Electric cars
June 14, 2023 2:20 PM Subscribe
Talk to me about electric cars, their range, and how do people practically travel with them?
Like many people I am interested in electric cars. I have no problem with them and would be happy to make the switch when I can find one affordable enough.
I am really not sure though about the range factor. Once to twice a month I take trips in the 400-500 mile range and twice a year longer road trips. Is this just something people have a second car for? Are we just assuming eventually there will be enough electric charging stations and the time frame to charge will be shorter?
I am not opposed to rethinking my driving habits just having a hard time conceptualizing practically how it might look.
If anything I assume we would transition plug in hybrid first and then electric but so many vehicles are now coming out electric only.
Like many people I am interested in electric cars. I have no problem with them and would be happy to make the switch when I can find one affordable enough.
I am really not sure though about the range factor. Once to twice a month I take trips in the 400-500 mile range and twice a year longer road trips. Is this just something people have a second car for? Are we just assuming eventually there will be enough electric charging stations and the time frame to charge will be shorter?
I am not opposed to rethinking my driving habits just having a hard time conceptualizing practically how it might look.
If anything I assume we would transition plug in hybrid first and then electric but so many vehicles are now coming out electric only.
I know people have traveled cross country (US) in electric cars. Caveat: they had Teslas, which currently have exclusive access to the Tesla Supercharger network, and whose cars have on average longer distance. Note that two other manufacturers (Ford, GM) have committed to making their electric cars compatible to the Supercharger network, and Tesla is slowly making some of their Superchargers compatible with other cars.
You can check your routes here: Go Anywhere | Tesla which will suggest charging stations based on the distance of your car (only Teslas listed but you can just choose based on range).
Charging stations for other electric cars may be a problem: How reliable are public EV charging stations? Report shows many EV drivers have issues
Things are different in other countries, where they may or may not have mandated a charging standard and stations may be more or less plentiful.
posted by meowzilla at 2:38 PM on June 14, 2023
You can check your routes here: Go Anywhere | Tesla which will suggest charging stations based on the distance of your car (only Teslas listed but you can just choose based on range).
Charging stations for other electric cars may be a problem: How reliable are public EV charging stations? Report shows many EV drivers have issues
Things are different in other countries, where they may or may not have mandated a charging standard and stations may be more or less plentiful.
posted by meowzilla at 2:38 PM on June 14, 2023
I have an electric Kia Niro, and if I were you, I'd plan to have a second car available or rent for the 400-500 mile range. Charging on the road is a little bit of a pain, especially when things happen like the chargers being out of service. It depends on the saturation of chargers along your route though. I would not do a cross country trip in my car.
Another thing to keep in mind, depending on where you are, is that a full battery's mileage depends on the weather. I lose an easy 20%+ if it's cold, or hot and using the AC. In ideal weather I have about 300 miles, in the Chicago winter about 220. And it takes longer to charge.
Driving an electric does take more planning than a gas car, and if I had to do it all over again with my circumstances now, I'd go with a plug in hybrid. But, especially now that I live in a household w 2 other gas cars, its not that bad.
posted by Sparky Buttons at 2:47 PM on June 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
Another thing to keep in mind, depending on where you are, is that a full battery's mileage depends on the weather. I lose an easy 20%+ if it's cold, or hot and using the AC. In ideal weather I have about 300 miles, in the Chicago winter about 220. And it takes longer to charge.
Driving an electric does take more planning than a gas car, and if I had to do it all over again with my circumstances now, I'd go with a plug in hybrid. But, especially now that I live in a household w 2 other gas cars, its not that bad.
posted by Sparky Buttons at 2:47 PM on June 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
Cross country travel, even without a Tesla, is a real possibility, though you may have problems with Electrify America, though supposedly the quality of their chargers is improving. Plugshare is a great app to check ratings on charging stations and to see where people have had problems.
There is a youtube channel - Out of Spec Motoring where he does all sort of reviews of electric cars, but if you go into some older videos, you can see him road-tripping across the US in various different cars from all brands, lots of CCS cars as well as Teslas.
posted by defcom1 at 2:48 PM on June 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
There is a youtube channel - Out of Spec Motoring where he does all sort of reviews of electric cars, but if you go into some older videos, you can see him road-tripping across the US in various different cars from all brands, lots of CCS cars as well as Teslas.
posted by defcom1 at 2:48 PM on June 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
Most hotels have electric chargers now. Tesla is actually a top 10 selling car in the US in volume currently, and it is common to see them traveling the interstate.
I know people who love them for 300 mile journeys (not all Teslas - the people I know own Hyundai Ionic 5 and VW Id4). Not sure about 500 mile journeys. I guess it depends on where you are going and how common chargers are.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:50 PM on June 14, 2023
I know people who love them for 300 mile journeys (not all Teslas - the people I know own Hyundai Ionic 5 and VW Id4). Not sure about 500 mile journeys. I guess it depends on where you are going and how common chargers are.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:50 PM on June 14, 2023
I have had an EV since 2018 - first a Tesla Model 3 and now a Hyundai Ioniq5. I take regular road trips of around 600 miles round trip (with an overnight in the middle) and find it totally doable. But as you say there is a bit of rethinking that is necessary. For multi-state roadtrips, we have a regular-old hybrid and drive that.
soylent00FF00 is spot on that with garage charging at home and destination charging at a hotel or workplace you can often fill up without ever needing the fast-charging infrastructure except for long haul trips. That part is exceptionally nice. When I travel now, I look for hotels that have EV Charging (there are more and more), and I plug in overnight and wake up to full electrons for the drive home. Even places that have Tesla-only plugs (other than Superchargers) can charge up your car with a simple and cheap adapter.
