Road Trip in a VW Buzz: Success or Train Wreck

[CarTechGeek]

That be so, but I'm saying why is it that Tesla outside of NA use CCS?

In the EU there was a 2014 directive that charging stations had to include CCS. They could still have other plugs but they had to have CCS.

At that point, there was little point in maintaining a second standard when they had to build CCS into future Superchargers anyway. You can't win a standards war, when you are including the competing standard in your charger.

So they just went full CCS in Europe.

 

[Mousehunter]

Watched the video a few weeks ago, but have been busy and not spending much time here. Lots of things led to the trip from hell. First problem is the base range of the Buzz. I was super excited about it early on when the concept was being released. I think a lot of commentators thought it would have a 350 mile range. When the published range of 240 miles came out, I lost all interest. I do not know all the factors that combined to make that decision - probably some combination of understanding that it would help put the vehicle in the price range they wanted while handling the needs of virtually all customers. But it failed to understand the US tradition of road trips. The Bus was a road trip vehicle, and 240 miles of range, just does not say road trip to me... I live 90 miles from several major cities. Easy trips with my current vehicles would require extra steps to insure a 240 mile range vehicle could make them.

But then we can add in the fact that under normal driving conditions, that 240 mile range is actually 190 miles. The we can add in the drop in range due to the driving conditions, then we can add in that the driver was wanting to keep in the 20-80% charge window - possibly the weather also messed with charging speed, plus the non-Tesla charging network is not what we all wish it was (perhaps because it was created to satisfy goverment mandates rather than to support EV sales (Tesla understand that there charges need 99.9% uptime to keep people buying their vehicles).

I am not overly worried about Scout - other than it shows how a great EV release can miss the mark. Hopefully it will encourage Scout to hit their range targets. We might use our vehicles 99% of the time for short trips - but we want to do road trips too.

 

[Derek]

Thank you and I agree, much appreciated. Your points are definitely valid. Part of our problem is that vacation time comes at a premium and the other is that we have a lot of adventures on our to-do list. Another is that we cannot financially support the diverse amount of vehicles that we wish we could own so we need do-all Swiss Army Knife type of vehicles. Yet another is that a lot of these adventures have a lot of open space to travel to get to so it takes time. Trying to fit a 2500 mile road trip into a week or two doesn’t always make for a leisurely drive unfortunately.

Anyway, I’m still rooting for Scout Motors and I am hoping they’ll come to market with the home run that I think they will. It wouldn’t hurt for the charging infrastructure and my ability to take longer vacations to improve over the next couple of years.

Side question (I’m still trying to become more knowledgeable with all of this): where do you find yourself charging most (what network) on road trips? Or does it simply depend on where you’re going and whether or not all of the networks fall on that route? Or do you seek out specific networks and change your route accordingly? Secondary question if you don’t mind is - which network do you expect you’ll be charging your Scout at most often?

I'll answer this, but hope the other person does as well. I expect to mostly charge at home, like 99% of the time. The second most used charge would be at my destination (I have family 2 hours away in Longview, for example, so charging at their house would be a normal thing.) For true charging on the road, I would look at the Tesla network. Particularly the very fast charge stations out there (350Kw), if the scout is build to charge from these, it's a pretty fast way to add a bunch of power. Realistically, with the Harvester option, I would only ever bother to charge when we stop for the day, I would just start with a full battery from home (and a full tank of gas) and keep adding gas until I got to where I'm staying, then charge there. MANY airbnbs are starting to have EV chargers, so this is an easy thing to do (just plug it in while you unload the truck, just like I would do when I pull into my own garage at home.

For towing, I do worry that you'll be disspointed to have to stop for gas every 2.5 hours or so, but only you can answer that. Since I won't be towing often, it's 7 hours from when I pull out of the driveway before I have to add gas or electric, and honestly, we'll have stopped at least for lunch in that time, if not a couple of potty/gas stops and one short, but sit down meal. That almost gets me to Medford without stopping for gas or charge, and on longer trips we often stop there anyway for the night to get the kids out of the car and let them swim at the hotel/etc.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Side question (I’m still trying to become more knowledgeable with all of this): where do you find yourself charging most (what network) on road trips? Or does it simply depend on where you’re going and whether or not all of the networks fall on that route? Or do you seek out specific networks and change your route accordingly? Secondary question if you don’t mind is - which network do you expect you’ll be charging your Scout at most often?

I don't worry about which network I might end up charging on. I do the same planning I did with an ICE: take a look at possible routes. If I like one best, we plan on that route, but remain flexible for the return trip. This part of the planning includes making sure there are chargers spaced about every 2.5-3 hours or so. I use A Better Route Planner app for this since it is very conservative about charging and suggests more charging stops than necessary. ABRP has a filter to remove networks, but I never filter out networks; I do filter non-compatible plugs. I don't have any brand loyalty, and I don't find one network to be especially better than another. Brand-T does usually have more plugs at any given station, so we do tend to go there as often as the other networks combined, but it's not a requirement for us to have one on our route.

I will be charging all of my EVs at Electrify America and brand-T charging stations most often since those two have the highest density of chargers we encounter on road trips.

We did a 3,300 mile round trip road trip for work and Thanksgiving. Our final accumulated time on the road was no more than it would have been in an ICE. The slightly longer stops were offset by the fact that we could refuel overnight. And with the crowding we saw at some of the smaller gas stations nearby to our chargers, I could be convinced we would have spent longer waiting to wait in line for gas, get gas, find parking, get food, than we did to plug in and get food.

 

[TreeKiller]

I read an article earlier this year about fairly late model Lexus models that were having that same problem inoperable hardware due to cellular networks being retired. All that hardware being made useless. I don't know why they did not/ or would not make it upgradable.

Happened to my 2017 Jeep Grand Cherokee 2 years ago when the vehicle was just 5 years old. My Trailhawk came with lots of engine / accessory / transfer case / suspension monitoring onboard menus, app based remote start and "send & go", all of which stopped working when 3g was sunset. I really liked those features. Sucked to lose them.

 

[GatorScout]

Happened to my 2017 Jeep Grand Cherokee 2 years ago when the vehicle was just 5 years old. My Trailhawk came with lots of engine / accessory / transfer case / suspension monitoring onboard menus, app based remote start and "send & go", all of which stopped working when 3g was sunset. I really liked those features. Sucked to lose them.

I have this issue with my 2016 VW Golf R. I hope Scout plans for these problems with upgradable communication HW from the start.