EV Endeavors: Adventures in Season 7 Kick-off

Season 7 Premiere of Open Forum In The Villages: An EV Road Trip Adventure

In this premiere episode of Season 7 of Open Forum In The Villages, host Mike Roth discusses his cross-country trip from The Villages, Florida to Long Island, New York, focusing on the use of electric vehicle (EV) charging networks. Mike details the challenges and benefits of using the Tesla and Mercedes-Benz charging apps, the efficiency of various charging stations, and the overall success of the trip compared to a similar journey two years ago. The episode also introduces upcoming changes for the new season, including new musical elements and the integration of more AI content. Additionally, Mike announces the launch of a second podcast, ‘Mature Adults with Donna and Mike,’ set to release in August. Finally, Mike promotes his upcoming courses on podcasting and artificial intelligence at the Enrichment Academy in The Villages, providing information on schedules and content. Listeners are invited to support the podcast financially and engage via feedback for a more interactive experience.

00:00 Welcome to Season Seven
00:55 A New Season, A New Format
01:31 The Cross-Country EV Adventure Begins
05:15 Challenges and Solutions on the Road
07:15 Family Milestones and Memorable Moments
09:12 Tesla Charging Network Insights
13:40 The Return Journey
24:32 New Podcast Announcement
25:46 Upcoming Courses and Final Thoughts

Transcript

EV Endeavors: Adventures in Season 7 Kick-off

Season 7 Premier

[00:00:09] Judith: Welcome to season seven of Open Forum In The Villages FLORIDA. In this show, we talk to leaders of clubs and interesting folks who live in and around the villages. We also talk to people who have information vital to seniors. You will get perspectives of what is happening in the Villages, Florida area. We are a listener supported podcast.

There will be shoutouts for supporters. 

[00:00:31] Mike Roth: This is Mike Roth. Listeners, I'm thrilled to share with you this podcast, my passion project for you. This podcast brings you knowledge, inspiration, and things you need to know about the people and the villages here in Florida.

This is Mike Roth on Open Forum in The Villages, Florida. Today's episode is gonna be a little bit different. I'm not going to have a guest. Today's show is the premier episode of season number seven. I never thought I'd get this far anyway. Some of you may have already noticed a slightly different.

Opening music and a different announcer, and there'll be some additional changes as we move into season seven. The technology in AI is changing tremendously, and I continue to add more AI content to the podcast. But today's episode is an update of a show that I did. On October 13th, 2023, we talked about a cross country trip to Long Island from The Villages, Florida.

That trip required a lot of pre-planning and was a lot of headaches. You can go back and listen to the show broadcast on October 13th, 2023, and compare what I have to say today.

Overall, I want to say that the trip This year was much better than the trip two years ago. Both trips were in the month of June. I'll give you a summary of what happened with the EV on the trip.

The first day as the sun rose over Florida I loaded the car with everything I thought I would need. My wife was very helpful.

We had maps, we had charging applications. I have five charging applications on my phone now. the two most significant during the trip actually were the Tesla app and then the app called ABRP or. As some people call it a better root planner. This actually was a superb app for getting to charges when there was trouble at our planned stop.

Naturally, the Mercedes-Benz navigation system suggested stops. Sometimes They were good and sometimes they weren't so good. The Mercedes-Benz Me app was also on my phone, and I used that to. Validate what was happening. Overall, the Tesla app was quite good in picking stations that our car was compatible with.

Unfortunately, it wasn't a hundred percent, accurate. Sometimes the Tesla app would take us to a station where we could plug in but not charge that was aggravating. But this year we didn't need to spend five hours planning the trip stop by stop day by day.

Instead, we chose our route based on where we plant to stop each night for the three day trip. The trip was starting in The Villages, Florida, , and the first long stop was in Fairlawn, New Jersey where my brother Ron lives. we spent Saturday afternoon and evening and Sunday morning with them across the George Washington Bridge and then the horrible cross Bronx Expressway on Sunday morning, no later than 10:00 AM That worked out well.

our travel time from Fairlawn, New Jersey to Smithtown, New York was an hour and a half. The best I've ever done that in any car on a great traffic day was an hour and one minute. This wasn't as good, but it was nowhere near as bad as my brother had a two and a half hour trip when he came out that week to East Meadow Long Island for a family gathering.

we planned the trip with stops at Tru hotels that had EV chargers. In one case, the hotel had a CSS charger, which plugged directly into the Mercedes. At the other Tru hotel, they had a Tesla charger, which luckily I had purchased a Tesla level two. Adapter, which worked perfectly.

