First experience of a longer trip with an EV

[mr_spock]

Bit of background:

My wife recently got an ID.4, we have a 48A charger at home and it really works well for her 1hr commute. We're in the US, so she gets 3 years free use of Charge America sites, up to 30 mins a session.

We went away last weekend (it was a holiday yesterday) to the coast, about a 3.5 hour drive. The car decided to ignore the app which she'd set to charge to 100% - we usually keep to 80% for battery life - and it only charged to 80%. We drove a couple of hours and stopped at a DC fast charge site, took it back to 80% while we had some lunch, and headed for the coast. We stayed in Myrtle Beach, didn't use her car to drive around much locally and headed home after the weekend.

Which took 9 hours.

Nothing faster than a 7.5kW charger in the town, and it's not a small place, lots of tourists and locals, saw quite a few Teslas but mostly from out of state. Made it to a slightly faster charger about an hour away, but the whole town was shut and we both needed the loo. Got a few more miles in the battery, got to a gas station with facilities then headed for a 50A charger the car's map identified.

Wasn't there. Apple Maps couldn't find it, finally after getting to 0%, driving at 40MPH in a 55/65 to extend the range and making a few more miles we found it down a dirt track attached to someone's shed. They'd made it public to help people out, so we stayed until we had enough juice to get to a faster charger 25 miles away. Got there - one stop light town with only the gas station open. At least there was a loo. Charged enough to get to the DC charger we used on the way down, and at the speed limit too. One more stop there and we got home.

So, a learning experience:

• The ID.4 will do at least 5 miles once it reaches a displayed 0% without reducing performance, so could probably manage more.
• We didn't encounter any broken chargers, which was lucky
• You need ALL the apps (VW on board, Google maps, Plugshare, ChargeAmerica, Shell) to have much chance
• Range anxiety is a thing. I've driven old, classic and broken cars for distances and never been so tense. Awful experience.

Also, I'm now apparently responsible for trip planning. I did suggest we charged at the 7.5kW the evening before, but we were staying with friends and that would have been rude. Thinking about it, I should have parked the car at the charger and taken an Uber back to where we were staying.

Also I just bought a user XKR convertible, if we do that trip again, guess what I'm taking?

Footnote: this is not to beat up on electric cars. It's a nice drive, and works well where there's infrastructure. The US is so sodding huge though, that more than one stop even at DC chargers extends long trips a huge amount. At some point we'll drive to her folks near Nashville to take them some stuff, that's 12 hours if you don't stop. Not sure I fancy that in the EV, even if the power is free.

[Mark V GTD]

Thanks for this - an interesting insight in to EV ownership in a big country and making long trips. I’m six weeks in to it in little old U.K.

Slightly puzzled why you didn’t charge to 100% on your first fast charger stop - as you were driving away immediately that would not harm the battery. Would have eased the stress later.

[Bannock]

Mark V GTD said:

Thanks for this - an interesting insight in to EV ownership in a big country and making long trips. I’m six weeks in to it in little old U.K.

Slightly puzzled why you didn’t charge to 100% on your first fast charger stop - as you were driving away immediately that would not harm the battery. Would have eased the stress later.

Charging to 100% does not harm the battery on current EVs. It was potentially an issue in some circumstances with early cars like the first Nissan Leaf, but it's not a consideration any more.

The only drawback to charging to 100% is that the last 10% or so take a long time compared to the first 90%, so on a public charger its not always worth the extra time. Charge back to 100% overnight at home/destination while you sleep. Charging to 80% at public chargers is a choice a lot of people make in order to keep charge stops to the minimum time required to obtain the necessary charge to get to destination, but not for reasons of battery protection any more.

Getting back to the OP, I'm surprised the US is so poorly provisioned for chargers still. Are Tesla opening their superchargers to other EV owners yet?

[P675]

mr_spock said:

* Range anxiety is a thing. I've driven old, classic and broken cars for distances and never been so tense. Awful experience.

Thinking about it, I should have parked the car at the charger and taken an Uber back to where we were staying.

These parts in particular I just find so ridiculous. I hope the batteries and charging improve by the time I must buy one.

[mr_spock]

We didn't charge to 100% at the fast charger as I had assumed that my wife, who chose to buy an EV, had checked charging provision in Myrtle Beach. Seems not. Also we'd had lunch and she wanted to get there. There's probably a thread about this kind of stuff.

Tesla have not opened Superchargers to other makes over here. We can get an adapter and use destination chargers, I don't know how fast they are but will definitely look it up!

The real thing that was a pain; when we stopped in the little town with the first fast-ish charger, everything was shut for Labor day. Otherwise we'd have charged much more while we had brunch and used facilities. But literally every shop, cafe, whatever was closed. Now, with hindsight, we could have driven to the gas station, used the facilities and gone back to the charger and just waited. Who the heck wants to do that? Well, I do NOW.