My best advice to would-be EV buyers (other than "do it!") is to pay attention to range and charging speed. Both make a huge difference in what your EV can be. A standard range Nissan Leaf has 149 rated miles, and can charge at a fast charger of "up to 62.5 kW." That makes the car a great choice for a daily driver or around town car, but it makes zero sense as a road trip car because you will wait a long time for it to charge up and even then you won't get far. By contrast, the Ioniq5 has a range closer to 300 miles and can take up to 350kW, which is almost twice as long and multiples faster. So long as you are conscientious about planning out your stops, you can go virtually anywhere in the US. When I charge the Ioniq5, it is usually in the parking lot of a big box store. So I go in, get a snack, and go to the bathroom. By the time I am out I am just about ready to roll out.
Note that rated range and real live range are often wildly different, especially in severe weather. Rain, wind, and particularly cold will reduce your range, and your own brain will further reduce it for fear of getting stuck without a plug. So even if my electrons say 250 miles, I don't plan to go farther than 175 out of an abundance of caution.
posted by AgentRocket at 2:53 PM on June 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
soylent00FF00 is spot on that with garage charging at home and destination charging at a hotel or workplace you can often fill up without ever needing the fast-charging infrastructure except for long haul trips. That part is exceptionally nice. When I travel now, I look for hotels that have EV Charging (there are more and more), and I plug in overnight and wake up to full electrons for the drive home. Even places that have Tesla-only plugs (other than Superchargers) can charge up your car with a simple and cheap adapter.
My best advice to would-be EV buyers (other than "do it!") is to pay attention to range and charging speed. Both make a huge difference in what your EV can be. A standard range Nissan Leaf has 149 rated miles, and can charge at a fast charger of "up to 62.5 kW." That makes the car a great choice for a daily driver or around town car, but it makes zero sense as a road trip car because you will wait a long time for it to charge up and even then you won't get far. By contrast, the Ioniq5 has a range closer to 300 miles and can take up to 350kW, which is almost twice as long and multiples faster. So long as you are conscientious about planning out your stops, you can go virtually anywhere in the US. When I charge the Ioniq5, it is usually in the parking lot of a big box store. So I go in, get a snack, and go to the bathroom. By the time I am out I am just about ready to roll out.
Note that rated range and real live range are often wildly different, especially in severe weather. Rain, wind, and particularly cold will reduce your range, and your own brain will further reduce it for fear of getting stuck without a plug. So even if my electrons say 250 miles, I don't plan to go farther than 175 out of an abundance of caution.
posted by AgentRocket at 2:53 PM on June 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
I have a Tesla Y, which has a range of 300+ miles. It's a phenomenal car all around.
We just did a ~850 mile roundtrip earlier this year. We made two stops in each direction - each about 15 minutes. Chargers are generally located near things to do (restaurants, malls, etc.), so we grabbed meals or used the bathroom or walked the dog. On long trips, stops tend to be around 2.5 - 3 hours apart, which is when I tend to need a break, too.
I'll second the recommendation to play around with A Better Route Planner - it's great for seeing what's possible, and what trips would look like.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 2:55 PM on June 14, 2023
We just did a ~850 mile roundtrip earlier this year. We made two stops in each direction - each about 15 minutes. Chargers are generally located near things to do (restaurants, malls, etc.), so we grabbed meals or used the bathroom or walked the dog. On long trips, stops tend to be around 2.5 - 3 hours apart, which is when I tend to need a break, too.
I'll second the recommendation to play around with A Better Route Planner - it's great for seeing what's possible, and what trips would look like.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 2:55 PM on June 14, 2023
Driving any kind of car you are supposed to take regular breaks (EU requires at least 45 minutes after 4.5 hours of driving, through other sources suggest more frequent breaks) so an electric car enforces the safe driving that you're already supposed to be doing. My impression is that most people road-tripping in electric have an idea beforehand of where they are going to have their break, so that they know there is a place they would like to eg. have lunch at while the car charges, and that there are chargers there. But you also want a plan B location in case all of the chargers are in use, especially if you're traveling at peak times.
The future of the technology: I do not expect car range to increase greatly from the higher-end already on offer; as battery capacity improves over time and prices drop, the higher-range cars will become cheaper rather than loading cars up with extra batteries. There will always be outliers but I expect that few cars will be designed for 400 miles, instead having a meal while charging will become road-trip culture.
Charging speed already does not need to get faster than today's high end, which sounds terrible but 200 miles in 15 minutes is already quicker than recommended breaks from driving. However most things are not the high end, so for someone in your shoes who regularly road-trips, I think you will want to pay extra attention to getting a car that charges fairly quickly and has access to the Tesla supercharger network.
