- We are going to attempt to break the world record
for the fastest driving across the country
in an electric car.
The current record's around 45 hours.
We're leaving the garage. What time is it, Hunter?
- [Hunter] 12:02.
- 12:02 and the race is on.
On the last video, we left it off,
we were somewhere in like Oklahoma.
And I was trying to decide whether we were going to make it.
So the first thing we need to do, is close out the trip.
Did we make it all the way there?
Well, after I saw you on that video,
I drove into the night for about 90 miles.
And I was so tired, I couldn't do it.
I pulled over on the side of the road.
Hunter took over and started driving,
and I slept for four hours.
We went all the way to Amarillo, Texas.
And then we got to one of my favorite places,
Albuquerque, New Mexico.
In Albuquerque, they had a Supercharger,
and it was the first time that we got to one
that was completely full.
And what's funny, is they were all white Teslas.
One of the things that Tesla does,
is they have a standard color
that is the base color that's free.
It used to be black for the longest time.
And so when we bought our 2017 Model X new,
we got it in white,
because we really liked the look of the white Tesla.
Well, Elon has since changed it
to where white is the free color.
And so in our hometown, it seems like
every Model X that's there is white,
and looks just like ours.
And it's a little confusing when you're driving
and they're all white.
So when I got this Model X, I specifically wanted
a black one with black interior.
And I can just, by being here,
I can see that it was a good decision.
Because it just looks like it's a fleet
of Teslas that are all white.
And this one stands out a little bit more,
'cause it's black.
We went to a place called Flying Star
that has the Southwest Benny, my favorite meal in the world.
I mean, come on, look at this thing.
We probably should have just got one and split it.
And this is the point when we had to make the decision
on whether we're going to continue onto the Portofino Hotel
or change course and just go home.
We've been on this Cannonball Run since Red Ball, New York.
Red Ball Garage in New York at 12:20 AM.
We've been driving for like 30 hours maybe.
We're in Albuquerque, New Mexico,
and if you look at the time,
it shows that we're going to arrive
48 hours from when we left.
That's fantastic. That's really fast.
But the record that Out of Spec Motoring did,
which they, they went all in.
Like, they were driving 140 miles an hour.
Being really smart about the amount of energy
that they get from each one.
This one we wanted to show,
like with the best Tesla, with V3 Supercharging,
if you drive like a normal person,
maybe a little 10 to 15 over at times,
but like a normal person, how fast can you do it?
And I was thinking that we might be able to compete
just because of the car.
But, it turns out, no.
They did 45 hours. We're basically at 48.
We're going to reroute to Southern Utah and just head home.
Check it out down there.
That is the Colorado River.
This is basically, the beginnings of the Grand Canyon.
This is Glen Canyon Dam in Utah.
So no, we did not break the world record.
But we did learn a lot of things that
if you want to try to break the world record
for the Cannonball,
I'm gonna share some of those thoughts.
But before we do that, I need to explain
the clip that was at the end, the cliffhanger.
The title of this video.
So we got back on late Sunday evening.
I slept for a good 12 hours. Like, I was out.
Got up, worked full day, and then Monday evening at 7:00 PM,
we went live on our Tik Tok account.
We took over their education arm of Tik Tok.
Some of you probably think it's all just dancing,
but we actually have like science and education.
And it's fun to be in that world on Tik Tok.
In the 30 minute live stream we had 300,000 people on there.
I showed them things inside of my studio.
It was really fun. It was cool.
But immediately after that,
I started feeling a little bit sick.
And I ate some dinner.
I kind of just hung around the house for awhile.
And then at about 9:30, everybody went to bed.
And I decided to sleep in the guest room
because I was supposed to go to Detroit
at six in the morning to see that electric Hummer
with Zach from JerryRigEverything.
If you haven't seen his video,
we'll put a link in the description.
It was the electric Hummer. I was going to have access.
Like, some of the first access out of anybody in the world.
And it didn't work out because my stomach was hurting,
I had a fever, I had the chills.
And I know there's a lot going on with health in 2020,
but I could tell that it was something different
than your standard flu symptoms.
So I looked on my phone,
and typed in, "What are the signs of appendicitis?"
And I fit all of those symptoms and criteria.
