First, I’d like to wish you all a safe and happy holiday season!
Next, if you recognize the quote in the title of this post, you’ll want to make sure you read all of this. Trust me.
I’ve posted recently that Texas EV were heading out on an EV road trip across the entire state of Texas. Well, we did take the trip. There were five of us on the trip and we shot tons (literally, 2.4 terabytes) of photos and videos to share with you.
Mario came up with the route for the trip, basing it on two things:
- The route should run along the first phase of National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program’s chargers and
- take us from one border of Texas to the opposite border, showing that you can take long-distance trips in electric vehicles.
My contribution was to decide to document our journey and create a video that those that don’t care about EVs and fanboys like me could both enjoy watching.
Of course, I had an ulterior motive… three, actually.
Unfortunately, our usual road trip companion, Amanda (the Director of Administration at Texas EV) could not go with us, due to a prior commitment. Obviously, a documentary would require multiple people shooting stills & video, so we needed to fill the void with a road crew. One was an obvious choice for me, my wife Bonnie. As fate would have it, I married the woman who would become the Director of Post-Production at The Country Network and work in video production her entire career. Next, I thought of my good friend Charles Mills. Charles is a former Apple “Creative” with whom I worked and he taught video editing in our Apple Store. As part of that job, he would create team-building and special event videos for the store. Early on, he recruited me to act in his videos and we’ve been making short films together ever since. Check out his podcast: It’s Just Awesome. These days, he works in a large hospital, making video productions for their internal use.
The first problem was the route Mario had proposed, starting in Waskom, Texas and going west to El Paso, turned out to be way too easy. The reason for this is TxDOT and the charging companies have done an amazing job on Texas’ NEVI program. Charging stations are becoming so common along Interstate 20, that I was worried that the documentary video would be a snoozer with zero drama. I wanted the audience to be a little on edge, wondering if we could make it across Texas. Maybe some viewers would be hoping we would make it all the way and others… well, not so much. I wanted that tension for our movie so people would watch it to the end to see how it turns out.
Once again, Mario came through with the great suggestion of adding Terlingua, an old mining ghost town in the Big Bend area to our route. Although it has been called a ghost town, it actually has restaurants, nightclubs, RV parks and motels (but less than 150 year-round residents). It is most well known for its annual International Chili Cook-Off, and it has been used as a location in several motion pictures, as well.
Terlingua and the entirety of Big Bend National Park, are located in Texas’ largest county, Brewster. It is 6,192 square miles of beautiful desert, mountains, and canyons populated by just 9,508 people. Its legendary status for Texans has always interested me, but more important was its location. It sits on a road that starts at the only bank of DC fast chargers in Brewster County (the star in Alpine, below), loops around Big Bend Ranch State Park (a much larger park than the national park… of course), through Marfa (of “Marfa Lights” fame) and finally back to Alpine. That 235 mile loop has a speed limit that varies between 75 and 85 miles per hour and is in a mountainous area, making it even more challenging. That route is shown in red in the image above.
Here’s where my first ulterior motive comes to light.
I know the only people who will watch a show that features electric vehicles are people who already like EVs. That doesn’t move the needle on EV adoption, which is my primary mission. Consumer Reports showed this years ago. The most reliable way to dispel the myths surrounding EVs is through each driver’s personal experience. But how do you get someone wary about, or outright hostile to, EVs to test drive one or watch a show about them? Drama, of course. EV fans will be biting their fingernails with anxiety. EV foes will be watching for every slip up and for the big payoff of watching us fail.
I might as well reveal my second ulterior motive now.
Drama is good. Reality TV is based on it, but adding obscure cultural references in a television show are golden (I’m looking at you “The Simpsons“).