The other thing is that as you so frequently do road trips, you're an outlier and it will be more important for you than most people to get a long-range fast-charging car, which puts you looking at what is currently the expensive end of the market. For you, it might make sense to wait for costs to come down, or have a second car. But if you plan to wait, I think significant price drops on EVs will be in the 5-10 year range, rather than the 1-3 year range
posted by anonymisc at 3:01 PM on June 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
The future of the technology: I do not expect car range to increase greatly from the higher-end already on offer; as battery capacity improves over time and prices drop, the higher-range cars will become cheaper rather than loading cars up with extra batteries. There will always be outliers but I expect that few cars will be designed for 400 miles, instead having a meal while charging will become road-trip culture.
Charging speed already does not need to get faster than today's high end, which sounds terrible but 200 miles in 15 minutes is already quicker than recommended breaks from driving. However most things are not the high end, so for someone in your shoes who regularly road-trips, I think you will want to pay extra attention to getting a car that charges fairly quickly and has access to the Tesla supercharger network.
The other thing is that as you so frequently do road trips, you're an outlier and it will be more important for you than most people to get a long-range fast-charging car, which puts you looking at what is currently the expensive end of the market. For you, it might make sense to wait for costs to come down, or have a second car. But if you plan to wait, I think significant price drops on EVs will be in the 5-10 year range, rather than the 1-3 year range
posted by anonymisc at 3:01 PM on June 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
While this doesn't help you, it's worth bearing in mind that your habits are pretty unusual. Very few car owners make two trips outside the range of an EV each month. Getting to the point where people like you can jump into an EV without planning where you're going to charge remains work in progress for the charging network. You seem like a good candidate for a plug-in hybrid in the meantime.
posted by caek at 3:02 PM on June 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by caek at 3:02 PM on June 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
We are on our fifth EV. Three LEAFs and now a Tesla S and a Tesla 3. So we have access to their superchargers. My older S is free to charge, the 3, not. My S has about 235 mile range, the 3 goes up to about 280 or so, (I don't drive it much, as it sucks compared to my S).
It is certainly possible to drive them on long trips. Just depends on where you are going, and how much you want to stop. That being said when I've had to do drives from Seattle-> Dallas, or really even LA, I've bitten the bullet and just rented a car. That 30 minutes of stopping to charge every couple hundred miles adds considerable time to your trips.
I have no knowledge of non-tesla supercharging though, as there are so many on major highways. Start getting into the boonies, and it does get, or did get, more problematic. Public and hotel chargers often tend to be broken. And require much longer charge times than the superchargers.
But our EV experiences have been great, and I heartily recommend them.
posted by Windopaene at 3:10 PM on June 14, 2023
It is certainly possible to drive them on long trips. Just depends on where you are going, and how much you want to stop. That being said when I've had to do drives from Seattle-> Dallas, or really even LA, I've bitten the bullet and just rented a car. That 30 minutes of stopping to charge every couple hundred miles adds considerable time to your trips.
I have no knowledge of non-tesla supercharging though, as there are so many on major highways. Start getting into the boonies, and it does get, or did get, more problematic. Public and hotel chargers often tend to be broken. And require much longer charge times than the superchargers.
But our EV experiences have been great, and I heartily recommend them.
posted by Windopaene at 3:10 PM on June 14, 2023
Enter in a sample route and prospective vehicle into ABetterRoutePlanner (https://abetterrouteplanner.com/) to see how it would change your trip.
After that, well, your mileage may vary.
I have had a Model 3 for 4 years now and have taken it on several long distance road trips. However, there are still places I cannot go due to the lack of infrastructure (Capitol Reef National Park is asking for trouble unless you like begging at a packed RV campground.) But to and from any major city is almost trivial nowadays.
As noted above, Tesla's charging network makes it seamless. So that is the default "easy" pick for those who can ignore the fact that Elon has Nobel disease.
Other options can often come down to what chargers you can use and how well your part of the country is setup. A friend of mine has a shiny new ID.4 and recently went from Colorado to Portland. It was a shitshow. (Mostly because he went via I-80 and not I-70 because I-70 in March is trouble.) He made it but it was really touch and go for a while there. However, in other parts of the country you would be fine.
One other note: Range will vary depending on speed, wind, elevation gain/loss, and a dozen other variables. For some easy back of the napkin math, take the rated range and cut it in half if you have to travel along the highway in the winter.
posted by SegFaultCoreDump at 3:17 PM on June 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
After that, well, your mileage may vary.
I have had a Model 3 for 4 years now and have taken it on several long distance road trips. However, there are still places I cannot go due to the lack of infrastructure (Capitol Reef National Park is asking for trouble unless you like begging at a packed RV campground.) But to and from any major city is almost trivial nowadays.
As noted above, Tesla's charging network makes it seamless. So that is the default "easy" pick for those who can ignore the fact that Elon has Nobel disease.
Other options can often come down to what chargers you can use and how well your part of the country is setup. A friend of mine has a shiny new ID.4 and recently went from Colorado to Portland. It was a shitshow. (Mostly because he went via I-80 and not I-70 because I-70 in March is trouble.) He made it but it was really touch and go for a while there. However, in other parts of the country you would be fine.
