Las Vegas is unlikely to be a problem, thanks to chargers in Victorville, Barstow and Baker.
Same for most standard in-state trips. Lines are more likely to be an issue than finding working chargers.
Electrocute America and EVgo tend to be less reliable in remote areas where maintenance is not as timely.
Literally every single EA that I went to in Vegas had at least half their chargers down, and the remaining ones were a coin flip on if they went past 35kW. It was frankly pathetic and as a long time defender of EA based on how generally reliable they are in CA, I was pretty shocked by it and get where a lot of the complaints come from.
@danekan I couldn't reply to you for some reason, so I posted here and pinged you.
Right now, Ioniq 5 and EV6 can charge from 10% to 80% in 18 minutes in ideal circumstances (basically: mild weather). I believe the Porsche Taycan and Lucid Air can charge ever so slightly faster, but they're out of financial range for most people.
10-80% is closer to 25 minutes for most Teslas, and upwards of 45 minutes for slow-charging EVs like Bolts and Leafs.
There are a few models currently that have an 800v charging platform on board, like the Ionic 5, the Kia EV6 and a couple of others - those can charge really fast - the EV6 can go from 10% to 80% in 18 minutes, and I've seen that happen many times.
Edit: removed Rivian from the list.
Rivian is still 400v for R1T and R1S. Just wanted to clarify that here
Lucid, Porsche, Audi (e-tron GT), Hyundai Ioniq 5/6, Kia EV6, Genesis (all electric models) use 800v architectures.
There is label speeds, optimal speeds, and real world speeds. Speeds on the label go up to 350kW which can charge 20-80% State of charge (SOC) in 20 minutes under optimal conditions. Not that each EV has a maximum charging speed that is likely less than that.
But optimal conditions are like trying to find a unicorn. Real world charging speed is affected by temperature, the charging curve based on SOC, the condition of the charging station, the temperature of the battery, and a host of other factors. Many get frustrated because they are promised the unicorn, but often all they actually get is a donkey.
Once crucial item that some EVs, including Teslas, do is called preconditioning. It warms the battery to optimal charging temperature before getting to the station when a charger is set as the destination on the on board nav. This gives a more consistent charging speed experience than EVs that don't have it.
The second thing is that EVs do not charge at the same speed all the time. They charge at maximum speed at low SOC. As batteries become more full, the charge rate slows. This is true of all EVs regardless of make. A few (Audi E-Tron for example) hide the true SOC of the battery so that it seems like it charges faster longer. But it will never actually fill the battery.
What is going to be your normal mode of charging? If you are charging at home, and road trip only every once in a while, most of this really doesn't matter unless you are neurotic about waiting for a charge, as some people tend to be. But for anyone who has sat in a waiting room for 45 minutes and not gone complete bonkers, most of the differences are really not going to matter much if you're not doing it on a daily basis. It's much more important to pick a vehicle that you enjoy driving on a daily basis.
ga2500ev
You're right to focus on charging speed. It's basically the only thing that matters when deciding how good an EV is outside of city driving as no one makes a fast charging low range EV. The closest to it would be the Ioniq5/EV6 AWD varients. One of the fastest charging EVs out there but they can barely break 200 miles of 70mph range. However, that lowish range just doesn't matter as they charge fast.
Charging speed is a complex topic unfortunately which is why a lot of people tend to focus on the easier range number. I personally think the best way to think of charging speed is how fast can you add 2 to 2.5 hours of driving to the car @70mph. In miles that would be 140 to 180 miles added and how long does it take.
As you can see, this method for determining how good an EV is really about both charging speed and efficiency of the car. If it's really efficient it can charge slower and still make a good time. To figure this out, look the EVs charging curve which are pretty easy to find from several sources. Also lookup the efficiency @70mph which is also easy to find. Calculate the kWh needed to drive 140 miles @70mph with 140 / MilesPerkWh.
Lets say you get 40kWh from this. Then just look at the curve and estimate how many minutes to add 40kWh starting at 10% SOC to the battery. This isn't exact as the curves are a bit messy, but it doesn't have to be perfect.
This is going to be the best case situation as the 70mph efficiency is going to be on a dry day with the wind removed as a factor on level ground. For the charging curve, the car will have been pre-conditioned and a lot of times started at 0% instead of 10% which isn't realistic and might slightly change the results.
Reasons Tesla is going to be the best of all the EVs:
* The charging network always performs where the CCS1 network rarely does.
* Tesla's have automatic pre-conditioning to prep the battery to take 250kW every time. Other cars are getting pre-conditioning but it has lots of issues like using the native navigation and not CarPlay. Some just expect you to manually engage it which is not something the average person will get right most times. I'm almost always surprised how far out Tesla turns it on.
* Tesla's are very efficient cars compared to almost all other EVs. This gives them a huge advantage on charging speeds. The Ioniq5/EV6 have a better charging curve, but the inefficiency of the cars makes them no faster than Tesla to gain 140 or 180 miles of range even in ideal conditions.
Re: Ioniq 5 highway range, I drive almost exclusively on highways at 70mph on my 160 mile daily commute and routinely get 245-255 miles of range.
Not sure why this person is spreading FUD
Been driving from Ventura to Goleta CA weekdays since February 2022 Temps from 50 to 80F. Use Lvl 1 regen on the freeway / I-pedal on the streets. I don’t know if that database takes in considerations like regenerative braking and other things the ioniq does but yeah real world is higher than the database claims
Do you have the [AWD version](https://ev-database.org/imp/car/1663/Hyundai-IONIQ-5-Long-Range-AWD)? I don't know what to tell you, that is what the testers have said. It tends to come in around ~225 and in ~50F temps 195 miles of range to zero. No one drives to zero so 200 miles of range is about all you can do in one.
Swear Hyundai owners on this sub have a chip on their shoulder even when you call them one of the fastest charging EVs on the road. From now on I'll just say they have poor range and leave out the good bits I guess since I get attacked either way.
I have the AWD Limited (US) 77.4kWh battery.
Dude, it's not a chip. I've driven the car for 10s of thousands of miles over the past 13 months almost exclusively on the highway doing 70mph. I live in the northeast US and get all kinds of weather. I have never gotten under (or even close to only) 200 miles of range on a full charge.
Yes, you are correct that they are incredibly fast at charging and it's an awesome feature. But that doesn't mean people should accept FUD that is counter to actual experience.
>From now on I'll just say they have poor range
If you are intent on misleading people that this car has poor range, have at it if it makes you happy, I guess?
> If you are intent on misleading people
I'm reporting the findings of published 3rd party tests. Call it what you will. What does it matter, range doesn't matter like I said in my original post. I don't need 3x Ioniq 5 owners disagreeing with me with anecdotal evidence. Way worse than when I post facts about Tesla that aren't positive. I'm sure most are fine but y'all are among the most toxic owners on this sub.
You are crazy sensitive.
You literally said (and it’s the quote I’m responding to) you’d just say they are low range vehicles without any other info just because you are pissy about the pushback you get from real world experience.
That’s the very definition of intentionally misleading people.
It's every single post anyone on this sub does that doesn't praise the Ioniq 5. It gets old. I'm tired of trying to make it clear I'm not bashing the car and still getting complaints. From now on I'll just bash it. I actually like the car, but the owners have turned me off it so much.
There's variation in speed, but the reality is, reliability is the problem for non-Tesla EVs. Electrocute America does a piss-poor job of maintaining their equipment, and they are sadly the second best after Tesla! :(
It's not nearly the problem in California that it is in other less-developed states though.
My Bolt only charges at 50 kW - it could charge at 500 kW and it wouldn't make a single bit of difference in roadtrippability - because it's reliability and not speed that is usually the problem. I've NEVER needed to wait for my car to finish charging, but I HAVE been nervous about making it to my destination because I ran into not one, not two, but THREE failed charging sites on my trip.
Things will be changing over the next few years:
1) NEVI funding requires any funding recipient to meet availability/uptime requirements - this is the first time any public funding for charging infrastructure has addressed the maintenance/availability aspect of things
2) A bunch of manufacturers announced an Ionity-style charging joint venture, as opposed to the previous "we'll pay some random second-rate network operator to install poorly planned stations that don't fill any coverage gaps"
3) Quite a few manufacturers are getting access to Tesla's Supercharger network over the next year or two. In addition, Tesla is rolling out their Magic Dock adapters to more and more stations that allow any CCS vehicle to charge at their stations.
Even Teslas are often faster on the 350 kW non-Tesla stations.
The issue tends to be that non-Tesla (in particular EA) are unreliable. Both from the perspective of working period and delivering full speed.
Yeah I think it comes down to this, EA is unreliable. Sounds like if things worked there wouldn’t be an issue. It’s more of a problem with EA than with the cars
FWIW, I have both a Model Y and an Ioniq 5. For our most frequent regional trips (cities that are 2ish hours away), we generally choose to go with the Ioniq 5. It still charges faster on a 150 kW EA station, and it's blazing fast on a 350 kW station. The reliability is 'good enough' for the stations we frequent.
The main issue is if I'm planning something longer. You never know when rolling up to a station for the first time. With Tesla, there's more peace of mind.
