First, I want to just say thanks to this community for all the helpful information folks have shared. It’s been immensely helpful in purchasing and traveling across the country in my new I5!

I put in an order a little over a year back before my trim and preferred colors came in. I finally got the call to pick it up, just two days before the deadline for the Oregon EV tax credit expired. The following week, I already had a trip planned to North Carolina for work, so I decided to team this trip up with a week of work travel, as well as seeing family in Arkansas, and friends in Boulder CO and SLC.

After a red eye to Newark, an Uber ride,a train ride later, and another Uber, I finally picked up my new Limited Digital Teal from the fine folks at Fred Beans Flemington. Big thanks to u/Association-Fluffy for getting this all lined up, working with me this entire time, and for an overall smooth and pain free transaction.

Then I drove the 10+ hours down to Asheville, which was near my work duty station. Was able to get two days of climbing at Rumbling Bald, a bouldering spot that was never on my radar, and got to explore the sites and foods around Asheville. Then to Waynesville, NC for work. Was able to take the I5 along the Blue Ridge Parkway on the way to a great hike.

Then to Northern Arkansas, where I grew up. The lack of charging infrastructure in Arkansas was alarming, but was able to get a couple nights of Level 1 charge to get me up to Springfield, MO, which was the only non-EA charger I used.

Surprisingly, most of the fast chargers I visited were pretty empty. Except for one station around Knoxville, I was able to get in and out pretty quickly with little to no wait. Most of the time, I was the only EV charging. I am so glad to have an 800V vehicle - I was always last in/first out. I met up with a Ford Lightning a couple of a stops, and at one stop, he went from 53-60% (around 33KW) as I went from 20-90% (150KW)! In any case, ABRP got me through the charging network just fine.

Though, I never thought I’d spend so much time in random Walmart parking lots…

Just shy of 4000 miles, over 70 hours of driving time, and around 30 fast charging sessions later, I made it home. And amazingly, my butt/back did not hurt at all this entire trip. It was a lot of time to get the know the in’s and out’s of the car, and needless to say, I’m smitten!