agree with you.

757
01:04:34,679 --> 01:04:42,779
Like I think it is a little annoying to me that I see so many of the American specifically
to call them out.

758
01:04:42,779 --> 01:04:49,779
Evie maker, like I get that there's a difference between obviously the peak charge rate
and then like the kind of constant charge rate.

759
01:04:49,779 --> 01:04:52,239
But it does still seem silly to me.

760
01:04:52,239 --> 01:04:54,839
So many of them like top out 150.

761
01:04:55,179 --> 01:04:56,188
And I

762
01:04:56,188 --> 01:05:00,337
you benchmark them usually if you look at them?

763
01:05:00,719 --> 01:05:01,860
Do you look at?

764
01:05:03,077 --> 01:05:13,026
That is also something I think needs to be kind of I think there's two big things from the
consumer perspective that I think needs to be changed in the US one is I think the EPA I

765
01:05:13,026 --> 01:05:22,354
think actually this is global I think all company ratings are Kind of international
ratings whether it's EPA or whatever are two

766
01:05:24,415 --> 01:05:27,855
too low or I mean too optimistic.

767
01:05:27,855 --> 01:05:28,715
Yeah.

768
01:05:28,715 --> 01:05:34,095
And it really should just be how far can this car go at 70 miles an hour?

769
01:05:34,135 --> 01:05:42,015
And I would even say up to 80 miles per hour, which I realize is really aggressive, but we
do have highways here in the U S that do that.

770
01:05:42,015 --> 01:05:46,235
And I think that's kind of like, I exactly.

771
01:05:46,335 --> 01:05:46,915
Exactly.

772
01:05:46,915 --> 01:05:47,395
Exactly.

773
01:05:47,395 --> 01:05:47,815
Exactly.

774
01:05:47,815 --> 01:05:52,835
And I think it's better to have like an overly aggressive, like worst case scenario.

775
01:05:53,171 --> 01:05:55,651
so people are feeling like, I've only got 300 miles of range.

776
01:05:55,651 --> 01:05:58,971
Well, it turns out then you can go 350 or something.

777
01:05:59,251 --> 01:06:08,081
if it's always tied to like this worst case scenario versus like, well, if it's 50 % on
the highway, 50 % city, and I just don't think that that's realistic.

778
01:06:08,081 --> 01:06:09,711
And that's not really the range people want to know.

779
01:06:09,711 --> 01:06:12,741
So I think one, there needs to be stricter testing.

780
01:06:12,741 --> 01:06:14,111
And I think.

781
01:06:14,111 --> 01:06:15,711
What everyone wants to know is highway range.

782
01:06:15,711 --> 01:06:18,531
So it needs to be specifically just highway range.

783
01:06:18,751 --> 01:06:23,771
and then the second thing is just around having a higher charge rates.

784
01:06:24,481 --> 01:06:34,251
I think we need to get to kind of like that two and a half to three C charge rate, which
we're seeing be an option for a lot of, cell battery cell makers.

785
01:06:34,991 --> 01:06:43,291
and if you have a 70 to 80 kilowatt hour pack, then you're pretty much inherently going to
be at the 200 kilowatt plus, which I kind of think.

786
01:06:43,519 --> 01:06:46,399
is the norm, like needs to be the norm.

787
01:06:46,399 --> 01:06:48,699
If not closer to 300.

788
01:06:48,699 --> 01:06:50,299
I think so too.

789
01:06:50,299 --> 01:06:50,745
Yeah.

790
01:06:50,745 --> 01:07:00,745
we now see like the next year, like we see now Mercedes -Benz W for example, launching as
well the 800 volt architecture for the vehicles, which Kia and Hyundai have out already

791
01:07:00,745 --> 01:07:02,825
since a few years.

792
01:07:02,825 --> 01:07:06,865
And with that, we all also expect to see higher charge rates.