[Zcd1]

mr_spock said:

Bit of background:

Footnote: this is not to beat up on electric cars. It's a nice drive, and works well where there's infrastructure. The US is so sodding huge though, that more than one stop even at DC chargers extends long trips a huge amount. At some point we'll drive to her folks near Nashville to take them some stuff, that's 12 hours if you don't stop. Not sure I fancy that in the EV, even if the power is free.

Fail to plan = plan to fail.

Punch your trip and car into www.abetterrouteplanner.com (surely this can't be the first time you've been referred to that site?) and let us know what it suggests.

Sorry for your difficulties, but even 5 minutes of prep would likely have prevented your experience from going so off-the-rails.

[DMZ]

EVs suck donkey balls when things go wrong

It is forever unclear to me why manufacturers don’t stick proper route planners in their EVs and set them up to use proper charging hubs instead of chasing Mickey Mouse chargers in random locations.

[mr_spock]

Zcd1 said:

mr_spock said:

Bit of background:

Footnote: this is not to beat up on electric cars. It's a nice drive, and works well where there's infrastructure. The US is so sodding huge though, that more than one stop even at DC chargers extends long trips a huge amount. At some point we'll drive to her folks near Nashville to take them some stuff, that's 12 hours if you don't stop. Not sure I fancy that in the EV, even if the power is free.

Fail to plan = plan to fail.

Punch your trip and car into www.abetterrouteplanner.com (surely this can't be the first time you've been referred to that site?) and let us know what it suggests.

Sorry for your difficulties, but even 5 minutes of prep would likely have prevented your experience from going so off-the-rails.

Oh absolutely! I have now been promoted to "official trip planner" and have already started with Plugshare to start with. The interesting variable is how much we'd drive around at the destination. For example, we can get from here to her Dad's in Tennessee, but pretty much can't get back. There are NO chargers there of any kind. So we're on a 110v slooooow charge if we can find accommodation which has that.

Similarly, we got to the beach easily, but couldn't get back without "hopping". Plugshare doesn't seem to do round trips, but I'm sure I'll work it out.

What I guess it comes down to is that you can't treat it just as a car, but as a piece of technology with some fairly noticeable limitations, particularly charging speed, even at "fast" chargers.

[Zcd1]

mr_spock said:

Oh absolutely! I have now been promoted to "official trip planner" and have already started with Plugshare to start with. The interesting variable is how much we'd drive around at the destination. For example, we can get from here to her Dad's in Tennessee, but pretty much can't get back. There are NO chargers there of any kind. So we're on a 110v slooooow charge if we can find accommodation which has that.

Similarly, we got to the beach easily, but couldn't get back without "hopping". Plugshare doesn't seem to do round trips, but I'm sure I'll work it out.

What I guess it comes down to is that you can't treat it just as a car, but as a piece of technology with some fairly noticeable limitations, particularly charging speed, even at "fast" chargers.

I find Plugshare to be largely useless, as I'm not interested in anything but DC fast charging on a road trip. The exception to that rule is if I'm going to stay somewhere overnight - then I might use Plugshare, but ONLY if the car would otherwise be sitting unused for hours, AND if I can't simply plug in at my destination. Bear in mind that even 110V will add 3-5 miles of range per hour - not much, but charging overnight could potentially net you 40-60 miles of range.

That's why abetterrouteplanner is so much better. Lists the BEST/FASTEST way to get to/from any destination in any EV, and you can add as many additional waypoints/stops as you'd like. You can also filter out slow/level 1/2 chargers if you like, though if there are faster charging options, ABRP will default to those regardless.

If you don't mind me asking, where did you start your trip?

Edited by Zcd1 on Tuesday 6th September 20:48

[mr_spock]

Thanks for the tip! Plugshare shows all chargers, but happy to try anything! We started from home, zip is 27302.

[Zcd1]

mr_spock said:

Thanks for the tip! Plugshare shows all chargers, but happy to try anything! We started from home, zip is 27302.

1 hour and 14 minutes of total charging time, 456-mile round trip, starting at 80% SOC:

https://abetterrouteplanner.com/?plan_uuid=4d318b1...

Even if you drove 50 miles in and around Myrtle Beach, that would only add about 20 minutes to your total charging time...

Edited by Zcd1 on Tuesday 6th September 20:59

[Zcd1]

DMZ said:

...It is forever unclear to me why manufacturers don’t stick proper route planners in their EVs and set them up to use proper charging hubs instead of chasing Mickey Mouse chargers in random locations.

LEGACY ICEV mfrs. don't all seem to understand the importance of such a feature. (looking at you, VAG and Hyundai/Kia)

EV-only mfrs. have understood this need from the beginning.

[mr_spock]

Zcd1 said:

mr_spock said:

Thanks for the tip! Plugshare shows all chargers, but happy to try anything! We started from home, zip is 27302.

