I'm going to try to gas light myself about batteries and range

[SpaceEVDriver]

Ok here's some good news, with research those rural areas can be conquered even Big Bend as long as you're okay charging overnight on an L2 at a hotel/RV park somewhere. Say you lived in Midland-Odessa. Drive to Terlingua, charge on L2 overnight at an RV park, boom you're good to go. If you feel nervous you could top it off in Alpine while on the way.
View attachment 8927
Having a Level 2 at home is key to success and super easy. All we did was have a 240V outlet installed next to our driveway and simply plug in the charger to that. As for storms causing power outgages, since gas stations also don't work without power either I think it's a moot point.

I was going to mention Big Bend as a relatively scary but ultimately easy visit for a friend of mine who traveled there in their Model S about five years ago. They spent a bunch of time analyzing how they could do it and in the end it was a lot easier than they’d worried.

 

[Chavannigans]

I was going to mention Big Bend as a relatively scary but ultimately easy visit for a friend of mine who traveled there in their Model S about five years ago. They spent a bunch of time analyzing how they could do it and in the end it was a lot easier than they’d worried.

Big Bend Ranch State Park and Big Bend National Park are VERY different in terms of accessibility and how remote the sites are. Though they are butted up against each other which can cause a lot of confusion. I’ve seen a few videos of people camping at the national park in Rivians and other EVs.

Most people go to the National Park and it’s accessible for all vehicles and sites are not too far from resources.

Big Bend Ranch State Park is just a different animal altogether.

Once you reach the main gate, you have about 2-3 hours of washboard roads before you reach the ranger station to check in (which is why most of the park staff live on site), and many access roads to primitive camp sites require high clearance 4x4 vehicles, which are also hours away from the Ranger Station.

We spent a week at BBRSP and didn’t see a single person after we left the Ranger Station. We were uh… let’s just say we didn’t have any tan lines from that trip and walked around freely the entire time. I’m sure a Border Patrol drone pilot had a good time, but it was the most serene experience of my life.

No noise pollution. No light pollution, well a little at the southernmost site on a plateau facing Ojinaga. But it felt like we had the world to ourselves.

That is my type of “adventure”.

My GX460 had around 250 miles of range loaded down and lifted on 33.5” tires, and it was pretty low on fuel by the time we got back into town. 350 miles of range may be fine, but we still haven’t seen the range estimates for aggressive 35” tires either.

I do really want an EV to work. Less maintenance means more time on the couch for me. It just needs to make sense.

Ok here's some good news, with research those rural areas can be conquered even Big Bend as long as you're okay charging overnight on an L2 at a hotel/RV park somewhere. Say you lived in Midland-Odessa. Drive to Terlingua, charge on L2 overnight at an RV park, boom you're good to go. If you feel nervous you could top it off in Alpine while on the way.
View attachment 8927
Having a Level 2 at home is key to success and super easy. All we did was have a 240V outlet installed next to our driveway and simply plug in the charger to that. As for storms causing power outgages, since gas stations also don't work without power either I think it's a moot point.

I believe there is a Level III Tesla charger in Alpine so that would help a lot. It may also be worth breaking it up into two travel days each way. I’m really bad about just hammering down and driving non-stop. I normally leave around 9PM and drive through the night since there is less traffic and ambient temps are cooler.

I have paralyzing anxiety if I don’t spend time going through hypotheticals. It’s bad enough that I often can’t do a new thing unless I have over-analyzed the possibilities.

I spent two years running various models before we bought our first EV. Going from driving hybrids for 20 years to an EV was not without a major amount of anxiety for me. The process involved a lot of reading battery degradation science papers—and a dozen other topics—at one point I wrote a summary of all that I’d read and set it aside for six months so I could come back to it to re-read and analyze it with a fresh perspective. I spent months analyzing what-ifs for on-the-road troubles; creating mathematical models of the costs associated with every little thing related to EV vs ICE; asking people who had EVs what their experiences were; running models of charging scenarios to see if we would be able to make it work.

I also then spent months re-analyzing things because everything looked too good to be true.

In the end, all of that energy expended resulted in very little anxiety while on the road. We’ve had a few times where things could have gone better, but we had also had similar experiences with ICE vehicles.

The Analysis Paralysis is real.

