What's the Qualitative Experience with Road Trip Charging?

[Science]

We are early adopters. We bought a Tesla about 6 years ago and we never had to worry about finding a charging station.

We're ready for a new EV and it won't be a Tesla. We charge overnight in a garage about 95% of the time. But we do occasionally take long road trips of more than 500 miles.

What are people's experiences with finding open chargers? The US Department of Energy has a website showing where all the charging stations are US nation-wide. But closer looks at charger locations show many with only one or two "plugs."

We also note how many people are complaining about the poor state of EA chargers (not even counting the fact that EA seems to require the user to indemnify them for unknown actions of third parties).

Qualitatively, is the state of non-Tesla chargers now like Tesla was five years ago? Can people safely go on road trips and be confident that they will find an open charger when they need one?

 

[MorganB]

I have charged 7 times at EA fast chargers on road trips. I have always successfully charged, 5 times with plug n charge and twice authenticating through the app. The location / condition of EA chargers varies quite a bit. I have never waited for a charger and only once before Christmas did I encounter 2 other cars charging. Usually it's 1 or zero. I would expect the response to how busy the chargers are to be very region dependent however.

 

[PlaterB]

In the Empire State (aka New York), the situation is quite good. Some highway rest areas have State-owned, currently free, DC chargers, some have EA chargers. I've lived for 3 years with a Chevy Bolt, took it from Rochester to Montreal in Canada and Long Island (both 350+ mile trips), and never had issues finding a fast charger. On my latest trip I charged my Air at a bank of 8 Evolve NY fast chargers in Hancock with nary another EV it the sight

 

[SaratogaLefty]

You didn't say where you are located? I am in California and there are numerous EA charging stations available here. I have charged at 150Kw and 350Kw stations and the amount of charge actually being received by the car has varied from 50-60Kw up to almost 300Kw. Even at the same EA location some chargers are putting out more energy than others. I have had to wait for an open charger on occasion because this state has many many EV's and almost all the non Teslas have received a "free" charging program with EA from their manufacturer. For that reason I did download the EvGo App and the Chargepoint App in case I have a problem with EA. I have used the EvGo charger one time and it was excellent.

 

[DeaneG]

TL;DR: Expect road trip charging to be more difficult than in your Tesla. But IMO it's still worth it to be able to drive a better car every day.

We recently took a 1300+ mile road trip in California, and charged seven times enroute. One of the seven charges went exactly as expected, at a 62.5kW Chargepoint station in the desert. The other six charges (all at Electrify America) each took multiple attempts, sometimes as many as six, to get a charge at a reasonable power level and sometimes to even get a charge at all. You'll want to plan your trip on A Better Route Planner beforehand. Evaluate the health of your planned charging stops on Plugshare and Electrify America's phone app during planning and again just before you depart. EA's website does not show current charger status. Identify alternate charging locations nearby (sometimes EVGo or Chargepoint) in case of complete failure at your first choice. EA is in the process of upgrading their charging stations to a newer model (350kW 'balanced' with a single cable), and they will take a given location down for a couple weeks to do this. Two remote desert charging locations critical to my planned trip were down the week we were driving, so I had to make alternate plans.

 

[DeaneG]

Forgot to say that I expect CCS charging to improve greatly over the next 2-3 years. In the meantime, planning and patience will get you through.

 

[Sandvinsd]

I’m in CA and on trips, 95% of the time I have been able to charge the car at an EA station. However, only about half of those visits have been without an issue - either calling Lucid or EA, taking multiple times to connect, the one charger I was at would not connect and had to move to another or the charging speed was horrible and I either moved or had to just deal with it.

 

[Snafu]

I'm starting to look at a cross-country trip in early summer - NH to San Diego area, and there looked to be two options - NH to Ohio for both, but then a split where there is one option to go from Ohio via Chicago, CO, Utah, Las Vegas, then down to CA, and the other dips south from Ohio through KS, MO, NM, etc. I admit I'd like to do one route there and one back, but has anyone done a trip similar to this? I have accounts with ChargePoint and EvGo, and combining those with EA should give me decent coverage, I would hope. I'll take the free charging - no problem - but dependability is more important to me than price. Although it says it's about a 46-hour trip each way, I'd be looking at several overnights to check out "curiosities" or drop in on friends along the way. Any comments from travelers who have taken road trips in these areas?

 

[DeaneG]

FYI a little reliability data for various charging providers. Personally I've found I can generally count on Chargepoint as a safe last-choice backup (last choice because of only 62.5kW).

 

[Lucken]

Not a great showing for any of the non-Tesla charging networks.

 

[PlaterB]

I'm starting to look at a cross-country trip in early summer - NH to San Diego area, and there looked to be two options - NH to Ohio for both, but then a split where there is one option to go from Ohio via Chicago, CO, Utah, Las Vegas, then down to CA, and the other dips south from Ohio through KS, MO, NM, etc. I admit I'd like to do one route there and one back, but has anyone done a trip similar to this? I have accounts with ChargePoint and EvGo, and combining those with EA should give me decent coverage, I would hope. I'll take the free charging - no problem - but dependability is more important to me than price. Although it says it's about a 46-hour trip each way, I'd be looking at several overnights to check out "curiosities" or drop in on friends along the way. Any comments from travelers who have taken road trips in these areas?

Get a Tesla/CCS adapter and choose hotels for overnight stay with Tesla destination chargers. Even though they are slower than superchargers, you can get quite a few miles free of charge overnight

 

[Snafu]

Get a Tesla/CCS adapter and choose hotels for overnight stay with Tesla destination chargers. Even though they are slower than superchargers, you can get quite a few miles free of charge overnight

Which is a reputable one to get? Thanx!

 

[PlaterB]

The short answer is 'The cheapest one'. For instance, this one

 

[Canyonero!]

I have only done three road trips so far. One bringing my GV-60 back from NJ (about 250 miles). Stopped three times to charge. No issues*.

Second was taking the GV-60 to get kid for spring break (about 200 miles). Stopped twice each way. No problems.

Third time was bring the Lucid back from Tyson's to central VA (about 225 miles). This time I selected the longer route to take me on 66/81. Taking 29 is shorter, but there is little to no charging infrastructure on this route. I also wanted to spend more time "getting to know" the Lucid. I stopped twice and the only problem I had was a busy station that had one 350 kW station OOS. I saw it open and it aligned perfectly with my charging port. Got out, plugged in and looked at the screen. Unavailable. The other 350 & a 150 were in use. The last 150 was not aligned with the port. I had to park so as to block a couple ICE spaces, but it wasn't a big deal since the station was not close to the store (Wal-Mart) and the area was mostly empty.

So it took a little more time, but I still got a charge.

* Actually, I ended up spending a lot longer one station, as there was a Lucid & an ID4 also charging and we were all asking each other about our cars. No one knew what a GV-60 was and it was the first IRL Lucid I had seen.