Tesla L2 Charging

Our road trip planning since leasing the ID.4 now includes charging stops. In the past, our stops were planned on the fly as we needed gas or a stop for restroom break or a meal. Now, we spend much more time considering and planning charging stops to coincide with a meal or extended restroom/dog walk stop. Since we have the free Electrify America charging plan, these stops revolve around EA stations wherever possible, which further complicates our planning.

When selecting a hotel for example, I search using a EV charging filter. For example, our recent East to West Coast trip had 7 overnight stays of which 5 hotels had EV charging available. 

While 5 out of 7 stays had charging, what we discovered only too late was that 2 of the five had Tesla level 2 chargers and we did not have an adapter! so now we have a Tesla to J1772 adapter and can use it at the many hotels (especially ones in California) with Tesla level 2 chargers.

We purchased the WOLFCAR adapter:

Wolfcar Tesla to J1772 Charging Adapter with Safety Lock

Most of the ones I looked at had a hole in the release button, so that someone cannot take the adapter. The Wolfcar came with a small padlock and storage bag, which was nice.

First plug the adapter into the car and then plug the Tesla cord into the adapter:

And now we are charging (this is one of the hotels we stayed at):

Happy trails!

Miles/kWh comparison to ICE MPG

Has an internal combustion engine (ICE) driver asked you what miles per gallon your EV car gets? I have fielded that question a number of times particularly while charging at a public station. 

VW provides a MPGe rating for the Pro S AWD of 99. As a comparison we have a Ford Escape AWD that is reasonably similar car and gets about 20 MPG city and 28 highway. So to compare these two there must be an assumption for the cost of gas and electricity, so I created a spreadsheet with public charging and home charging comparison:

Note: for ID.4 owners with a free EA charging plan or other free charging, the math becomes irrelevant (infinity Miles/$10 energy) so that is not shown.

It is no surprise that the ID.4 is more efficient for city driving for both charging scenarios; however, for highway the difference is less pronounced:

• Solid lines are the ID.4
• Dashed lines are the Escape

For public charging on a highway road trip the ICE car is more cost effective when gas prices are low. This will be even more pronounced in driving conditions with high air conditioning use, mountains, etc. where the EV energy usage per mile increase.

Please remember, your mileage may vary!

😁

Re-center navigation map after zooming or moving

If you change the navigation map by zooming in or out (pinch) or move the map away from the current location (the arrow), how do you get back to the current location? It took me a few minutes to realize the trick to this....

When the map is centered, there is an arrow shown:

If you move the map by swiping with your finger or change the zoom by pinching, the current location arrow may disappear. When this happens the North circle and arrow are "grayed out":

Once you are finished looking at another part of the map and want to get back to the current location:

1. Move your hand close to the screen (assuming you enabled "hand gestures" in the setup)
2. The map location button will appear
3. Touch the map location button to re-center the map on the current location

Now the map is centered on the current location and the arrow is shown:

Navigation address missing

I find that when searching for a destination by name, if the address is not shown the driving directions may be seriously incorrect. Here is an example of searching for a city park by name and finding multiple alternatives, two of which have no street number and name:

This is a fairly large park and has multiple access points and parking lots, so the correct destination must be selected. If you select one without a street name and number, the directions are not right from my experience.

View current range miles/kWh

We sometimes have "range anxiety" that is overly worrying about running out of battery. One way I overcome this worry is to track and monitor battery usage in a variety of driving situations.

In the main screen swipe to the left (touch and move your finger left):

The screen changes to show the range for the current trip, in this case 3.8 miles/kWh. This trip was a short drive to the grocery store over local streets and about a mile of freeway:

This is not bad! If this energy consumption continued for the entire battery charge which started at 80% and then re-charged at 20% the the total range would be:

82 kWh * (0.8 - 0.2) * 3.8 = 187 miles (with 62 miles remaining when arriving at charge station)

Starting at 80% and charging at 20% is a reasonably conservative plan.

Total range for a full charge down to 20% would be:

82 kWh * (1.0 - 0.8) * 3.8 miles/kWh = 249 miles!!

I assume this is how the advertised 245 mile range for the AWD version was calculated?

