Driving an EV Running on DC Across the UP

We were Yoopers for almost aweek.

Catherine and I needed to get away and the Upper Peninsula beckoned. Summer was ending, the weather was cooler and the mad fall rush to see the colorful trees hadn’t yet started. Plus, it was National Drive Electric Month.

We aren’t very adventurous but this provided my greatest routing test yet to avoid running out of electrons in my EV somewhere in the deep woods. That can ruin a car trip in a hurry. I am, however, gradually getting more confident.

We aimed to visit our furthest Michigan destination, Marquette, then work our way back. We stayed in Minocqua, Wisconsin the first night to break up the driving and charge the car.

The weather was almost ideal and we saw some surprising things on the trip. I predicted that things would be similar to northern Minnesota and Wisconsin. And that was true. People were friendly, the terrain was similar – lots of pines, scrub brush and cabin signs pointing down mysterious dark dirt roads in the pines.

There were both vacation mansions and run-down homes with lots of stuff for sale in yards such as good “winter” cars. There were also many businesses that failed trying to cash in on tourism.

This didn’t surprise me in such a large area with sparse population and limited work options. But it was so enjoyable driving along almost empty roads with no cell service which is OK if you aren’t following a map on the internet.

The Queen City of the North

Marquette, the largest city in the UP is a great example of a city built on shipping, specifically iron ore. The wealth it created allowed for some very impressive buildings. We stayed in a stately hotel downtown near an equally stately bank. The local newspaper is the Mining Journal, publishing six days a week.

Lake Superior wraps around the UP. Just knowing that it extends from Marquette back to Duluth some 250 miles is pretty astounding. We didn’t take a lot of photos until we took a boat tour of Pictured Rocks out of Munising. We saw spectacular rock formations and very clear water. And we were exhausted from the wind.

Escanaba seemed like a city frozen in time from its heyday in ore shipping. Their newspaper, the Daily Express, also publishes six days a week. The main road through the area was the highway, four lanes sharing one suicide center turn lane to turn left at any time.

The online maps were great except for the lack of actual street signs. We did see signs for 0.38 Lane and 18.3 Road. It was nice weather but sadly the famous lighthouse and history museum were already closed for the season. Delicious hot breakfast pasties helped us get over that.

I learned a lot about charging on the trip. Tesla charging stations don’t have monitor screens. An app on your phone does it all – if you have good cell service. Charging was easy once I learned the right order to do things and that seems to be to connect everything first before even starting the app, which you should already have set up at home.

Realities of Charging

Charging takes time. In this case, about an hour. But that’s because I charged to 100% (full charge) instead of the recommended 80%. Charging from 10% – 80% on my car takes as little as 18 minutes at a high speed charger. But that last 80-100% is gradually slowed down to prevent overheating.

I charged three times on the trip, each to 100%. It took longer to charge but I had fewer stops. It never got much below 20% anyhow. I drove on the highway in “eco” mode for better efficiency. I used an app to help me find the charging stations along the way but if I decided to drive past one that it had picked out for me, it furiously tried to route us to another charging station even if it’s a single slow charger 20 miles away in a back alley.

There are now many more dependable high-speed chargers available but charging stations are still not ready for prime time in my opinion. There were no squeegees to clean my windshield. No garbage cans. That day is coming. One stop was at the far end of a Target parking lot so you could shop while charging.

Many people just take a nap in their cars. Like I did.