DC to Pittsburgh: How Fast Charging Has Improved

[dan_meh]

I've owned my Mustang Mach-e for just over a year. And I've done my DC to Pittsburgh "Kessel Run" about 12 times. In this trip, I was struck by how fast charging has improved in less than a year, and the promise of continued improvement, and how that affects confidence. The more charging stations are available, the less I need to charge.

I know that this is just one man's road trip. I know that your area of the country or your "Kessel Run" might be different. But I think it's worth looking at an example 5 hour road trip to appreciate the change. After all, it can sometimes be hard to back up enough to gain perspective on the entire nationwide infrastructure shift. So I think it's worthwhile to examine just one "Kessel Run."

In March of this year, the first time I wrote about my most common road trip in this forum, here's what I said:

I was excited about the efficiency because I wondered if we could skip the Bedford EA and make it to New Stanton or even Monroeville before stopping. Apple Maps, in fact, said that we could do it all without a stop (dubious).

But just after Breezewood, the little voice came from the back: “I gotta pee.” So we did indeed stop at the Bedford Sheetz. I plugged in and drew just 110 because I was still at like 55%.

That was six months ago. I was a baby road tripper, but I was also a product of the infrastructure in that corridor and the kiddo.

This time - October of 2025 - I was travelling alone. There was no little voice in the back. I made the Kessel Run in one battery pack. I felt "dubious" about making it in one battery pack less than a year ago, but now I feel confident. The difference is some internal growth, yes, but it also has a lot to do with externalities.

You can see the start of the growth in my original post: range isn't the determining factor of our stops. I feel silly writing this now, but of course range isn't the determining factor. When we travelled by Toyota Minivan, range isn't the determining factor. It's always bladder, hunger, stretching, letting the dog out, or some other reason.

The difference between gas an electric vehicles (for us) was the flexibility of the stop. In the Toyota, just about every exit is a potential stop. It doesn't matter if the Toyota has 500 miles of range on a tank or 200 miles of range on a tank. Heck, the Toyota range can probably be something like 10 miles because there's a gas station every 10 miles except for a couple of "Gas Gaps" on the turnpike. Every 10 miles is crazy, I know, but I could do it if I wanted. And it just expresses a ratio of "gas stop to charging stop milage."

I first stared looking at EVs in 2021. The DC to Pittsburgh run had a huge geographic and reliability charging gap. The ratio (for CSS) was something like 10:1 - you had 10 times the distance between CCS chargers as between gas stations. That doesn't even account for number of dispensers at a stop (call this a nozzle ratio). Even in the Bedford to Cranberry "Gas Gap" it's something like 3:1. That gap in EV terms was about 120 miles over mountains and the Cranberry station was always derated or broken.

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. Tesla had more spots, of course, but at the time they weren't open to any CCS vehicles.

The gap was so harrowing, in fact, that I remember the Plugshare comments in the spring of 2024 - a year and a half ago - when EA closed Bedford for an equipment upgrade. More than a few people commented something like "I couldn't make my turnpike trip because these chargers were down." That disappointment quickly changed to excitement when the stations opened, but access is now just baked in. Here's a video of an excited turnpike traveller talking about the station (https://www.plugshare.com/location/186738):


Almost at the exact same time, Ford got access to the Tesla superchargers. That doesn't mean Ford owners got access - the adapters needed to be sent out - but the slow roll out began. Here's the first road trip as a product placement in March of 2024:


V3 Supercharger access meant that, in my DC to Pittsburgh run, I could now have access to reliable charging in Breezewood and New Stanton. If something went horribly wrong in Bedford, I could turn around and get back to Breezewood to save the trip. I decided to buy the Mustang Mach-e in late July. My adaptor came a few months later, in December. It's worth noting that Ford sped that up with the Lectron contract.