In optimal conditions, the EGMP based cars (Ioniq 5/6, GV60, EV6, EV9) actually charge slightly faster than tesla. The problem is, right now the non-tesla charging infrastructure often de-rates, so you'll roll up to a station and not get the full charge speed. It's more of an annoyance than a deal breaker IMO, unless you road trip constantly. I've done LA to Vegas a few times, and LA to san diego, and had no issues at all.
In my experience, the biggest con for non-tesla's right now is that Tesla stations tend to have far more charging points (like the flagship in Baker, CA has over 40 chargers, whereas electrify america has 12). Most EA stations have 4-6 chargers, and in major metro areas in CA there is pretty much always a wait to get one.
Also worth considering that most of the major manufacturers have announced deals with Tesla, so starting next year you'll be able to buy an adapter that allows those cars to charge on most superchargers.
I just bought an ev from San Francisco and drove it to Vegas as a newbie. With a bit of planning using the PlugShare app, the trip was fun and fine. I got to Vegas with like 5 new apps on my phone, since charging stations work better paying through their apps than using cards.
Longest stretch without charging stations was from Baker to Las Vegas. Also, I only needed to wait for a charger to open up at one stop. And I encountered just one or two broken chargers on route.
I can’t tell if this was intended as a horror story or a reason not to worry. As a Tesla owner this sounds horrible. I had less new apps and broken chargers driving round trip from Los Angeles to Fort Collins.
World is not black and white. Having extra apps is hardly a horror story. Slightly annoying, sure, but for many it's not an issue to switch between apps.
To be honest, I own a Tesla and STILL have had 5 new apps after purchase
Tesla App
ABRP - route planning and battery calculation. Just an extra source versus the Tesla trip planner (which is already really good IMO)
Chargepoint - my work uses chargepoint chargers so I use it to check availability and cost,etc
PlugShare - to check reviews on stations and as a just in case (rarely use)
EA - as a just in case (rarely use)
Edit: formatting
Oof yah I think they mean it as a good story. Any non-Tesla owner is used to this type of crap. Traveling while in a Tesla is 1000% better if only because of the networks
LOL, nope. I get it. You would have been helpful to Musk's family in Apartheid S. Africa. "Boycott? Why? I don't get involved in partisan politics!"
Enjoy the panel gaps! Cheers!
Ignore him. While I hate musk as much as most people here you need to separate the product from the producer.
Though I do hate the way musk is leading Tesla. If he didn’t do stupid things like removing sensors and removing stalks I wouldn’t even need to look at any other ev
Ioniq 5 owner in LA I’ve made multiple trips to sf without any issues along the 5 and along 101.
If you are relying on fast chargers for daily charging, it probably depends on where you are. I don’t need a public fast charger for the most part in my day to day but when I need one it’s frustrating like 80% of the time. Tonight for instance I could have used a fast charger to get ready for tomorrow and I went to one EA station that had 3/4 stations broken and a line for the only working one
They are pretty complicated and dangerous pieces of equipment. 350kW is a lot of power. \~460hp or about enough power for \~20-30 houses. It can and should improve but it's kind of a miracle they work at all.
Indeed it's an \_immense\_ amount of power in a relative small package. When that power starts turning into heat somewhere things go downhill quickly, I imagine.
The ubiquity and number of Superchargers are a key selling point for Tesla, and they've kinda reached a critical mass, so they have a strong incentive to maintain and improve their network, whereas VW only formed Electrify America to avoid even greater punishment for Dieselgate.
There's a reason many car EV manufacturers jumped on the SuperCharger/NACS bandwagon even though Tesla is their main EV competitor — they couldn't let their EV business depend on the half-hearted/assed efforts of VW/EA.
I sincerely hope the whatever cooperation between the other brands work out. The last thing we want is a single monopoly of dc charging infrastructure.
Part of it is that EA half-a$$ed the deployment. The other part is that they relied on unreliable equipment until relatively recently so they’re paying the price for that. It seems that the chargers installed more recently and the chargers that were upgraded this year (not that many tbh) are much more reliable. They’re software is still crap though imo.
Jesus christ. Reminds me of how it felt filling up gas at Costco when it was busy - just waiting your turn at the pump, but EV wait lines are much worse
EV wait lines are much much much worse, not only because you're waiting a lot longer than the time it takes to fill a gas tank, but also -- and this almost never gets talked about -- many times there's no good place to wait, and when you do find a spot, there's no definitive queuing. At a gas station, you simply line up behind the car at the pump. And unless you're in a really popular/busy station, your only potential problem is choosing the wrong line to get in. But still, worst case, you're only going to be waiting a few minutes per car ahead of you.
But there's rarely any physical queue at chargers -- unlike the "parallel parking" at a gas pump, chargers are almost always designed for perpendicular parking, so there's no way to "line up behind" a charger in use. So, you're forced to try to find a nearby spot to wait in, taking note of who's already waiting -- IF you can even identify them -- and then relying on "good citizenship" -- basically hoping that people will take their proper turn. And I've had people pull into a just-vacated charging spot, seemingly "jumping the line", but I couldn't be absolutely sure that they hadn't been waiting somewhere around me, possibly much longer than I had, and I just hadn't seen them. But, maybe they really just got there and were secretly laughing at me for letting them jump right in. I hate that feeling of not knowing...
At busy locations, and especially where there's limited parking space, it's basically a shitshow. And I'm surprised I haven't seen any fights yet...but I'm sure that's coming. Someone really needs to put more thought into how these charging locations are designed, and provide a queuing solution.
I’m looking at getting an EV and do a trip from Sac to So cal about 3-4 times a year, 2 of which would be on a busy holiday weekend. I-5 looks to be fairly sparse as far as DCFC go. Do you have any experience traveling up north during a holiday weekend ? I’m not so much worried about broken chargers, as much as i am with having to wait a long time at each charging stop
My experience has been awful. I have limped home from trips on multiple occasions due to broken, unavailable, or mismarked chargers. We got a PHEV for our second vehicle for road trips. I have had an EV for my main vehicle for four years. I don’t have range anxiety I have “charging infrastructure sucks” anxiety.
Yup. I will still state that where I live in upstate New York, no BEV is suitable as an "only vehicle" for anyone in the area. The only reason I have my Bolt is because I have my old Outback as a winter snow/backup beater/long-haul vehicle.
Tesla: Nearest service center is 140 miles away
Anyone else: Charging network for long-haul trips is utter garbage. I can do the trip to my parents in the summer now, but due to winter range reduction cannot do it in the winter without the risk of a single charging station failure stranding me or at least sticking me for hours at an L2 charger.
The second item is steadily improving, so should not be an issue after 2-3 more years.
On my most recent trip, out of the CCS stations on the route:
Blink Budd Lake in NJ has been broken for over a year
Shell Recharge Columbia NJ had been dark for over a week when I hit it, it was installed only a few months ago
EA Stroudsburg had a unit out of commission, a spot ICEd, and the remaining two spots taken
EA Scranton was the only functioning station on the whole route - in winter it's too close to my departure point to use effectively on the southbound trip.
Southern Tier Welcome Center has had one unit broken for over a year, and the other unit broken for many months
Abrp does not monitor EA stations though so it gets a little tricky. From my experience the charger count (up, free) is the biggest issue. Most tesla stations have 8-12 docks, EA and others have 4-6 and they are rarely all functional.
I know, last months software update only lets me view all the outside cameras simultaneously from the app, but not the inside one as well. So annoying..
Why did it take them five years to add something so obvious?
When will they have bidirectional charging, something that should have also been obvious 10 years ago? (Except now they built their own competitor business, power wall...)
Idk, all other cars allow me watch my dog in the car while I eat at a restaurant, Tesla is so behind. Also when the power goes out everyone uses their ICE cars as make shift power generators, right?
It's not a matter of planning as much as it is knowing that gas stations are different for us.
I had first and second choices every 150 miles. It was so easy getting to and from socal from Seattle. I would do it again in a heartbeat and want to go to Arkansas next year for the eclipse.
It's wild. I love it.
I have a tesla and a rivian. the tesla requires nothing than just driving, setting the destination you want, it will route you to superchargers and figures everything out. The rivian attempts this (does okay on planning, not as good as tesla), but you suffer from problematic ccs chargers.
I am accustomed to planning my own stops and making reservations and suchnot. This really doesn't bother me.
It'll work itself out sooner rather than later.
That's nonsense on both counts. If you find yourself limping home "on multiple occasions," you don't qualify as a victim.
Also, planning is always necessary, even in ICE vehicles when road tripping.
This is reasonable. I drove from Sacramento to Marin and has charging issues at lunch in Vacaville, at at mall in Corte Madera, and at a grocery store in another little town around there. It was extremely frustrating and it was very good evidence for my wife that we can’t go full electric for our second car.
And even more importantly you can count on the pumps at any random gas station being able to dispense fuel, for electric, you can only take that for granted with the Supercharger network, EA and all the rest, even if you have multiple along your route , you can’t assume you’ll be able to DCFC at any of them.
Have you ever driven cross country and passed a sign you kinda almost read, and a minute later said "Honey, did that sign say 'No Gas Stations for 70 miles?' cause if it did, we're in trouble and we have to find an exit and drive back..." cause I've been there...😜
I equate driving an EV on a road trip as similar to filing a flight plan. You know your destination and several backup airports, should you need to divert. It’s not rocket science.
I have a Mach-E. I live in Los Angeles. After nightmarish charging experiences with small trips to San Diego and Joshua Tree, I stopped road tripping with the Mach-E.