And I knew that's probably what I had.
So, I didn't even tell the family.
I just left and went to the hospital at 1:30 in the morning.
Checked in, they did the test,
sure enough, my appendix was infected
and it needed to come out.
I had the surgery at 1:00 in the afternoon.
For a week, I was hurting. I was down.
And then for two weeks, I was just kind of taking it easy.
I didn't, I was pretty lazy.
I didn't shave, that's why I have the beard.
It's coming off today, finally. I feel good enough.
That's why I'm filming this video.
But what's interesting is I do feel like the trip,
the Cannonball trip, across America is the thing
that caused my appendicitis.
Let's get into some of the tips.
If you want to do the Cannonball world record and break it,
There's a few things.
One, don't start at midnight.
Start at a really smart time.
The previous Out of Spec Motoring,
the guys that actually hold the current record,
they started at 5:00 in the morning, New York time.
And it worked out really well
because they flew across the East Coast.
The thing that I was worried about is,
if we did it around that time we were likely going
to hit LA traffic going from Vegas to LA.
And that's awful traffic.
That would have cost us potentially hours
just with the traffic jam.
We weren't very smart.
We went and saw our friend, Sara Dietschy
in downtown Manhattan.
And while we were hanging out,
she's like, "Let's do a podcast."
So we did a full-on podcast with her.
It was really fun.
Obviously, with every platform it's like you need
to be authentic and have fun.
And we bought an electric car and I loved it.
And I published a few things about it
and it kind of took off.
I'm like, "Well, let's make some more on it."
I'm like, do we get a hotel and sleep for five hours?
Or do we just start this dang race and just go for it?
And we're like, you know what? Let's just go for it.
That was a big mistake.
I should not have wanted an energy drink
four hours into the drive.
My first energy drink I'm going to push through
until the next charge.
I can usually last longer than on a road trip.
But when you've already been up to the entire day
and then you start driving, really stupid.
And it was bad on my body.
I had probably three energy drinks on the drive.
I don't usually drink those.
Feel like just sitting so much, not sleeping,
when I did sleep I would wake up like an hour into it,
scared that Hunter was falling asleep himself
and driving off the road.
Like that's kind of scary.
Nobody's awake, keeping him awake.
And so my mind didn't really relax and didn't let me sleep.
So for the entire 45 hours of the drive,
I probably slept a grand total of five hours.
That is not healthy and not good.
Get plenty of sleep before you go on the Cannonball record.
And then also, leave at a good time
after you have slept a bunch.
So there's a couple of tips.
The next thing that I thought was really interesting is,
I thought the Tesla Model S Long Range Plus
would be able to break the record.
But it turns out, it's more than just driving the car
with the longest range.
You need to drive really, really fast.
Forget about efficiency on your Tesla.
Forget about running down the battery.
And then stop at more Tesla Superchargers
and charge to somewhere between 40 and 60% of the battery,
as long as it's charging fast,
and then take off and go to the next one.
That's something I was not comfortable doing
'cause driving over a hundred miles an hour,
is just is not the safest thing.
If you get pulled over in some states
and you're going over a hundred,
there's a good chance you're gonna be in jail.
And that's not something I'm interested in,
even if it is for some kind of record.
Another way to break the record is to start
in Los Angeles and end in New York.
Because there's usually a 10 to 15 mile an hour wind
that you're driving into.
And what that does is, if you're driving 60 miles an hour
from the East to the West,
and there's a 15 mile an hour wind,
on the Tesla's efficiency,
it counts it as you driving 75 miles an hour
or somewhere around that.
Because of the wind blowing into your face
that you're pushing into.
But if you can drive from the West coast to the East coast
that wind will be at your back.
It's a lot more efficient, which will save your battery,
which means you can go further.
So I know it's like, everybody feels like the real true way,
it needs to be a New York to LA.
But, it's still the same distance.
Just go the other way.
And in a Tesla, it makes so much more sense
because it's an electric car.
Let me give you some interesting stats from the trip.
In order to drive on the entire trip, it was 2,795 miles.
That's the Cannonball Run.
We only missed that about 130 miles.
We went 2,654 miles on our trip. So we did pretty well.
The total hours driving was 36 hours on the trip.