So what started as crowded, marginally reliable stops in Fredrick, Hagerstown, Bedford or slow options in Hancock, Cumberland, Frostburg, and Friendsville (the 68 route), turned into this when I started making these trips in the winter of 2024/5:

• Multiple possible stops in Fredrick (Supercharger and EA)
• A new stop in Breezewood (Supercharger)
• A very reliable, expanded stop in Bedford (Refurbished EA)
• A new stop in New Stanton (Supercharger)
• A new stop in Monroville (Supercharger)
• A new stop in Cumberland, for the 68 route (Supercharger)

And now, just one year later, new stops have opened or been refurbished:

• Somerset Travel Plaza (Applegreen)
• Grantsville, for the 68 route (Pilot Flying J)
• Yet another Monroeville stop (EVgo)
• Yet another Breezewood stop (Rivian)
• EA near Periopolis on 51 (for the 68 route - refurbished to be reliable)

And there are more that are in progress - in some state of groundbreaking:

• Yet another New Stanton stop (in the rest area, Applegreen again)
• Yet another in Somerset (a v3.5 at the Wendy's in Somerset - a huge expansion of the v2 that was there)
• Yet another in Breezewood (at the Pizza Hut and Starbucks - a combo only possible in Breezewood)

And finally, the planned NEVI stops that haven't broken ground.

• Donegal on the PA turnpike (half way between Somerset and New Stanton)
• Yet another stop in New Stanton.

Ironically, this newly aquired wealth of charging stations gave me the confidence to stop less on this trip. I always had a charging opportunity just down the road, I felt like I could rely on it, and I had a good sense of my vehicle. Previously, I would pass Breezewood and think I can rely on Bedford but I better stop there because I don't want to make the Bedford to Pittsburgh run with an outage in New Stanton.

This time, here's how it went:

1. In Bedford, I was at something like 65% and thought, I can make it to the reliable chargers at the Somerset travel plaza.
2. At the Somerset travel plaza, I looked at my consumption and State of Charge and said, huh, never done this before, but I'm at like 45%. Wow, If New Stanton is bad, I can make it to one of the new stops in Irwin or Monroeville.
3. At New Stanton, I said huh, I'm at 25%. Let's keep going. I know I have a bail out at Irwin, which I'll skip, but we can make it to Monroeville.
4. In Monroeville, I was down to about 15%, but then I was in Pittsburgh with lots of dealerships and other charging opportunities. And close to my destination, so I kept going.
5. 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%.

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.

On the way home, I wanted to try the Grantsville station and it was a beautiful day, so I returned by way of (mostly) two lane roads. I skipped the updated EA in Fayette County or 51 because I was at a high state of charge. I stopped to charge at Grantsville, which was ridiculous because I was still at like 75%, but I wanted to check it out. I plugged it in, got coffee to celebrate the grand opening, and plotted a route through some fun West Virigina roads. The coffee needed to reach the end of its road, so I stopped one more time at the new, more reliable equipment Electrify America in Winchester. By this time, it was Noon, so I plugged in, peed, got an MTO sandwich, and kept going.

If I do the same run at this time next year, I'll have extra options in New Stanton, an extra one in Somerset, an Extra one in Breezewood, and maybe, God willing, in Donegal.

Sponsored

 

[rreddy3]

Great write up Dan! I think Breezewood lacks only a Pirmanti Brothers.

I do have a question … you seem to have the South Hills, as do I, as a destination…so, the question is, why care about charging near Cranberry…? …. That’s not even Pittsburgh… it might as well be in Ohio or New York it’s so far removed from the real Pittsburgh …. (Just kidding, sort of …)

Again, great write up and perspective Dan. It’s probably most appreciated by those who grew up in or live in that region. It is, or was a Kessel Run. Although they don’t have the heights of western mountains or others in the Appalachian chain, they can be black holes in space and, borrowing from a sign I saw on a lift tower at Killington a very long time ago, ‘these mountains will be as cold and lonely as they were 200 years ago.’

 

[dan_meh]

@rreddy3 - I was only using cranberry to illustrate how far it was between charging stops for CCS on the turnpike in about 2021 Ish.

 

[rreddy3]

@rreddy3 - I was only using cranberry to illustrate how far it was between charging stops for CCS on the turnpike in about 2021 Ish.

. There were a lot of gaps. You’ve done a great job describing how the gaps in this corridor have closed in a few years Dan. Personally I’m really glad to see the PFJ in Grantsville off 68 since I am not a fan of the PA turnpike.