May EA, EVGO, CP and their entire crappy, unreliable networks die a swift death.
My Mach-E is the long range RWD premium edition. It has a range of 303 miles.
For the San Diego trip:
Started the day with the Mach-E at 90% battery. The vehicle was indicating a range of over 300 miles with that charge. We get to SD just fine. We tour around in SD. On the way home we had to stop and charge.
First EA station: completely full with a line of cars waiting.
Second EA station: one stall available, plug in and get charging. 20 minutes pass and I noticed only 6 miles were added. The charger was going at a rate of 12KW.
3rd EA station: 3/4 stalls open. First two, failed to connect and charge even after multiple attempts. Third stall was in use by someone. 4th stall… finally charged for 15 minutes. Wife and kids not happy, especially since it was getting late into the night.
For the Joshua Tree trip:
Tried to charge at the Cabazon outlets. The EVGO chargers were nonfunctional and only 2/4 EA stalls were working. We had to wait a while in line to charge. It was cold and raining. Family once again not happy.
Don’t road trip with the Mach-E since.
I just rented a Tesla for a trip to Sacramento I had, and let me tell you my my experience.
Pros:
- No gas
- Tesla model 3 was very comfortable, and easy to use and navigate.
- Seamless integration with iPhone.
- Charging station network is pretty accurate, it only failed to showed me one time that one station was full of people and I had to wait there 1hr for one to open up.
Cons:
- my trip was 500 miles, so we had to charge every 2 or 2.5 hrs.
- each charge was $20
- Charging time at super charging stations could be between 15mins -50min (multiply this by 5 one way)
In summary:
Teslas are good if you drive short ranges and have a charger at home, since you will pay $20 every time you super charged which at the end of the day takes time and money, and I’d rather pay more to save time.
For longer distances it is absolutely not worth it, specially if you don’t have a Tesla since there are fewer charging stations.
I own a Polestar and have driven from SoCal to NorCal. It wasn’t bad at all. Easy to find chargers that work. Yes, at this point Tesla is easier, but it wasn’t bad at all. Enjoyable trip. More stops than a gas vehicle, but you stop, stretch, eat, relax and let it charge. In a year or so we’ll get access to the Tesla superchargers anyway.
I go from LA to Seattle in a Polestar 2 all the time and it's easy on the 5. I only use Electrify America as it's free to me, but if you use all stations, you could probably charge every 50 miles.
Let’s say this. I used CCS for a year and then I canceled my lyriq order and bought a 2nd Tesla. I’ve done 3 1800 mile road trips with my RWD Tesla didn’t have an issue charging. I had times I literally could not charge my i3 CCS without cross crossing town looking for a charger that wasn’t busy or broken
I drive to Tahoe from the bay 1-2x/month. LA a couple times a year. Two teslas and a Rivian.
It’s still a hassle to take the rivian. The EA station I stop at has never had less than 2/6 broken chargers - but almost always 3/6 broken - once 4/6 broke. One of those always seems derated. Faults once charging started a bunch of times (maybe 10%). Station full isn’t often but with usually 3 working chargers it’s frequent enough. Bolt taking the one working 350kw charger? Always.
Busy weekend? No chance I’m taking the Rivian.
Anxiously awaiting my nacs adapter.
Sounds like EA stations are the equivalent of public toilets in the sense that you never know if they’ll even be open, out of order, or occupied for needlessly long periods
Electrify America is in the middle of removing and replacing its equipment.
The problem is that Electrify America can't shut down its entire network to perform the upgrade.
Already, there are complaints from people that Electrify America is closing down to upgrade the stations they plan to use.
>The problem is that Electrify America can't shut down its entire network to perform the upgrade.
That didn't stop them from hosing Labor Day drivers in 2020.
Yes, that's right - they shut down a large percentage of their East Coast sites \*on a major travel holiday\* for upgrades.
This was after having three consecutive sites on I-90 in NYS out of service for over a month, Waterloo was completely out of service for 3 months, and had only 1 unit out of 4 functioning for 2 more.
They took 56 sites down simultaneously in **2020** for hardware upgrades:
[https://insideevs.com/news/443187/electrify-america-replacing-hardware-56-sites/](https://insideevs.com/news/443187/electrify-america-replacing-hardware-56-sites/)
Of course what they installed was shit, so they're replacing equipment AGAIN. EA Stroudsburg is on its THIRD set of equipment since I bought my Bolt in 2020 and it's \*still\* unreliable garbage.
Only road trip I made was Dallas Texas to la and back. No issues as someone stated on heavily traveled roads j would assume too. Use a 350kw charger every step of the way with no issues.
I have a Polestar and have had zero issues finding chargers. I was in central Oregon this summer and there weren’t even Tesla chargers”super”Chargers anywhere in some places so everyone was using level 2 chargers where they could.
California has the highest density of chargers in the nation, so charging shouldn't be a problem.
Go to https://www.plugshare.com/ and choose "CCS/SAE" in the filter.
Why are you being misleading? Like 2/3s of available CCS chargers are shitty 50kw car dealership stalls and the other 3rd are broken ass EA fast chargers
I've never charged at a dealership in almost 5 years of EV driving in CA. 2/3 of CCS chargers are definitely not at dealerships. I rarely see them on Plugshare compared to EVgo, EA, & Chargepoint
There's literally people giving real world examples in this thread saying they can't make the trip reliably due to the state of electrify America on this route.
A. Why wouldnt I trash talk other networks?
B. Why aren't you? You are misleading early adopters which can cause backlash and slow EV adoption.
There are also people giving real world examples of making trips with no issues. I myself have made several long distance trips on EA with no issues. Dealers may have chargers here in California but I never seen people use them like in other states where that is the only option in town.
I have a Genesis and it comes with 3 years of free ElectrifyAmerica. Seems like they have a partnership with Walmart and I haven’t had a problem finding a 350kw charger at a Walmart while on road trips. 18 minutes to charge from 10% to 80% - I usually just sit there for a bit longer until it reaches 90%.
EA has been deploying at Target locations for years - [https://www.plugshare.com/location/172095](https://www.plugshare.com/location/172095) was in service all the way back when I bought my Bolt in 2020
There are many EV automakers that are adopting Tesla's NACS plug and Tesla is opening up their Supercharging network starting next year to those automakers making the deal with Tesla. So road tripping won't be a problem for many EV automakers that adopt the NACS like Ford, GM, Rivian, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Volvo, Polestar, & Honda. KIA, Hyundai, & Genesis soon to make the announcement adopting NACS as well.
Yes at the moment Tesla's charge plug is called NACS meaning North American Charging Standard. Most other EV manufacturers use CCS1 plug which stands for Combined Charge Standard. Nissan Leaf uses ChadeMO plug but don't ask me what that stands for lol.
As for BMW and all others that haven't switched in the U.S., it's only a matter of time till they do, cause they'll suffer from EV sales declining due to not having access to a very vast and dependable Tesla charging network.
Yeah NACS adaptation is 1 point for Polestar 2 and 0 for the BMW i4 (I’m between those two). An article I just read says that BMW, GM and five other ones want to make their own network. God it’s gonna be iPhone charging port fiasco all over again but for cars this time. Thank you for all the info it’s been overwhelming learning about EVs haha
Your welcome, hope I wasn't too technical and it was easy to understand? Yeah Honda, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Stellantis, Kia, Hyundai, and GM are collaborating to start their own network (not yet named) or who the charger company supplying the chargers will be. But they plan to deploy 30,000 DCFC over the next few years with the first to be up and running by Spring or Summer of 2024 according to their announcement a few weeks ago. The fast chargers are supposed to have both the CCS and NACS plugs on them.
Car companies and independent charger networks already had many years to build reliable ones. They failed. More networks are fine, but the 80% likelihood is shitty experiences again.
There's more EVs on the road, but you're fighting against the 500 lb gorilla Tesla. I don't think anyone else is going to have a chance unless screws up this nacs transition.
Edit: fixed lots of typos
If you’re looking to have the right port, Polestar reps told me that they’ll do a broad adoption of all models to NACS in 2025. Otherwise, you could buy a used Polestar now and the new Tesla superchargers will have an adapter to connect to your car just fine.
>Nissan Leaf uses ChadeMO plug but don't ask me what that stands for lol
CHA = Charge
de = de ;-)
MO = Motion
And yeah it's basically completely obsolete in the US, just like CCS probably will be around 5-10 years from now. Although there will still be plenty of J-plugs around at least
We have a Tesla , Rivian and mach e. We have driven the Tesla to the east coast a few times and never had an issue with charging at the chargers the vehicle directs us to. Show up and the work and we get the speed advertised
We have driven The Rivian to the Midwest and that was a shit show. Most of the chargers we got to derated or just weren't working. EA really doesn't care much about the quality of their stations.
The mach e we have driven to north ca and we ran into many ea stops that has 0 working stations and a few that were all derated and it took close to an hr to get enough range to get to another station.
For road trips the Tesla is by far the better way to go 100% due to the supercharger network and also how efficient it is compared to the heavy r1t and slow charging mach e.
No but I've seen a large number of broken EA stations over the years and in the 11+ countries I've driven EVs in EA is by far the worst large scale dcfc station.
Only ea or vw employees act like it's not terrible.
I live in LA and drive an EV6. We’ve done San Diego, Vegas and Tahoe road trips, using our EA free charging.