1 hour and 14 minutes of total charging time, 456-mile round trip, starting at 80% SOC:

https://abetterrouteplanner.com/?plan_uuid=4d318b1...

Even if you drove 50 miles in and around Myrtle Beach, that would only add about 20 minutes to your total charging time...

Edited by Zcd1 on Tuesday 6th September 20:59

Interesting! That was the route we took, stopping at Lumberton on the way. I worked out that if we’d have charged there for another 15 mins or so we’d have made it back.

Incidentally, just had my new to me XKR convertible delivered. I don’t care about gas costs, I’m taking that next time. Wonderful thing!

[_Mja_]

Sounds like an awful experience (no point sugar coating it) and thanks for sharing. EVs are great in urban areas, for your average commute and are great pieces of technology. However for those (many people, myself included) that like to go off and explore, perhaps don't want to plan to nth degree they are crap as a car to get you from a-b. You could argue 90% of the time the car is great but that 10%, when on holiday with perhaps a couple of kids, means everything. I suppose you could get around it by hiring a different car.

[gangzoom]

_Mja_ said:

Sounds like an awful experience (no point sugar coating it) and thanks for sharing. EVs are great in urban areas, for your average commute and are great pieces of technology. However for those (many people, myself included) that like to go off and explore, perhaps don't want to plan to nth degree they are crap as a car to get you from a-b.

Apart from the fact here in Europe many of us on here and 'explored' plenty of places. OPs experience is something I similar to what I had back in 2015 in a 24kWh Nissan Leaf on the A14 trying to get to a meeting on time after a sudden thunderstorm and finding x2 broken/not working Ecotricity chargers.....But that was 6 years, and some 70K miles ago. Since, our EV is our main family/holiday/road trip car with no issues.

The ID range are really good family cars, and no one in Europe should be worried about buying one as their main family car. The biggest 'issue' with EVs in 2022 isn't range or charger speed, its simply cost. OPs experience simply isn't reflective of EV ownership or road trips in Europe.

[Maracus]

gangzoom said:

Apart from the fact here in Europe many of us on here and 'explored' plenty of places. OPs experience simply isn't reflective of EV ownership or road trips in Europe.

Have to agree. For eg, France is way ahead of the UK with EV charging infrastructure.

The charge points are everywhere and in greater multiples. Even with the Tesla SuC network considerably more opened up than the UK, they were so lightly used even on busy French holiday weekends. Most larger aires had 8 x charge points.

[Zcd1]

_Mja_ said:

Sounds like an awful experience (no point sugar coating it) and thanks for sharing. EVs are great in urban areas, for your average commute and are great pieces of technology. However for those (many people, myself included) that like to go off and explore, perhaps don't want to plan to nth degree they are crap as a car to get you from a-b. You could argue 90% of the time the car is great but that 10%, when on holiday with perhaps a couple of kids, means everything. I suppose you could get around it by hiring a different car.

Actually, EVs aren’t just “great” 90% of the time, they’re plain “better” as DDs 100% of the time. Instant, seamless power, silence, simplicity and incredible efficiency.

They require only that you abandon the ICEV mindset and adopt an EV mindset. It’s not complicated, or even inconvenient - it’s simply different.

[mr_spock]

I’d agree with all that. Much of the US simply isn’t ready. I think there are also local political issues at play, but I don’t know enough to comment in detail.

It’s an interesting point about having to adopt an EV mindset. My wife isn’t a car person much, she bought “a car”. We have charging at home, she has one on her commute, so that was good enough. Having to deal with apps that don’t work properly (wouldn’t charge to 100% when asked), multiple charger payment apps (debit/credit didn’t work on some), inaccurate maps and the very slow speed of charging compared to gassing up an IC car is all quite a change. I wonder how many people are really prepared to add 2-3 hours to a long journey.

People do long drives here - I bought a double bass in Chicago and drove 10 hours with 3 quick stops straight home. It was mad and I was exhausted, but it’s doable. If we go to family in Tennessee it’s 12 hours, and we can split the driving in shifts and do it in one go. Add the EV charging into it and it’s much longer, and we need to add a last charge in a major city to be sure to get back again. It can be done, but I think in the US that’s a big barrier to wider acceptance.

As I think I said, her previous car was a BMW 330e. A much better drive in almost every way, ride, handling, seats, infotainment, ventilation/AC, but it doesn’t have the larger airy feel and the load space. And of course it’s way more expensive to run.

[gangzoom]

mr_spock said:

I’d agree with all that. Much of the US simply isn’t ready. I think there are also local political issues at play, but I don’t know enough to comment in detail.

Is still ture you cannot officially 'buy' a Tesla in Texas despite the factory being there due to Tesla refusing to operate the traditional dealership model?

[What The Deuces]

gangzoom said:

OPs experience simply isn't reflective of EV ownership or road trips in Europe.

And yet i follow motoring journo Dan Trent on twitter and yesterday he had a very similar experience