These were very low level chargers and it took 15 hours to charge the car. But since we were there overnight, it didn't make any difference. we packed the car and drove to The first rest stop, just south of Gainesville, Florida. when I got out of the car, I realized I didn't have my car key in my pocket.

Now that's a serious problem. The car actually operated 'cause my wife was sitting next to me with her key in her purse. the car recognized the key. But didn't tell me it wasn't my key. So here we are about 70 minutes from home and I didn't have my key, only had one key realized that the penalty for having only one key if you lose that key, is about a $2,000 cost.

We decided to turn around and head back home to pick up my key, which had a tile. Attached to it, like an air tag, and it told me that the key was at home on the kitchen countertop. we got back to Gainesville, And had lost about three hours of time. when we left The Villages, we had a hundred percent charge, but by the time we got to Gainesville the second time, on the first day, we only had.

50% charge, which meant that we went to a supercharger location in Gainesville at a Target store where we spent another 45 minutes bringing the charge back up closer to a hundred percent. That made the first day of the trip an exceptionally long driving day because it added three hours of driving time and it added an extra 45 minutes for charging at Gainesville, which was not planned.

In the end, we got to our Tru hotel in Florence, South Carolina. Both charging ports were available there, and we left the car on overnight and got it charged up. That worked really well for a very low speed charger. So the adventure had already started with an unplanned detour.

 We were going on this trip for a family milestone. My youngest granddaughter Alana Siegel, was graduating from high school, getting there in an electric vehicle. Was my plan.

Alana's going to be heading off to college in the fall, I believe in South Carolina, I thought making the trip was worth every mile that I drove. I planned the route very carefully I wanted to weave around the East coast congestion spots, Washington, DC on 95 and Philadelphia.

we had to go a great deal inland and probably added a hundred to 200 miles to the trip.

The trip went from The Villages through Florence, South Carolina , through Pennsylvania, and back along 287 up to Fairlawn. from Fairlawn to long Island, we took the Long Island Expressway, or as I like to call it, the Long Island, the Disstress Way, and used their express lanes.

 It was much less stressful. During regular rush hours on a Sunday morning, it was pretty darn easy.

The Mercedes, EQE 350+ is a very good car.

It has a stated range of 305 miles, Driving around The Villages, we hardly ever exceed 50 miles an hour. The range was more like 370 miles and on the road we were getting closer to 320 miles in range, where most of the time we were driving in excess of 65 miles an hour, 70 miles an hour, up to 74 miles an hour.

The car was very happy. Over 74 miles an hour, the performed very well, but messages kept coming up on the dashboard to slow down. I guess that was because I was using the battery up too fast, the question may come up. Why did I choose an electric vehicle for this second trip when I had such trouble the first time? The big reason Was to test the efficacy of the Tesla charging network with Mercedes vehicles. Two years ago. I had a lot of doubts about whether or not it would ever come to pass and whether or not the Tesla charging stations would be working for the Mercedes.

The big discovery was that the. Tesla charging stations don't need a screen or a printer, therefore they have a higher uptime. In fact, during the entire trip, we never had to wait for a charger. Most of the charging stations had six to 20 charging ports. And when you got to the charging station, I had to use the Tesla app, not the Mercedes app.

: The Tesla app failed completely and I had to reload it. I discovered that closing the Tesla application and then restarting it, made it work in locations wherein had failed earlier. So I found myself doing that on a great many of the charging stations. I never did figure out how to make the Mercedes Me app work at a Tesla station.

the Mercedes me application was never fully tested. Because I had trouble the first couple of times I tried to use it, the consistency of which Tesla stations to charge at should have been a hundred percent between the navigation screen in the car, the Mercedes Me application, and the Tesla app, because you register for the Tesla app, aside from putting in your vehicle number, vin, the brand, and your credit card.