I started shopping and researching our next car two years ago and have changed my mind enough times for my wife to tell me “Buy whatever you want. I will see it when you drive it home.” Poor thing gets constant data dumps from me all the time when I rabbit hole on a new hobby or interest and she was over that saga.

The difference between you and me, is I am a simple rube, and you actually understand the “magic”. But it has to be brutal to be so intelligent and being capable of getting down to the nano-level when you are trying to make a big choice. You probably have exponentially more items on your pros and cons list.

But when you share what you’ve learned with all of us in a way someone with a room temp IQ can understand, we don’t see all of those headaches or appreciate it enough.

So sincerely bro, thank you for that.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

The Analysis Paralysis is real.

I started shopping and researching our next car two years ago and have changed my mind enough times for my wife to tell me “Buy whatever you want. I will see it when you drive it home.” Poor thing gets constant data dumps from me all the time when I rabbit hole on a new hobby or interest and she was over that saga.

The difference between you and me, is I am a simple rube, and you actually understand the “magic”. But it has to be brutal to be so intelligent and being capable of getting down to the nano-level when you are trying to make a big choice. You probably have exponentially more items on your pros and cons list.

But when you share what you’ve learned with all of us in a way someone with a room temp IQ can understand, we don’t see all of those headaches or appreciate it enough.

So sincerely bro, thank you for that.

I’ll separate intelligence and knowledge here.

I have a lot of insomnia- and ADHD-induced knowledge about this stuff, but I guarantee that you have a lot of knowledge about other things that would leave me perplexed. I’m also certain that knowledge about a topic doesn’t necessarily translate to general intelligence.

Finally, I don’t find “IQ” to be a useful metric. I’d rather hang out with good people than “high-IQ” people—I always learn more valuable things from good people.

I’m thankful to be allowed to share what I know, to be allowed to get it wrong when I get it wrong, and to be part of a good community. These are becoming more and more difficult to find.

 

[J Alynn]

Big Bend Ranch State Park and Big Bend National Park are VERY different in terms of accessibility and how remote the sites are. Though they are butted up against each other which can cause a lot of confusion. I’ve seen a few videos of people camping at the national park in Rivians and other EVs.

Most people go to the National Park and it’s accessible for all vehicles and sites are not too far from resources.

Big Bend Ranch State Park is just a different animal altogether.

Once you reach the main gate, you have about 2-3 hours of washboard roads before you reach the ranger station to check in (which is why most of the park staff live on site), and many access roads to primitive camp sites require high clearance 4x4 vehicles, which are also hours away from the Ranger Station.

We spent a week at BBRSP and didn’t see a single person after we left the Ranger Station. We were uh… let’s just say we didn’t have any tan lines from that trip and walked around freely the entire time. I’m sure a Border Patrol drone pilot had a good time, but it was the most serene experience of my life.

No noise pollution. No light pollution, well a little at the southernmost site on a plateau facing Ojinaga. But it felt like we had the world to ourselves.

That is my type of “adventure”.

My GX460 had around 250 miles of range loaded down and lifted on 33.5” tires, and it was pretty low on fuel by the time we got back into town. 350 miles of range may be fine, but we still haven’t seen the range estimates for aggressive 35” tires either.

I do really want an EV to work. Less maintenance means more time on the couch for me. It just needs to make sense.





I believe there is a Level III Tesla charger in Alpine so that would help a lot. It may also be worth breaking it up into two travel days each way. I’m really bad about just hammering down and driving non-stop. I normally leave around 9PM and drive through the night since there is less traffic and ambient temps are cooler. View attachment 8930





The Analysis Paralysis is real.

I started shopping and researching our next car two years ago and have changed my mind enough times for my wife to tell me “Buy whatever you want. I will see it when you drive it home.” Poor thing gets constant data dumps from me all the time when I rabbit hole on a new hobby or interest and she was over that saga.

The difference between you and me, is I am a simple rube, and you actually understand the “magic”. But it has to be brutal to be so intelligent and being capable of getting down to the nano-level when you are trying to make a big choice. You probably have exponentially more items on your pros and cons list.

But when you share what you’ve learned with all of us in a way someone with a room temp IQ can understand, we don’t see all of those headaches or appreciate it enough.

So sincerely bro, thank you for that.

I’m sorry it was overcast on your trip