793
01:07:06,865 --> 01:07:16,691
And I'm really hoping that also to, I'm curious if that is also then again, only starting
in the premium segment or who will be the first one to bring it down.

794
01:07:16,879 --> 01:07:26,847
Well, I think 800 volt architecture is really cool, but it's only really cool once you
have a battery pack that's like 90 kilowatt hours or bigger.

795
01:07:26,847 --> 01:07:31,707
Once you're in a smaller pack than that, it actually isn't that much of a difference when
it comes to charge speed.

796
01:07:31,707 --> 01:07:36,047
the big reason you see a lot of, and some of this is also supplier based.

797
01:07:36,047 --> 01:07:43,777
I think, think in inherently the voltage will probably go higher than what we're seeing
for 400 nominal around these smaller packs.

798
01:07:43,777 --> 01:07:46,607
But I don't think it's going to go as high as 800.

799
01:07:47,087 --> 01:07:50,397
an interesting pack actually is the new Macon that came out.

800
01:07:50,397 --> 01:07:56,057
think that's a really great car, but it's nominal is even though they claim it's 800 volt
tech, it's 600 volts.

801
01:07:56,057 --> 01:07:56,801
It goes.

802
01:07:56,801 --> 01:07:59,081
nowhere near 800 volt architecture.

803
01:07:59,081 --> 01:08:06,761
And so I think that's, and I'm not trying to poo poo, but I, I, the big reason there was
always this 400, 800 volt wasn't to do even with EVs.

804
01:08:06,761 --> 01:08:12,581
It had to do with just American supply chain and what we build products to.

805
01:08:12,641 --> 01:08:14,501
And I think,

806
01:08:15,007 --> 01:08:22,047
What we just need to see is more chargers that are capable of having large bands of
voltage supply and then building.

807
01:08:22,047 --> 01:08:28,527
I think the kind of the good and bad to the loose it was they built this really cool 923
volt specific thing.

808
01:08:28,527 --> 01:08:33,027
That's great for efficiency, especially because it has a big big pack in it.

809
01:08:33,027 --> 01:08:36,547
But then a lot of the chargers have had issues with that.

810
01:08:36,547 --> 01:08:39,007
And I think that also will change.

811
01:08:39,047 --> 01:08:42,911
But yeah, to me, it's more.

812
01:08:42,911 --> 01:08:47,631
Because you can kind of play around with the voltage and current in a battery pack how you
want.

813
01:08:49,271 --> 01:08:57,831
But yeah, I think the 800 volt thing is cool, but it's really more of a you really notice
it once you're getting to a bigger pack that Delta.

814
01:08:57,959 --> 01:09:06,619
really like the measurement of miles of range added at a certain time because it gives you
the combination of efficiency and charge rate.

815
01:09:06,619 --> 01:09:11,419
say that's a little annoying is manufacturers don't have a standard for that.

816
01:09:11,419 --> 01:09:18,884
Some do zero to 80, some do 10 to 80 and I think the most common is like 20 to 80 percent.

817
01:09:18,884 --> 01:09:20,987
And you actually don't really need to talk about percentage.

818
01:09:20,987 --> 01:09:22,348
You just need to talk about miles.

819
01:09:22,348 --> 01:09:28,184
Because percentage lets you hide how little mile you get out of a percent.

820
01:09:29,199 --> 01:09:31,459
And that, that, you know, you're a hundred percent right.

821
01:09:31,459 --> 01:09:35,729
Cause that kind of does go back to like the 150 kilowatt rate.

822
01:09:35,729 --> 01:09:37,589
was like, well, at 30 minutes of this.

823
01:09:37,589 --> 01:09:41,479
I think it really should be like, okay, honestly, I don't even think it should be 30
minutes.

824
01:09:41,479 --> 01:09:46,079
It's like in 15 minutes, 20 minutes tops, like how many, how many miles of range can I
add?

825
01:09:46,079 --> 01:09:48,065
I think that is what's most important.