Therefore it knows the compatibility of the stations. That failed a couple of times and it took us to stations that were not compatible with the Mercedes vehicle. The Mercedes app also took us to stations that were not compatible Luckily at some of the stations, there were at least three or four.

At the same physical location they had both CSS charging equipment, level three and Tesla. When we were at stations like this with both, we tried the Tesla application first, Then we went over to the CCS Chargers. Usually there were only four of those available.

And again, when we went to use those, we never had a problem like we did the first time. Especially in New Jersey.

Now as every EV driver who does any distance driving knows you need to have a plan. You need to have a backup plan, and then you need to have a backup to the backup plan. So in taking the drive, we decided that each day we would leave in the morning with close to a hundred percent charge. We would drive until we got down to approximately 30 to 40%.

And then charge again up to 85 to 95%, depending on the location. During those charges, we hoped to be eating lunch, in the afternoon if we were driving a long day, we would charge once get the car up from say 40% to 80%, and then continue on to the hotel, to get the charge overnight. This made it a lot easier than the last trip.

I wasn't out to prove that Electric vehicles are the only choice for the future, but it is a choice that actually works in the present. The strategy of using the Tesla charging network proved to be the correct choice overall, the Tesla charging stations were about 85% successful in creating a charge.

The CSS stations that we stopped at when we needed them were a hundred percent successful. We never had to seek out a second station. This changed how we did the return trip. On the return trip, we would run closer to 200 miles or 250 miles. And then charge. This meant we had fewer stops on the way home than on the way to Long Island.

Now, there was a secret weapon that Tesla provided at some of their newest level three revision four. Charging stations. These stations had, a longer charging plug. The cord was longer so that I could occupy only one stall, at the Tesla charging stations. Because of the position of the charging port on the Mercedes being in the right rear fender, I had to occupy two stalls or.

Attempt to be on the end stall and occupy half of one stall and half of a location that wasn't part of the charging station. That worked well because there weren't a lot of crowds the same way we had run into crowds at Daytona Beach. When we went to a Walmart with 16 charging stations, we couldn't get a charging station.

It was a disorganized mess. In fact, at that location we gave up and drove over on plan B to the Bucky's in Daytona Beach. Never had been in a Bucky's We charged there on a Mercedes-Benz Charger, a 400 amp charger, no wait. Worked perfectly.

Now, I was talking about the Tesla Magic dock. we only found it by accident. I didn't know anything about it until. I got to a charging station and a Cadillac had pulled out in front and had a perfect spot. So I backed into his spot, and hit the reset button on the charging cable, which is what you're supposed to do.

Hold it in for about three or four seconds and then take the cable out. Then you're supposed to put the Mercedes-Benz "Lectron" adapter. on, plug it into the car and just about a second after hit on the Tesla application, , start charging, and it would start charging.

So in this station in Smithtown, New York, I hold the reset button in and pulled out the cable instead of the. Tesla end, I'm looking at a cable that's got a black plastic adapter with a CCS end on it. That's the magic dock. The Tesla charging station decided that my car needed that adapter, and so when it pulled out of the pump, the adapter was already on it.

I didn't know that at the time. I thought the guy in the Cadillac left his adapter on the cable. I discovered I couldn't remove the adapter, so I decided hell, I'll use the Cadillac's adapter, plugged it into my car and worked like a charm. While I was charging, I talked to another driver who explained the Tesla Magic Jack being on the level three set of charges.

The third or fourth revision of the Chargers, the test labs with the long cords are positioned so you can actually plug in and occupy only one space. Very convenient. Dangerous because of incoming traffic to the shopping center. There was a shopping center there with a number of stores, a Chick-fil-A Dunking Donuts. We got the charging and the Mercedes to read up over 159 kilowatts. So that's a very high level of charging compared to last year when we were lucky many times to get 50.

Needless to say it was fast, faster there. So we recharged at Smithtown a couple of times. The level three supercharger from Tesla, the 250 amp versions, most of those worked fine. Apparently the newest Rev twos have the Magic Doc, but the level rev threes all are supposed to have the Magic Doc. I didn't run into very many Rev. 3 superchargers.

