I don’t even know where the “2 hours” came from. Last time I did a long trip in my EV, I drove for over 4 hours and about 290 miles. This was a straight drive, mostly at 70-72 mi/hr with about 10 minutes of traffic on the highway at one point. Started at 95% and ended at 7%. The photo below was taken just before the highway exit about 10-15 minutes before we reached our destination.
Most of the time, for long trips, we need to stop every 3 hours anyway. For the bathroom, to have a snack, to stretch our legs, etc. And we tend to stop at rest stops, and they tend to have the refueling/charging areas relatively far from the rest stop building (where the bathrooms, shops, and restaurants are located). So we stop at the supercharger, plug in, walk 2-3 minutes to the building, bathroom, snacks, wait on line at dunkin for coffee, walk back to car 2-3 minutes, and by the time we get there it has charged enough for us to continue driving (generally charging in the range of 10% to 80% is pretty quick, while charging that last bit from 80% to 100% is much slower). I think once or twice at Wawa, where the chargers are very close to the store, we had to hang out for an extra 4 minutes to allow it to charge sufficiently to continue our trip.
I just looked at my charging history:
11 min
18 min
8 min
13 min
7 min
22 min
16 min
6 min
23 min
21 min
This is all of 2024. I haven’t used a supercharger yet in 2025.
Can it fit a piece of plywood or sheetrock in the back with the seats folded? That’s the main requirement to replace a minivan LOL.
My first and only road trip had our first stop at 2:50 duration, and the battery had gone from 98% to 35%. Distance was 165 miles. Could have gone further with that capacity, except on this route the next charger was too far away (rural Texas, EV wasteland). We took a different route home, draining to 14% of the battery (yikes!). Don’t remember the duration, but distance was 237 miles, with that trip being nearly all highway, so likely 3.5 hours.
According to NPR the new charging feature is in beta and will take a lot of money to rollout. Meanwhile, NPR wants to know if BYD will make their cars safer for the Western markets. NPR states that will raise the cost of their models.
I’ve arrived home as low as 4%. Why should I pay $0.39/kWh on the road when I can pay $0.15/kWh at home?
They’re crazy if they think they’re going to sell many of those at $60+k. The sweet spot would be $45-50k, a little more than a typical minivan, but perhaps enough people would be willing to pay $5k more (I would).
I did not provide enough detail there. I arrived at a charger at 14%, not at home. I could not make it home without that charging session. The rest of the trip was more than the remaining 14% could take me. And being a first road trip I was not sure if I could trust the estimated range that much. I believe the car told me I had 41 miles left at that point. I had tried to stop at 25% at an Electrify America in north Waco but they were full with a line. I made a gamble to head further south, to Temple, to a Buc-ees that has 68 SuperChargers and 10 Mercedes-Benz chargers. (talk about overkill!). (I used MB due to cord lengths and connector type).
Agreed on the price of the VW microbus. Range is way too short, price is too high. There was a time when I really, really wanted that as my first EV, until the details came to light.
Ahhh, I see. In general I prefer when my car stops at a charger at 14% instead of at 30%. That’s because it charges faster, and remains at a higher charge rate for longer when starting at a low SOC. Reminds me that last time I drove through FL on I-75/turnpike, the car tried taking me to a charger north of Orlando at 35%. But there are tons of SCs in the Orlando area. So I simply ignored it, and routed myself directly to a different SC instead (probably Canoe Creek) so the SOC would be lower when I started charging.
In nearly 4 years of EV ownership, I’ve only used a non-Tesla SC DCFC twice (with our Nissan EV), and that was only because it was local and free (it was a 60kW charger that the owner operated at no charge to the user). And EVERYTHING at Buc-ees is overkill. That place is insane. I stopped at the Buc-ees in south GA last year to charge, we went inside browsed, shopped, and I had to run out to move my car because it was almost done charging, and then run back in to join the family. In general, I wouldn’t want to use non-Tesla DCFC because they always seem to be more expensive, I’ve seen rates of 72 cents/kWh at some of them, that’s more expensive than the equivalent gasoline. No thank you!
I found that out on that road trip as well. At home I pay roughly $0.10 per kWh. At that Mercedes-Benz charger in Temple (which was charged through ChargePoint, go figure) I paid $31.17 for 61.1 kW and it took 25 minutes. That was $0.51/kWh. The L2 ChargePoint at the hotel, about $0.62. The worst was EVConnect, at a Cadillac dealer, at 70 cents per kWh. And it was only a 50kW charger! But they were the only fast charger in Wichita Falls. :(. By reference, the SuperCharger on the trip up, near Santo, TX on I-20, was $0.43.
Ugh! That’s egregious. But that’s what happens when you have a local monopoly.
And this is even more egregious. Charging 62 cents/kWh for a level 2 is horrible. And it’s not even the money aspect of it (though they probably buy commercial power at 6 to 8 cents per kWh so they are really ripping the customers off), it’s because slow charging should be an amenity at hotels. I specifically search for hotels that have free charging, and I stay there. Most of the time, the hotel chargers are in use and I can’t charge, but even if the nightly price is higher, I still stay there because I want to encourage the popularity of that amenity.
Charging cable has to be an attractive target for copper thieves. Must be hard to protect. Video cameras? Autotracking? Labelling for salvage yards? And no surprise you find some missing cables when you need a charge.