 

[Tampamike]

Yup. The DCFC charging landscape has gotten exponentially better than when this car came out in early 2021. There’s way more stations and more than one option in many locations when there used to be one, and it might be sketchy. Price shopping is now possible.

 

[Schmedlack]

You're right on better charging infrastructure. In Spring '21 a planned charging stop was a donut shop in Greensburg. We arrived at less than 10% power. The line of customers stretched out onto US30. (Doughnut cravings never end there in Westmoreland County). Then, their EVgo station would not activate. Worse yet, we then were blocked in by a semi-truck delivering donut supplies. Plan B... Down the road was a Harley dealer with a 25 kw/hour charger. There we looked at all of the bikes, and then ate a Chipotle meal very slowly. Two hours later we had enough juice to barely make it to Bedford.

Edit..... Has anyone ever found a DCFC within walking distance of a gourmet, fine dining restaurant?

 

[rreddy3]

You're right on better charging infrastructure. In Spring '21 a planned charging stop was a donut shop in Greensburg. We arrived at less than 10% power. The line of customers stretched out onto US30. Then, their EVgo station would not activate. Worse yet, we then were blocked in by a semi-truck delivering donut supplies. Plan B... Down the road was a Harley dealer with a 25 kw/hour charger. There we looked at all of the bikes, and then ate a Chipotle meal very slowly. Two hours later we had enough juice to barely make it to Bedford.

Edit..... Has anyone ever found a DCFC within walking distance of a gourmet, fine dining restaurant?

... too funny .... In the "DMV" to central and western PA or MD corridor ... not likely on the gourmet restaurant. Perhaps out west EV drivers have better luck on that score.

 

[Schmedlack]

... too funny .... In the "DMV" to central and western PA or MD corridor ... not likely on the gourmet restaurant. Perhaps out west EV drivers have better luck on that score.

Yes, the thing which irks me is eating fast food while charging when a 4-Star restaurant is in the same town, but not within walking distance.

Any critiques of the Tesla Diners? I'll bet that the Cardiologists call those places "job security".

 

[dan_meh]

In the "DMV" to central and western PA or MD corridor ... not likely on the gourmet restaurant.

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.

 

[moritzes]

I've owned my Mustang Mach-e for just over a year. And I've done my DC to Pittsburgh "Kessel Run" about 12 times. In this trip, I was struck by how fast charging has improved in less than a year, and the promise of continued improvement, and how that affects confidence. The more charging stations are available, the less I need to charge.

Thanks for the writeup! As someone who needs to make an Akron to Richmond drive soon, this is more than encouraging.

 

[_PTE_]

I've owned my Mustang Mach-e for just over a year. And I've done my DC to Pittsburgh "Kessel Run" about 12 times. In this trip, I was struck by how fast charging has improved in less than a year, and the promise of continued improvement, and how that affects confidence. The more charging stations are available, the less I need to charge.

I know that this is just one man's road trip. I know that your area of the country or your "Kessel Run" might be different. But I think it's worth looking at an example 5 hour road trip to appreciate the change. After all, it can sometimes be hard to back up enough to gain perspective on the entire nationwide infrastructure shift. So I think it's worthwhile to examine just one "Kessel Run."

In March of this year, the first time I wrote about my most common road trip in this forum, here's what I said:



That was six months ago. I was a baby road tripper, but I was also a product of the infrastructure in that corridor and the kiddo.

This time - October of 2025 - I was travelling alone. There was no little voice in the back. I made the Kessel Run in one battery pack. I felt "dubious" about making it in one battery pack less than a year ago, but now I feel confident. The difference is some internal growth, yes, but it also has a lot to do with externalities.

You can see the start of the growth in my original post: range isn't the determining factor of our stops. I feel silly writing this now, but of course range isn't the determining factor. When we travelled by Toyota Minivan, range isn't the determining factor. It's always bladder, hunger, stretching, letting the dog out, or some other reason.