And the total stoppage time
where we were charging was 10 hours and 28 minutes.
10 hours into 28 minutes, just charging 617 minutes.
That's a lot of charging time.
We stopped to charge 14 times along this trip.
I'm pretty sure that people that broke the record,
they stopped 25 or 26 times.
So that right there just tells you how important it is
to drive faster and stop it more chargers,
if they were able to beat us by hours.
At one point when we were halfway across the country,
we had less than two hours to make up
in order to beat their record.
And so we still kind of had a chance,
but we really needed to step it up.
And then we noticed that it just wasn't happening.
The last two questions that I need to answer are,
was it fun, did I like it?
And then also, do I want to attempt
to break this record again and will I do it again?
I liked it. Yes, it was interesting.
It was a good experience in some ways.
But, the fact that I was so tired
made me not like it as much.
And feeling sick and all of that,
and then getting appendicitis.
You probably see it in my face,
I feel pretty, pretty beat up.
And that leads into the next question, would I do it again?
Right now, I'm saying, "No, I wouldn't do it again."
I think I did my attempt.
I drove almost all the way across the country.
Didn't beat it.
But I would be convinced to do it again,
if there was a few things.
If Tesla came out with new battery packs
that were better and longer.
Like the new ones that they're working on right now
for the Cybertruck.
And if I was able to leave at a decent time
and not be as tired to start off.
So that I wake up refreshed, drive an entire day,
and not even be tired.
And another thing I would want to do,
is get a bed inside of the trunk.
There are these beds called DreamCase,
that you can put in a Tesla Model S,
where you put it in the backseat
and it's a legit mattress and you can lay down.
I would use that at some of the Superchargers.
I don't think I'd use it while I'm driving,
'cause you're not wearing a seat belt,
if you get in a wreck, that's not going to be good.
And the last thing I would need for me
to be able to want to do it again,
is I want more V3 Superchargers across America.
I was really disappointed
in how few V3 Superchargers there were.
There were just a couple on the East coast
and then a couple on the West coast.
But it was really sporadic and it was kind of lame.
And some of the ones that we stopped at...
One of the ones that hurt us a bunch,
let me pull it up on the list.
It was in Effington, that was like the worst one.
Effington Supercharger is not super fast.
It's at like 80 kilowatt hours the entire time.
It didn't go up, it didn't go down.
I could have probably saved 20 minutes there,
if I would've noticed how slow it was.
Got just enough for the next charger,
and then just taken off to the next charger.
And hopefully that one's closer to 150.
But sometimes it's really frustrating when you pull
up through a Supercharger that's pretty full
on the V2s.
The V2 Superchargers do share stalls with people.
So like when we pulled up,
it was really low because somebody else was charging.
And then even when they left, for some reason,
it was still low.
So V3 Superchargers,
I need more of those in the country to do it.
So here we are three weeks into owning my Tesla
and we already have 5,000 miles on it.
Which I think is insane.
We've taken a few other road trips in the meantime
while I was laid up.
And you could just sit there all the time.
Took some road trips.
And so overall, I really do like
the Tesla Long Range Model S Plus.
I think it's a great 400 miles.
It's a really good number.
I feel so much more comfortable being able to drive
to Las Vegas, Nevada, and back on the same charge.
I could never do that in any of my other Teslas.
And so I'm incredibly excited because I feel
like 500 miles is the range that's coming soon
for not just Tesla, but Mercedes-Benz and Ford and GMC.
Like, I feel like a lot of companies
are getting closer to that 500 mile range.
That is the perfect number. That's what you need.
You don't even need to try to get like 700 or 1,000 miles.
500 miles is the perfect distance for a road trip Tesla.
I really enjoy road trips with a Tesla.
Just, maybe not all the way across the country
on little or no sleep, and your appendix is infected.
That's not suggested.
So, there you go. There's a trip.
Thanks for watching.
Congrats to the record holders, Out of Spec Motoring.
You still own it. You killed it.
And congrats to the next person that breaks the record.
I'd love to see somebody break the record.
Let's see an electric car go faster
than the 45 hours across the country.
Do it safely. Try not to break the law.
There's your recap. Hope you enjoyed that.
Thanks guys.
(soothing music)