DC to Pittsburgh: How Fast Charging Has Improved

[dan_meh]

I think most people thinking of buying an EV might have the perception of the 2021 version of range anxiety holding them back.

Can confirm! My ABRP setting went from “arrive at charging stations with at least 30%” to “15%” (ymmv, this is an area I know has more than a handful of stations every 10 miles), which makes travel doable with just one charge season. So much better and less stressful than back in 2021!

Yes! It’s time to update assumptions and celebrate progress. Can’t wait to do it again next year and look back again.

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[Billyk24]

You did not mention the Tesla stations off the Turnpike on Freeport Rd in Harmar Township at the Target location. Never had to wait here. Very close to this location is the Sheetz location where bathrooms and good "gas station grub" exists. Sheetz is opening the New Staton location which is very close the Tesla location at the GetGo (like Sheetz) station. Then Cranberry Twp has a Tesla location open to us almost across the street from the busy Sheetz EA location.
--One warning to out of the area drivers--traveling east on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Once you past the New Staton/I-70 exit you are going to travel upward for the next 20 miles. This is going to eat into your range fast.

 

[Schmedlack]

This is a bit off topic, but there’s Bedford Springs, Lifestyle in Bedford the town, and Jean Bonnet’s Tavern on old 31. Not that Jean Bonnet.

Lifestyle does a fixed menu and a farm table setting. If you’re in a hurry, they have a cafe “next door.” Jean Bonnet’s is heavy food served in one of the original carriage taverns on Forbes Road. Bedford Springs is an Omni Joint. Good chef, but mostly hotel guests. Only the Omni has charging and it’s AC.

I will stay at the Omni when my golf game improves. For now, I will play at the Bedford Elks course. Off topic - Also, if you like diner style food, Mandy Jo's Country Corral in Everett gets an A+ from me.

 

[21st Century Pony]

I completely agree with the OP's analysis.

When a teenage nephew and I did a 6 week coast-to-coast+ camping & adventure trip in Summer of 2023 in my Mach E, it was doable yet at times I did wonder whether I was crazy.

This Summer, I and another teenage nephew did an 8 week, longer and more convoluted coast-to-coast+ camping trip in my Lightning and a teardrop camper in tow, and frankly it was night and day in just two short years. This Summer, charging was nearly an afterthought for the most part.

This densification of DC Fast charging stations and networks and also of AC charging points (when we sleep, because we all DO sleep, right?) is a pleasure to watch and to experience. It'll only get better.

 

[pgh.mache]

As a Pittsburgher having owned a Mach-E for several years and then replacing it with a new[er] Mach-E (I remember when there were just a handful of us in the entire Pittsburgh region), I feel the need to butt in and say: I agree. The situation has been "okay-ish" around Pittsburgh for the past few years, but the past 1 or 2 years especially has seen a real explosion in DCFC stations leading to/from Pittsburgh.

For my DC to Pittsburgh run, in the year of our lord 2022, you could stop in Hagerstown at an EA, there were a few slower Chargepoint spots on 68, and then there was an unreliable four-stall EA in Bedford. Some of you have commented on that time. It sounds... let's say... adventurous.

I will say that it was so bad that during that summer, that I rented a gas car to make the Pittsburgh -> DC trip. If Bedford was down or if there was a massive line, you were going to have major problems on your trip. Too critical of a lynchpin to put my family through it. Now, though, there are so many charging stations that I can skip so many of them without second thought. Definitely a much better situation than 2022, or even 2023.

1. I arrived with about 8%, but had the confidence to go to Woltz and Wind Ford - where the charging is reliable and they just added a new dispenser, going from four to six. I charged to about 40%.

Basically every Ford dealership in the area has been great about EVs. Several South Hills Ford dealerships have multiple DCFCs, and have EV-specific technicians. The sales people are always sketchy at best (they don't call them stealerships for no reason), but the service departments are almost all perfect. Hell, some of them even own Mach-E's themselves.

In the South Hills of Pittsburgh, I can now charge as I run errands. I went into the Target at South Hills Village and used new EA stations, for example. Those stations didn't exist in March of 2025.

The EA chargers near the South Hills Village Target are actually like a 15 minute walk from Target, and you need to go through the parking lot of a restaurant and across a mall road. I wouldn't call that "as I run errands," so much as I would call it, "in between my errands," but yeah. Also: there were other chargers in the area before that one. EVGo had a single charger in the parking lot of the old Toys R Us since at least 2017. Granted, it was broken most of the time in the latter years before they disabled it entirely, but for a while it was the only DCFC in the area. Just a fun fact.

 

[dan_meh]

The EA chargers near the South Hills Village Target are actually like a 15 minute walk from Target, and you need to go through the parking lot of a restaurant and across a mall road.

Ha ha… DC in me says any parking job on errands day that’s ONLY 15 minutes from Target (Potomac Yard) is Rock Star parking. I walked that without blinking.

It’s good to hear the impressions of a native. My “ memory” only goes back 1 year.

Also, the Pizza Hut in Breezewood is now open. Less Pizza Hut more Starbucks, though.

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