Los Angeles to San Diego and back, great until we needed to charge

[buzznwood]

We've done that LA-Vegas route a few times now (and will again next week). The main problem there is so many EVs driving that route. Barstow is the only place we've found a full station and had to wait. Actually we gave up and stretched it to Baker. It's a deceiving downhill into Baker (bottom of the valley) so we got there with 20 extra miles of range vs what it showed leaving Barstow.

Glad you made it ok, the baker station is most important one for that route IMO heading towards Vegas as it just before you hit the climb up mountain pass and that section of i15 can have strong head winds during the years making your efficiency even worse.

That is why they really need to get the Primm station online. As it gives people more options, charger at Baker and then in Vegas or charge at Barstow and charge at Primm. The Primm station can also act as a buffer incase your get a massive head wind or burn through the battery on the long climb up mountain pass.

I've lost count of the number of EVs I have scene tucked right up behind a semi or crawling along in the truck lanes trying to hyper mile in the later stages of that route. While Tesla owners know that they have chargers at Primm

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[Rose 2022 Mach E]

My problem with Electrify Canada is the $.57 per minute charging rate.

Agree! They are crazy expensive compared to other stations.

 

[StillWaitingForMachE]

At the EA station in Portage, MI last weekend, the only open charger was an "up to 350kW" charger that only charged at 6kW. Luckily the wife had to feed the baby so we had plenty of time and just waited until the one next to it became available. But yeah, the charging infrastructure is not ready for the current amount of EVs on the road, let alone more widespread adoption.

 

[StillWaitingForMachE]

Agree! They are crazy expensive compared to other stations.

All the ones we stopped at charged per kW. Why do some places charge per minute instead? I'd be so mad if they were charging per minute and I got stuck on one that was charging at a low rate (such as the one I visited that would not go above 6kW)

 

[dbsb3233]

All the ones we stopped at charged per kW. Why do some places charge per minute instead? I'd be so mad if they were charging per minute and I got stuck on one that was charging at a low rate (such as the one I visited that would not go above 6kW)

Not sure about Canada, but in a handful of US states there are legacy laws for electric utility franchises that give them exclusive rights to sell electricity by the kWh. That means electricity sellers like EA had to use a different method.

Eventually all those laws will likely be amended to allow an exception for this. Some already have.

 

[RickMachE]

We will be doing our first day trip to drop our daughter off at UC Santa Cruz from Sacramento (170 miles away). This will be our first time using DCFC when actually *needed* (other were free Volta L3 just to try it out).

I have scouted, with Plugshare, the entire route and other than Chargepoint Headquarters in Campbell and an EVGO in Vacaville, only Electrify America has higher than 62.5kW stations. So we'll be giving one of many EA's in south bay a shot, using the app to check status, then starting the charge with Fordpass balance. We signed up to be religious for the day so that when we pray it will work the first time. ?



Pretty much every EvGo here is 50kW max except for very rare exceptions. You'd have to REALLY plan in order to find one near your route. EA seems to be the only option 90% of the time for fast charging if you don't want to stop for a whole hour.

Also I like your 2nd suggestion, do they accept our Fordpass reward points for the new family? Mine is gonna flip her $hit the first time we hit a snag.

Make sure you use your free charging hours at EA.

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

Besides, these “old” EA units are only, what, 2 years old, three tops?

4 for the original. Well within the lifetime of such things if properly maintained. IF.

 

[Tampamike]

All the ones we stopped at charged per kW. Why do some places charge per minute instead? I'd be so mad if they were charging per minute and I got stuck on one that was charging at a low rate (such as the one I visited that would not go above 6kW)

And just as a public service announcement, the “per minute” rates are way cheaper when the charger is working properly - like 40% cheaper. So, consider that on your long road trips when crossing many state boundaries. A little planning ahead can save you a good bit of money.

 

[Phil Martin]

So this past weekend we took a brief trip from Los Angeles to San Diego. It's approximately 120-130ish miles of travel. I had charged the Mach-E to 90%. GOM showed 300+ miles. Great. My family and I hop in, put on good music and head to San Diego. We get there without issue and have a great day. We drove around to other places and still had plenty of charge left. However, at the end of the day it was apparent I needed a charge as I only had 100 miles of range and I have a 130 mile trip back home. So I punch in my home address into the Mach-E navigation and it points out that I need to charge and there is an EA station just 10 minutes away.

We navigate to the nearest EA station. Completely full, with one car already in line waiting to charge. I open the EA app on my phone and see there is another EA station about 15 minutes away. So I drive to the next EA station. One stall available, plug in, pay and we're charging. Awesome. 20 minutes pass and I notice we've barely added 6ish miles. I look on the EA screen and it says it's charging at 12KWh. I once again open the EA app and see there is another station about 30 minutes away from my current location, thankfully it was on the way home.

I make it to the third EA station:
Charging stall 1: Fails to connect/charge
Charging stall 2: Fails to connect/charge
Charging stall 3: In use by another vehicle
Charging stall 4: Connects and charges. Charged for 15 minutes. Wife angry and kids cranky.

Got home.

I'm seriously rethinking my Mach-E purchase due to the charging network. What should have been a 20 minute stop to charge for 15 minutes turned into almost 1 and a half hour endeavor. My family refuses to do any more long trips on the Mach-E.

Yeah, my wife and I decided to forgo an EV for now. We'll wait a few years to see if this gets resolved. maybe it doesn't, who knows, but this isn't worth the stress when out on a road trip when we're suppose to be having fun. Maybe the EV craze will die off by then too.

I've noticed even the staunchest EV supporters are starting to cave.

 

[Phil Martin]

It's way more stressful then it should be. In a few years hopefully the charging infrastructure will improve. Every gas station should have a charging terminal. But keep in mind auto manufacture's are going to cranking out 100's of thousands of EV's a year its going to take a lot of effort to improve the situation.