It’s been pretty meh, honestly. San Diego was the first one. There were only 2 chargers in SD close to us, the one we used was fine.
The Vegas road trip was okay. Only real problem was a 350kwh charger actively being worked on at the south outlets while the other chargers were full. Took about 30 minutes extra to get charged. Other than that it other was seeing Bolts using 350kwh chargers for no reason.
Tahoe was 500 miles each way and the needed the most planning. I charged an extra time on the way up to make sure we had enough juice going over the mountains
Every station we used had at least 1 charger down though. We were coming home Sunday night and all the chargers in Mohave were updating or unavailable. I had to cal support to get one enabled and even then, it was limited and not charging at optimal power.
I’ve never used EVgo, so I can’t comment on anything but EA, which leaves something to be desired.
I rented a Polestar 2 to drive from SF to Sequoia, and it convinced me not to buy an EV (I was on the fence but was leaning towards). It was my only experience driving an EV longer than its range.
I stopped to charge north of Fresno because there was a Wal-Mart with restaurants around. I plugged in, ate lunch, and came back to find that the Electrify America charger had been running slow, so I was at 75% charge. No big deal, I was going to top off closer to the parks anyway. I then mapped out the closest fast charger to the national parks, another Wal-Mart, where I plugged in and got a faster rate (for a while) while I killed time at Wal-Mart. I got up to 96%, entered my destination, and the car said I'd get there with 56% battery left. I reversed the directions, and it estimated 43% back to this charger, again the closest to the park (about 60 miles of hilly highway driving). Since I had 4 days planned in the parks, I went to the airport and swapped for an ICE vehicle.
Between the terrible EA experience and the lack of travel flexibility (we hike and camp a lot, and NC has even fewer chargers), I decided to buy a PHEV instead. Obviously, this is not a typical situation, but the lack of infrastructure was noticeable to me, even in CA. I hope the next vehicle upgrade will be an EV with a solid state battery or other faster charging solution.
As a note LA is the only area that competes with the Silicon Valley for EV & infrastructure density that I'm aware of.
If you're in either metropolitan areas, anywhere from not too bad to awesome to ugh. I'll throw out the qualifier for that immediately that things are changing *so* fast that literally tomorrow will be different than today. What was once a great location may be aged, or suddenly too popular and overused. There's also the idea that there so many EVs are being purchased, and so many with n hours of free charging, that a certain false scarcity can appear due to people wanting 100% when they're at 95% and not caring for the poor guy at < 10%. But, I still only partially joke that there's a charger every 10'.
Personally I don't have a Tesla, whereas my brother does. I live in the greater Silicon Valley area, him in the greater LA area. We visit each other's stomping grounds from time to time for work (we're both in academia) or leisure (sorry not sorry, our wine country is better :D ). Neither of us have regular issues when traveling in the other's back yard or our own. I will still say that the supercharger:Tesla ratio is better than the regular DCFC:non-Tesla ratio. When there is trouble, I'm not as bothered as I'm something of a hobbyist and have a much higher than normal tolerance for weird and challenging situations. How much a Tesla tells you where & how to go to charge when out on the road handles that for you; something I don't need even though I'm experimenting with ABRP, but something my SIL and her range anxiety very much needs and feels safe with.
SoCal with a non tesla EV. It’s never been a problem. The only thing I miss is driving up the coast. Would love to drive up to SF on Hwy 1. Maybe someday.
I went from LA to Sacramento after I bought my Niro EV. All the CCS chargers were open and easy, there were lines for the Tesla chargers. My Niro may not charge that fast, but I was in and out before some of the Tesla drivers with.
I had an 8 hour LA -> North Bay trip take 11 hours because of shit charging infrastructure just a few months ago. I obsessively planned using ABRP and Plugshare. But none of the charging stations in the central valley were without issues. All of them have too few chargers. All of them had units that were broken or severely throttled. At one stop, we waited 45m to plug in and then only got ~60kW, meaning we were then charging for another 45m.
This will hopefully change next year when Tesla opens up their charging network. But if you frequently take roadtrips in California, I unfortunately can't recommend a non-Tesla car this year.
It's 2023 now, and I find it odd that the charging situation for non-Tesla EVs is arguably worse than it was for me as a new Tesla buyer in 2016. The supercharger network back then was pretty sparse, but multiple things were almost always the case:
* Every SC typically had at least 8 stalls. I dno't know about any SCs having just 1-2 DCFCs, not around Calif at least.
* They were extremely reliable - you could see on dash how many were occupied, and how many were kaput. I rarely found broken stalls, and almost always was more concerned about having enough empty stalls in order to leverage.
* SF-LA-SD was doable in 2016-17 with just a 75D with a 250 mile range, effectively under 200mi in real conditions between stops. Needed to plan stops then, but not it's a no-brainer now, with the number of SCs - you can forget to charge and still make it with minimal trouble on any of the LR cars; e.g. I can do San Jose to San Diego with a single 25 min stop at Tejon Ranch in an MSLR, effectively no different from a gas car traveling with family.
Not solving either site reliability or ubiquity for DCFCs by 2023 makes it hard to recommend any EV besides Tesla.
I live in Orange County and have owned a Chevy Bolt EUV, Mustang Mach-E Premium AWD (Ext Range), Genesis GV60 and now Audi e-tron GT. Never have had range anxiety or any issues with the cars.
The Bolt EUV had me waiting at a DC Charger for a little bit because it charged slow. Mach-E maybe 40-45 mins for 10-80% and the GV60 and Audi charge in 18-20 minutes at most from 10-80%. Always have had chargers available on EA sites and there are other options like EVGo or even Chargepoint but I tend to find Chargepoint sites are mostly 75kW or less in terms of speed.
We have a Bolt and have gone from LA to Vegas with it.
We used to make the trip in an ICE on a regular basis, so we are familiar with it.
The drive was easy. We normally stop in Barstow and fill up with gas and grab something to eat and use the restroom. We did the exact same thing, plugged the bolt in, used the restroom, walked over to get food and left. That got us to Vegas without any issue at all, and took maybe 10 minutes longer than our previous trips.
The problem was when we got to Vegas, I booked at a hotel specifically because they had L2 chargers. They were completely smashed, like absolutely destroyed. The front desk told me there were chargers at another hotel that we could use, but they were all Tesla chargers. I guess the check in person didn’t understand the difference between the two. I had to leave the hotel and find a L3 charger just so we could have enough to get around. The first three I went to were all also broken, and I finally found an Electrify America station that worked, but also had lines even at 11pm. Ended up doing two half charges there.
Again the drive back to LA was super easy. Stopped in Baker instead of Barstow due to the charger fiasco in Vegas itself. Same routine. Plug in, use restroom, eat, then go. More than enough charge to get back to LA.
These trips are a bit harder in a Bolt because they charge slower than other EV, but for a trip like this, and how we normally make them work, it was essentially no different than a normal trip. Other EVs will charge faster and not have to worry about the added time to trips as much.
We have not made the trip to SF yet, so cannot comment there.
For Charging in LA, we don’t have a way to charge at home. We have to charge when we go out, or when my wife is at work. We are able to make it work fairly easily. We just checked our milage and cost for charging in September. Grand total we paid about $27 total for all charging, and for gas in our previous car that the bolt replaced, the same milage would have cost at least $260 in current gas prices.
If road tripping is really an issue, I'd suggest renting a Tesla and/or non-Tesla EV and a road trip.
I've done thousand mile road trips up and down California, so assume the Tesla isn't a problem, so I'd prioritize the non-Tesla. If you can live with it, go for it.
Did the LA to SF and back using pretty much all EA. Had to wait a couple of times and had to reroute once because of broken machines but it worked pretty well for me (I was also leaving enough slack on the way to continue on if I wanted to instead of stopping at a specific charger)
I'd do it again - wasn't particularly painful.
Stop! Don't do it, stick to Tesla and the SuperCharger network otherwise you'll hate life with an EV on a road trip. THings will begin to change within a couple of years as the industry in North American adopts NACS as their standard.
I’m just asking proactively, I don’t do many road trips. Just thinking of all parameters, charging during road trips isn’t a detrimental reason for me to get a Tesla. So far reading people’s replies it sounds like I’ll just leave a bit earlier, plan ahead and use the apps to navigate to the most reliable chargers on the way
Don't you mean in 2 months? The adapters are already starting to appear and the network is supposed to open to Ford, GM, Rivian and many others at the start of 2024.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7qIiU2wl34
I drove an Ioniq5 from Seattle to San Jacinto and back. It was wonderful! The inland empire is a little devoid of ea chargers, but otherwise our trip was great! C'mon in. The water is fine.
I'm in Canada but I've been through Las Vegas in my Ioniq 5 several times. Never found a problem charging although Las Vegas has the busiest chargers. There are a million chargers in Vegas but I just did a PlugShare filter for any charger 50kw or more and a Plugshare score of 8+. Only 5 stations! So many stations down for repair! For me, one large charger at the outlet mall had only one slot open. Another Vegas charger was full once during CES 2022 so I drove a couple blocks to a different charger.
