Some notes on driving across the country in an electric vehicle
A very slow EV charger
When I bought my fully electric vehicle, I knew there would be drawbacks—and a lot to learn. So, what better way to find out than to take it on a 7,500-mile road trip?
The first leg took me to Toronto to visit friends. My first charge stop was a Shell station that required an app. After downloading it, I discovered it wouldn’t work because I was “in the wrong country.” Frustrating but there was an Electrify Canada station ten miles away, and forty minutes later I was charged up and back on the road.
One of the challenges is the number of different charging networks. Each uses its own app, though some networks allow credit card payment at the charger. By the end of my trip, I’d charged about fifty times using ten different networks. A few times I couldn’t get a charger to work—some of that was my inexperience. For example, with most networks, you plug in first, then tap your phone on the charger; with Tesla, you set up the charge in their app before plugging in. Once I figured that out, Tesla proved to be the most convenient and reliable.
Not all chargers are functional, either. I encountered at least five that were broken, or whose credit card readers didn’t work—often in unsupervised public parking lots. I’ve heard of chargers being disabled because someone cut off the cable for its copper, though I didn’t run into that myself.
I had also expected charging to be cheaper than gas. At home, I pay about $0.18 per kWh—roughly $0.06 per mile. On this trip my charging costs averaged about $0.18 per mile. By comparison, a gas car getting 24 MPG at $3.50 per gallon costs about $0.15 per mile. Since most of my driving is local and uses home charging, it’s still considerably cheaper. Factoring in the reduced maintenance costs brings it down even more.
Another “feature” of public charging stations is the lack of posted prices, which vary widely. Unless you record the price and kWh at the time, it’s often hard to find later. Tesla stations record the date, location, cost, kWh, and price per kWh, but networks like Electrify America use a prepayment system, so your credit card statement doesn’t show what each charge costs. It’s great for their cash flow, but not for tracking expenses. After some digging, I found Electrify America was the priciest—$0.45 to $0.68 per kWh—while Tesla ranged from $0.48 to $0.56, and ChargePoint from $0.13 to $0.37 (with a few still free).
Convenience is another issue. We’re used to refueling a gas car in five minutes. Not so with EVs. Most stations are curbside, so with my charging port in the rear, I had to back in. The non-Tesla cables are heavy, and sometimes I had trouble making a connection with my adapter (I drive a Hyundai with a Tesla-style charging port). Tesla cables are lighter but short, often forcing me to park across the lines to reach (something Tesla acknowledges on their app). Honestly, managing a CCS plug is much more physically challenging than a gas pump hose.
Charging speeds vary widely. Most non-Tesla fast chargers use the CCS system, operating at 800 volts. Charging rates vary, but some are capable of providing 300 kW (that’s 300,000 Watts). My EV can accept about 200 kW, going from 20% to 80% in roughly 20 minutes. But not all CCS chargers deliver that much power, so I avoid anything under 90 kW—unless there’s food or something else worth doing nearby. Tesla chargers can approach 200 kW, but they run at 400 volts, so my Hyundai typically charges at about 100 kW there. (Note: kW is the power, or rate of charge, while kWh is the amount of energy, equivalent to one kW for one hour.)
I did see some interesting innovations. In remote areas of British Columbia, several BC Hydro stations had integrated battery storage, letting them deliver faster charging without overloading the grid. The units even displayed their current battery level.
Finding stations was another adventure. Unlike gas stations with huge signs advertising the prices, charging stations have minimal signage. The only wayfinding signs I saw were small blue “EV” signs for chargers in municipal lots. I spent a fair amount of time hunting for chargers shown in my mapping apps—some that no longer existed.
Speaking of apps, I used three: Plugshare, a generic app dedicated to finding charging stations; Hyundai’s navigation app, which automatically preconditions the battery for fast charging; and Google Maps, which remains the best for actual navigation—but oddly less knowledgeable about charger locations. I’d love to just use Hyundai’s app for the battery conditioning, but it’s clunky and inaccurate. I took more wrong turns with it than I care to admit.
Plugshare offers a lot of information about the stations, including the peak rate of charge, whether it’s down for repair, and user reviews. It also lets me plot routes and export them to Google Maps, though both limit the number of stops. Typically, I’d plan a day ahead and load the route into Google, but had to remember to start battery conditioning manually. I’m sure there’s a better way to save multipoint routes in Google Maps than emailing myself the link—but I haven’t figured it out yet.
Ideally, I’d like Hyundai to utilize Google Maps for navigation while still managing the battery conditioning. Barring that, I’d like to be able to use both simultaneously, but whenever I switch to the Hyundai map, Google stops and forgets the whole route. At some point, I will learn how to navigate the navigation systems. After all, during a good portion of my life, I navigated cross-country with paper maps, a skill now badly rusted.
Finally, I learned an important lesson: don’t wait too long to charge—especially in the middle of the country. I once arrived at a Tesla station in Nebraska only to discover it was Tesla-only (a certain percentage of their sites are). I had 19 miles left and 38 miles to the next station. I could have called AAA and had them tow me, but instead asked a convenience store if I could use an outdoor outlet. The clerk agreed, and my car optimistically estimated 64 hours, 32 minutes to reach 80%. I just needed enough for 40 miles.
After two hours, the guy came out and told me the owner had come by and told him to tell me to stop. I was at 25 miles. I drove 35 mph along a state highway, watching the range tick down. With one mile to go, the car complained loudly and flashed “Performance limited”—but I made it. Lesson learned. The next day, I detoured 40 miles into Colorado just to be safe. On the way home, I routed through Canada, where charging stations are more numerous (and cheaper).
Finally, I do want to say that I don’t regret switching to an EV. There’s nothing quite as smooth as an EV, and the extra weight is low and the car handles very well, and the cost of home charging is a fraction of the cost of gasoline. The inconvenience of public charging is a small price to pay for the ability to avoid gasoline altogether. Gasoline, besides being a fossil fuel, also can only reach an efficiency of less than 40% and generally are about 30% in internal combustion engines, with the rest of the energy going up in heat. Electric Vehicles, on the other hand, have efficiencies of 87% – 91%. There are energy losses associated with the transmission of electricity from where it is produced to where it is used, but these pale in comparison to the energy losses associated with distillation of gasoline from crude oil.
I’m writing this as a novice, so veteran EV drivers may smile at my naivety—and that’s fine. This trip was a learning experience, and if there’s one thing I love, it’s learning.
Robin McClellan 