I think it will take even longer than that five years I'll see where we are and base a EV purchase at that time. These things to fix themselves overnight and I'm not spending $70-80K on a car only to get pissed off while on road trips cause of constant charging issues.

 

[RedStallion]

I'm afraid the situation is only going to get worse. The number of EVs is growing faster than the charging infrastructure. I'm going to keep one ICE SUV for long range travels and use EV for local driving. That's likely to be a necessity for the next 10-20 years until either the infrastructure catches up or EVs boost the highway range to over 500 miles so that you don't need to charge on the road.

 

[voxel]

Yeah, my wife and I decided to forgo an EV for now. We'll wait a few years to see if this gets resolved. maybe it doesn't, who knows, but this isn't worth the stress when out on a road trip when we're suppose to be having fun. Maybe the EV craze will die off by then too.

I've noticed even the staunchest EV supporters are starting to cave.

EVs are the perfect city commuters. Hyper efficient in stop and go and slower speeds. Some cities in Europe are thinking of banning combustion vehicles inside city limits because of this reason.

EVs as road trip cars need more infrastructure and EVs need to improve their drivetrain efficiency at higher speeds

 

[TruWrecks]

So this past weekend we took a brief trip from Los Angeles to San Diego. It's approximately 120-130ish miles of travel. I had charged the Mach-E to 90%. GOM showed 300+ miles. Great. My family and I hop in, put on good music and head to San Diego. We get there without issue and have a great day. We drove around to other places and still had plenty of charge left. However, at the end of the day it was apparent I needed a charge as I only had 100 miles of range and I have a 130 mile trip back home. So I punch in my home address into the Mach-E navigation and it points out that I need to charge and there is an EA station just 10 minutes away.

We navigate to the nearest EA station. Completely full, with one car already in line waiting to charge. I open the EA app on my phone and see there is another EA station about 15 minutes away. So I drive to the next EA station. One stall available, plug in, pay and we're charging. Awesome. 20 minutes pass and I notice we've barely added 6ish miles. I look on the EA screen and it says it's charging at 12KWh. I once again open the EA app and see there is another station about 30 minutes away from my current location, thankfully it was on the way home.

I make it to the third EA station:
Charging stall 1: Fails to connect/charge
Charging stall 2: Fails to connect/charge
Charging stall 3: In use by another vehicle
Charging stall 4: Connects and charges. Charged for 15 minutes. Wife angry and kids cranky.

Got home.

I'm seriously rethinking my Mach-E purchase due to the charging network. What should have been a 20 minute stop to charge for 15 minutes turned into almost 1 and a half hour endeavor. My family refuses to do any more long trips on the Mach-E.

Have you ever pulling into a travel plaza station after 300 miles on the road and have to wait for 45 minutes for an open pump? I have. it's no fun either but it is no reason to stop driving my truck at the time. The family could not fit in the wifes sub compact.

We are still in the early adopters phase. Patience is required.

Calling EA at the first station may have solved all your problems.

 

[dbsb3233]

I'm afraid the situation is only going to get worse. The number of EVs is growing faster than the charging infrastructure. I'm going to keep one ICE SUV for long range travels and use EV for local driving. That's likely to be a necessity for the next 10-20 years until either the infrastructure catches up or EVs boost the highway range to over 500 miles so that you don't need to charge on the road.

I dunno if I'd go quite that far. I do agree that we're probably in a regression period right now though where the # of EVs using road trip DCFC is rising faster than DCFC is expanding. Which is going to lead to some waiting lines. Some of them ugly since stations are rarely set up for organized queuing, and people are gonna get pissed off when others cut the queue.

But that won't be everywhere. More at the busier stations in/around cities. Still though.

I don't expect that to be 10-20 years though. I suspect we're in for a period of leapfrogging. We'll have a surge in BEV sales, then a surge in DCFC to catch up, and back and forth it will go. Getting to the point where we have redundancy in station coverage will really help (stations every 10-20 miles instead of 100 miles). Also way more L2 at hotels and apartments where more people can start the day at 100%. I'm also happy to see EA planning to add shared chargers. Turn solo 350's into two chargers for the same total power should help a lot.

We have both a Mach-E and an Escape. So far the Mach-E is getting all the road trips (15,000 miles worth the last 2 years), except for one where DCFC coverage was non-existent. We leave in a few days for another 2600 mile trip.

 

[Phil Martin]

EVs are the perfect city commuters. Hyper efficient in stop and go and slower speeds. Some cities in Europe are thinking of banning combustion vehicles inside city limits because of this reason.

EVs as road trip cars need more infrastructure and EVs need to improve their drivetrain efficiency at higher speeds

Yes, they are and that's where the EV's really shine, due to convenient and reliable home charging. A plug-in hybrid works great that reason too with the benefit that you don't have to worry at all in terms of charging when on road trips. This is reason why Tesla took their supercharger infrastructure very serious and integrated it into their business of selling cars...Tesla had knowledge that for widespread adoption you need to make road trip charger as seamless as possible. They also knew that this doesn't work as a third party because selling electricity is very low margin if even that. I just don't see a any quick fix for third parties selling DC fast charging....it's a mess and end users really don't want to wait around in a parking lot for an hour to charge, only adding to their misery. When the novelty factor wanes that will wear them down even more.

As a seller of electricity, there is little if any incentive and there's hardly any profit in it, that's a big problem. Forcing a charging network into the EV movement by penalty isn't working and I don't blame the VW subsidiary for only doing the minimum requirements to satisfy their agreements. In reality car manufactures need to buy out these charging operators, close the system, make it proprietary and integrate it into their business of selling cars....similar to Tesla.

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