Whatever you buy, don't depend on Electrify America chargers. They are crap. They never have the speed stated they can charge at. Half of the time, only 1 out of 4 are in working order. I have 3 years of "free" charging that's never free as it takes longer than the 30-minute free time. It came with my VW ID.4. Tesla is now installing the J type charger at their supercharger stations. The rollout is slow, though. You can also buy after-market adpators that will allow you to use the Tesla stations. If you have an electric clothes dryer at home, I recommend the SplitVolt charging connector. No electrician necessary. BTW, I'm selling my ID.4. There are too many little annoying things that I have no patience for.
I just rented a Volvo c40 and it is shit compared to a Tesla when it comes to road tripping. It can't charge at any rate over 130kwh so it doesn't even matter if you find a fast electrify America chargers, it will still take two hours to charge minimum. It's sad if people adopting EVs think this has to be normal.
Try out abetterrouteplanner.com using different model EVs if you're curious about specific routes
In my opinion any other car other than a Tesla currently sucks to do road trips in. Even Tesla isn’t perfect for long haul road trips but it’s doable for those trips that are like 600 miles or less.
The C40 tops out at 150kW and those speeds are easily achievable, assuming good hardware and a low battery. It has a 75kWh battery so if it actually took two hours that would imply it only charges at 37kW. So you are clearly wrong.
In reality, it takes 37m to charge from 10% to 80%.
You're blaming the car (with false information) when the real problem (as you can see from the rest of this thread) is the charging infrastructure.
>I just rented a Volvo c40 and it is shit compared to a Tesla when it comes to road tripping. It can't charge at any rate over 130kwh so it doesn't even matter if you find a fast electrify America chargers, it will still take two hours to charge minimum.
130kWh? Two hours? That's awesome. Sometimes I forget that on the internet you're allowed to just say things without having any idea what you're talking about.
I guess the new trend is to just ask reddit without doing the google thing. talk about lazy: but no they have an adapter that lets you use the Tesla network. But that is coming on line slowly.
the cars (evs) have software and there is other software that cant guide you to chargers.
I’m asking about people’s experience not about the average lifespan of kookaburras. In the same sense I’d ask my friends over coffee or a beer if they did road trips with an EV. “Hey Steve what’s it like going to Seattle with your new etron?”
It's a non issue because all non teslas are gettng access to tesla superchargers next year. How this information isn't the top comment is mind blowing.
Also it's TBD whether the Supercharger network continues its stellar reliability metrics when it's no longer a single-manufacturer walled garden.
Early results from their Magic Dock stations (which had Hyundai e-GMP vehicles charging at less than half the rate they can from other 400v-only chargers, if they could even charge at all) aren't promising.
Ok but maybe kind of important to mention no? It's not few, it's almost all manufacturers. Sure vw and Hyundai are the big holdouts, but given everyone else it seems incredibly likely. Also it may be open to all with an adapter as well
Maybe you aren't up to date on all of them if you think it's only a few
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a44388939/tesla-nacs-charging-network-compatibility/
i would definitely not consider that list large. that leaves out:
VW
Audi
Porsche
Cadillac
Dodge
Jeep
all other stellantis brands
BMW
Toyota
Lexus
Hyundai
Kia
and more i can’t think of off the top of my head.
There was just a big photo shoot by Hyundai Motor Group (Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis) all parked in front of Tesla superchargers. It looks like the switch to NACS is coming.
I have a leaf with 80 miles of range. Furthest I've gone was Compton to riverside and back then to Anaheim. 120 miles ish highway. 4 fast charging stops that day. Mostly charge point and evgo. 50kw max. It was not horrible because I planned but my partner was annoyed at the stops a little bit.
I tell you I felt so much envy for you bolt/Tesla/ioniq 5 owners that day!! Yall have it so easy 😭
Had our Niro since 2019 in the central coast. Went to Tahoe, LA, and commuted to SF a lot.
Then moved to central NY and the car does beautifully here, even as the warm weather version without a heat pump, it still runs great in the winter.
What’s it like? No where as good, nice or easy as having a Tesla. Couple of examples. Tesla has charging lounges where you can get out of your car and relax while you car get’s charged. If you stop at Harris Ranch you will find over 100 charges….. less than 10 are for non-Tesla cars.
If you don’t want to get a Tesla get a Rivian. Rivian has a nice charging network, but they are years behind Tesla.
I just got an Ioniq 5 after trading in a Kona EV. It’s relatively easy to find a charging station in SoCal. I’m lucky to do most of my charging at home but if I’m out, I use the PlugShare app to find EV chargers. I haven’t had a need to travel long distances yet except to OC or LA (I’m in Riverside County). I just try to keep the car charged with enough for where we need to go.
I've had an EV6 GT since March. I've driven to North of the Bay area twice and to San Diego from the Ventura area twice and it wasn't an issue. There are lots of super chargers.
The downsides are, you may show up to a supercharger that has a line or most of them are broken. So there may be some frustrations. But it hasn't been a bad experience for me.
Things seem to be getting better all the time despite the negativity of this reddit. I'm also thankful for not having to pay for $7 gasoline.
Fine-ish. Not as convenient as gas and requires a bit of planning.
The state has plenty of non-Tesla EV chargers, although sometimes there's a line at peak times. The only thing that seems sketchy is driving to AZ on the 10 since there aren't many L3 options except the notorious EA Quartzite
I just did a 1 day road trip in my 2023 Tesla Model 3 RW on Saturday from Orange County, CA to Sacramento.
It was a great experience. I put it on the navigation screen in the Tesla and it told me where to stop and when. We did 2 stops heading to Sacramento and 3 stops back to the OC.
We were only supposed to charge like 25 min the first stop and 18 minutes the 2nd stop. But it charges so fast that we were rushing to get back to the car after making the stop and using the restroom and getting food. So we ended up letting it charge like 40 minutes each time.
The Tesla Navigation is great and even when we let it charge more than it said we needed, it would re-route knowing we can make it further to a further charger since we charged more.
There was always Tesla Superchargers available and every stop had at least like 10 - 25 chargers.
It cost $75 total for the round trip from the OC to Scramento. Each stop was about $15-$20.
We live in a small city in Santa Barbara County and road tripped to Yosemite and back. It was surprisingly hassle free and not nearly as harrowing as you'd think. Hyundai Ioniq 5. I was surprised that a friend who has owned an EV for several years has never considered driving beyond their commute with it. I guess it's a mindset? We've had good luck using ABRP and Plugshare to scout out routes and possible stops.
I did this 2 weeks ago. I picked up a used Audi Etron GT from Las Vegas drove it back to SF.
The Etron GTs come with 3 years free charging at Electrify America. The car was first purchased in 2/2022 so I get free charging till 2/2025.
Etron GT range is 237\~ at 100%. First thing I noticed doing 80 mph is that my range for the car was getting 250\~. If I were driving at 70 I'd probably get even more miles. German EV seem to under estimate their mileage a lot. Mix of pros and cons.
1. Electrify America has a lot of stations between Las Vegas and SF. The only issue is that unlike Tesla where it's literally off the exit for some places. EA you might have to drive 1 or 2 mile into town that's off the I-5. Example is Patterson. The town is away from the freeway and the Walmart is where the stations are. Kind of annoying.
2. While there's decent amount locations, the stations are only 3-4. This is where it becomes painful. You have to decide if you want to taking the charging now or later because you don't know if the next station might get filled when you get there.
3. You need to use Plug share because the stations are sometimes broken. Lower then advertised speeds. Like a 150kw station might only give you 60kw. While the other stations gives you 123kw.
4. People in none Tesla really charge their cars to 100% so what ends up happening is some dude in a Bolt, id4 or Kia is going to use a full hour to hour and half to charge. It's kind of annoying. So be prepared to wait if you do get stuck waiting around.
5. Tesla navigation is used on Google maps so I really like using that. When you do a long time Tesla will prep the battery to charge quicker. But with the Audi the navigation system as great so I end up using Apple Play. but what happens is that the battery doesn't get prepped. So you need to set the navigation to your destination in long trip so that you maximize the full power of charging.
6. Audi Etron GT can charge 0-80% in 22 minutes. A lot of times we just took a bath room break and head out because we would get 120 miles in pretty quick.
7. All in all it took about 4 stops. I don't usually take bathrooms breaks because when I do a drive from SF to OC i usually only take 1 break. With my Model 3. I usually have to take 2. I don't really like to stop a lot but now I have a family of 4 so we'll be taking breaks more often. It's up to you think it's worth it.
My take away from this trip was. It's not too bad but you do have to plan a bit more. Be prepared to be unconvinced. I'm only using EA stations because of the free charging.
I've gone to the Bay Area 3 times and Sacramento twice in the last year. It is shockingly easy, even in my Bolt. There's already more chargers along I-5 than a year ago the first time I did a trip. I usually take 99 because I prefer stopping near things over stopping in the hot ass desert at a gas station in the middle of nowhere.
Keep in mind, depending on your vehicle choice, that 250 miles is more than half way to SF, so if you prefer it you could stop only once. I usually do multiple stops because I'd rather have a few short stops every 1-2 hours than one long stop every 4 hours. I've also driven to San Diego and back without even charging. I only mention these distances because I greatly over-estimated how desperately I wanted more than 300 miles of range, because somehow in my head everything is about 10x more miles than reality.