Rev three that had the magic dock. In fact, when we were driving up that Tesla station would not charge my car and we had to drive to a different Tesla station, a 250 amp as opposed to a 325, On the way back to the same location accidentally, and it worked just fine using the Mercedes-Benz adapter.

Now, let's take a short break and listen to an Alzheimer's tip from Dr. Craig Curtis.'

[00:18:00] Dr. Craig Curtis: So even if you removed 100% of the amyloid, that would not cure Alzheimer's. You can remove all the amyloid, yet the symptoms will continue to progress. So what we're doing now in these prevention studies is we're trying to see if removing amyloid prior to symptoms beginning halts the progression into actual symptoms in Alzheimer's disease.

[00:18:24] Warren: With over 20 years of experience studying brain health, Dr. Curtis's goal is to educate the village's community on how to live a longer, healthier life. To learn more, visit his website, craig curtis md.com, or call 3 5 2 5 0 0 5 2 5 2 to attend a free seminar.

[00:18:40] Mike Roth: Thank you, Dr. Curtis.

Throughout the journey, the Tesla supercharger Rev two became my most reliable companion. The success rate was remarkable probably over 90%. It was almost flawless. If I used the Tesla app, there was no juggling of multiple applications or membership cards. Just pull up, plug in and hit the start charge button in the correct time sequence.

The Tesla app itself, proved to be less than totally reliable. It did require reloading and rebooting several times. in Pennsylvania when we had poor cellular signal. It failed completely and , reinstalled it on two cell phones and connected both of 'em to the Tesla network At each charging stop. We had the opportunity to explore local eateries in this trip we had many more choices.

some fine restaurants along the way, made each stop a little bit exciting and interesting.

At most of the charging stations, other drivers with electric cars were very friendly and willing to talk. 

When we finally arrived in Fairlawn, New Jersey. It was a great family reunion with me and my brother the real emotions began to flow when we got to Smithtown and Centerport. For me, watching Alanna walk across the platform, accepting her diploma and switching her tassel from the left to the right can bring tears to your eyes.

That's really one of the reasons we make these journeys. We want to be present for those precious moments in life.

While I was on Long Island, I did more driving than I planned. That's why the trip added up to about 3000 miles instead of 2,400 miles. I met my friend Marty Hyman in a restaurant in Great Neck, New York. Never wanna do that again. Great neck's, too crowded. The roads are too narrow and too many cars.

But dinner with Marty and his wife, Sandy was excellent. We laughed about our high school days in college and he was a little bit curious about the car. Earlier in the week I met with my friend Lenny Hirsch who I met when I was in the first grade and we met at a kosher deli in Lido Beach.

Talking to him is always like stepping back into time. He's got a great memory. We discussed electric cars and old cars. He has an old Cadillac and it was a very fun lunch, but a long drive to get from Smithtown to Lido Beach. In fact, Kay complained about that.

Probably the next time if I meet with friends on Long Island, we'll throw a party someplace and have them come to meet us there, which is what we did. The very first time. We drove up to Long Island about seven years ago.

Each time we stopped. At an electric vehicle charging station, we learned something. Sometimes we learn things we didn't want to know, but we learned something. One of the things we learned is that before choosing a station to drive to, we have to make sure it appears in all three locations on the charging network, on the car's computer, and on the Mercedes Me app.

if it didn't appear on all three, there was a much greater likelihood there was not going to charge the car when we got there, as we sadly discovered each time you run into a charger that doesn't work you're going to waste at least a half hour of time. Bad enough.

You were gonna take a half hour to charge the car, but that extra half hour fooling around with the charger, unplugging, plugging, moving the car to a different stall is all time consuming and aggravating. So when we stuck to the chargers that were listed on all three applications.

The car's navigation system, the Mercedes Me application and the Tesla app, they all showed that there were more than half of the number of charges at that location as available. We were in good shape.

Taking the route where we avoided DC and Philadelphia meant that. We limited our amount of time on 95, which made the drive a lot more pleasant. it was more scenic in some cases especially on the way back. We got routed on some back roads through small towns, which was actually pretty fun to drive on.