826
01:09:48,065 --> 01:09:52,505
I think there's a really nice index by P3.

827
01:09:52,505 --> 01:09:55,305
I think it's less consumer favorable.

828
01:09:55,445 --> 01:09:58,005
P3 is a European consultancy.

829
01:09:58,005 --> 01:10:09,185
And what they measure is what can the car actually recharge in terms of miles in 20
minutes and divide it through 300 kilometers in that case.

830
01:10:09,185 --> 01:10:10,865
I don't know the numbers.

831
01:10:10,865 --> 01:10:16,193
But what they want to check is how close can the car get.

832
01:10:16,193 --> 01:10:28,093
in terms of recharging the distance that you can travel within 20 minutes and setting the
goal as like if you have reached 300 kilometers is 1 .0 score.

833
01:10:28,093 --> 01:10:30,033
If it's below, it's not good.

834
01:10:30,033 --> 01:10:31,893
If it's above, it's getting better.

835
01:10:31,893 --> 01:10:35,293
And that's where you kind of factor in all the difference.

836
01:10:35,340 --> 01:10:37,841
a really interesting benchmark and I kind of like it.

837
01:10:37,841 --> 01:10:41,383
I don't think it's going to be, I think it's almost too complicated, obviously.

838
01:10:41,383 --> 01:10:42,513
Yeah, exactly, exactly.

839
01:10:42,513 --> 01:10:46,865
But that is a really interesting way to, as an EV nerd, I like that.

840
01:10:47,346 --> 01:10:50,747
As a consumer approach ability, yeah, who knows.

841
01:10:51,192 --> 01:10:54,545
I had another EV nerd question for you.

842
01:10:55,386 --> 01:10:59,330
The Tesla trip planner is pretty good, probably the best out there.

843
01:10:59,330 --> 01:11:03,434
Why even use a better route planner if you have a Tesla navigation system?

844
01:11:03,817 --> 01:11:05,468
That's a good question.

845
01:11:05,468 --> 01:11:07,610
so great question actually.

846
01:11:07,610 --> 01:11:11,323
I what I like about a better route planner the Tesla planners really good.

847
01:11:11,323 --> 01:11:23,162
I would say it's actually a little conservative for it kind of usually wants you to stay
there longer than I would stay there and charged a higher percentage which I think for

848
01:11:23,162 --> 01:11:27,926
someone who's new to an EV they it makes it them feel so comfortable with it.

849
01:11:29,816 --> 01:11:35,790
And sometimes it's also just like I'm trying to be as like efficient or try and get as
many miles as possible.

850
01:11:35,790 --> 01:11:38,456
So I'm kind of like comparing the two to see which is which.

851
01:11:40,083 --> 01:11:42,174
But I think it's such a great baseline.

852
01:11:42,174 --> 01:11:47,327
What I love about it specifically though isn't even that it tells you what charger to go.

853
01:11:47,327 --> 01:11:55,291
It's how much information you have about the charger that you can just pull up like, okay,
it's this many kilowatt cents per kilowatt hour.

854
01:11:55,291 --> 01:12:00,713
There are this many cars there and then there's this many cars going there right now.

855
01:12:01,974 --> 01:12:03,815
Cause that's been super,

856
01:12:04,423 --> 01:12:09,647
when there's been like a holiday weekend or something and I'm on a road trip too, which I
try to avoid, but it happens.

857
01:12:09,647 --> 01:12:19,083
There's been so many ways I save myself like without having to go to one that there's a
line at, it admittedly does a really good job of like rerouting you to other ones.

858
01:12:19,083 --> 01:12:20,344
It's like, no, don't go to that one.

859
01:12:20,344 --> 01:12:21,795
There's too many people.

860
01:12:23,357 --> 01:12:32,423
I think there's always room for improvement, but yeah, it is almost getting to the point
in some ways where it's like too smart, where it'll start kind of figuring out things.