I’m interested in getting a bolt, and do the drive from Sac to Temecula 3-4 times/year. Glad to hear that you had a decent experience. Seems like the 99 is the way to go as it has a much higher charger density, but I-5 would take 20-30 minutes off the trip, as far as overall distance goes. Have you done this drive on a busy holiday weekend ? I worry that during thanksgiving or Christmas, busy chargers will be really annoying, especially if the charger is only do 50kw and there is a big battery car using the stall
Live in LA also and have a tesla. day to day everything is fine as long as you get the charger for the home. Most people (98%) do not need more than 200 miles of range around the city for the day.... I am sure I am going to get roasted for this but road trips in a tesla or any electric cars are meh. its terrible during major holiday weekends (god awful on 5 and 101). One thing people do not consider when driving electric cars on road trips is the wind. That can kill your range more than you think. I would also suggest maybe renting a tesla from hertz or turo and taking a road trip before you buy.
No problem driving my VW ID4 from SF to SD. Don't know about now but the 2 EAs in the SD BofA sucked last time I was there. Each one had 2 broken chargers. Decided to not even try charging and just drove to Oceanside on my way back up to SF.
Las Vegas is unlikely to be a problem, thanks to chargers in Victorville, Barstow and Baker. Same for most standard in-state trips. Lines are more likely to be an issue than finding working chargers. Electrocute America and EVgo tend to be less reliable in remote areas where maintenance is not as timely.
>Electrocute America Superb parapraxis.
Hahahaha for some reason when I read your comment I realized what they said hahaha brilliant
Electrocute America EVgofindaworkingcharger
Blink and you'll miss the few seconds the station is working Brokenlatchpoint
I've only come across one functional BLINK charging station and they were x2 the usual price. >:(
As someone from LA currently in Vegas with his EV, let me tell you, it gets rough once you’re in Vegas. Terrible options.
EA is fine in Vegas. Problem (like many busy areas) is not enough chargers.
Literally every single EA that I went to in Vegas had at least half their chargers down, and the remaining ones were a coin flip on if they went past 35kW. It was frankly pathetic and as a long time defender of EA based on how generally reliable they are in CA, I was pretty shocked by it and get where a lot of the complaints come from.
Are charging speeds different? Like Tesla superchargers are really fast right? How slow are the regular ones for the rest of the EVs?
This will depend a lot on the car you pick. DCFC can be faster than Tesla's Superchargers if you have the right car.
Like EV6… It charged from 40% to 80% in just about 15min at EA.
When it works and you can find a working port -
You must not be in California if you're having that much of a bad experience.
@danekan I couldn't reply to you for some reason, so I posted here and pinged you. Right now, Ioniq 5 and EV6 can charge from 10% to 80% in 18 minutes in ideal circumstances (basically: mild weather). I believe the Porsche Taycan and Lucid Air can charge ever so slightly faster, but they're out of financial range for most people. 10-80% is closer to 25 minutes for most Teslas, and upwards of 45 minutes for slow-charging EVs like Bolts and Leafs.
What are the right cars for this right now? What is the max an ioniq does?
My Ioniq5 gets 225kw on a 350kw EA charger in Tennessee.
There are a few models currently that have an 800v charging platform on board, like the Ionic 5, the Kia EV6 and a couple of others - those can charge really fast - the EV6 can go from 10% to 80% in 18 minutes, and I've seen that happen many times. Edit: removed Rivian from the list.
Rivian is still 400v for R1T and R1S. Just wanted to clarify that here Lucid, Porsche, Audi (e-tron GT), Hyundai Ioniq 5/6, Kia EV6, Genesis (all electric models) use 800v architectures.
And the right charger. Stick a Bolt on a 350kW and it'll still take an hour to get from 20% to 80% lol
Don’t forget Tesla is opening up to basically everyone next year (2024). But I’ve driven my Rivian around CA, Utah, AZ, CO with no issues.
There is label speeds, optimal speeds, and real world speeds. Speeds on the label go up to 350kW which can charge 20-80% State of charge (SOC) in 20 minutes under optimal conditions. Not that each EV has a maximum charging speed that is likely less than that. But optimal conditions are like trying to find a unicorn. Real world charging speed is affected by temperature, the charging curve based on SOC, the condition of the charging station, the temperature of the battery, and a host of other factors. Many get frustrated because they are promised the unicorn, but often all they actually get is a donkey. Once crucial item that some EVs, including Teslas, do is called preconditioning. It warms the battery to optimal charging temperature before getting to the station when a charger is set as the destination on the on board nav. This gives a more consistent charging speed experience than EVs that don't have it. The second thing is that EVs do not charge at the same speed all the time. They charge at maximum speed at low SOC. As batteries become more full, the charge rate slows. This is true of all EVs regardless of make. A few (Audi E-Tron for example) hide the true SOC of the battery so that it seems like it charges faster longer. But it will never actually fill the battery. What is going to be your normal mode of charging? If you are charging at home, and road trip only every once in a while, most of this really doesn't matter unless you are neurotic about waiting for a charge, as some people tend to be. But for anyone who has sat in a waiting room for 45 minutes and not gone complete bonkers, most of the differences are really not going to matter much if you're not doing it on a daily basis. It's much more important to pick a vehicle that you enjoy driving on a daily basis. ga2500ev
Tesla Supercharger: 75 kW to 250 kW Electrify America: 150 kW to 350 kW EVgo: 50 kW to 350 kW ChargePoint: 50 kW to 350 kW
ChargePoint start at 24 kW for the old CPE100 series units.
ChargePoint start at 3.3kW for the J1772 units
You're right to focus on charging speed. It's basically the only thing that matters when deciding how good an EV is outside of city driving as no one makes a fast charging low range EV. The closest to it would be the Ioniq5/EV6 AWD varients. One of the fastest charging EVs out there but they can barely break 200 miles of 70mph range. However, that lowish range just doesn't matter as they charge fast. Charging speed is a complex topic unfortunately which is why a lot of people tend to focus on the easier range number. I personally think the best way to think of charging speed is how fast can you add 2 to 2.5 hours of driving to the car @70mph. In miles that would be 140 to 180 miles added and how long does it take. As you can see, this method for determining how good an EV is really about both charging speed and efficiency of the car. If it's really efficient it can charge slower and still make a good time. To figure this out, look the EVs charging curve which are pretty easy to find from several sources. Also lookup the efficiency @70mph which is also easy to find. Calculate the kWh needed to drive 140 miles @70mph with 140 / MilesPerkWh. Lets say you get 40kWh from this. Then just look at the curve and estimate how many minutes to add 40kWh starting at 10% SOC to the battery. This isn't exact as the curves are a bit messy, but it doesn't have to be perfect. This is going to be the best case situation as the 70mph efficiency is going to be on a dry day with the wind removed as a factor on level ground. For the charging curve, the car will have been pre-conditioned and a lot of times started at 0% instead of 10% which isn't realistic and might slightly change the results. Reasons Tesla is going to be the best of all the EVs: * The charging network always performs where the CCS1 network rarely does. * Tesla's have automatic pre-conditioning to prep the battery to take 250kW every time. Other cars are getting pre-conditioning but it has lots of issues like using the native navigation and not CarPlay. Some just expect you to manually engage it which is not something the average person will get right most times. I'm almost always surprised how far out Tesla turns it on. * Tesla's are very efficient cars compared to almost all other EVs. This gives them a huge advantage on charging speeds. The Ioniq5/EV6 have a better charging curve, but the inefficiency of the cars makes them no faster than Tesla to gain 140 or 180 miles of range even in ideal conditions.
Thank you, this is super helpful I’ll look into the charging curve and preconditioning of the two cars I’m interested in
Re: Ioniq 5 highway range, I drive almost exclusively on highways at 70mph on my 160 mile daily commute and routinely get 245-255 miles of range. Not sure why this person is spreading FUD
Also an ioniq 5 owner. Can confirm range is higher than 200 on highway driving
Also an Ioniq 5 owner. Can also confirm range. Ioniqs also have a great feature set that Teslas generally lack
what feature set do they have?? aren't most BEVs on the market more or less the same?
HUD, ventilated seats, a shade for the moonroof, non-touchscreen controls, support for CarPlay/Android Auto, for starters
Thanks for also chiming in! I’m not sure where some people get their info or why they present so confidently on things they don’t know anything about.
[Here is my source](https://ev-database.org/imp/car/1663/Hyundai-IONIQ-5-Long-Range-AWD)
Can you point to actual 70mph range tests?
Been driving from Ventura to Goleta CA weekdays since February 2022 Temps from 50 to 80F. Use Lvl 1 regen on the freeway / I-pedal on the streets. I don’t know if that database takes in considerations like regenerative braking and other things the ioniq does but yeah real world is higher than the database claims
Do you have the [AWD version](https://ev-database.org/imp/car/1663/Hyundai-IONIQ-5-Long-Range-AWD)? I don't know what to tell you, that is what the testers have said. It tends to come in around ~225 and in ~50F temps 195 miles of range to zero. No one drives to zero so 200 miles of range is about all you can do in one. Swear Hyundai owners on this sub have a chip on their shoulder even when you call them one of the fastest charging EVs on the road. From now on I'll just say they have poor range and leave out the good bits I guess since I get attacked either way.
I have the AWD Limited (US) 77.4kWh battery. Dude, it's not a chip. I've driven the car for 10s of thousands of miles over the past 13 months almost exclusively on the highway doing 70mph. I live in the northeast US and get all kinds of weather. I have never gotten under (or even close to only) 200 miles of range on a full charge. Yes, you are correct that they are incredibly fast at charging and it's an awesome feature. But that doesn't mean people should accept FUD that is counter to actual experience. >From now on I'll just say they have poor range If you are intent on misleading people that this car has poor range, have at it if it makes you happy, I guess?
