The Homa Files

Simple: Buy an EV and download a charger-finder app.
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Last year, my wife and son took their annual weekend trip to Cleveland to visit some relatives and go to an Indians’ (err, Guardians’) baseball game.

In prior years, the trip from DC to Cleveland took under 6 hours.

Last year it was over 10.

What changed?

Her gas-efficient Audi A4 was left in the garage.

His Tesla hit the road … and  the hunt for EV chargers started.

Apparently, their experience is neither unique nor time-obsoleted.

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A recent WSJ article chronicled a writer’s EV travel from New Orleans to Chicago and back in a shiny new EV.

The Goal: Roundtrip from New Orleans to Chicago and back (2,000 miles) in 4 “leisurely” days.

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The plan:

Given our battery range of up to 310 miles, I plotted a meticulous route, splitting our days into four chunks of roughly 7½-hours each.

We’d need to charge once or twice each day and plug in near our hotel overnight.

While we’d be fine overnight, we required fast chargers during the days.

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Charging Stops – The Dream 

Fast chargers tend to be located in parking lots of suburban shopping malls, or tethered to gas stations or car dealerships.

ChargePoint — which manufactures and maintains many fast-charging stations — promises an 80% charge in 20 to 30 minutes.

That’s  longer than stopping for gas — but, on the bright side, “it’s good for a bite or bathroom break.”

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Charging Stops – The Reality

It turns out not all “fast chargers” live up to the name.

At our dealer’s fast-charging station, our dashboard tells us a full charge, from 18% to 100%, will take 3-plus hours.

Fastest charge: 25 minutes.

Longest “fast” charge : 3 hours

While there are already thousands of charging options between New Orleans and Chicago, most were are classified as Level 2, requiring up to 8 hours for a full charge.

And sometimes, charging stations are only open during business hours at, say, gas stations or car dealerships … or, may require an attendant to turn it on.

And sometimes, you get beat to an advertised “open” charging station by another driver — or get shocked by an unexpected “out of service” sign

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The Economics

Over four days, we spent $175 on charging.

We estimated the equivalent cost for gas  would have been $275.

That $100 savings cost us many hours in waiting time.

A gas-fueled 2-day trip can be EVed in 4 days, with some white-knuckle situations along the way.

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The Urban Divide

This was a surprise to me…

The car’s highway range actually was worse than its range in cities.

Indeed, highway driving doesn’t benefit as much from the car’s regenerative-braking technology which uses energy generated in slowing down to help a car recharge its battery

But, a battery’s charge can be stretched by using cruise control to  reduce inadvertent acceleration and deceleration … and by:

Turning off the car’s cooling system and the radio, unplugging phones and other devices and lowering the windshield wipers to the lowest possible setting while still being able to see in the rain.

In other words, shelve all of the car’s creature comforts.

Yipes!

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PS For added color, read the whole article:

I Rented an Electric Car for a Four-Day Road Trip. I Spent More Time Charging It Than I Did Sleeping.

Scroll down the article for an accompanying video The Electric Vehicle Road Test..

This entry was posted on June 14, 2022 at 7:40 am and is filed under EVs - Electric Cars, Green Energy, Oil & Energy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.