EV Van Cross-Country Trek

Investment Analysis Clubs Macro Economic Trends and Risks
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https://www.yahoo.com/news/drove-electric-van-cross-country-…

I drove an electric van cross-country for a month. It was cheaper than a normal car, but the challenges showed how far EV travel has to go.

The trip required meticulous planning, and still, one in four charging stations had an issue.

She encountered long waits and out-of-service charging stations but found EV travel more affordable.

The ABT had a range of only 80 miles, so my trip required numerous charges during the day and constant planning. Each morning, rather than setting a location in a GPS and simply setting off, we’d have to map the route via fast-charge points, individually checking each point against recent Google reviews to ensure they were in service.

Even this couldn’t guarantee that another driver wouldn’t slip in before us when we arrived.

Apps like PlugShare and Zap Map allowed for route planning. User-sourced data theoretically allows drivers to see which charge points are out of service or in use, but even using this information I found issues with one in four of the 36 charge points I visited over the month.

We had to wait at times for a charge point for up to 45 minutes. Repeatedly doing this could add hours onto a longer journey.

I was also glad I wasn’t alone, as some of the charge points were badly lit

The VW ABT and other electric vans such as the Mercedes eVito — which has a range of 93 miles — have a significantly lower range than personal vehicles like the Tesla Model 3 (278 miles) and Mustang Mach E (370 miles). Range anxiety might be gone, but numerous inconveniences can still add hours to cross-country journeys.

So infrastructure, infrastructure needed before EV trend really takes off.
Of course, many households have more than one vehicle so an EV makes sense for a daily errand runner around town. At this point in time the plug-in hybrid (PHEV)makes the most sense for those who be using their vehicle for long distance travel. Congested charging stations can be by-passed until one can find an open charging station.

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This would have been a great article 5 years ago.

Really? Go on a long trip with an EV that has a range of 80 miles and complain about the range?
But the fact that they could do it with an 80 mile range EV tells you that, as a fallback plan, there are lots of places to charge

Mike

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Go on a long trip with an EV that has a range of 80 miles and complain about the range?

My reading of the article was about a complaint of issues with 1 in 4 charging stations. I believe I have experienced 3 instances of a gasoline pump problem in 54 years of driving. Certainly never had to wait 45 minutes for a gasoline pump to become available.
I found issues with one in four of the 36 charge points I visited over the month.

We had to wait at times for a charge point for up to 45 minutes. Repeatedly doing this could add hours onto a longer journey.

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But the fact that they could do it with an 80 mile range EV tells you that, as a fallback plan, there are lots of places to charge

Mike

Mike, reality check: You MIGHT not have both oars in the water?

Just sayin’.

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That would be an awesome trip in a plug-in hybrid with an 80 mile battery-only range.

intercst

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That would be an awesome trip in a plug-in hybrid with an 80 mile battery-only range.

intercst

i.e. They’re GREAT… as in-town golf carts. Really great. (AND QUIET!!!)

Park at home, in garage, handy in-garage plug in charger, over night. Time to charge NOT a problem? Perfect!

Wonderful accoutrements, beautiful even, super nav software, and all…

But long range?! Heavy lifting?!! Ummm. Maybe later? How about let’s talk about this, maybe a week from Tuesday?

(PS: Don’t call me, I’ll call you.)

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My reading of the article was about a complaint of issues with 1 in 4 charging stations.

Sure they complained about the poor state of charging stations.
(Should try again with a car from a company that builds and maintains the chargers)

But the article said:

The ABT had a range of only 80 miles, so my trip required numerous charges during the day and constant planning. Each morning, rather than setting a location in a GPS and simply setting off, we’d have to map the route via fast-charge points, individually checking each point against recent Google reviews to ensure they were in service.

Try the trip with a car that has a much bigger range and knows where all its vendor maintained chargers are and all the worry about the chargers being in service goes away since the display tells you this info.

Mike

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So infrastructure, infrastructure needed before EV trend really takes off.

Read an article about a month ago dealing with charging station build out and the Build Back Better Plan (not getting political). The article stated a slow charging station cost $X and would take 8 hours for a full charge while a rapid charging station cost $Y and take 30 minutes for a full charge. The BBB plan wanted to build a certain amount of stations and spend a certain amount of money. Doing the math, they were planning on building the slow charging stations. Not really helpful to someone traveling long distances and in a hurry.

Needs to be left up to private business. If EVs reach critical mass, you could see places like Lucky’s or Buckee’s add fast chargers to a section of their gas station/restaurant/super market complexes and charge per kW.

JLC

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The B.B.B. plan wanted to build a certain amount of stations and spend a certain amount of money. Doing the math, they were planning on building the slow charging stations. Not really helpful to someone traveling long distances and in a hurry.
Needs to be left up to private business

The B.B.B. plan (supposedly, I haven’t read it) wants to “favor” rural and exurb locations, as without universal access the EV market will face a handicap in universal acceptance.

For infrastructure you want universal availability, a telephone system that doesn’t connect everywhere is of limited use, roads that don’t extend past the city aren’t roads at all and cars won’t replace horses, and so on. Rural electrification brought any explosion of consumer goods because it expanded the market in many ways; likewise with EVs: if you want to encourage adoption you need to make the infrastructure as widely available as possible.

I won’t disagree that low-power charging options aren’t optimal, but then in some cases (city dwellers who park on the street, for instance) a long charge wouldn’t be an issue since those would likely be “overnight” chargers anyway. Presumably the mix of chargers would include both rural, exburb, suburb, and city, so I’d wait until I saw a plan for that before I criticized.