I’m a huge fan of the 1985 movie, “Fandango.” The plot centers around five friends’ Texas road trip from the University of Texas to San Elizario, Texas on the border with Mexico. The first time I saw the movie, I laughed so hard I had tears rolling down my cheeks. Check it out. Much of the movie was shot in the area of Texas we’d be traveling through, especially if we went through Terlingua. One of the most important spots in the movie is just a few miles outside of town and sort of a pilgrimage site for “Groovers.” I thought showing Fandango shooting locations in our documentary might get fans of the movie to watch our program and promote it on social media. Fandango has become quite the cult film around the world. I also think the opening shot of the movie seemed apropos for what we were going to attempt (especially the 3rd definition). But am I crazy for wanting to attempt this loop?!?
Here’s my third ulterior motive:
Bonnie and I have driven to Rocky Mountain National Park, from Fort Worth, for a week of camping and hiking in 2024, but that trip wasn’t as long as this trip. Mario and I have participated in three Texas EV road trips already, but each of those was a regional trip, not the whole way across the state. Those road trips including meetings with Chambers of Commerce and local media, so each day’s drive was usually less than 175 miles. On the planned trip, we planned a couple days’ drives that were 318 miles (Terlingua to El Paso) and 449 miles (Balmorhea to Fort Worth). We’ve learned a lot through these experiences, but the most important lesson learned was the negative EV stuff that is posted on social media, is FUD.
FUD stands for “fear, uncertainty and doubt.” That is what they’re trying desperately to spread. They want people to avoid EVs like the plague, because they know once people test drive an electric vehicle, they buy one. Once they buy one, they love it. Once they love it, they start to give their friends test drives…
…and that’s all she wrote.
So I wanted to eliminate enough fear, uncertainty and doubt for ya’ll that you could experience what I’ve been enjoying since August 3, 2012: bliss. My thought was if I could show how charging works, all the various places you can charge (hint: not just chargers), how to extend your range to make it to your destination, advantages of EV driving, etc. and do it in an engaging, entertaining way, I could help relieve the truly needless fear that surrounds EV driving. Whether we made it or not, I can assure you we did all these things. More and that, when the documentary is released, it will show both the challenges we faced and the fun we had.
But best of all, we’re going to show you Texas.
I was born here and am proud to call myself a Texan. Our state has so many beautiful places to visit and so much history. I hope we also convince you to get out there and enjoy the many, varied regions of Texas. I’ve lived here all my life but there are still entire areas I haven’t visited.
So, I grabbed all my video equipment: six GoPros, various mounts, my drone, wireless mics, battery chargers, hard drives, gimbals, bought a new iPhone and more. I grabbed our portable chargers, adapter plugs and charger adapters. I got ready to make a movie or go to war.
General Motors recently joined Texas EV and wanted to support the trip, so they kindly loaned us a Silverado EV Trail Boss and an Equinox EV. I took my Tesla Model Y along as the equipment van.
On October 21st, we stopped by the GM offices in Coppell, Texas to pick up the vehicles and headed to Shreveport, Louisiana. There we would have a Cajun dinner and get some rest, The next morning we headed out for the Texas border at Waskom and glory or…
No, I am not going to reveal the ending.
Bon and I are in post-production on the video and we’ll share tidbits from time to time. However, we want you to get the full impact of everything, the good and the not so good. It was quite dramatic at times.
Now for a little news. I (finally) convinced Bonnie to retire from her job to travel around in our EV and do more camping, hiking and make more videos for ya’ll. I am also retiring from Texas EV Alliance. I’ll still be around, helping out Texas EV when I can, but the electric transportation ecosystem I wanted to help to spark is becoming reality. EV advocates need to have a deeper understanding of the electric grid as well as what makes electric utilities tick. In 12 short years, I am becoming a dinosaur and do not regret it in the least. I have enjoyed participating in several major industry evolutions, ranging from personal computers to computer-aided engineering to industrial 3D printing to electric vehicles.
Exciting times.
Times I am grateful to have experienced. The world is a merry-go-round, always moving, progressing. It is time for me to step off and enjoy the view from off the ride with the love of my life and best friend.
Did I bury the headline?
One last note: Please join Texas EV Alliance and help them help Texas lead the way into a new era once again.