861
01:12:32,935 --> 01:12:35,347
Like you'll, you'll be like, why is it telling me to go this one?

862
01:12:35,347 --> 01:12:38,520
And then you're like, cause there's a bunch of people here and all this stuff.

863
01:12:38,840 --> 01:12:49,590
but yeah, that's the majority of the reason, is I just kind of like to, cut it a little
closer than the Tesla one is.

864
01:12:49,590 --> 01:12:58,218
And it would be kind of nice if I could just kind of dial that in, or if they have like
the pro road trip, EV option or something where it cut those things closer.

865
01:12:58,218 --> 01:12:59,759
And then the second.

866
01:12:59,973 --> 01:13:01,204
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

867
01:13:01,204 --> 01:13:01,714
Exactly.

868
01:13:01,714 --> 01:13:10,348
And then the second thing is, what I like about a better route planner is like you said,
you can just go, what does it look like when I'm using winter tires and all this stuff?

869
01:13:10,348 --> 01:13:18,872
And when I'm trying to plan like a multi, a couple thousand road mile road trip, I find a
better route planner easier to do that than it is.

870
01:13:19,313 --> 01:13:24,335
the Tesla one, but day to day, yeah, the, the Tesla one solid.

871
01:13:24,873 --> 01:13:29,055
One insight maybe from Europe here on that, because my dad is driving a Tesla Model Y as
well.

872
01:13:29,055 --> 01:13:31,356
And I also don't like that.

873
01:13:31,356 --> 01:13:38,699
I mean, it's really good, but I share your, let's say, thought why you would use another
one.

874
01:13:38,699 --> 01:13:47,292
And the other thing which I have been observing in Europe is that Tesla is, let's say from
the location, always like to be location.

875
01:13:47,292 --> 01:13:48,543
It's off the highway.

876
01:13:48,543 --> 01:13:53,739
So if you really want to go fast from A to B, you rather not use the Tesla network.

877
01:13:53,739 --> 01:14:02,171
First of all, because they have usually higher charging powers, which you can also utilize
with Tesla if it's not the newest generation of dispensers.

878
01:14:02,331 --> 01:14:10,054
And you have less of an additional time to leave the interstate and get to the station.

879
01:14:10,054 --> 01:14:15,335
For example, in some location in France or in Italy, you have these toll passes.

880
01:14:15,335 --> 01:14:18,946
We need to get out of the highway and then get back on.

881
01:14:18,946 --> 01:14:22,687
And then it can easily add up like five minutes to your charging break.

882
01:14:22,687 --> 01:14:25,341
while the others are located at the highway itself.

883
01:14:25,804 --> 01:14:34,271
And those networks are not really in the navigation system, and they don't route you to
data, which makes sense because business -wise.

884
01:14:34,271 --> 01:14:36,511
an interesting, yeah, there was also an interesting thing.

885
01:14:36,511 --> 01:14:37,730
I knew they were testing.

886
01:14:37,730 --> 01:14:47,791
I don't know if it's actually rolled out where Tesla was going to start putting in like
when it plans a trip, put in more like public open ones, but only if it had like a rating

887
01:14:47,791 --> 01:14:51,611
of like what I guarantee you, like 80 % or something.

888
01:14:51,771 --> 01:14:54,731
Like they had their own, kind of like what Rivian's do.

889
01:14:54,974 --> 01:14:59,565
The twist is they do show them, but like in a grail scale.

890
01:14:59,565 --> 01:15:06,207
And only if they have the certain reliability, because Tesla vehicles have been charging
there, they show them.

891
01:15:06,207 --> 01:15:09,218
But they never include that automatically in your routing.

892
01:15:09,218 --> 01:15:15,259
And the thing is, because they don't show them previously, most Tesla drivers don't go
there.

893
01:15:15,259 --> 01:15:21,201
Plus probably they also like the convenience aspect of their Tesla closed ecosystem
experience.