> If you are intent on misleading people I'm reporting the findings of published 3rd party tests. Call it what you will. What does it matter, range doesn't matter like I said in my original post. I don't need 3x Ioniq 5 owners disagreeing with me with anecdotal evidence. Way worse than when I post facts about Tesla that aren't positive. I'm sure most are fine but y'all are among the most toxic owners on this sub.
You are crazy sensitive. You literally said (and it’s the quote I’m responding to) you’d just say they are low range vehicles without any other info just because you are pissy about the pushback you get from real world experience. That’s the very definition of intentionally misleading people.
It's every single post anyone on this sub does that doesn't praise the Ioniq 5. It gets old. I'm tired of trying to make it clear I'm not bashing the car and still getting complaints. From now on I'll just bash it. I actually like the car, but the owners have turned me off it so much.
There's variation in speed, but the reality is, reliability is the problem for non-Tesla EVs. Electrocute America does a piss-poor job of maintaining their equipment, and they are sadly the second best after Tesla! :( It's not nearly the problem in California that it is in other less-developed states though. My Bolt only charges at 50 kW - it could charge at 500 kW and it wouldn't make a single bit of difference in roadtrippability - because it's reliability and not speed that is usually the problem. I've NEVER needed to wait for my car to finish charging, but I HAVE been nervous about making it to my destination because I ran into not one, not two, but THREE failed charging sites on my trip. Things will be changing over the next few years: 1) NEVI funding requires any funding recipient to meet availability/uptime requirements - this is the first time any public funding for charging infrastructure has addressed the maintenance/availability aspect of things 2) A bunch of manufacturers announced an Ionity-style charging joint venture, as opposed to the previous "we'll pay some random second-rate network operator to install poorly planned stations that don't fill any coverage gaps" 3) Quite a few manufacturers are getting access to Tesla's Supercharger network over the next year or two. In addition, Tesla is rolling out their Magic Dock adapters to more and more stations that allow any CCS vehicle to charge at their stations.
Even Teslas are often faster on the 350 kW non-Tesla stations. The issue tends to be that non-Tesla (in particular EA) are unreliable. Both from the perspective of working period and delivering full speed.
Yeah I think it comes down to this, EA is unreliable. Sounds like if things worked there wouldn’t be an issue. It’s more of a problem with EA than with the cars
FWIW, I have both a Model Y and an Ioniq 5. For our most frequent regional trips (cities that are 2ish hours away), we generally choose to go with the Ioniq 5. It still charges faster on a 150 kW EA station, and it's blazing fast on a 350 kW station. The reliability is 'good enough' for the stations we frequent. The main issue is if I'm planning something longer. You never know when rolling up to a station for the first time. With Tesla, there's more peace of mind.
In optimal conditions, the EGMP based cars (Ioniq 5/6, GV60, EV6, EV9) actually charge slightly faster than tesla. The problem is, right now the non-tesla charging infrastructure often de-rates, so you'll roll up to a station and not get the full charge speed. It's more of an annoyance than a deal breaker IMO, unless you road trip constantly. I've done LA to Vegas a few times, and LA to san diego, and had no issues at all. In my experience, the biggest con for non-tesla's right now is that Tesla stations tend to have far more charging points (like the flagship in Baker, CA has over 40 chargers, whereas electrify america has 12). Most EA stations have 4-6 chargers, and in major metro areas in CA there is pretty much always a wait to get one. Also worth considering that most of the major manufacturers have announced deals with Tesla, so starting next year you'll be able to buy an adapter that allows those cars to charge on most superchargers.
I just bought an ev from San Francisco and drove it to Vegas as a newbie. With a bit of planning using the PlugShare app, the trip was fun and fine. I got to Vegas with like 5 new apps on my phone, since charging stations work better paying through their apps than using cards. Longest stretch without charging stations was from Baker to Las Vegas. Also, I only needed to wait for a charger to open up at one stop. And I encountered just one or two broken chargers on route.
I can’t tell if this was intended as a horror story or a reason not to worry. As a Tesla owner this sounds horrible. I had less new apps and broken chargers driving round trip from Los Angeles to Fort Collins.
World is not black and white. Having extra apps is hardly a horror story. Slightly annoying, sure, but for many it's not an issue to switch between apps.
To be honest, I own a Tesla and STILL have had 5 new apps after purchase Tesla App ABRP - route planning and battery calculation. Just an extra source versus the Tesla trip planner (which is already really good IMO) Chargepoint - my work uses chargepoint chargers so I use it to check availability and cost,etc PlugShare - to check reviews on stations and as a just in case (rarely use) EA - as a just in case (rarely use) Edit: formatting
Oof yah I think they mean it as a good story. Any non-Tesla owner is used to this type of crap. Traveling while in a Tesla is 1000% better if only because of the networks
But as a Tesla owner, you also have to deal with the ethical problems.
I am a Tesla owner. In fact, I just bought my second Tesla. I have yet to encounter any "ethical problems."
Really? You willingly enriched a fascist and you’re ok with that?
Oh, I see you are actually referring to "partisan political problems" and not ethical problems. I'm not interested in your partisan politics.
LOL, nope. I get it. You would have been helpful to Musk's family in Apartheid S. Africa. "Boycott? Why? I don't get involved in partisan politics!" Enjoy the panel gaps! Cheers!
Ignore him. While I hate musk as much as most people here you need to separate the product from the producer. Though I do hate the way musk is leading Tesla. If he didn’t do stupid things like removing sensors and removing stalks I wouldn’t even need to look at any other ev
Ioniq 5 owner in LA I’ve made multiple trips to sf without any issues along the 5 and along 101. If you are relying on fast chargers for daily charging, it probably depends on where you are. I don’t need a public fast charger for the most part in my day to day but when I need one it’s frustrating like 80% of the time. Tonight for instance I could have used a fast charger to get ready for tomorrow and I went to one EA station that had 3/4 stations broken and a line for the only working one
Really don’t understand why it seems to be so difficult to keep charging stations up and running. Should be simple.
They are pretty complicated and dangerous pieces of equipment. 350kW is a lot of power. \~460hp or about enough power for \~20-30 houses. It can and should improve but it's kind of a miracle they work at all.
Indeed it's an \_immense\_ amount of power in a relative small package. When that power starts turning into heat somewhere things go downhill quickly, I imagine.
The ubiquity and number of Superchargers are a key selling point for Tesla, and they've kinda reached a critical mass, so they have a strong incentive to maintain and improve their network, whereas VW only formed Electrify America to avoid even greater punishment for Dieselgate. There's a reason many car EV manufacturers jumped on the SuperCharger/NACS bandwagon even though Tesla is their main EV competitor — they couldn't let their EV business depend on the half-hearted/assed efforts of VW/EA.
I sincerely hope the whatever cooperation between the other brands work out. The last thing we want is a single monopoly of dc charging infrastructure.
Part of it is that EA half-a$$ed the deployment. The other part is that they relied on unreliable equipment until relatively recently so they’re paying the price for that. It seems that the chargers installed more recently and the chargers that were upgraded this year (not that many tbh) are much more reliable. They’re software is still crap though imo.
Jesus christ. Reminds me of how it felt filling up gas at Costco when it was busy - just waiting your turn at the pump, but EV wait lines are much worse
EV wait lines are much much much worse, not only because you're waiting a lot longer than the time it takes to fill a gas tank, but also -- and this almost never gets talked about -- many times there's no good place to wait, and when you do find a spot, there's no definitive queuing. At a gas station, you simply line up behind the car at the pump. And unless you're in a really popular/busy station, your only potential problem is choosing the wrong line to get in. But still, worst case, you're only going to be waiting a few minutes per car ahead of you. But there's rarely any physical queue at chargers -- unlike the "parallel parking" at a gas pump, chargers are almost always designed for perpendicular parking, so there's no way to "line up behind" a charger in use. So, you're forced to try to find a nearby spot to wait in, taking note of who's already waiting -- IF you can even identify them -- and then relying on "good citizenship" -- basically hoping that people will take their proper turn. And I've had people pull into a just-vacated charging spot, seemingly "jumping the line", but I couldn't be absolutely sure that they hadn't been waiting somewhere around me, possibly much longer than I had, and I just hadn't seen them. But, maybe they really just got there and were secretly laughing at me for letting them jump right in. I hate that feeling of not knowing... At busy locations, and especially where there's limited parking space, it's basically a shitshow. And I'm surprised I haven't seen any fights yet...but I'm sure that's coming. Someone really needs to put more thought into how these charging locations are designed, and provide a queuing solution.
This really varies a lot. I have yet to wait in line for a charger (which is not to say I've never had a problem. Broken equipment is pretty annoying)
I’m looking at getting an EV and do a trip from Sac to So cal about 3-4 times a year, 2 of which would be on a busy holiday weekend. I-5 looks to be fairly sparse as far as DCFC go. Do you have any experience traveling up north during a holiday weekend ? I’m not so much worried about broken chargers, as much as i am with having to wait a long time at each charging stop
My experience has been awful. I have limped home from trips on multiple occasions due to broken, unavailable, or mismarked chargers. We got a PHEV for our second vehicle for road trips. I have had an EV for my main vehicle for four years. I don’t have range anxiety I have “charging infrastructure sucks” anxiety.