One other note: Range will vary depending on speed, wind, elevation gain/loss, and a dozen other variables. For some easy back of the napkin math, take the rated range and cut it in half if you have to travel along the highway in the winter.
posted by SegFaultCoreDump at 3:17 PM on June 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
I'm the happy owner of a 2021 Chevy Bolt (RIP Bolt, stupid GM), and my advice would be that the single biggest thing to look for is speed of charging. My Bolt has about 250 miles of range (in good weather), and about 215 or so in the coldest part of winter...which is a solid 3.5 hours or so of Interstate driving, but the charging rate tops out at around 50kW which takes a very long time to charge (as noted above other more modern and expensive EVs will charge at nearly 350kW). It's the perfect daily driver, as I almost never need to drive more than 3 hours or so in a day and then can charge at home overnight...but I have yet to take it on a road trip because the time spent charging is just too high.
If I had an Ioniq or other faster charging car, I don't think I'd hesitate.
posted by griffey at 3:22 PM on June 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
If I had an Ioniq or other faster charging car, I don't think I'd hesitate.
posted by griffey at 3:22 PM on June 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
I work with a guy who is basically a one man "you don't need long range to do road trips in your EV!" marketing firm. Every long weekend he parks the Tesla S series and packs the kids into his old LEAF and does ~500-1000 mile trips out of the Bay Area. And these are real tips, and to and through Yellowstone.
He does it so often that honestly the only amazing part these days is that his kids don't revolt, lol.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 3:36 PM on June 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
He does it so often that honestly the only amazing part these days is that his kids don't revolt, lol.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 3:36 PM on June 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
Beyond the capacity and charge speed mentioned above, a key factor to consider is where you are going on these road trips. Are you going between urban centers on the interstate, and will be staying in hotels with chargers? Or are you going camping in rural areas?
Not only do the cars lose range driving in cold weather, they lose range parking in cold weather. My outdoor activity partner drives a Tesla and it has lost 10% of charge in a weekend parked at a trailhead. Off of major interstates in our state, there is not fast-charging infrastructure. On a conventional outlet, a Tesla gets 1-2 miles of charge per hour.
Also, as your car ages, the battery range decreases. The above referenced Tesla is now at about 80% of the original capacity and is maybe 5 years old, compounding the above issues.
posted by Narrow Harbor at 3:42 PM on June 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
Not only do the cars lose range driving in cold weather, they lose range parking in cold weather. My outdoor activity partner drives a Tesla and it has lost 10% of charge in a weekend parked at a trailhead. Off of major interstates in our state, there is not fast-charging infrastructure. On a conventional outlet, a Tesla gets 1-2 miles of charge per hour.
Also, as your car ages, the battery range decreases. The above referenced Tesla is now at about 80% of the original capacity and is maybe 5 years old, compounding the above issues.
posted by Narrow Harbor at 3:42 PM on June 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
I was curious in the same way you are, OP. We rented a Kia Niro for a road trip in the rural eastern Sierra to see how it worked. It was a major pain in my ass. Charging rate in miles per hour (a familiar unit but with a new meaning for electric cars) is really the name of the game. We were able to find DC fast chargers (using three different apps plus A Better Route Planner for routing) but our Kia was so freaking slow to charge. Sometimes (in mild weather, say 45-80F) we were charging as slowly as 65 miles per hour. Charge an hour, drive an hour. It was infuriating. Other cars were charging 2-5x as fast. The Kia doesn't come with an adaptor for regular home outlets (called Level 1 charging) which would have helped a little, but that would have only gotten us so far, literally.
Range is important, but not as important. While I have been known to pilot my gas car 300 miles without stopping, most of the time you do need to stop at some point. And the charging stations tend to be in places that have bathrooms, shopping, a restaurant or two, etc. And you can't really use the bottom 20% of the range because you don't want to risk running out of juice, and the top 20% takes too long to charge, even if you're willing to slightly damage the battery. (And running out of charge is way, way worse than running out of gas; you have to be towed to a charger and then wait there while it charges.) So a nominal range of 250 miles is suddenly closer to 150. Which, again, I think most people stop more often than that, so it's not the end of the world. In rural areas the range matters more, because you're always at least 20 miles between fast chargers.
Unfortunately, it is a lot harder to get accurate numbers on charging rate than range. Range is definitely a variable thing,
depending on temperature, wind, grade, driving style, etc., but the EPA numbers are in the ballpark. The charging rate seems to be a total crapshoot, though. Sometimes we would charge just fine, getting the full rate of 262 miles per hour, and other times a fraction of that.
posted by wnissen at 4:43 PM on June 14, 2023
Range is important, but not as important. While I have been known to pilot my gas car 300 miles without stopping, most of the time you do need to stop at some point. And the charging stations tend to be in places that have bathrooms, shopping, a restaurant or two, etc. And you can't really use the bottom 20% of the range because you don't want to risk running out of juice, and the top 20% takes too long to charge, even if you're willing to slightly damage the battery. (And running out of charge is way, way worse than running out of gas; you have to be towed to a charger and then wait there while it charges.) So a nominal range of 250 miles is suddenly closer to 150. Which, again, I think most people stop more often than that, so it's not the end of the world. In rural areas the range matters more, because you're always at least 20 miles between fast chargers.
