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Author Topic: Charging an EV on a Cross Country Road Trip  (Read 13099 times)

rec head

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Re: Charging an EV on a Cross Country Road Trip
« Reply #50 on: April 19, 2024, 05:56:21 am »

I just did an overnight trip that required 1 charge each way. On the way out I stopped at an EA charger that I have used before and it went smoothly. Luckily on the way home I checked Plugshare while planning the route and found that charge was out of service. The alternate route wasn't too much longer but that isn't really the point.

I hope we get our Supercharger adapter before we head up to the U.P. this fall. Wisconsin stinks for charging. The adapter should help a little.
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fitbrit

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Re: Charging an EV on a Cross Country Road Trip
« Reply #51 on: July 18, 2024, 12:35:16 pm »

I just did a trip Montreal - Toronto and back.
We're spoiled for choice of fast chargers on this route. I could have broken up the trip several ways.

I started with a 100% charge on my Genesis GV60 Performance. Going at realistic highway speeds, I would only get 340km from a full charge. I stopped at about 300km from home at a bank of fast chargers. In Montreal, the most convenient fast charger is 180kW - the one on my trip was 350 kW. It was my first time using such a beast.
Fortunately, the Kia-Hyundai-Genesis eGMP platform cars are among the fastest charging. from 14% to 84% took about 23 minutes. From 80% to 83% took about 6-7 minutes, so the advertised max charging rate of 10% to 80% in 18 minutes was accurate. In future I would use anything 150kW or above as the extra expense is not worth the small increase in charging time.
I made it all the way to Toronto, but decided to charge in a suburb anyway.

On the way back, I also made two stops. Again, the second one was not necessary, but I wanted to have about 125km range for when I got back.
The hotel I was staying at charged my car to 100% each night, and we were able to go to Niagara Falls and back to downtown Toronto, as well as an airport round trip to pick up some family members arriving from the UK. Overall, charging would have cost me CAD$150 for close to 950 miles. It cost less really, as the hotel charging was included in the parking price. This is with expensive public charging in Ontario - Quebec is cheaper, and the chargers are more likely to work.
On my return leg, the first charger I tried kept stopping after 1-3 minutes - frustrating!
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Skerik

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Re: Charging an EV on a Cross Country Road Trip
« Reply #52 on: July 21, 2024, 04:20:20 pm »

I've been driving a Tesla Model S since 2017. I'm on my second S, a 2020. Bought both about 3 years old. The first was a good bit slower to charge on the road as it was limited to 125 kW charging, so Tesla's newer chargers (v3 and up as of 2019 or later chargers) weren't helpful for it. I did a couple of long road trips in 2017 and 2019 but the 2nd was hampered more due to a combination of software changes and more cars charging. The old v2 chargers are A-B pairs and share the 125-150 kW available if both sides are in use, which was rare in 2017 but much more common in 2019 with the Model 3 rollout. Last fall I upgraded to a 2020 Model S, which has significantly more range to start with and can charge at double the power. Took a 2000 mile road trip a month after getting it, and it was a BIG improvement.

Despite various issues with Tesla (including Musk being a lunatic) I'd hesitate to buy something that can't easily use their charging network b/c it's so much better than the rest, at the moment. The US has been maddeningly slow in building high speed charging infrastructure, and red states (looking at you in particular, Florida) have been downright resistant. It's going to keep improving, though.

My current dream car would probably be a Lucid Air using the Tesla network. I'll never go back to ICE.
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fitbrit

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Re: Charging an EV on a Cross Country Road Trip
« Reply #53 on: July 22, 2024, 06:05:00 pm »

My Genesis is supposed to get access to Tesla charging in 2025, with an adapter provided for us. Hope it comes to fruition
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BillT

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Re: Charging an EV on a Cross Country Road Trip
« Reply #54 on: July 23, 2024, 02:39:00 am »

Despite various issues with Tesla (including Musk being a lunatic) I'd hesitate to buy something that can't easily use their charging network b/c it's so much better than the rest, at the moment.

In the UK we have a reasonable non Tesla charging network. However, a couple of years ago Tesla started opening up their network to non Tesla vehicles (probably because Tesla have changed to CCS connectors) and I've found it to be more useful than the other networks, even though I drive a small, low capacity and slow charging Hyundai.

The main advantage is that they charge about half the amount that other networks do for rapid chargers but there is a Tesla charger near our flat on the south coast. There are no public chargers at all on the island and only one rapid charging point within 10 miles, but the 8 bay Tesla charger is only 6 miles away. (We can't charge at the flat, unfortunately.)
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