We just completed a 25-day cross-Country road trip traveling from Philadelphia to Los Angeles along a Southern route via Dallas and returning through Wyoming and South Dakota. We "burned' through 2718 kW to travel 6800 miles averaging 2.5 mpkWh. We charged at DC chargers 38 times and stayed at hotels with destination chargers all but three nights. At our destination we used an L1 charger for the 230 miles of local travel. Our total cost to charge at DC stations and hotel destination chargers was $336 thanks to the free 30-minute EA sessions. I estimated that the total cost would have been about $1600 without the free sessions. Overall we experienced very little drama at charging stations. We only had to call EA once to initiate a charging session.

Our very first charge in Stephens City, VA was interesting. After plugging in the charger the screen blanked with no indication of the speed, duration, or cost of the session. Surprisingly P&C worked and the rate peaked at 205 kW starting with a 21% SoC. A record of the session never made it to the transaction history. On the outbound portion of the trip we saw charging rates above 200 kW two more times.

We started every travel day with a 100% SoC. Estimated range varied from about 230 to 330 miles during the trip. There were two stretches where I drove 10 mph below the speed limit in order to reach the charging stations. The first was between Wichita Falls, TX and an EVgo station in Amarillo, TX where it cost $61.69 to charge. The second instance was between Cheyenne, WY and Chadron, NE which had the only ChargePoint 62 kW DC charger on the way to Mount Rushmore. It was fun to coast for most of the way from Mount Rushmore to the hotel in Rapid City, SD.

We averaged about 400 miles per day. Our hope was to charge at a DC station once a day and then top up to 100% at the hotel destination chargers. But the chargers were not usually located at the halfway point of a travel day so we ended up making two charging stops most days. We encountered no real issues with chargers until we reached California. This is where we saw between 25% and 50% of the stations not working and a queue of cars waiting to charge. Fortunately, we only used DC chargers three times while we were in CA. We were concerned about the scarcity of DC chargers in Wyoming and South Dakota. There were literally no other cars charging at our stops in UT, WY, and SD. I think the drivers in those States realize EVs are not the best option, especially in the Winter when the Interstates are subject to being closed during snow storms.

 

Wow! You sure like to drive!! Nice write up, however. Great to hear that things like this can, in general, be done with, apparently less "drama" than in prior years.
Did you let your hotel destination chargers go right to 100% during the night? Or did you let it go to 80 or 90% and then top off the last 10% in the AM before departure?

We leave on a 3600km drive to Athens tomorrow. Our first long drive with this car and with an EV. Actually, we only drive from Sweden to Venice and then we we go on a 1 1/2 day ferry to Patras, Greece, leaving only about a 3 hour drive to our final destination. So the actual driving part will be more like 2200km.
I am anxious to see how Electric Intelligence works for this trip. Being our first long trip with an EV, I have planned a rather leisurely trip from Sweden to Venice, allowing lots of extra time to recover, if anything goes wrong. If nothing goes wrong, we'll simply do some extra sight-seeing. One stop will be the MB museum in Stuttgart!

 

We charged to 100% at the hotel chargers with the hopes that we could get by with one DC charging stop the next day. As it turns out we made two DC charging stops on days when hotel destination chargers were availablle and three stops on the three days when the hotels did not have chargers. We finally got by with one DC charging stop on the last day of the trip when we drove 410 miles. We usually charged to 90% at DC charging stops unless other EVs were waiting to use the stations.

We stopped at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Vance, AL only to find that it has been permanently closed and is now a training center.


Closed MB Museum.

 

Love the results of your red-trim project!! Subtle, but still makes a statement.

 

I recently did a long road trip - from northern California to Dallas, Texas (to see the total solar eclipse) and back - in my EQS 580 SUV. I had no problems with Electrify America chargers during my trip, except for a handful of locations in cities (Bakersfield CA, Phoenix, and Oklahoma City) where all of the working chargers were in use. When this happened, I just drove instead to a nearby ChargePoint charger and settled for paying a few dollars to charge. Like the OP, I found that - in more rural locations - Electrify America chargers were usually almost empty when I arrived. And they were well-spaced on the freeways.