Unfortunately, it is a lot harder to get accurate numbers on charging rate than range. Range is definitely a variable thing,
depending on temperature, wind, grade, driving style, etc., but the EPA numbers are in the ballpark. The charging rate seems to be a total crapshoot, though. Sometimes we would charge just fine, getting the full rate of 262 miles per hour, and other times a fraction of that.
posted by wnissen at 4:43 PM on June 14, 2023
I think the comments here are bit optimistic. Most people don't do multiple roadtrips a year, and 400 mile drives 15+ times a year. Most EV owners I know also have a gas-powered car.
Lots of journalists have done EV roadtrips and written about how it kind of sucks:
https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/road-tripping-in-our-long-term-electric-test-cars/
https://www.tomsguide.com/opinion/i-took-a-500-mile-trip-in-an-ev-but-range-anxiety-was-the-least-of-my-problems
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/12/electric-vehicle-road-trip-takeaways-00085508
My own experience mirrors this. Gas stations are all over so if one is crowded or broken it's fine. If your EV charger is broken it might be an extra 50 miles to find a different one. Filling up at a gas station is 5 minutes so it's fine if you go someplace crowded. EV charging takes longer and people do other things so it's not uncommon for a charger to be occupied for over an hour by one car. Likewise fast EV charging stops once you get around 80% so the range numbers stop being applicable because it's going to take you an hour to charge that last 20%.
Personally I was in a similar situation, tried a Tesla, and went back to gas ASAP (this was 2 years ago fwiw).
posted by hermanubis at 4:46 PM on June 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
Lots of journalists have done EV roadtrips and written about how it kind of sucks:
https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/road-tripping-in-our-long-term-electric-test-cars/
https://www.tomsguide.com/opinion/i-took-a-500-mile-trip-in-an-ev-but-range-anxiety-was-the-least-of-my-problems
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/12/electric-vehicle-road-trip-takeaways-00085508
My own experience mirrors this. Gas stations are all over so if one is crowded or broken it's fine. If your EV charger is broken it might be an extra 50 miles to find a different one. Filling up at a gas station is 5 minutes so it's fine if you go someplace crowded. EV charging takes longer and people do other things so it's not uncommon for a charger to be occupied for over an hour by one car. Likewise fast EV charging stops once you get around 80% so the range numbers stop being applicable because it's going to take you an hour to charge that last 20%.
Personally I was in a similar situation, tried a Tesla, and went back to gas ASAP (this was 2 years ago fwiw).
posted by hermanubis at 4:46 PM on June 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
Alec of the Technology Connections YouTube channel has some videos showing/discussing his experience road tripping his Ioniq. It's totally reasonable for 300-500 mile trips.
The key things to understand are that some planning, though not much, is a good idea and that you intentionally don't charge to 100%, just to whatever you need plus a reasonable buffer. This is because it takes almost as long to charge 80-100% as it does to charge from 0-80% due to the way lithium ion batteries work. In some cases you'll stop more often, but it still ends up taking much less time.
posted by wierdo at 6:18 PM on June 14, 2023
The key things to understand are that some planning, though not much, is a good idea and that you intentionally don't charge to 100%, just to whatever you need plus a reasonable buffer. This is because it takes almost as long to charge 80-100% as it does to charge from 0-80% due to the way lithium ion batteries work. In some cases you'll stop more often, but it still ends up taking much less time.
posted by wierdo at 6:18 PM on June 14, 2023
As the just-over-a-year owner of a Polestar 2 (it's good!) who has made maybe a dozen 250mi-one-way trips and a single NYC-to-Miami* round-trip during that time: there's two sets of factors in play.
First is the chargers along your specific route/s. Do they exist? How many? How far apart? Are they close to other stuff you'd need to stop for anyways? Are they well kept up? Are they busy? (Slightly disturbed by only a single mention of PlugShare - it's fantastic for determining all of this.)
My experience in the US northeast and eastern seaboard has been that chargers are plentiful and typically colocated with commerce; uptime/crowding is "mostly ok, and improving". This will vary widely, as noted, but is also always improving, especially nowadays.
Second is the speed your car charges at and/or its battery capacity, combined with your personal tolerance for number or length of stops.
My PS2** charges at a medium speed (150kW, 300% faster than a Bolt but 43% as fast as an Ioniq 5) and I'm a big fan of aforementioned "stop every hour or two because you freakin' should be anyways" piss/eat/stretch/drink/google/chat stop-overs, even in a gas car.
So in those 250mi trips, which I could technically make in exactly 1 full battery in the summer, I still stop ~halfway because there's a usually-working charger bank by a sandwich shop/B&N/etc plaza - perfect! 30 minutes later I've gone from ~50% to ~90% battery and will arrive at my rural destination w/ enough to back to civilization.
The long trip was also fine - I planned ahead, always knew where my backup charging option was if the primary stop was totally busted for some reason (that never actually occurred, thankfully) and extra downtime was used to plan a few stops ahead.
* Technically, Morristown to Ft Lauderdale. Super-technically, Madison to Pembroke Pines.
