Graduation EV Road Trip

By Shedrick Mask

I wanted to share my first major EV road trip with you. The trip was planned because I was graduating with my master’s degree and my wonderful boss told me to take the time off to attend in person. The thing is, I live in Tomball, just north of Houston, TX, and the school is in Bellevue, Nebraska.

I thought about flying but didn’t want to deal with flights, renting a car, etc., so I decided to drive there. My wife and I set out on May 30th, dropped my kiddo off at my mom’s house (detour) then headed north. After driving through thunderstorms and flooding in Dallas, we made it to our first overnight stay In Oklahoma City.

The next morning, we went straight to Bellevue, Nebraska, to get cap and gown, then to Omaha to stay the night. I graduated on June 1st and, on the 2nd, started my return trip home with an overnight stay in Kansas City. From KC it was a brutal driving leg back home. Once home, I exported the data from the E-tron and all the charging stops (plus free credit charging remaining) to give an overall look of the trip.

During the trip, I did have some charging issues with it briefly stopping, and I had to either re-initiate or go to another charger. One occasion I limped in Turtle mode to a charger because I missed my exit, looped around and plugged into a de-rated charger at 4%. I attached a screen snip of the mileage per day along with all charging stops, including 2 free ones that I used my remaining Audi credits for.

Would I plan a road trip like this again? Sure, but I would do a little better picking times when there isn't severe weather in both directions. I realized on this trip that I can initiate a charge with the Electrify America or ChargePoint app inside the car through Android Auto. You pull up to the station, open up the app on the MMI, and select the correct station, and it will pre-authorize for you before getting out of the car. Enjoy your road trips!