No, I don’t know the particulars of how the B.B.B. charging stations might be distributed, and I don’t claim that the bureaucrats will get it perfectly right, but I doubt the market will either, at least at first. The market produced UPS and FedEx which is wonderful, but they don’t serve everywhere, yes, they cream skim and rely on USPS for many deliveries which are uneconomic for the private sector. I believe the aim of the program is to encourage, not to have a complete end-to-end government solution to EV charging, and that’s probably desirable if the goal is to lessen our reliance on gasoline vehicles.

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I was looking at corporation who are active in the charging station business, but I haven’t found the ideal one yet. CHPT looks like a falling knife, but it is almost tempting. Then there is Shell…but really I’m not ready to like any of them, yet.

If BBB does ever get off the ground, it would be nice to get in on the ground floor of the gas-station replacement.

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Read an article about a month ago dealing with charging station build out and the Build Back Better Plan (not getting political). The article stated a slow charging station cost $X and would take 8 hours for a full charge while a rapid charging station cost $Y and take 30 minutes for a full charge. The BBB plan wanted to build a certain amount of stations and spend a certain amount of money. Doing the math, they were planning on building the slow charging stations. Not really helpful to someone traveling long distances and in a hurry.

No it isn’t helpful, but the vast majority of trips are short and local. To me, it makes the most sense to take care of the biggest demand first. Go after the low hanging fruit, in other words.

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I was looking at corporation who are active in the charging station business, but I haven’t found the ideal one yet. CHPT looks like a falling knife, but it is almost tempting. Then there is Shell…but really I’m not ready to like any of them, yet.

If BBB does ever get off the ground, it would be nice to get in on the ground floor of the gas-station replacement.

My crystal ball is no better than anyone else’s but I don’t think the Chargepoint model is a winner. The reason is you can buy a metered EV charger that accepts payments off the shelf.

So if you have a business and want to install a charger, you don’t need Chargepoint for anything. Maybe they front the capital costs or something. But you can collect all the money they would be collecting.

The other thing is that the charger price goes up a lot of if you want a charger that accepts payments. What I’m seeing increasingly locally is businesses provide free charging to get you in the door. The per hour operational costs aren’t all that high, and it appears the lower capital costs are worth it to some people.

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“Read an article about a month ago dealing with charging station build out and the Build Back Better Plan (not getting political). The article stated a slow charging station cost $X and would take 8 hours for a full charge while a rapid charging station cost $Y and take 30 minutes for a full charge. The BBB plan wanted to build a certain amount of stations and spend a certain amount of money. Doing the math, they were planning on building the slow charging stations. Not really helpful to someone traveling long distances and in a hurry.”

No it isn’t helpful, but the vast majority of trips are short and local. To me, it makes the most sense to take care of the biggest demand first. Go after the low hanging fruit, in other words.

Build Back Better has been in constant flux and may or may not ever get passed, I’m pretty sure it was never decided that it would only fund slow charging stations. However the bi-partisan infrastructure bill that did pass Congress and is law provides $7.5 billion in funding for the charging station buildout, most definitely including rapid charge stations on highways. Here’s a story that emphasizes that perhaps the majority of chargers installed may be slower level 2 chargers, for cost and ubiquity, but acknowledges that fast level 3 will also be funded. https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/16/22765438/biden-infrastru…

Here’s the White House fact sheet on the issue and the short term steps to build toward distributing that funding: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases…

As Syke6 says, the vast majority of trips are short and local, but modern EVs have no problem covering those trips without needing to be charged. There’s not much use, IMO, for slow charging stations at places like grocery stores where you will only be there an hour or less. They instead need to be installed where people will be parking overnight, or all day for work.

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What I’m seeing increasingly locally is businesses provide free charging to get you in the door.

I don’t think this will last. It may wind up being a motel perk, but they’ll cover the cost in their room rates.

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What I’m seeing increasingly locally is businesses provide free charging to get you in the door.

I don’t think this will last. It may wind up being a motel perk, but they’ll cover the cost in their room rates.

================
I think it will last just like free parking which costs much more than free charging.

Jaak

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What I’m seeing increasingly locally is businesses provide free charging to get you in the door.

I don’t think this will last. It may wind up being a motel perk, but they’ll cover the cost in their room rates.

Oh, EVERY business will cover the cost in their prices… somehow… or at least try to.

Some will find creative ways to do it - that will actually work.

(Putting a meter and credit-card slot on the charger is one not-very-creative way, but it works.)

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EV Van Cross-Country Trek

The average person in the USA does a cross-country trek once every 46.5 years. Buy an EV, save a bunch of money, and rent a big ICE for that once in a lifetime cross-country trek.

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The per hour operational costs aren’t all that high

Around here they are almost negligible compared to other costs of doing business. There’s a movie theater here with complimentary chargers, 4 of them. And they charge at about 7kW, that means it costs roughly a buck per hour. So for all 4, it costs them $4 per hour while being used. Assuming they are all (and usually one or two are available) in use from 4pm to midnight, that comes to $32 a day. Meanwhile, each charging station has a large display that shows advertising constantly, so there may be some incremental revenue from the advertising.

Some of the supermarkets also have chargers, somewhat slower at 6kW, and they usually have a set of 2 rather than 4. And no display and no advertising, those are bare bones cheap chargers. And, you know what? I shop at those stores most of the time and almost always plug into the charger while shopping. Heck sometimes I’ll even browse randomly a little so I can let it charge a bit more. :rofl:

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