The difference between gas an electric vehicles (for us) was the flexibility of the stop. In the Toyota, just about every exit is a potential stop. It doesn't matter if the Toyota has 500 miles of range on a tank or 200 miles of range on a tank. Heck, the Toyota range can probably be something like 10 miles because there's a gas station every 10 miles except for a couple of "Gas Gaps" on the turnpike. Every 10 miles is crazy, I know, but I could do it if I wanted. And it just expresses a ratio of "gas stop to charging stop milage."

I first stared looking at EVs in 2021. The DC to Pittsburgh run had a huge geographic and reliability charging gap. The ratio (for CSS) was something like 10:1 - you had 10 times the distance between CCS chargers as between gas stations. That doesn't even account for number of dispensers at a stop (call this a nozzle ratio). Even in the Bedford to Cranberry "Gas Gap" it's something like 3:1. That gap in EV terms was about 120 miles over mountains and the Cranberry station was always derated or broken.

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. Tesla had more spots, of course, but at the time they weren't open to any CCS vehicles.

The gap was so harrowing, in fact, that I remember the Plugshare comments in the spring of 2024 - a year and a half ago - when EA closed Bedford for an equipment upgrade. More than a few people commented something like "I couldn't make my turnpike trip because these chargers were down." That disappointment quickly changed to excitement when the stations opened, but access is now just baked in. Here's a video of an excited turnpike traveller talking about the station (https://www.plugshare.com/location/186738):


Almost at the exact same time, Ford got access to the Tesla superchargers. That doesn't mean Ford owners got access - the adapters needed to be sent out - but the slow roll out began. Here's the first road trip as a product placement in March of 2024:


V3 Supercharger access meant that, in my DC to Pittsburgh run, I could now have access to reliable charging in Breezewood and New Stanton. If something went horribly wrong in Bedford, I could turn around and get back to Breezewood to save the trip. I decided to buy the Mustang Mach-e in late July. My adaptor came a few months later, in December. It's worth noting that Ford sped that up with the Lectron contract.

So what started as crowded, marginally reliable stops in Fredrick, Hagerstown, Bedford or slow options in Hancock, Cumberland, Frostburg, and Friendsville (the 68 route), turned into this when I started making these trips in the winter of 2024/5:

• Multiple possible stops in Fredrick (Supercharger and EA)
• A new stop in Breezewood (Supercharger)
• A very reliable, expanded stop in Bedford (Refurbished EA)
• A new stop in New Stanton (Supercharger)
• A new stop in Monroville (Supercharger)
• A new stop in Cumberland, for the 68 route (Supercharger)

And now, just one year later, new stops have opened or been refurbished:

• Somerset Travel Plaza (Applegreen)
• Grantsville, for the 68 route (Pilot Flying J)
• Yet another Monroeville stop (EVgo)
• Yet another Breezewood stop (Rivian)
• EA near Periopolis on 51 (for the 68 route - refurbished to be reliable)

And there are more that are in progress - in some state of groundbreaking:

• Yet another New Stanton stop (in the rest area, Applegreen again)
• Yet another in Somerset (a v3.5 at the Wendy's in Somerset - a huge expansion of the v2 that was there)
• Yet another in Breezewood (at the Pizza Hut and Starbucks - a combo only possible in Breezewood)

And finally, the planned NEVI stops that haven't broken ground.

• Donegal on the PA turnpike (half way between Somerset and New Stanton)
• Yet another stop in New Stanton.

Ironically, this newly aquired wealth of charging stations gave me the confidence to stop less on this trip. I always had a charging opportunity just down the road, I felt like I could rely on it, and I had a good sense of my vehicle. Previously, I would pass Breezewood and think I can rely on Bedford but I better stop there because I don't want to make the Bedford to Pittsburgh run with an outage in New Stanton.

This time, here's how it went:

1. In Bedford, I was at something like 65% and thought, I can make it to the reliable chargers at the Somerset travel plaza.
2. At the Somerset travel plaza, I looked at my consumption and State of Charge and said, huh, never done this before, but I'm at like 45%. Wow, If New Stanton is bad, I can make it to one of the new stops in Irwin or Monroeville.
3. At New Stanton, I said huh, I'm at 25%. Let's keep going. I know I have a bail out at Irwin, which I'll skip, but we can make it to Monroeville.
4. In Monroeville, I was down to about 15%, but then I was in Pittsburgh with lots of dealerships and other charging opportunities. And close to my destination, so I kept going.
5. 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%.