Navigation map view options

There are three different views for the map when using the built in navigation. Change the current view by pressing on the North symbol on the map (circle with the "N" in the middle):

 

Notice the small arrow in the circle surrounding the "N", which indicates the direction of North (North up view at left and Course view at right):

The three views are:

1. North up (the view does not rotate as the car moves and the arrow shows the direction of the car)
2. Course up (the direction the car moves is always pointed up and the view rotates)
3. Perspective (the view looks like the map is titled)

North up

With the North Up view, there is a very small arrow at the top of the North symbol showing that North is up:

Course Up

Int eh course up view the direction of the North symbol now rotates and show which way is North and the car is always traveling "up":

Perspective

In the perspective view there is a "tilt" to the map so you get the sense that you are looking across the map spread on a table. It is a course up view:

Pick a view that best suits your driving preference!

Front license plate install without drilling

Our VW dealer told us the license plates would be in about 3-4 weeks after purchase and suggested we return the car to have them drill the front bumper and install both plates. As I thought about that I decided to find a "no drill" solution for the front plate. Here is the finished result for my car and location I decided to put it in I wanted it centered and under the white bumper):

Dealers typically install the front plate by drilling the bumper and attaching the standard plate bracket, which looks like this (it is a little hard to see the black plate holder on a black bumper, but it is above the grill):

I found a really good option on Etsy. It is rather expensive at $50 (including shipping), but I think it is a very solid product (if the link does not work search for "YuriKAccessories" on Etsy):

YuriK Front License Plate Bracket for ID.4

The bracket and instructions from Yuri:

As the instructions mention, a screw driver is all that is really needed (Phillips or standard; i prefer Phillips).

This plate frame bolts onto the front grill and fits perfectly. It takes a bit of maneuvering to install, so here are the steps and suggestions:

Assemble the frame

Use the instructions Yuri provides, then insure that the small parts for the back are aligned to go into the grill. The orientation of the parts depends on the high or low install and Yuri covers that in the instructions. Mine was a lower install.

Insert the bracket into the grill

To insert the bracket into the grill make sure the two small parts in the back stay aligned with the openings in the grill. 

Align and tighten the screws

Now comes the rather tricky part: tightening the screws correctly. Once the bracket is in the grill, the two small parts in the back need to be rotated 90 degrees such that the longer part is on the top and smaller one on the bottom. I had to use my finger to turn them into place. Once turned, i placed my finger through the grill to hold it in place as i tightened each screw:

I also found it helpful to hold the bracket out away from the grill to maintain force on the screws to keep them in position (keep in mind the bolts are lock nuts and so require some force to tighten):

The finished install

Once the two screws are tight the plate is installed and the license plate may be attached with the four screws:

I decided to install in the "lower" position so the bracket did not cover any part of the white bumper. Other locations are possible depending on your preference.

Yahoo! No holes in the bumper!!!

Road trip charging and range

We recently completed a 7 day East to West coast road trip. We tracked the energy usage and charges during the 3,000 miles from Baltimore, MD to the San Francisco Bay area. and have some interesting results. This is for a 2023 ID.4 Pro S AWD, so RWD models should get better miles/kW.

Trip Data Tracking

How did we maintain this data? Our methodology:

1. Tracked the starting and ending mileage between each charge
2. Adjusted the kWh energy charged whenever the ending battery charge percent changed (if the starting was 80%, then drove xxx miles and charged to 90%; made an adjustment to reduce the charged energy by 10% of the battery total)
3. Tracked the starting and ending range as calculated by the ID.4 to see how the range calculation changes with actual Miles/kWh consumed
4. Tracked elevation at each charging point to consider how elevation gains/losses affect range
5. Drove at or slightly above the speed limit during each segment, so many times we went 70+ miles per hour

The below graph shows the average miles driven per kilowatt per segment after each charging stop with an overall average for the trip of 3.07 miles/kW. Graph is labeled with the two main downhill segments (if a segment went up and then down there is no elevation gain and hopefully regenerative braking negates the uphill losses):

Note: the first charge calculation was for local commuting and displays a higher miles/kW than highway driving.

