Cybertruck Adventure Log: Trying to Be the First (documented?) EV Through the WA-BDR

[HaulingAss]

We heading to the Jungle!

Handy tip at 2:18

If you need to get narrower to squeeze between two obstacles, put it in Extract Mode, it reduces the width of your track by a significant amount.

Curious what tire pressure you've been running?

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[HaulingAss]

We heading to the Jungle!

At 2:29:30 Mudflaps, Why do they do have them hanging down like that?

Them aren't mudflaps, they are aero tire fairings to increase highway range/efficiency. Tesla instructs to remove them before heading off-road.

I leave mine on and replace as necessary. Because I like having them on for trips and I don't want to spend the time to remove them when I go off-road. I would, however, take them off before doing a multi-day off-road trip. Good news, they are not very expensive and are designed to not damage the truck when they get ripped off. The aero fairings tend to break first.

 

[thefsm93]

We made it to Chelan and our friends in the f150 peeled off

At 2:29:30 Mudflaps, Why do they do have them hanging down like that?

Them aren't mudflaps, they are aero tire fairings to increase highway range/efficiency. Tesla instructs to remove them before heading off-road.

I leave mine on and replace as necessary. Because I like having them on for trips and I don't want to spend the time to remove them when I go off-road. I would, however, take them off before doing a multi-day off-road trip. Good news, they are not very expensive and are designed to not damage the truck when they get ripped off. The aero fairings tend to break first.

Funny enough I read the Tesla off-road guide and saw they recommended to remove the wheel covers and aero fairings. I didn't think this trip would have any obstacles that might cause a problem

Live and learn!

I've been running the stock tire pressure. Around 50psi. Good to know about extract mode making the track thinner! Would have been useful yesterday.

Earlier in the trip I asked the question about why you would ever want to turn off 4wheel steering and yesterday I found out why. Sometimes you want the rear to stay put so you can move only the front end of the truck.

I didn't do an update here yesterday because it was a short day and the friend on the motorcycle got soaked so we decided to hang out in Chelan for the evening. Section 4 was about the same wh/mile as the other sections.

Jungle was fun, and more challenging than expected!

 

[HaulingAss]

We made it to Chelan and our friends in the f150 peeled off


Funny enough I read the Tesla off-road guide and saw they recommended to remove the wheel covers and aero fairings. I didn't think this trip would have any obstacles that might cause a problem

Live and learn!

I've been running the stock tire pressure. Around 50psi. Good to know about extract mode making the track thinner! Would have been useful yesterday.

Earlier in the trip I asked the question about why you would ever want to turn off 4wheel steering and yesterday I found out why. Sometimes you want the rear to stay put so you can move only the front end of the truck.

I didn't do an update here yesterday because it was a short day and the friend on the motorcycle got soaked so we decided to hang out in Chelan for the evening. Section 4 was about the same wh/mile as the other sections.

Jungle was fun, and more challenging than expected!

Thanks for the update. Beautiful scenery even if the weather did deteriorate.

It will be interesting to compare the energy consumption in these kinds of back-country travel conditions to the F-150. We have good data points for highway travel, just wondering how slower speed travel compares, where the Cybertruck can't put it's aero advantage to use.

Did your buddy have one of those new(old)-fangled Eco-tech engines with turbos and auto on/off at stops?

 

[thefsm93]

Thanks for the update. Beautiful scenery even if the weather did deteriorate.

It will be interesting to compare the energy consumption in these kinds of back-country travel conditions to the F-150. We have good data points for highway travel, just wondering how slower speed travel compares, where the Cybertruck can't put it's aero advantage to use.

Did your buddy have one of those new(old)-fangled Eco-tech engines with turbos and auto on/off at stops?

Absolutely! I can't tell you for sure his mpg, but what I can tell you is we paid about the same at every fill up.

He has the V8 w/o turbo. It's only about a year old.

He definitely has better range than me, but the stopping has not been a big deal. In fact it's been nice because it forces us to stop and eat

 

[swampcrawler]

At 2:29:30 Mudflaps, Why do they do have them hanging down like that?

Them aren't mudflaps, they are aero tire fairings to increase highway range/efficiency. Tesla instructs to remove them before heading off-road.

