Realistic range for driving in CO?

dbsb3233

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True, at least from EA’s perspective. However, I’ve been reading about grant money the state is directing towards electrifying these back routes and it sounds really encouraging.

https://energyoffice.colorado.gov/zero-emission-vehicles/electric-vehicle-fast-charging-corridors
Looks like they're working with ChargePoint though rather than EA. Does ChargePoint actually have fast chargers anywhere? (And by fast I mean more than 50 kW.) Seems like all the ChargePoint's I've looked up on the map are mostly L2 with a few rare 50kW. 50 is better than nothing, but is awfully slow for a road trip of any big distance.

I'm not even sure if ChargePoint operates like EA. Are they one of the ones that just lease charges to property owners (of whatever power the property owner wants), or do they determine what goes in (like EA)? We need more of the EA model, where there's a top-down grid by the company where high-power chargers are placed.
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ChasingCoral

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ChasingCoral

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Looks like they're working with ChargePoint though rather than EA. Does ChargePoint actually have fast chargers anywhere? (And by fast I mean more than 50 kW.) Seems like all the ChargePoint's I've looked up on the map are mostly L2 with a few rare 50kW. 50 is better than nothing, but is awfully slow for a road trip of any big distance.

I'm not even sure if ChargePoint operates like EA. Are they one of the ones that just lease charges to property owners (of whatever power the property owner wants), or do they determine what goes in (like EA)? We need more of the EA model, where there's a top-down grid by the company where high-power chargers are placed.
While most of their units out there now are 50 kW, their new units (Express 250) are 125 kW with an option to "future proof" them with the Express Plus module that goes to 500 kW. Not sure how many of their existing units are over 50 kW but hopefully CO will be installing the 125 kW units.
 

JamieGeek

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Yeah Turo.com is "the airbnb" of rental cars: You can rent out your own car on Turo.

I used it to rent a Bolt prior to picking one up (I wanted to see really how bad the seats are--they aren't, for me at least--obviously since I have a Bolt).
 


jeffMachE

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I'm a bit late weighing in here, but from the original post, I don't think you can make this trip without a mid-point recharging stop. I drove an i3 for 5 years in CO. I live at 8300 ft (outside of Evergreen) and my office is in Broomfield, so I drive significant elevation differences every time I commute. I kept pretty accurate records across the 5 years, through winter, summer, snow storms, etc. EPA on my car was 115 miles, but I could regularly get 125 miles in the warmer months. In the winter, I was about 80 miles for range. That includes uphill, downhill, highway (70 mph), twisty canyon roads, etc. With the EPA on the Mach-E at 270, I'd expect (based on my driving patterns) to achieve that in warmer months, but only get 200 in winter. Snow or rain also drops range considerably, since rolling resistance on the tires goes way up. I'd estimate a hit of 5-10% additional.
 
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MattG

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Thanks...good data point!

We might just have to take the Subaru for the winter drives until the charging infrastructure improves. There are decent DCFC near the endpoints, but what I’ll really need is one around the midpoint I think. That’d be Gunnison, a big enough town that it’s only a matter of time.

I’m looking forward to testing this in a couple months!
 

dbsb3233

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I'm a bit late weighing in here, but from the original post, I don't think you can make this trip without a mid-point recharging stop. I drove an i3 for 5 years in CO. I live at 8300 ft (outside of Evergreen) and my office is in Broomfield, so I drive significant elevation differences every time I commute. I kept pretty accurate records across the 5 years, through winter, summer, snow storms, etc. EPA on my car was 115 miles, but I could regularly get 125 miles in the warmer months. In the winter, I was about 80 miles for range. That includes uphill, downhill, highway (70 mph), twisty canyon roads, etc. With the EPA on the Mach-E at 270, I'd expect (based on my driving patterns) to achieve that in warmer months, but only get 200 in winter. Snow or rain also drops range considerably, since rolling resistance on the tires goes way up. I'd estimate a hit of 5-10% additional.
Looks like those new 62.5 kW Chargepoint chargers in Montrose are up and running. And showing up on ChargePoint now. 2 check-ins the last few days.

I'm a little confused on the fees though. ChargePoint says $0.20/kwh and $0.25/min parking fee. Does that mean you get charged both? So a 30 minute charge would be $7.50 parking fee + 31 kWh for $6.20 = $13.70?
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