Charging

Charging rates and times have been a topic of conversation on several discussion groups. We kept track of the charging times and kWh rates at each stop with special attention on the Electrify America stations. We had mixed success getting high rates at 150 or 350 kWh stations, with only one really good 140 kWh charging session. While the rates were generally lower than we would have liked, out experience at EA stations was overall positive. We did not wait at any of the over 20 stations and only spent about $10 at EA stations due to going over the 30 minute free session. We did pay for one ChargePoint stop which cost $20, so our total energy cost was $30 for the 3,000 miles!

There were some EA iPhone app issues, which are documented in separate posts on this site:

EA grace period countdown issues

Range

The actual miles per kilowatt varied substantially over the trip. Obviously, speed and driving style impacted actual Mi/kW, but the main correlation that we could make was with elevation. It was quite easy to determine the elevation at each stop using the PlugShare route planning web application and clicking into Elevation:

Note: the trick is to click one of the route stops (any stop may be selected) before clicking Elevation to obtain the nice box showing the actual data.

Now each stop's elevation may be entered and compared to the average miles/kilowatt:

Notes:

1. Elevation loss (ending minus starting elevation) was calculated to better show the correlation between going down the mountain and increased Mi/kW.
2. There are other factors influencing miles/kilowatt that were not quantified and tracked.

The trip went very well and our ID.4 performed flawlessly! The car was comfortable and easy to spend 7-8 hours a day in. 

The Electrify America stations performed for us as well. With little waiting and fast charging we stopped, took a bathroom break and ate within 30-60 minutes. Oh, and had a chance to walk our dog (most important).

Setup EA iPhone app

If you plan to use Electrify America for charging with the VW ID.4 free charging plan, you will need a registration code from your dealer.

Once the EA app is loaded on the phone and an account created, navigate to the "Account" in the bottom right and then "Premium Offers". In the next screen select "Browse all Premium Plans":

In the next form select "I have an enrollment code" and then enter the code in the next screen:

When all of the setup is complete, you should see these entries:

Navigation error routes through restricted street

Navigating to a public street address the system directions routed me through a city park streets that are not accessible to the public (the destination is 500 feet in front of the current position on the street driving on, yet directions show going around the park to the other side and driving through the park):

The entrance to the park shows no public access:

Apple, Google and Bing maps do not route through the park (there is public street running vertically where the blue line is):

Anyone else observe this behavior?

Navigation error left turn replaced with u-turn

On a recent drive I noticed that the directions called for a right turn and then an immediate u-turn. The funny thing is that a left turn was possible at this "T" intersection:

This is actually two errors:

1. A left is allowed at this T style intersection

2. A U-turn is not allowed after this intersection

Filter charging stations in Navigation

The VW Navigation for routes and driving directions may be setup to add charger stops as needed. The setup includes options to:

1. Include or not include charging stops

2. Select the speed of chargers considered for stops

3. Specify whether only currently available chargers should be included

4. Turn on or off Electrify America chargers

5. Display range in the navigation map

The question is where to find and change these settings based on your preference?

From settings

Open settings using the 8 dots at the left and select Navigation:

In the navigation screen click into the gear to open settings:

Now open the Route Options:

In the route options screen click into the charging stations settings:

Finally set the range options to determine when to charge and whether EA should be the only stations shown (if blue slider as shown below, only EA stations):

Other options to filter by the charging power rating can be selected for a specific route, as shown below.

From the map view and destination search

Start by opening the maps in Navigation and then click into the three lines to adjust the settings:

If you are already entering a destination by either selecting a past one or entering an address, etc. As the destination is entered and confirmed, click into the three lines for settings before the route is "Started":

A series of options are provided related to the route such as volume for voice prompts, AM/PM display colors and brightness, and determination of charging stops. Click into the "Charging Stations" plug and gear icon to select charging stations based on criteria: 

The criteria to filter charging stations includes:

1. The kilowatt hour charging rate (all, greater than 50kw or greater than 100 kW)

2. Show only charging stations that are available or show all irrespective of current availability

3. Include only Electrify America/Canada stations (the blue bar indicates show only EA stations)