I leave mine on and replace as necessary. Because I like having them on for trips and I don't want to spend the time to remove them when I go off-road. I would, however, take them off before doing a multi-day off-road trip. Good news, they are not very expensive and are designed to not damage the truck when they get ripped off. The aero fairings tend to break first.

If they wanted to make them removeable, as in "please remove before offroading"...they could have made them ALOT easier to remove. HIGHLY impractical to remove and replace. VERY complicated attachments.

Besides, just about any offroading takes them right off for you.

I have the passenger side off and about a half of one left on the drivers side. It's like a little cup that fills with gravel...

 

[thefsm93]

If they wanted to make them removeable, as in "please remove before offroading"...they could have made them ALOT easier to remove. HIGHLY impractical to remove and replace. VERY complicated attachments.

Besides, just about any offroading takes them right off for you.

I have the passenger side off and about a half of one left on the drivers side. It's like a little cup that fills with gravel...

Hahaha yeah, they could be easier. Right now my passenger side one is holding a good bit of water LOL!

We are getting moving for the day!

 

[HaulingAss]

Absolutely! I can't tell you for sure his mpg, but what I can tell you is we paid about the same at every fill up.

He has the V8 w/o turbo. It's only about a year old.

He definitely has better range than me, but the stopping has not been a big deal. In fact it's been nice because it forces us to stop and eat

Yeah, after hours in the driver's seat I look forward to the charge stop too. I can't figure out why some people complain so much about having to take a charge stop. I really dislike eating while driving, even if on-road where I can use FSD.

My 2010 F-150 4x4 with the 4.6 liter V8 gets absolutely horrible MPG in those conditions. Around 6-8 MPG. Even descending a mountain pass the MPG is not great. I noticed your battery's SOC actually increased significantly, even on descents where traction was limited enough to cut the regen periodically.

 

[HaulingAss]

Hahaha yeah, they could be easier. Right now my passenger side one is holding a good bit of water LOL!

Those tire fairings have a drain hole in the bottom, but it gets plugged up with mud and stuff off-road, mostly if the top opening is exposed so larger items can find there way in. A good mod would be to drill out more holes in the bottom and/or cut a piece of old, used Scotch-Brite to function as a filter when pushed down to the bottom.

Or do what I almost never do, remove them. I think if they were an inch shorter, they would provide almost as much aero benefit and be a lot less likely to come off.

 

[thefsm93]

Getting a late start today because we explored an abandoned mine:

 

[swampcrawler]

I always say, my truck has a 250 mile range, my prostate only has a 150 mile range, so my range anxiety has nothing to do with my truck...

I appreciate the supercharger stops!

 

[thefsm93]

Sorry new link had to recreate stream

 

[thefsm93]

Alright, sorry for my delay here in typing up Section 5 & 6. I'll start with section 5:

Section 5 was one heck of an adventure. The day started out very easy, aided by the fact we had stayed in a motel that night. The rain and cold weather the night before was brutal, so it was imperative we got our motorcycle rider and gear dry. Using the heater in the motel, we dried his soaking gear and got a fantastic night sleep in a warm and comfy bed. It was glorious, considerring we had been camping in 30 degree weather.

When we woke up, we took our time getting moving. Even stopped by a cafe to have a sit down breakfast. I don't think we got on the trail again until 11am. Once we were on the trail, we became even more grateful that we had stopped for the night because the trail from Lake Chelan immediately started to climb in altitude. Soon enough we were above the snowline in freezing weather. If we had not stopped the night before, there would have been a risk of hypothermia for our Dual Sport Rider.

Eventually we got to an altitude where it was next to impossible to ride the motorcycle anymore, so we loaded up the motorcycle onto the hitch rack and continued on our way. Not that we needed more traction, but that did give me a bit more confidence in how planted the back wheels felt. Things were going fairly smooth, but the higher we climbed the higher we had to put the suspension to keep from dragging in the snow. The road conditions were slick, but not horribly icy. Off-chamber sections did feel somewhat terrifying.

It wasn't until we were making the first tracks through the snow that we started to feel a real sense of danger. Following someone else's tracks gives you some confidence that the road is passable, but once they are gone you start to wonder how bad the future conditions are. The first obstacle was a small tree that had fallen which had prevented the previous person from continuing on. We went ahead and hopped right on over it and a couple more small trees.

