Yes. It’s not that hard though. What make/model of EV?
I rented a Kia EV6, but you never know what you’ll end up with when you land.
I would. But I also suspect, as with anything new, it will probably get easier pretty quickly.
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My experience with charging infrastructure has been very good in many parts of the country. Haven’t been south of VA or much in the plains states though.
You are in the Northeast?
I prefer electrify America, and now there are quite a few Tesla stations with the magic dock adapter built in (download the Tesla app, tell it what car you have, and it’ll show you the stations that are set up for non-Tesla).
PlugShare is helpful if you’re traveling outside of well-served areas, as it’ll alert you to problematic older chargers.
But one of the things that strikes me in your comment is the concern over the 1 hour limit. Why would you ever want to charge for that long? I’m wondering if you’re trying to charge above 80% at a fast charger? That’s a common rookie mistake. Charging slows significantly above 80%.
For trips, we charge fully at home (level 2), never fast charge past 80%, then fully charge at hotel overnight. We can typically go ~3-400 miles only stopping for <30 minutes if we wanted.
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I would download Plugshare, Electrify America, EVGo and Chargepoint. Doubt if you’ll need anything else. Concentrate on the Electrify America chargers and you can plug into the 350kW ones and get charged in under 20 minutes. Read the reviews on Plugshare. I have not seen super fast EVGo and Chargepoint chargers but there may be a few out there. Plugshare will tell you the kW they deliver. You might like to check out A Better Route Planner too. I don’t dig the interface, but I’m old and set in my ways (ie: Plugshare). Definitely read the Plugshare ratings and reviews. It is crowd-sourced so usually someone will let you know if the charger is having trouble or if a problem has been fixed, etc.
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We weren’t trying to go above 80%. As I mentioned, we wanted to get it TO 80%, but it stopped charging the car after one hour, getting to 70%. EVgo stops after a one hour charge. My point was that if we had wanted to carry on driving on a road trip, we would have had to recharge again in the same day for probably another hour, at nighttime. We know that once it reaches 80% it charges more slowly and we would have disconnected.
(I realized I made a confusing point in my original post. The charging point we used was 30 minutes from where we were staying, not actually our home.)
Anyway, I’m learning a lot from this thread. I think we now will charge up, even if just for a few minutes, when we get the chance. So a bathroom break is a chance to charge.
@Sweetgum our lease came with a year of free charging with Electrify America and we plan to use it as often as possible, but there wasn’t one in the vicinity on the day I refer to. Thanks for the tips about Chargepoint too.
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Hit me up with any questions. Typically an hour is plenty of time to get to 80%, even with my slow fast charging Bolt, but that EVGo charger may have been going extra slow for some reason. Often you’ll see people post about that in the Plugshare reviews. Cold temps can affect it too.
Yeah I time our bathroom breaks with chargers. Plug in, go pee, get a snack, maybe another drink to refill the bladder and you’ve added some juice to the battery.
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For those wondering, it’s a BMW iX 2024. It supports super fast charging (I’m pretty sure anyway.) It’s soooo comfortable. So the whole round trip journey maybe cost $35 total in “fuel” charges, if I include the charging we did at home before we left. We have done that journey many times over the years and I would say we typically spend at least $60 on gas. So that at least is worth something.
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That’s a nice car! I hope you enjoy it. Yeah, you should be able to charge up in about 30 min at a 150 or 300 kW charger. It can’t charge quite as fast as the Kia EV 6, but still a lot faster than my Bolt.
I looked it up and EVGo in addition to EA does have some 150 & 300 kW chargers, but I think there are still plenty of older ones out there that top out at 50kW or even less(!), so check that on Plugshare or another app when you are planning your stops.
I love driving electric! Hope you will too.
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I thought you mentioned in another thread staying at a hotel with overnight charging and not needing other charging?
EV as a rental car in an unfamiliar area is usually not exactly the way to get the best EV experience for a first time EV driver.
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BMW is one of the auto makers who are making cars that can use adapters that are Tesla compatible. Article in the NYT a few days ago about this.
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The hotel does have a charger, but we now have an event to attend that will have us staying the final night with a relative, so I may need to charge the Kia…or I may not.
I didn’t think those were out yet? Thought Ford was the only one certified at this point. That’d be interesting if bmw got them to move fast on this.
(To be clear, there are adapters for destination chargers for all ccs cars. There are adapters that would work for NACS to ccs already out, but they’ll only allow non-teslas to charge at Tesla if Tesla software allows. I thought they only allowed ford at this point. Stations with the magic dock built in will work with any ccs car supposedly)
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Yeah, city living, apartment living or suburban townhouse living doesn’t currently lend itself to being able to charge. If we really move forward with EV’s, I wonder if this won’t be part of a future intrastructure plan.
I would say it’s already part of current infrastructure planning but the rollout takes time.
The NEVI funding for EV charging infrastructure along highways was routed through states and that’s just now starting to flow to projects. That’s also a significant part of the motivation for Tesla opening to other brands (to get federal dollars).
Incentives for installation of EV charging at residential and multi-family dwellings as well as businesses and offices is significant. Those benefits will become apparent soon.
I think the planning and code part of it (which might be what you’re referring to) has been robust in some regions and not in others. But when 25% of new cars in CA are EVs, as is now the case, both public planning and private sector are fully aware of the transition and the need for infrastructure planning.
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I had the rental experience recently - flew into ABQ and of course the rental place didn’t have the car we reserved. Instead, it offered a Volvo C40 Recharge 2024 with 67 miles on it. Same price and we wouldn’t have to charge up before returning it, so we took it. I liked the car alot and found it pretty intuitive to use. I wound up downloading ElectrifyAmerica, Plugshare and Go-Station apps. We didn’t have charging at the hotel, so charged at the one 350 kW charger in town at the Walmart (no wait). It worked fine with the ElectrifyAmerica app. The Go-Station charge attempt was a miss - the first stall didn’t work and the 2nd stall was very slow. In all, the rental was a good experiment and I’m glad I did it as I’m thinking of buying an EV this year.
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The adapters may not be out yet but it’s in the works. I just found it interesting.
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Yes, we can get an adapter for Tesla. BUT, apparently Tesla has to update its software so that the adapter works at more Tesla charging stations. Iow, it’s not around here, yet. Apparently early in 2025 BMW’s will be able to use Tesla chargers at the super fast rate. BMW will, at some point, supply adapters to our vehicle. Ford is first on the list to benefit from Tesla’s adapter. Or so says my husband.
(I probably don’t have the right lingo, so don’t crucify me😀.)
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Yes, that’s correct on the adapter. But depending where “around here” is you might have access to a Tesla station that has the adapter built in, which will work with all ccs EVs.
There are more than a dozen of those scattered around NY/CT/PA.
At this point in time it’s best to only buy an EV if you have the ability to charge at home and do mostly short distance driving. Taking your EV on a road trip is fine if you do it infrequently but if you routinely have to rely on public chargers it’s probably not a good choice.
My husband purchased a Nissan Leaf about 5 years ago and we had a home charger installed. Prior to Covid he mostly used his car to drive to the train station for work and for trips around town. Since Covid he’s been mostly WFH so drives even less now. One of our sons uses it more for driving to the station for commuting back and forth from university every day. When he bought the Leaf I still had an ICE which we used for the occasional longer trip but I needed to replace it this year and went with a Tesla Long Range. It provides the range we need for the distance we travel and the convenience of the Tesla supercharging network for when we do. Most of the time though we still drive locally and charge at home. We’re not big road trippers. If I need to go far, I’d be more inclined to fly.