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.

On the way home, I wanted to try the Grantsville station and it was a beautiful day, so I returned by way of (mostly) two lane roads. I skipped the updated EA in Fayette County or 51 because I was at a high state of charge. I stopped to charge at Grantsville, which was ridiculous because I was still at like 75%, but I wanted to check it out. I plugged it in, got coffee to celebrate the grand opening, and plotted a route through some fun West Virigina roads. The coffee needed to reach the end of its road, so I stopped one more time at the new, more reliable equipment Electrify America in Winchester. By this time, it was Noon, so I plugged in, peed, got an MTO sandwich, and kept going.

If I do the same run at this time next year, I'll have extra options in New Stanton, an extra one in Somerset, an Extra one in Breezewood, and maybe, God willing, in Donegal.

WOW what a great trip ! Many Thanks _PTE_

 

[Blue highway]

I've owned my Mustang Mach-e for just over a year. And I've done my DC to Pittsburgh "Kessel Run" about 12 times. In this trip, I was struck by how fast charging has improved in less than a year, and the promise of continued improvement, and how that affects confidence. The more charging stations are available, the less I need to charge.

I know that this is just one man's road trip. I know that your area of the country or your "Kessel Run" might be different. But I think it's worth looking at an example 5 hour road trip to appreciate the change. After all, it can sometimes be hard to back up enough to gain perspective on the entire nationwide infrastructure shift. So I think it's worthwhile to examine just one "Kessel Run."

In March of this year, the first time I wrote about my most common road trip in this forum, here's what I said:



That was six months ago. I was a baby road tripper, but I was also a product of the infrastructure in that corridor and the kiddo.

This time - October of 2025 - I was travelling alone. There was no little voice in the back. I made the Kessel Run in one battery pack. I felt "dubious" about making it in one battery pack less than a year ago, but now I feel confident. The difference is some internal growth, yes, but it also has a lot to do with externalities.

You can see the start of the growth in my original post: range isn't the determining factor of our stops. I feel silly writing this now, but of course range isn't the determining factor. When we travelled by Toyota Minivan, range isn't the determining factor. It's always bladder, hunger, stretching, letting the dog out, or some other reason.

The difference between gas an electric vehicles (for us) was the flexibility of the stop. In the Toyota, just about every exit is a potential stop. It doesn't matter if the Toyota has 500 miles of range on a tank or 200 miles of range on a tank. Heck, the Toyota range can probably be something like 10 miles because there's a gas station every 10 miles except for a couple of "Gas Gaps" on the turnpike. Every 10 miles is crazy, I know, but I could do it if I wanted. And it just expresses a ratio of "gas stop to charging stop milage."

I first stared looking at EVs in 2021. The DC to Pittsburgh run had a huge geographic and reliability charging gap. The ratio (for CSS) was something like 10:1 - you had 10 times the distance between CCS chargers as between gas stations. That doesn't even account for number of dispensers at a stop (call this a nozzle ratio). Even in the Bedford to Cranberry "Gas Gap" it's something like 3:1. That gap in EV terms was about 120 miles over mountains and the Cranberry station was always derated or broken.

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. Tesla had more spots, of course, but at the time they weren't open to any CCS vehicles.

The gap was so harrowing, in fact, that I remember the Plugshare comments in the spring of 2024 - a year and a half ago - when EA closed Bedford for an equipment upgrade. More than a few people commented something like "I couldn't make my turnpike trip because these chargers were down." That disappointment quickly changed to excitement when the stations opened, but access is now just baked in. Here's a video of an excited turnpike traveller talking about the station (https://www.plugshare.com/location/186738):


Almost at the exact same time, Ford got access to the Tesla superchargers. That doesn't mean Ford owners got access - the adapters needed to be sent out - but the slow roll out began. Here's the first road trip as a product placement in March of 2024:


V3 Supercharger access meant that, in my DC to Pittsburgh run, I could now have access to reliable charging in Breezewood and New Stanton. If something went horribly wrong in Bedford, I could turn around and get back to Breezewood to save the trip. I decided to buy the Mustang Mach-e in late July. My adaptor came a few months later, in December. It's worth noting that Ford sped that up with the Lectron contract.