894
01:15:21,201 --> 01:15:24,842
Yeah, well, and I, had been told that that was going to change.

895
01:15:24,842 --> 01:15:29,663
It's interesting to me that that hasn't changed actually to at least like have the option
to add them or not.

896
01:15:29,663 --> 01:15:35,195
Kind of like how you can add whether you want to take the options that have like toll
roads or stuff.

897
01:15:36,175 --> 01:15:37,515
that'd be cool if they did have that.

898
01:15:37,515 --> 01:15:41,517
So you could just kind of flex in here in the U S they don't even have the option.

899
01:15:41,517 --> 01:15:44,767
You have to manually like search, public charging.

900
01:15:44,767 --> 01:15:48,978
It doesn't even have the great option, which I think would be really cool.

901
01:15:49,099 --> 01:15:50,059
But,

902
01:15:51,027 --> 01:15:59,456
Yeah, just I think also on the West Coast, this is kind of changed, especially in the
Northwest where I live.

903
01:15:59,456 --> 01:16:06,742
Just for a long time, there wasn't the same level of high power public fast charging
density that there was for the Tesla ones anyway.

904
01:16:07,223 --> 01:16:16,746
It's only generally been like when I go on a road trip and then when I'd go on a road trip
I just ran into reliability issues anyway, but it is changing So I am really kind of

905
01:16:16,746 --> 01:16:18,046
optimistic about that and you're right.

906
01:16:18,046 --> 01:16:28,199
I would like to see them have that option at least So I could do that I'm sure they
probably will someday but obviously they got all sorts of other things going on and you're

907
01:16:28,199 --> 01:16:34,811
right for their own business model and to be honest with you the other interesting thing
too is just how Expensive some of them have gotten

908
01:16:36,383 --> 01:16:45,263
Whereas here in the Northwest, there's some chargers and now some of it's also time to use
that are cheaper than home charging.

909
01:16:46,023 --> 01:16:48,823
It's like from, I think it's like 10 PM till six in the morning.

910
01:16:48,823 --> 01:16:51,363
But I pulled into one once and I was like, wait, what the hell?

911
01:16:51,363 --> 01:16:53,723
It's eight cents a kilowatt hour.

912
01:16:54,163 --> 01:16:59,603
And I think I pay 11 cents at home and that's still considered really cheap.

913
01:17:00,023 --> 01:17:01,603
And that blew me away.

914
01:17:01,603 --> 01:17:02,833
And so there's a couple like that.

915
01:17:02,833 --> 01:17:06,015
They're just insanely cheap that

916
01:17:06,015 --> 01:17:09,115
Unfortunately, the electrify America's and others aren't.

917
01:17:09,115 --> 01:17:19,415
And it seems like, especially once you start going east, some of them now, like the, I
think it's really cool what the GM energy and EV go ones are, but they're like anywhere

918
01:17:19,415 --> 01:17:30,115
from like 50 to even like 65 cents a kilowatt hour, which, I guess maybe I'm just being
cheap at that point, but that's, that's, that's been a little of the mentality at least.

919
01:17:30,315 --> 01:17:30,961
Yeah.

920
01:17:30,961 --> 01:17:32,333
happy about those prices.

921
01:17:32,333 --> 01:17:37,180
We have stations that cost you up to a dollar or more per kilowatt hour.

922
01:17:37,180 --> 01:17:39,585
And then it's not a case to own a V.

923
01:17:39,585 --> 01:17:41,416
For sure, no, I completely agree.

924
01:17:41,416 --> 01:17:48,430
Yeah, no, and I mean, we're really spoiled here in the Northwest because we have so much
cheap hydropower.

925
01:17:48,971 --> 01:17:52,353
That's a big part of reason our rates are just so much lower in general.

926
01:17:52,432 --> 01:17:58,697
But yeah, it's an interesting thing to see and there's definitely a lot of growing pains.