So that's the story of my trip back from Long Island. We decided to leave via the Port Jefferson Ferry, which goes from Port Jefferson Long Island to Bridgeport, Connecticut.

But it was a good beginning to the trip we took the Tapenzee bridge across back into New Jersey and then down 287 and we made pretty good time On the return trip, we took four days because we had that horrible day on the first day going out. We didn't want to have that longer day, and we drove about 350 miles a day and that worked out pretty well.

Now this trip ends as we're beginning season seven of Open Forum In The Villages, Florida. And I hope I've given you a couple of insights onto the charging status around the country. Along major highways. In small towns or rules are off and you need to follow your applications. But since we're beginning season seven.

I wanted to tell you about something special that I decided to do a second podcast. It's called Mature Adults with Donna and Mike, and that's going to be released again on Buzzsprout on Monday mornings at 9:00 AM the first episode should be released in August of this year, and it should be an exciting episode where we talk about topics that are important to us as senior citizens.

And villagers. We'll be talking about a number of subjects which are either controversial or informative. we hope some of you listeners will tune into that podcast as well. This podcast, was brought to you because I love doing these podcasts If you wanna become a supporter, hit the support, button, I'd love you to become a supporter by signing up to pay three, five, or $10 a month so that we can continue these podcasts.

it's been a great deal of fun putting them together in early. 2026. I'm gonna be teaching the podcasting course at the Enrichment Academy here in The Villages, as well as teaching another session of the AI course,

Artificial intelligence for Seniors. This course is a little bit changed from the last version. It'll be in February, 2026. On the 12th, 19th, and 26th of February, it's going to be held at the Lake Miona Recreation Center, and it's going to be from 10:00 AM to noon. This time there are three sessions, and we're going to be doing the course as a hands-on learning experience. Each participant should bring their own laptop or tablet. It should be pre-programmed with the recreation center's wifi, SSID and password, we are going to be working on some of the most popular and some of the newest AIs.

We're going to be using the free versions, so every one of the classes should have the capability to use them. And again, I'm going to give the warning that I will put in writing to each participant that do not use Apple's Safari browser. In past classes when people attempted to use it, it didn't work.

with 25 to 30 students, it's impossible to stop and reinstall something like Chrome Firefox or Edge I recommend that you have all three of those browsers installed. Our next session of the AI course has already sold out for September and February.

The podcasting course will be held in January, and I believe it's going to be held on January 7th, 14th, and 21st, and it's going to be taught at the Bradenton Recreation Center in the Royal Palm Room. I'm sure you're going to hear some of the improvements in this podcast during the course of the next several months.

In fact, for those following us, many of our podcasts have been released as both a podcast. And a video podcast on YouTube. search for Open Forum in The Villages Florida, you will find both the audiogram version of the podcast and some of the podcasts actually have live pictures.

Yes, we shoot some video. Those podcasts take a lot longer to produce, but as our. recording software. Descript gets better, it makes the video easier to do, so we will continue to release some episodes as video episodes. if you have questions, you can use the feedback button on the Buzzsprout page for Open Forum In The Villages Florida.com, and I will answer those questions.

I hope to be talking to all of you again very soon.

This is Mike Roth. Listeners, I'm thrilled to share with you this podcast, which is my passion project, to bring knowledge, inspiration, and things you need to know about the villages and the people living here. Be sure to hit the follow button to get the newest episode each week, or you can hit the purple supporter box.

Even a small donation of three to $10 a month makes a big difference. And you can cancel your subscription at any time. Your support means the world to us. Stay curious, stay inspired, and keep those headphones on. 

[00:29:12] Judith: Our next episode will be released next Friday at 9:00 AM Should you wanna become a major supporter of the show or have questions, please contact us at mike@rothvoice.com.

This is a shout out for supporters. Tweet Coleman, ed Williams, Dwayne roic, Paul Sorgen, and Dr. Craig Curtis at K two in the Villages. We will be hearing more from Dr. Curtis with short Alzheimer's tips each week. If you know someone who should be on the show, contact us at mike@rothvoice.com. The way our show grows is with your help.

Text your friends about this show. We thank everyone for listening The content of the show is copyrighted by Roth Voice 2025, all rights reserved.