So what started as crowded, marginally reliable stops in Fredrick, Hagerstown, Bedford or slow options in Hancock, Cumberland, Frostburg, and Friendsville (the 68 route), turned into this when I started making these trips in the winter of 2024/5:

• Multiple possible stops in Fredrick (Supercharger and EA)
• A new stop in Breezewood (Supercharger)
• A very reliable, expanded stop in Bedford (Refurbished EA)
• A new stop in New Stanton (Supercharger)
• A new stop in Monroville (Supercharger)
• A new stop in Cumberland, for the 68 route (Supercharger)

And now, just one year later, new stops have opened or been refurbished:

• Somerset Travel Plaza (Applegreen)
• Grantsville, for the 68 route (Pilot Flying J)
• Yet another Monroeville stop (EVgo)
• Yet another Breezewood stop (Rivian)
• EA near Periopolis on 51 (for the 68 route - refurbished to be reliable)

And there are more that are in progress - in some state of groundbreaking:

• Yet another New Stanton stop (in the rest area, Applegreen again)
• Yet another in Somerset (a v3.5 at the Wendy's in Somerset - a huge expansion of the v2 that was there)
• Yet another in Breezewood (at the Pizza Hut and Starbucks - a combo only possible in Breezewood)

And finally, the planned NEVI stops that haven't broken ground.

• Donegal on the PA turnpike (half way between Somerset and New Stanton)
• Yet another stop in New Stanton.

Ironically, this newly aquired wealth of charging stations gave me the confidence to stop less on this trip. I always had a charging opportunity just down the road, I felt like I could rely on it, and I had a good sense of my vehicle. Previously, I would pass Breezewood and think I can rely on Bedford but I better stop there because I don't want to make the Bedford to Pittsburgh run with an outage in New Stanton.

This time, here's how it went:

1. In Bedford, I was at something like 65% and thought, I can make it to the reliable chargers at the Somerset travel plaza.
2. At the Somerset travel plaza, I looked at my consumption and State of Charge and said, huh, never done this before, but I'm at like 45%. Wow, If New Stanton is bad, I can make it to one of the new stops in Irwin or Monroeville.
3. At New Stanton, I said huh, I'm at 25%. Let's keep going. I know I have a bail out at Irwin, which I'll skip, but we can make it to Monroeville.
4. In Monroeville, I was down to about 15%, but then I was in Pittsburgh with lots of dealerships and other charging opportunities. And close to my destination, so I kept going.
5. 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%.

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.

On the way home, I wanted to try the Grantsville station and it was a beautiful day, so I returned by way of (mostly) two lane roads. I skipped the updated EA in Fayette County or 51 because I was at a high state of charge. I stopped to charge at Grantsville, which was ridiculous because I was still at like 75%, but I wanted to check it out. I plugged it in, got coffee to celebrate the grand opening, and plotted a route through some fun West Virigina roads. The coffee needed to reach the end of its road, so I stopped one more time at the new, more reliable equipment Electrify America in Winchester. By this time, it was Noon, so I plugged in, peed, got an MTO sandwich, and kept going.

If I do the same run at this time next year, I'll have extra options in New Stanton, an extra one in Somerset, an Extra one in Breezewood, and maybe, God willing, in Donegal.

THIS is why we don't need 500 mile EVs... we need lots of charging stations... and we are getting them.

 

[YeOldeTraveller]

Thanks for the write-up. Watching charging gaps fill in has been great.

My "Kessel Run" is Detroit to Atlanta. I-75 all the way. I've been watching this for a few years. The key gap on this route was Toledo to Dayton (a bit under 200 miles). When I started looking at this, the only option was a 62 KW station in Lima. When Tesla allowed access to V3 Superchargers, this added a good option in Findlay. Then Francis opened a site south of Lima. In the last year, Pilot Flying J has added their own site just north of Findlay, and another in Beaverdam (about halfway between Toledo and Dayton). This run went from marginal to easy in 2 years.