927
01:17:58,697 --> 01:18:00,718
I think it's all gonna get solved.

928
01:18:01,747 --> 01:18:04,348
But no, I just want to say thank you both for coming on.

929
01:18:04,348 --> 01:18:11,492
And it was really fun to kind of talk with you guys and kind of live vicariously through
the video, which I'll have in the link for today's show notes for those.

930
01:18:11,492 --> 01:18:13,042
And I highly recommend everyone watch it.

931
01:18:13,042 --> 01:18:15,573
It is really just fun and entertaining to watch you guys go on the trip.

932
01:18:15,573 --> 01:18:22,386
And it made me want to do a road trip again here soon across the U S so I'll have to do it
and maybe I'll update and say, damn it.

933
01:18:22,386 --> 01:18:24,257
Why didn't I get a lucid or something?

934
01:18:24,257 --> 01:18:27,879
I'm complaining and say you guys had it way too easy.

935
01:18:28,422 --> 01:18:30,123
Beat our record next time.

936
01:18:30,123 --> 01:18:33,426
I don't know if I'm going to do that, but that is tempting.

937
01:18:33,426 --> 01:18:40,171
think maybe I'll wait a year or two before I try that until there's a few more chargers
out there.

938
01:18:40,612 --> 01:18:45,836
honestly, Janak, Julius, this was so much fun and thank you so much for coming on today.

939
01:18:46,897 --> 01:18:50,160
We'll have to talk soon and I hope you guys do something like this.

940
01:18:50,160 --> 01:18:54,703
I'd love to see one in Europe too to kind of see as a comparison road trip over there.

941
01:18:54,823 --> 01:18:59,387
guess the Lucids are just now coming to Europe as like an option.

942
01:18:59,605 --> 01:19:03,373
think they have been for around a year, a year probably more.

943
01:19:03,502 --> 01:19:06,648
Yeah, they're selling in Europe.

944
01:19:06,648 --> 01:19:12,428
Not as high volumes as in North America, but there are customers driving Lucid's in Europe
as well.

945
01:19:12,819 --> 01:19:13,600
Very cool.

946
01:19:13,600 --> 01:19:17,295
I hope you guys do that soon, but totally understand the logistics behind that either way.

947
01:19:17,295 --> 01:19:20,249
But Janick, Julius, thank you so much.

948
01:19:20,249 --> 01:19:21,430
Talk to you soon.

949
01:19:21,604 --> 01:19:22,177
Thanks, Chase.

950
01:19:22,177 --> 01:19:23,326
was nice talking to you, bye.

951
01:19:28,466 --> 01:19:37,431
We hope you enjoyed our conversation with Janick Metzner and Julius Wilhelm, founders of
the electric avenue newsletter about their record set and run for charging an EV on a

952
01:19:37,431 --> 01:19:44,325
cannonball run in a lucid air from the challenges of charging infrastructure to their
unique insights on EV efficiency.

953
01:19:44,325 --> 01:19:47,907
It's clear that the future of electric road trips is incredibly bright.

954
01:19:47,907 --> 01:19:52,850
Whether you're planning your own EV adventure or just curious about the state of charging
across the U S and Europe.

955
01:19:52,850 --> 01:19:57,872
This episode gave us a firsthand look at what's possible with the latest in EV technology.

956
01:19:58,076 --> 01:20:03,160
If you found today's conversation inspiring, don't forget to share this episode with
someone who would enjoy it as well.

957
01:20:03,160 --> 01:20:07,664
And if you haven't already, please take a moment to leave a pause, a review on our podcast
page.

958
01:20:07,664 --> 01:20:13,289
goes a long way in helping us continue to bring you fascinating stories from the world of
clean energy and electric vehicles.

959
01:20:13,289 --> 01:20:17,952
Thanks for tuning in and until next week, this is the grid connections podcast signing
off.