** Not the game console. My car's infotainment computer is much more powerful! :D
posted by cyrusdogstar at 6:19 PM on June 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
First is the chargers along your specific route/s. Do they exist? How many? How far apart? Are they close to other stuff you'd need to stop for anyways? Are they well kept up? Are they busy? (Slightly disturbed by only a single mention of PlugShare - it's fantastic for determining all of this.)
My experience in the US northeast and eastern seaboard has been that chargers are plentiful and typically colocated with commerce; uptime/crowding is "mostly ok, and improving". This will vary widely, as noted, but is also always improving, especially nowadays.
Second is the speed your car charges at and/or its battery capacity, combined with your personal tolerance for number or length of stops.
My PS2** charges at a medium speed (150kW, 300% faster than a Bolt but 43% as fast as an Ioniq 5) and I'm a big fan of aforementioned "stop every hour or two because you freakin' should be anyways" piss/eat/stretch/drink/google/chat stop-overs, even in a gas car.
So in those 250mi trips, which I could technically make in exactly 1 full battery in the summer, I still stop ~halfway because there's a usually-working charger bank by a sandwich shop/B&N/etc plaza - perfect! 30 minutes later I've gone from ~50% to ~90% battery and will arrive at my rural destination w/ enough to back to civilization.
The long trip was also fine - I planned ahead, always knew where my backup charging option was if the primary stop was totally busted for some reason (that never actually occurred, thankfully) and extra downtime was used to plan a few stops ahead.
* Technically, Morristown to Ft Lauderdale. Super-technically, Madison to Pembroke Pines.
** Not the game console. My car's infotainment computer is much more powerful! :D
posted by cyrusdogstar at 6:19 PM on June 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
I have a plug in hybrid (I do not recommend - I mostly use it as a gas car) and my wife has a Hyundai Kona electric which is great. Zero problems.
It's totally fine to do urban and freeway road trips. It's fine and healthy to stop for 20 minute every few hours. BUT I agree that chargers on the road are fucking annoying, many of them don't work. So that is definitely the biggest hassle. Ideally you pick a place to charge that has an alternate fast charging option nearby in case the one you stop at first is borked (whyyyy is this the case!!??). Having said all that, this may add 30 minutes to your trip worst case scenario - but most of the time will not. Charging infrastructure continues to improve.
If you do a lot of trips in rural areas or into the mountains, the electric car may be a real issue, but if you're sticking to major roadways mostly, I think it's fine! Go for it!
posted by latkes at 7:05 PM on June 14, 2023
It's totally fine to do urban and freeway road trips. It's fine and healthy to stop for 20 minute every few hours. BUT I agree that chargers on the road are fucking annoying, many of them don't work. So that is definitely the biggest hassle. Ideally you pick a place to charge that has an alternate fast charging option nearby in case the one you stop at first is borked (whyyyy is this the case!!??). Having said all that, this may add 30 minutes to your trip worst case scenario - but most of the time will not. Charging infrastructure continues to improve.
If you do a lot of trips in rural areas or into the mountains, the electric car may be a real issue, but if you're sticking to major roadways mostly, I think it's fine! Go for it!
posted by latkes at 7:05 PM on June 14, 2023
We have a slower-charging (50KW max) 2019 Hyundai Kona, with about 240 miles of range that drops to 200 in the winter with the heat on full. At a charging rate of 40KW and mileage of 3-4 miles per KW of we'd probably get something like 120-160 miles per hour of charging.
We also have an older gas car.
I would say our limit is charging once on a trip for about 30 minutes -that's a fine stop during a road trip for people to grab a bite to eat. anything beyond that and we'd take a gas car. So that would give us something between 300 and 350 miles, which we do maybe twice a year so it's totally fine to take the gas car.
If it were me I would only do regular 400-500 miles in a Tesla, or in a fast-charging non Tesla IF you go to the same places over time and have confirmed that there's a really solid charging infrastructure on that trip, with backup sites.
posted by true at 8:04 PM on June 14, 2023
We also have an older gas car.
I would say our limit is charging once on a trip for about 30 minutes -that's a fine stop during a road trip for people to grab a bite to eat. anything beyond that and we'd take a gas car. So that would give us something between 300 and 350 miles, which we do maybe twice a year so it's totally fine to take the gas car.
If it were me I would only do regular 400-500 miles in a Tesla, or in a fast-charging non Tesla IF you go to the same places over time and have confirmed that there's a really solid charging infrastructure on that trip, with backup sites.
posted by true at 8:04 PM on June 14, 2023
I had range anxiety because we regularly have to make a fairly large trip, so we got a plug-in hybrid. It uses electricity first, but has gas if the trip gets too long for the electricity range. So when we are bopping around town, it's all electric, when we expand out to where the charging situation is less clear, we can always rely on gas as a back-up. It's not ideal - I'm looking forward to a future soon where that isn't necessary - but it's worked for us as we wait for the world to catch up. Hybrid plug-in cars in the US are available for $15-20k (and up...) so it depends on your budget as to whether that price range is reasonable.