 

[Mark813]

I've owned my Mustang Mach-e for just over a year. And I've done my DC to Pittsburgh "Kessel Run" about 12 times. In this trip, I was struck by how fast charging has improved in less than a year, and the promise of continued improvement, and how that affects confidence. The more charging stations are available, the less I need to charge.

I know that this is just one man's road trip. I know that your area of the country or your "Kessel Run" might be different. But I think it's worth looking at an example 5 hour road trip to appreciate the change. After all, it can sometimes be hard to back up enough to gain perspective on the entire nationwide infrastructure shift. So I think it's worthwhile to examine just one "Kessel Run."

In March of this year, the first time I wrote about my most common road trip in this forum, here's what I said:



That was six months ago. I was a baby road tripper, but I was also a product of the infrastructure in that corridor and the kiddo.

This time - October of 2025 - I was travelling alone. There was no little voice in the back. I made the Kessel Run in one battery pack. I felt "dubious" about making it in one battery pack less than a year ago, but now I feel confident. The difference is some internal growth, yes, but it also has a lot to do with externalities.

You can see the start of the growth in my original post: range isn't the determining factor of our stops. I feel silly writing this now, but of course range isn't the determining factor. When we travelled by Toyota Minivan, range isn't the determining factor. It's always bladder, hunger, stretching, letting the dog out, or some other reason.

The difference between gas an electric vehicles (for us) was the flexibility of the stop. In the Toyota, just about every exit is a potential stop. It doesn't matter if the Toyota has 500 miles of range on a tank or 200 miles of range on a tank. Heck, the Toyota range can probably be something like 10 miles because there's a gas station every 10 miles except for a couple of "Gas Gaps" on the turnpike. Every 10 miles is crazy, I know, but I could do it if I wanted. And it just expresses a ratio of "gas stop to charging stop milage."

I first stared looking at EVs in 2021. The DC to Pittsburgh run had a huge geographic and reliability charging gap. The ratio (for CSS) was something like 10:1 - you had 10 times the distance between CCS chargers as between gas stations. That doesn't even account for number of dispensers at a stop (call this a nozzle ratio). Even in the Bedford to Cranberry "Gas Gap" it's something like 3:1. That gap in EV terms was about 120 miles over mountains and the Cranberry station was always derated or broken.

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. Tesla had more spots, of course, but at the time they weren't open to any CCS vehicles.

The gap was so harrowing, in fact, that I remember the Plugshare comments in the spring of 2024 - a year and a half ago - when EA closed Bedford for an equipment upgrade. More than a few people commented something like "I couldn't make my turnpike trip because these chargers were down." That disappointment quickly changed to excitement when the stations opened, but access is now just baked in. Here's a video of an excited turnpike traveller talking about the station (https://www.plugshare.com/location/186738):


Almost at the exact same time, Ford got access to the Tesla superchargers. That doesn't mean Ford owners got access - the adapters needed to be sent out - but the slow roll out began. Here's the first road trip as a product placement in March of 2024:


V3 Supercharger access meant that, in my DC to Pittsburgh run, I could now have access to reliable charging in Breezewood and New Stanton. If something went horribly wrong in Bedford, I could turn around and get back to Breezewood to save the trip. I decided to buy the Mustang Mach-e in late July. My adaptor came a few months later, in December. It's worth noting that Ford sped that up with the Lectron contract.

So what started as crowded, marginally reliable stops in Fredrick, Hagerstown, Bedford or slow options in Hancock, Cumberland, Frostburg, and Friendsville (the 68 route), turned into this when I started making these trips in the winter of 2024/5:

• Multiple possible stops in Fredrick (Supercharger and EA)
• A new stop in Breezewood (Supercharger)
• A very reliable, expanded stop in Bedford (Refurbished EA)
• A new stop in New Stanton (Supercharger)
• A new stop in Monroville (Supercharger)
• A new stop in Cumberland, for the 68 route (Supercharger)

And now, just one year later, new stops have opened or been refurbished:

• Somerset Travel Plaza (Applegreen)
• Grantsville, for the 68 route (Pilot Flying J)
• Yet another Monroeville stop (EVgo)
• Yet another Breezewood stop (Rivian)
• EA near Periopolis on 51 (for the 68 route - refurbished to be reliable)

And there are more that are in progress - in some state of groundbreaking:

• Yet another New Stanton stop (in the rest area, Applegreen again)
• Yet another in Somerset (a v3.5 at the Wendy's in Somerset - a huge expansion of the v2 that was there)
• Yet another in Breezewood (at the Pizza Hut and Starbucks - a combo only possible in Breezewood)

And finally, the planned NEVI stops that haven't broken ground.

• Donegal on the PA turnpike (half way between Somerset and New Stanton)
• Yet another stop in New Stanton.

Ironically, this newly aquired wealth of charging stations gave me the confidence to stop less on this trip. I always had a charging opportunity just down the road, I felt like I could rely on it, and I had a good sense of my vehicle. Previously, I would pass Breezewood and think I can rely on Bedford but I better stop there because I don't want to make the Bedford to Pittsburgh run with an outage in New Stanton.

This time, here's how it went:

1. In Bedford, I was at something like 65% and thought, I can make it to the reliable chargers at the Somerset travel plaza.
2. At the Somerset travel plaza, I looked at my consumption and State of Charge and said, huh, never done this before, but I'm at like 45%. Wow, If New Stanton is bad, I can make it to one of the new stops in Irwin or Monroeville.
3. At New Stanton, I said huh, I'm at 25%. Let's keep going. I know I have a bail out at Irwin, which I'll skip, but we can make it to Monroeville.
4. In Monroeville, I was down to about 15%, but then I was in Pittsburgh with lots of dealerships and other charging opportunities. And close to my destination, so I kept going.
5. 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%.

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.

On the way home, I wanted to try the Grantsville station and it was a beautiful day, so I returned by way of (mostly) two lane roads. I skipped the updated EA in Fayette County or 51 because I was at a high state of charge. I stopped to charge at Grantsville, which was ridiculous because I was still at like 75%, but I wanted to check it out. I plugged it in, got coffee to celebrate the grand opening, and plotted a route through some fun West Virigina roads. The coffee needed to reach the end of its road, so I stopped one more time at the new, more reliable equipment Electrify America in Winchester. By this time, it was Noon, so I plugged in, peed, got an MTO sandwich, and kept going.

If I do the same run at this time next year, I'll have extra options in New Stanton, an extra one in Somerset, an Extra one in Breezewood, and maybe, God willing, in Donegal.

Thanks for this write-up, as a new owner I had plenty of un-needed range anxiety for a five hour trip Tampa to Tallahassee a few months ago.

I used ABRP and Google maps to pre-plan a one charging stop trip. I took the non-interstate route and thought it would be harder to charge. Of course, it wasn't.

On the way back I realized there's plenty of charging on my route. So I decided to charge when I felt like it and also keep it about 20 mins. So two stops of 20 mins instead of one 40 min full refill let me have needed restroom breaks and food stop.

Planning a trip to NC in the spring and looking at ABRP and seeing you almost could run this with no plan except to top off before Western NC. This would help avoid the "riding into town empty anxiety".

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

Charging times could be faster yes, but the 20 mins for 20%-80% Hyundai Kia does would be just fine on a road trip compared to what we have now. And would allow for 10 min charging stops while you take restroom break.

So thanks to you and everyone who ran their EVs in the past and created the demand for the more easily accessible charging we have now.

 

[chuckles]

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!

For example: yesterday I pulled into the Pismo Beach Electrify America with 15% left. I’d checked plugshare and people said one charger was down, and the EA app said 2 chargers were available. I only went that low because there was an adjacent compatible Tesla station.

When I got there, true to EA form, only 2 chargers were operational, one VW was was charging past 90%, and the other was just idle.

50 feet away were 12 all-operational and all empty Tesla superchargers. I was able to take the far one, so I didn’t even block anyone else. Charging initiated promptly. I just had to quietly sit in regret for trading $30 for electrons from Space Karen.

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