A Geek Goes Flying

Pulled in at 56% SOC at 09:37. My 7%/hr guesstimate said recharging to 100% would take about 6.3 hours. The car predicted 5:50 to full. I got the notification from the Subaru app at 16:08 that the car was done charging; ~6.5 hours later. At 240V 24A (5.76 kW), 37.44 kWh transferred, the actual SOC increase approximately 31.9 kWh (44% of the 72.6 kWh battery pack), makes for about 85% efficiency, which is more or less spot on for what I’ve read I should see L2 charging. Everything seems to be working as expected. I seem to be stuck at 205 miles predicted range, though, which is more a function of my driving than anything else (I’ve had 222 miles range predicted as recently as October 14, 2025, at 11,998 miles on the odometer, so I don’t think battery degradation is at play here - especially since  Electric Vehicle Range Doesn’t Degrade Much Over Time Now (MotorTrend, Apr 27, 2026). (This Solterra has been in service about 1 year 9 months, and has logged 16,457 miles, comfortab...

Solterra charging The cheap BLRENT charger lasted about a year. The cable started to separate from the charging box (I think just the insulation, but it was still unnerving to look at), and then one day I couldn't get the J-1772 plug to disconnect from the car charging port, it had become slightly separated and the push-button wasn’t providing enough leverage to disconnect the latch. Sigh. It was ... fine? ... while it lasted. (About the same price as a tank of gas for my old Jeep, so I can’t complain too loudly.) This time around I decided to go as inexpensive as possible while doing things “more right.” I also figured I’d future-proof a bit in the process. Folks recommended the Grizzl-E stuff (and the Mini looked like it could have worked, for $479), but I don’t see that it works with the L6-30 plug I have access to at the office. Primecom ships an L6-30 24A unit , but it too is $449. Instead, I went with a used Tesla Gen 2 Mobile Connector I found on Facebook Marketplace, fr...

I get how all of it works, but it still seems like a kind of magic... To arrive at a theme park (Disneyland in Anaheim), plug your EV in to a charging port, and, while in the park, be able to pull up real time charging stats. And knowing when I get back to the car, it’ll be fully recharged. (However slowly. The charging ports are 6.2 kW, shared, and in the morning of course everyone connected is charging. So it’s almost trickle-charging at like 3 kW. But I parked with 52% SOC and I’ll be here a while. It’s Disneyland, on May the 4th.) Solterra charging in the Mickey & Friends parking structure ChargePoint app charging stats “The future is already here. It’s just not evenly distributed yet.” – William Gibson, maybe . May the 4th be with you.

Before taking the plunge with the Solterra, I “auditioned” several battery powered electric vehicles (BEVs or EVs), over long weekends or a week (or more) as rentals. I’ve come a long way since my first Tesla Model 3 rental in ... 2021? I had no idea what the big bulky CCS1 cable was at one DCFC charging station. (That rental came with a J1772 to NACS adapter, but nothing for the bigger DC equipment.) The first day or two I had the Tesla I was trying to charge it at Disneyland (which has ChargePoint J1772 level 2 chargers) and couldn’t figure out why it was only charging to 50% (the car had been limited to that charge level in settings; an easy fix once I figured it out, but when I asked on reddit, the overwhelming response was just “use a SuperCharger, ChargePoint sucks!” – not really helpful...). I’m sure I didn’t know how to read things like kilowatt capability, or grok things like shared chargers splitting available power between two charging cars. I got frustrated dealing w...

Eight days ago we leased a Subaru Solterra (manufactured by Toyota; joint-developed with the bZ4X). Incredible lease terms, a $7,500 credit (loophole), $8,500 discount ...  Subaru Solterra Limited in Smoked Carbon So far, mostly love it. This came with 157 miles on the odometer from the dealership, where it was charged to full and reported 247 miles of range); a week of normal driving later, it’s still at 70% charge with 232 miles on the clock. Being me, of course I’m tracking how closely the range estimates match reality with a Google Sheets spreadsheet, fed by a Google Forms interface for easy data input on the go.  What I like Overall, I really like this thing. The range is good (and so far, better than advertised). The price is certainly right. There are no really obnoxious blind spots. It has wirelelsss charging (Qi) that actually works, plus a USB-A port in the charging bay , plus 4x USB-C charging ports (two for the back seats). Wireless CarPlay that works well, no...