As we peaked out just over 6100ft we saw our first terrifying obstacle appear. Snow Drifts. Snow Drifts taller than the height of the plastic bumper. I'm not sure what's more terrifying, going up and slipping as you push through a snow drift or having to fight gravity as you push your way through.

Once again though, the truck handled these incredibly well. The front of the Cybertruck kind of acts as a small snow plow and flattens out the drifts. Inside the vehicle we had our hearts beating fast as we traversed this terrain, but throughout all of it there was never a point where the truck became unmanageable or sliding dangerously. Eventually we got away from the peak and it was fairly smooth sailing. I want to say we completed about 25 miles in this condition. This was probably our highest energy consumption yet, pushing over 1400wh/mile. This wasn't too concerning though because we hadn't regenerated down the mountain yet.

However things took a turn for the worse, and as we approached the one road we could use as an exit we came across a large tree making the road completely impassable. There was no way under it, or over the tree. It was far too heavy to lift and move. It really felt like we would have to abandon the trail, head back the way we came and contemplate the rest of the journey. We sat there for a while, talking it through and trying to decide what to do. We knew the road ahead was clear because there were vehicle tracks leading up to the tree on the opposite side.

That's when my motorcycle friend had what sounded like the most absurd crazy idea ever. In his pocket was a multi-tool/leather-man and one of the tools was a 2.5" to 3" saw blade. His plan involved cutting off limbs to make the tree lighter (which sounded doable), but most importantly to cut off the top ~5 feet of the tree. This blade was smaller than the diameter of the limbs we were cutting, but with enough determination my buddy managed to top the tree. Topping the tree would make it so the tree wouldn't be catching on other bushes and trees while we attempted to move the tree.

To my surprise, it did make it possible to lift the tree a little bit but it was still far too heavy for us to push. That's when we had our next questionable idea, we had a couple of extra ratchet straps in the truck. These aren't heavy duty ones, these are the cheapo Harbor Freight 400lb capable straps. We doubled them up around the upper end of the tree, hooked them to the front tow hook of the truck and gave it as slow and gentle as a pull as possible. I think we all expected the straps to snap under the pressure, but to our surprise the tree started to move! We had to re-adjust the truck a couple of times because of slipping on the ice but after a couple of minutes we officially had cleared the trail enough to pass. This was one of the most unexpectedly monumental moments on the entire trip.

After celebrating together for a bit and with our spirits high we continued on our journey. We continued on for a couple miles, climbing another peak, feeling confident because we were following another set of tracks...Until we saw an F150 coming towards us in the opposite direction. We chatted with them for a minute and learned that there was a significant snow drift ahead and that's what caused them to turn around. Since we had conquered previous snow drifts we felt we should at least go look at these ones, especially because there was apparently tracks on the other side. When we got there we realized that these were about double the size of the previous drifts we encountered and there was absolutely no way we could drive through these. After talking about it for a bit, we decided our best bet was to slightly re-route down FS-4010, spitting us out just shy of Carlton where we could head up to Twisp for our final charging spot.

While charging in Twisp we ate some food and decided that our best bet would be heading back to the trail and attempting to make it to the "Arlington Mine Site" for the night. We figured we could find camping there, so we headed out. Soon it was dark, the road was rough, but eventually we did find what we believed would be an absolutely Gorgeous Campsite in the morning.

Oh, I also almost forgot. We chased a Moose up the mountain!

I need to get my kid down to bed, but I'll type up Section 6 here in a bit

 

[mongo]

If they wanted to make them removeable, as in "please remove before offroading"...they could have made them ALOT easier to remove. HIGHLY impractical to remove and replace. VERY complicated attachments.

I can do all four in ~15 minutes.
For the rears, leave the front wheel well alone, only detach the rear fairing enough to get to the hidden rocker bolt, then remove enough of the bottom rocker bolts to get to the screws.

 

[CyberGus]

risk of hypothermia

sections did feel somewhat terrifying

a real sense of danger

not sure what's more terrifying

things took a turn for the worse

You're not really selling me on this experience

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