Also, don't forget that in a jam you CAN charge with a regular ol' wall outlet. It just takes a bit of time.
posted by Toddles at 8:57 PM on June 14, 2023
Also, don't forget that in a jam you CAN charge with a regular ol' wall outlet. It just takes a bit of time.
posted by Toddles at 8:57 PM on June 14, 2023
I have an older Leaf with the smallest battery. I live in a country with higher petrol prices than the US, don't know about electricity. But it is totally worth it to me to just borrow or hire a petrol car for road trips and wear the cost of hiring, it still works out cheaper.
You could work up a little spreadsheet where you figure in depreciation, maintenance, costs per distance travelled (I get 7-8 km/kWh generally) and see how it looks over 10 years.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 12:09 AM on June 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
You could work up a little spreadsheet where you figure in depreciation, maintenance, costs per distance travelled (I get 7-8 km/kWh generally) and see how it looks over 10 years.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 12:09 AM on June 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
Lots of great advice above. One additional thing to consider when thinking about the range of a car is that fast chargers only take you up to 80% charge level, and you don’t generally want to let your car go below 20%. So that car with 300 miles of range really will only travel 180 miles between charges on a road trip. The route planners should take this into account but it’s important to remember when you do your own route planning.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 5:12 AM on June 15, 2023
posted by Winnie the Proust at 5:12 AM on June 15, 2023
What? Fast chargers will charge as you to 100% if you want them too (though the charging does gets slower as you approach 100%). I have a very limited-range earlyish EV (2015). It gets about 80 miles to the charge. I regularly charge it to 100% and drive it down to less than 5% with no problem. Also route planners (at least ABRP) do take this into account.
posted by flamk at 7:21 AM on June 15, 2023
posted by flamk at 7:21 AM on June 15, 2023
Yea, you can absolutely charge to 100% at a level 3 charger, it just slows down. Like any other battery, charging will be at max speed the lower the current charge. Look up ' charging curve' to see examples of this; it's very much not linear.
Folks who want max efficiency will thus often plan to arrive at a charger with low % (within safety margin of course) and depart for the next stop with only as much charge as is needed to get there. This is easy to do naturally if your route has plentiful charging, but otherwise IMHO it's only saving you a few minutes on the hour.
posted by cyrusdogstar at 7:28 AM on June 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
Folks who want max efficiency will thus often plan to arrive at a charger with low % (within safety margin of course) and depart for the next stop with only as much charge as is needed to get there. This is easy to do naturally if your route has plentiful charging, but otherwise IMHO it's only saving you a few minutes on the hour.
posted by cyrusdogstar at 7:28 AM on June 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
Mod note: Comment removed. Please just focus on answering the OP’s question instead of responding to other commenters.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 8:04 AM on June 15, 2023
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 8:04 AM on June 15, 2023
Like others have said, the areas you expect to drive to/through affect the answers to the question.
I have historically been pretty dubious and kinda rolled my eyes when visiting friends wanted to rent one of Those Cars as our van only has 2 seats. I was also really worried that where we were - Colorado's Front Range - was not going to be super generous with chargers. On that front I was definitely wrong - you could stop and charge every 15 minutes between Denver and Fort Collins, maybe even Cheyenne, if you wanted to.
And I got to experience the ultimate deliberate side effect of charger placement - my friend was plotting our trip into Rocky Mountain National Park and said, "sorry, the only convenient stop on the way in is at some hotel." That hotel was The Stanley. I wouldn't have even remembered to check if it was on our route, so we not only got the car charged but I got some pictures and a sticker of the Shining carpet. We made a point after that to try to find the "coolest" charger and not just the most convenient, and turned charging times into fun breaks.
Our giant van has the smallest possible tank, and I too have a very tiny tank, so even on our fully-motorized drives we stop every 2 hours to switch drivers and empty my tank, with a gas-up every other stop. It looks like all the big truck stop chains are starting to put in chargers, and we found a lot at hotels especially if they were next to a major tourist attraction (stadiums, amusement parks). Northern California is getting a lot of rural (cheap land) but Interstate-adjacent superchargers, many of them at grocery-anchored strip malls so there's something to do for a few minutes, and I assume this will be happening more around the country but you'll be luckier the more westerly you are. In any case, in some parts of the country at least, I suspect you'd be no more inconvenienced than we are with our stops, and the breaks are really good for us.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:55 AM on June 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
I have historically been pretty dubious and kinda rolled my eyes when visiting friends wanted to rent one of Those Cars as our van only has 2 seats. I was also really worried that where we were - Colorado's Front Range - was not going to be super generous with chargers. On that front I was definitely wrong - you could stop and charge every 15 minutes between Denver and Fort Collins, maybe even Cheyenne, if you wanted to.
And I got to experience the ultimate deliberate side effect of charger placement - my friend was plotting our trip into Rocky Mountain National Park and said, "sorry, the only convenient stop on the way in is at some hotel." That hotel was The Stanley. I wouldn't have even remembered to check if it was on our route, so we not only got the car charged but I got some pictures and a sticker of the Shining carpet. We made a point after that to try to find the "coolest" charger and not just the most convenient, and turned charging times into fun breaks.