A few times I stayed at hotels/motels with (free) Tesla destination chargers, and charged from those overnight (using a TeslaTap Mini adaptor). And once - in Moab, Utah - I charged (using the Tesla iPhone app) at a Tesla Supercharger that had a Magic Dock adapter for CCS vehicles. It was a little bit funky (I had to park my car at a strange angle to get the cable to reach), but it worked.

My only setback (not charging related) was getting a flat tire in a rural area NW of Fort Worth TX, finding that the Tirefit canister did not work - likely because of the foam insert (for noise reduction) in my tire - and having to get my car transported to a tire repair shop.

Overall I was very happy. I bought the EQS SUV specifically so I could go on long road trips with my mountain bike, and it did its job perfectly.

 

how do you find TeslaTap Mini adaptor) and Tesla chargers that will have magic docks or
charge EQS?

 

The TeslaTap Mini adaptor worked well at Tesla 'Destination Chargers' (which you'll find at some hotels). However, this will not work at a Tesla Supercharger.

At a Tesla Supercharger, to charge an EQS, the Supercharger needs to be one that has a 'Magic Dock' to support CCS charging. I found one of these in Moab, Utah. This worked OK for me (I needed to use the Tesla iPhone app), but I needed to park my EQS at a weird angle in order to charge it, because the charging cable was too short otherwise. Also, the procedure to expose the CCS Magic Dock plug was a bit strange; I needed to push the plug inwards, before pulling it outwards to remove it from its holder. It worked for me eventually.

 

Our EQS 580 SUV is hands-down, the most comfortable trip car we've ever owned. The seats are very agronomic and do not fatigue your back and behind as quickly as some other cars we've owned.

As for charging at public Fast Chargers, that's hit and miss. I sure hope MB doesn't;t back away from NACS and soon has a deal in place with Tesla.

 

Getting 2.5 miles per kWh is pretty impressive for such a big vehicle on a cross-country trip.

 

We just did a trip to the Finger Lakes (400 miles round trip) and average 3.1 miles per kWh.

 

Even though the 6800 mile average was 2.5 mpkWh, there were days when the mileage deviated significantly from this value. In the mountains driving across Wyoming we were only getting about 1.7 mpkWh over a few hundred miles. On the last 400 mile segment of the trip between Cleveland and Philadelphia we averaged better than 3.0 mpkWh.

 

Did you try the ADAS on this trip? I recently took a long trip on the highway and had a few scares when the car decided to take the offramp at 80mph.

 

I used the adaptive cruise control most of the time. But I don’t use the steering assist or lane keep assist features since I don’t like the excessive brake dust on rear wheels when those features are turned on.

I experienced a few scares where the EQS would suddenly slow down in stretches where the posted speed limit for trucks was much lower than cars.

My wife sitting in the passenger seat frequently reminded me to turn off the turn signal since she could see the blinking arrows which are obscured by the steering wheel.

 

I just completed my experimental drive on my EQS580: 840 miles RT, 100% starting MN to Chicago 7.5 hours including 2 EA 30-minute DC charges, driving around and doing errants in Chicago's suburbs for 6 hours, driving back with resting and charging 2 EA 30-minute DC charges... total 22.5 hours, 22% remaining, and $0.00 for energy . So it's very doable to drive road trip in EQS for straight shoot point A to point B around 1100-1300 ( eg, MN to Phila, PA or MN to Houston, TX, etc...) and those will be in my future trips. Why drive not flight, someone may ask? I just love to drive and stop at places. I concur with others that EQS is so comfortable and so smooth quiet... It's the best marvel machinary. See you next trip. Feedback on charging stations: EAs at Walmarts are hit and misses, 2 chargers non-functioned at 2 Walmarts; eg, approaching with 2/4 available, however, the 2 are reported available are non-functioned with no reason, both showing "this station is idle for 590 hours" !!! I tried to plug in but nothing happenned, luckly other drivers just finishing and I was able to charge my SUV with 3 minutes waiting. Twice and lucky twice... waiting time nothing at all... but my anxiety and blood pressure indeed raised a little bit. That's my experience with EAs. Anyway, I am so glad to see the progressing infastructures and hopefully MB will put more charging stations around the country.

 

I look forward to reading your report for the MN to PA trip. I will be taking more or less the same trip during the Winter months except I will be starting in Philadelphia. My 2-year free EA sessions will no longer be available and I am hoping that the Tesla Superchargers are online for MB in the next six months.