u/spivenheimer

I just wrapped up a follow up segment to last years' The Riveted with Chris & Gina podcast episode I was on. During the follow up I mentioned I wanted to do a panel with other EV owners during an official session, but now we're gauging interest from anyone that will be at the Airstream International Rally in Minot where Chris & Gina will do a special recording of a live panel with questions from folks in the crowd (and maybe some submitted questions)

Anyway - looking for those that would be interested in attending on site for this panel, or just hang out and geek out over EV stuff at the Rally.

On Monday, I wrapped a three-day haul up the West Coast and figured the data might be useful for anyone weighing a longer tow with the Silverado EV. Posting the leg-by-leg numbers along with totals and a few takeaways.

Rig

• 2025 Silverado EV LT, Extended Range battery
• 1979 Airstream Sovereign (31 ft, ~7,500 lb loaded)
• Speed discipline: 55 mph in CA, 65 mph in OR/WA
• Departed Joshua Tree at 100% SOC

Leg-by-leg

Leg	Miles	mi/kWh	Range remaining at arrival
1	151	1.4	-
2	137	1.5	112
3	122	1.3	-
4	62.7	1.2	114
5	127	1.2	52
6	121.9	1.0	-
7	87.4	1.6	-
8	112.8	1.2	70
9	103.1	1.1	68
10	92.5	1.2	-
11	103.5	1.1	arrived Olympia

(Range remaining was logged when I remembered to grab it before plugging in. Eyeballed misses are dashes.)

Totals

• Distance: 1,219.7 mi
• Average efficiency: 1.2 mi/kWh (per truck)
• Energy cost: $362.92
• Cost per mile: ~$0.298
• Implied total energy: ~1,016 kWh
• Implied blended $/kWh: ~$0.36 (100% DCFC, no L2 overnights)
• Charging stops: 11
• Average leg: ~111 mi between plug-ins

By day

Day	Legs	Miles	kWh used	mi/kWh	Notes
1	1–4	472.7	345.3	1.37	JT departure, all Tesla Supercharger
2	5–8	449.1	376.4	1.19	Tejon-to-Siskiyou; mixed networks; dead EA at Walmart
3	9–11	299.1	264.9	1.13	Final push into Olympia at 65 mph

Day 1's 1.37 mi/kWh was the trip's best -55 mph speed discipline plus a net elevation drop out of Joshua Tree. Day 2 caught the worst of the geography (Tejon climb, Siskiyou crossing) and averaged 1.19 even with the regen recovery on the OR side. Day 3 was the most exposed to the speed penalty - all 65 mph, mostly flat - and came in lowest at 1.13.

Charging networks used

• Day 1: Tesla Superchargers exclusively. Never saw above 200 kW peak - your mileage may vary by site, but that was my ceiling for the day. Sessions were uneventful; pricing competitive vs the alternatives.
• Days 2–3: Rivian Adventure Network, Electrify America, EVgo, Mercedes-Benz High-Power Charging. Mixed experience. One EA charger at a Walmart was completely non-functional - I went there expecting to charge and had to reroute. M-B had the highest charge rate of 315kW seen during the trip. Otherwise reliable.

Trailer logistics (the part nobody talks about)

Out of 11 charging stops, I was only able to charge twice without unhooking the trailer. Nine times I had to drop the Airstream - typically in a corner of the parking lot - pull around to the stall, charge, and re-hitch before continuing. That's the single biggest hidden cost of tow-EV travel right now: not the kWh price, not the stop count, but the time and back muscles required to break and re-make the hitch nine times in three days. Pull-through stalls are still rare on every network, and even most "trailer-friendly" stations are friendly to short trailers - not 31 ft of Airstream.

If the major networks want EV pickups to take over the towing market, this is the problem to solve. Until then, plan accordingly: pre-scout pull-through options on PlugShare, allow extra time per stop, and don't be shy about parking diagonally across two stalls if a charger has space behind it.

What stood out

Speed is the biggest cost lever, but isolating it took some math. Crossing Siskiyou in legs 6–7 muddies the regional comparison - the climb (1.0 mi/kWh) is in CA and the descent (1.6 mi/kWh) is in OR, which roughly cancel and leave only a 4% all-CA-vs-all-OR/WA spread. To actually isolate the speed effect, compare the flat legs in each region:

• CA flat (legs 1–5, 55 mph): 599.7 mi ÷ 451.1 kWh = 1.33 mi/kWh
• OR/WA flat (legs 8–11, 65 mph): 411.9 mi ÷ 358.9 kWh = 1.15 mi/kWh

That's about a 14% efficiency hit for 10 mph - close to what v² aero scaling predicts once you back out rolling resistance and accessory load. In dollars: extrapolating CA's flat efficiency to the OR/WA distance, going 65 mph instead of 55 added ~38 kWh, or ~$14 over the OR/WA portion, while saving ~1 hr 24 min. Effectively bought time at ~$10/hr. Cheaper than my gut said it would be.

Siskiyou Summit is the most honest data point in the trip. Leg 6 at 1.0 mi/kWh was the climb out of the upper Sacramento Valley. Leg 7 at 1.6 mi/kWh was the descent into the Rogue Valley right after. Read together - 209.3 mi combined at 1.19 mi/kWh - that's gravity getting paid back with meaningful interest. In isolation a 1.0 leg looks alarming; paired with the 1.6 that follows, it's just the regen story written in numbers.

Charging cadence felt sustainable. 11 stops over 1,219.7 mi works out to an average leg of ~111 mi between plug-ins, which on this truck and trailer leaves a comfortable buffer most of the time. Tightest arrival was 52 mi remaining at the end of leg 5 (127 mi driven), heading straight into leg 6 (121.9 mi over Siskiyou) - the closest I cut it. Of the five stops where I logged an arrival value, four were in the 68–114 mi remaining range, which is where I'd want to be towing across sparse charging corridors.

Geography matters as much as efficiency. I-5 from SoCal to the PNW is a friendly EV-tow corridor - DCFC density is fine, climbs are bounded, and the worst pass (Siskiyou) hands a lot back on the descent. I wouldn't extrapolate these numbers to, say, a trip across the Rockies or the Plains in winter without a serious haircut on efficiency assumptions.

Bottom line

For a 1,200-mile West Coast tow with a vintage Airstream behind it, the Silverado EV did the job at $0.30/mi all-in. Eleven stops is more than I'd make in a diesel, and nine of those required dropping and re-hitching the trailer - which is the real time cost of this kind of trip, more so than any kWh-pricing math. My road-trip pace (No clock to watch, notebook writings, unhurried lunch, the occasional parking-lot lap) absorbs charging time without much friction; the hitch cycles are what add up.