Our giant van has the smallest possible tank, and I too have a very tiny tank, so even on our fully-motorized drives we stop every 2 hours to switch drivers and empty my tank, with a gas-up every other stop. It looks like all the big truck stop chains are starting to put in chargers, and we found a lot at hotels especially if they were next to a major tourist attraction (stadiums, amusement parks). Northern California is getting a lot of rural (cheap land) but Interstate-adjacent superchargers, many of them at grocery-anchored strip malls so there's something to do for a few minutes, and I assume this will be happening more around the country but you'll be luckier the more westerly you are. In any case, in some parts of the country at least, I suspect you'd be no more inconvenienced than we are with our stops, and the breaks are really good for us.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:55 AM on June 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
I bought a 2018 Ford Fusion PHEV almost 2 years ago. My battery range on a single charge is 15-25 miles. Anything longer than that it's works as a hybrid and I average in the 40s MPG. I've had 6 long trips of multiple hundreds of miles in that time but I'm still on a rolling average since my purchase of 88 MPG. I plug in at home in a regular outlet and only fill the tank every couple of months.
posted by ShakeyJake at 10:03 AM on June 15, 2023
posted by ShakeyJake at 10:03 AM on June 15, 2023
Buy an EV. If you plan a journey that you don't think will work with the range of the car, hire an ICE. You might find that many of the trips you are concerned about will work pretty well with the EV so you don't need to hire an alternative very often.
posted by biffa at 2:56 PM on June 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by biffa at 2:56 PM on June 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
I bought a Mustang Mach E a little over a year ago and have done several long trips with it.
It's range isn't huge. On paper it's ~260 miles, but you don't want to drop much below 20% capacity.
The Ford app comes with a trip planner which will route you through appropriate chargers at appropriate times and adjusts the time of the trip to match the approximate charge time. It typically uses shorter charge times to get you to your destination sooner, but you might have a lower battery that you need at the end.
PlugShare, as mentioned before, is really handy for non-Tesla vehicles (although this is going to change in the next year as Ford and GM adopt the Tesla standard). IME, Electrify America chargers have been the most reliable and EvGo the least for fast chargers. I've had consistent problems with EvGo chargers negotiating with the Ford. For Level 2 AC chargers ChargePoint seems to be the leader, but it's slow charging and is really only good for, say, overnight at your hotel.
I've had some contention for chargers, but nothing that wasn't manageable.
Driving is a little different in that for longer trips you plan a little more - for me it feels more like taking long road trips when I was in that you take more frequent stops because the car needed to have its fluids/tires checked because they really weren't as reliable.
I put in a Level 2 charger into my garage. I bought an Enel X JuiceBox and had an electrician install it. Installation was expensive because they had to run heavy wiring to the box. If you already have a 240V outlet, it's a slam dunk to get one. It's...OK and just OK. It blew a relay in the first week and Enel replaced it. This is apparently not an uncommon failure mode. It feels like they didn't put enough into the flyback diodes around the relay and I'm sure that they know that. One thing I did was buy it through CostCo which will handle refunds out of warrantee. It runs about $529.
posted by plinth at 12:52 PM on June 16, 2023
It's range isn't huge. On paper it's ~260 miles, but you don't want to drop much below 20% capacity.
The Ford app comes with a trip planner which will route you through appropriate chargers at appropriate times and adjusts the time of the trip to match the approximate charge time. It typically uses shorter charge times to get you to your destination sooner, but you might have a lower battery that you need at the end.
PlugShare, as mentioned before, is really handy for non-Tesla vehicles (although this is going to change in the next year as Ford and GM adopt the Tesla standard). IME, Electrify America chargers have been the most reliable and EvGo the least for fast chargers. I've had consistent problems with EvGo chargers negotiating with the Ford. For Level 2 AC chargers ChargePoint seems to be the leader, but it's slow charging and is really only good for, say, overnight at your hotel.
I've had some contention for chargers, but nothing that wasn't manageable.
Driving is a little different in that for longer trips you plan a little more - for me it feels more like taking long road trips when I was in that you take more frequent stops because the car needed to have its fluids/tires checked because they really weren't as reliable.
I put in a Level 2 charger into my garage. I bought an Enel X JuiceBox and had an electrician install it. Installation was expensive because they had to run heavy wiring to the box. If you already have a 240V outlet, it's a slam dunk to get one. It's...OK and just OK. It blew a relay in the first week and Enel replaced it. This is apparently not an uncommon failure mode. It feels like they didn't put enough into the flyback diodes around the relay and I'm sure that they know that. One thing I did was buy it through CostCo which will handle refunds out of warrantee. It runs about $529.
posted by plinth at 12:52 PM on June 16, 2023
This thread is closed to new comments.
* if you can charge at home, your EV starts every day with a "full tank". This is a real game-changer and markedely better than gasoline vehicles.
* There are now several EVs with over 300 mile range
* Most new EVs feature much faster "fast" charging, for example an Ioniq 6 can charge from 10% to 80% in about 20 minutes, giving you another 200 ish miles of range, so you could probably do your 400 mile trip with a single "gas" (fast charge) stop.
* A Better Route Planner lets you plan drives and lets you choose the vehicle of your choice, so you can see whether your 400-500 mile trips are feasible.
* Here is a handy website where they test real-world EV range when driving at 70mph.
posted by soylent00FF00 at 2:34 PM on June 14, 2023 [9 favorites]