Well the day is finally here. After many years of research, and many many months of waiting for my new EV to be built and delivered, delivery day has come.
This morning my Sales Associate from BMW of Catonsville will be picking my wife and I up at our hotel and taking us to the dealership to pick up my first EV, a 2022 BMW IX xDrive50 Msport. Hmmm, maybe BMW could use some lessons in succinct naming practices 😜
This particular unit is optioned with every available feature I could squeeze into it. The color combination is Exterior: Storm Bay Metallic, and Interior: Oyster Sensatec. It even has the crystal controls on the door and center console.
Much has been said about the design of the IX, especially the front “grill” which can only be described as something a mother Beaver or a Naked Mole Rat mother could love. The IX does have some “big teeth”. Long time BMW fans really seem to hate it. I for one do not have a dog in this fight. This is my first BMW and first EV. I think it looks futuristic. I am also a certified “techy” and “geek” and when I first saw the IX is was a Nerdgasm at first site for me.
What is amazing about me selecting this particular SUV is I am an old “gear head”. I have been building race cars, hot rods, and show cars with friends since I was able to turn a wrench. My dad gave me a 4-Barrel Holy carb to take about and rebuilt when I was 8 and made me do it over and over again until it ran beautifully on his old truck. My dad instilled a love of wrenching at a young age, but I installed the tech part when I became a teenager. I basically grew up in the dawn of the PC, the internet, and mobile devices. Also for the last 22 years I have been into Corvettes in a BIG WAY. I have had many examples of Corvettes in those 22 years, got heavily involved on the NW Corvette Show Circuit and still have one parked in what I call “the garagemahall” at my house. I totally stole that last term from my gear head brother in CA - Keith. Shout out to your buddy!
So that’s me. Hopefully it gives you a good understanding of who I am and why this is such a big decision to get a vehicle that basically does not have a single wrench I can turn on it, outside the occasional tire change.
Backing up 24hrs, my amazing patient wife got up at 3:00am on Monday and got on a early morning flight to Seattle, where we caught a flight to Baltimore MD. Arrived safely in Baltimore (obviously) and then a quick trip to our hotel in a Tesla Model 3. Funny, Uber described this as a “comfortable car, with lots of leg room”. If your a hobbit, this is a limo, if your built to make NFL quarterbacks whimper at the mere site of you, then not so much. Thankfully it was a short ride.
I did not sleep well, while visions of EV’s and our upcoming cross country trip danced in my head. As I said a Facebook post, I have not been this excited since being a 6 year old kid waiting for Christmas to arrive and wishing Santa to bring me a Big Jim Rescue Rig. I think I just dated myself there.
The plan today is to pick up the new ride, go over how to run it, things like connecting my phone to it for access and control, and understanding all of the feature boxes I clicked off on it when ordering it. Then we are going to meet a friend for lunch, make a quick trip to the Air and Space museum in Dulles so I can see the Space Shuttle Endeavor exhibit, and then it will time to point this baby West along I-70 and make the 2800 mile trip home back to WA state. I maybe crazy, or stupid, but this is going to be an adventure and I am looking forward to every step of the way.
The current route will take us along I70 via Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Idaho and then home to Southeastern WA. Trip plan is for 6-7 days doing about 500 miles a day. From all the calculations I have done with Route planners like ABRP it will require 12 hrs of charging time to get there. Edmonds.com in there recent testing say I should get up to 350miles between 100% charges. I am only going to go to 80% to help un battery cell longevity using DC fast charges, unless I am at a hotel and use a Level 2 charges and do a nice slow overnight charge to 100%.
The purpose of this blog is to document the trip (the good, bad, and ugly) to give anyone else crazy enough to want to take on this challenge what it was like. I will document each charging stops, how it worked, how long it took, range between stops, etc. I will also be documenting all the places we see along the way. I love exploring new places, so this should be fun.
Finally - if all goes well, I will also be creating a youtube series on this little adventure I have chosen. It may take me a little bit to get the video all put together, so I figured I could at least keep notes and thoughts in this blog along the way.
I hope you enjoy it and find this blog useful.
Unit the next update - keep the shiny side up all!
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