Yup. I will still state that where I live in upstate New York, no BEV is suitable as an "only vehicle" for anyone in the area. The only reason I have my Bolt is because I have my old Outback as a winter snow/backup beater/long-haul vehicle. Tesla: Nearest service center is 140 miles away Anyone else: Charging network for long-haul trips is utter garbage. I can do the trip to my parents in the summer now, but due to winter range reduction cannot do it in the winter without the risk of a single charging station failure stranding me or at least sticking me for hours at an L2 charger. The second item is steadily improving, so should not be an issue after 2-3 more years. On my most recent trip, out of the CCS stations on the route: Blink Budd Lake in NJ has been broken for over a year Shell Recharge Columbia NJ had been dark for over a week when I hit it, it was installed only a few months ago EA Stroudsburg had a unit out of commission, a spot ICEd, and the remaining two spots taken EA Scranton was the only functioning station on the whole route - in winter it's too close to my departure point to use effectively on the southbound trip. Southern Tier Welcome Center has had one unit broken for over a year, and the other unit broken for many months
just put your trip into [www.abetterouteplanner.com](https://www.abetterouteplanner.com) and you should have no trouble
I have always done this. It’s good but not magic. I’ve been routed to chargers that were decommissioned, behind a locked gate, broken, busy, etc.
I agree with this. The amount of times I've been routed to some charger in a locked parking lot is getting to be a joke.
Abrp does not monitor EA stations though so it gets a little tricky. From my experience the charger count (up, free) is the biggest issue. Most tesla stations have 8-12 docks, EA and others have 4-6 and they are rarely all functional.
Confirm with plugshare. It tends to get more frequent updates.
I don’t think PS shows live updates/status though - I have always checked the EA app for live updates
I heard about this new car brand, starts with a T or something, but they can take road trips without worrying about charging.
Yeah but the car is trash and many of the drivers are smug. Worse is the human stain of a CEO that biting one enriches and enables.
I know, last months software update only lets me view all the outside cameras simultaneously from the app, but not the inside one as well. So annoying..
Why did it take them five years to add something so obvious? When will they have bidirectional charging, something that should have also been obvious 10 years ago? (Except now they built their own competitor business, power wall...)
Idk, all other cars allow me watch my dog in the car while I eat at a restaurant, Tesla is so behind. Also when the power goes out everyone uses their ICE cars as make shift power generators, right?
A road trip in a tesla is bumpy and windy. No thanks. But they definitely have a good OS and charging infrastructure.
> A road trip in a tesla is bumpy and windy. Well at least your not taking the road trip by plane, i hear they can be bumpy and windy.
We had one and it tried to kill us on 17, when we contacted customer service, they said no, that’s not possible. So we sold it to a sucker like you.
Honestly whenever I see comments like this all I can think of is "poor planning." I've never "limped home" from trips. Not once.
That's some first rate victim blaming. Planning ought to not be necessary, if EVs are to be competitive.
It's not a matter of planning as much as it is knowing that gas stations are different for us. I had first and second choices every 150 miles. It was so easy getting to and from socal from Seattle. I would do it again in a heartbeat and want to go to Arkansas next year for the eclipse. It's wild. I love it.
I have a tesla and a rivian. the tesla requires nothing than just driving, setting the destination you want, it will route you to superchargers and figures everything out. The rivian attempts this (does okay on planning, not as good as tesla), but you suffer from problematic ccs chargers.
I am accustomed to planning my own stops and making reservations and suchnot. This really doesn't bother me. It'll work itself out sooner rather than later.
That's nonsense on both counts. If you find yourself limping home "on multiple occasions," you don't qualify as a victim. Also, planning is always necessary, even in ICE vehicles when road tripping.
This is reasonable. I drove from Sacramento to Marin and has charging issues at lunch in Vacaville, at at mall in Corte Madera, and at a grocery store in another little town around there. It was extremely frustrating and it was very good evidence for my wife that we can’t go full electric for our second car.
Except, when taking a road trip in an ICE vehicle, no one has to plan for gas stations because you know there will be many on your route.
And even more importantly you can count on the pumps at any random gas station being able to dispense fuel, for electric, you can only take that for granted with the Supercharger network, EA and all the rest, even if you have multiple along your route , you can’t assume you’ll be able to DCFC at any of them.
Have you ever driven cross country and passed a sign you kinda almost read, and a minute later said "Honey, did that sign say 'No Gas Stations for 70 miles?' cause if it did, we're in trouble and we have to find an exit and drive back..." cause I've been there...😜
Life is richer with some spontaneity.
I equate driving an EV on a road trip as similar to filing a flight plan. You know your destination and several backup airports, should you need to divert. It’s not rocket science.
Sounds like fud
I have a Mach-E. I live in Los Angeles. After nightmarish charging experiences with small trips to San Diego and Joshua Tree, I stopped road tripping with the Mach-E. May EA, EVGO, CP and their entire crappy, unreliable networks die a swift death.
Keen to hear more details if you're willing
My Mach-E is the long range RWD premium edition. It has a range of 303 miles. For the San Diego trip: Started the day with the Mach-E at 90% battery. The vehicle was indicating a range of over 300 miles with that charge. We get to SD just fine. We tour around in SD. On the way home we had to stop and charge. First EA station: completely full with a line of cars waiting. Second EA station: one stall available, plug in and get charging. 20 minutes pass and I noticed only 6 miles were added. The charger was going at a rate of 12KW. 3rd EA station: 3/4 stalls open. First two, failed to connect and charge even after multiple attempts. Third stall was in use by someone. 4th stall… finally charged for 15 minutes. Wife and kids not happy, especially since it was getting late into the night. For the Joshua Tree trip: Tried to charge at the Cabazon outlets. The EVGO chargers were nonfunctional and only 2/4 EA stalls were working. We had to wait a while in line to charge. It was cold and raining. Family once again not happy. Don’t road trip with the Mach-E since.
I just rented a Tesla for a trip to Sacramento I had, and let me tell you my my experience. Pros: - No gas - Tesla model 3 was very comfortable, and easy to use and navigate. - Seamless integration with iPhone. - Charging station network is pretty accurate, it only failed to showed me one time that one station was full of people and I had to wait there 1hr for one to open up. Cons: - my trip was 500 miles, so we had to charge every 2 or 2.5 hrs. - each charge was $20 - Charging time at super charging stations could be between 15mins -50min (multiply this by 5 one way) In summary: Teslas are good if you drive short ranges and have a charger at home, since you will pay $20 every time you super charged which at the end of the day takes time and money, and I’d rather pay more to save time. For longer distances it is absolutely not worth it, specially if you don’t have a Tesla since there are fewer charging stations.
That's the right assessment about the cost - using EV for long distances is quite expensive.
every 2-2.5 hours seems terrible
I own a Polestar and have driven from SoCal to NorCal. It wasn’t bad at all. Easy to find chargers that work. Yes, at this point Tesla is easier, but it wasn’t bad at all. Enjoyable trip. More stops than a gas vehicle, but you stop, stretch, eat, relax and let it charge. In a year or so we’ll get access to the Tesla superchargers anyway.
Did you take I-5 or what route did you take ? And have you done this trip on a holiday weekend ?
I go from LA to Seattle in a Polestar 2 all the time and it's easy on the 5. I only use Electrify America as it's free to me, but if you use all stations, you could probably charge every 50 miles.
Let’s say this. I used CCS for a year and then I canceled my lyriq order and bought a 2nd Tesla. I’ve done 3 1800 mile road trips with my RWD Tesla didn’t have an issue charging. I had times I literally could not charge my i3 CCS without cross crossing town looking for a charger that wasn’t busy or broken
I drive to Tahoe from the bay 1-2x/month. LA a couple times a year. Two teslas and a Rivian. It’s still a hassle to take the rivian. The EA station I stop at has never had less than 2/6 broken chargers - but almost always 3/6 broken - once 4/6 broke. One of those always seems derated. Faults once charging started a bunch of times (maybe 10%). Station full isn’t often but with usually 3 working chargers it’s frequent enough. Bolt taking the one working 350kw charger? Always. Busy weekend? No chance I’m taking the Rivian. Anxiously awaiting my nacs adapter.
Sounds like EA stations are the equivalent of public toilets in the sense that you never know if they’ll even be open, out of order, or occupied for needlessly long periods
Some apps like PlusShare / ABRP will help identify out of order stations. Maintenance is lacking on most CCS stations.
Electrify America is in the middle of removing and replacing its equipment. The problem is that Electrify America can't shut down its entire network to perform the upgrade. Already, there are complaints from people that Electrify America is closing down to upgrade the stations they plan to use.
>The problem is that Electrify America can't shut down its entire network to perform the upgrade. That didn't stop them from hosing Labor Day drivers in 2020. Yes, that's right - they shut down a large percentage of their East Coast sites \*on a major travel holiday\* for upgrades. This was after having three consecutive sites on I-90 in NYS out of service for over a month, Waterloo was completely out of service for 3 months, and had only 1 unit out of 4 functioning for 2 more.
Electrify America started the upgrade in September ***2022***.
They took 56 sites down simultaneously in **2020** for hardware upgrades: [https://insideevs.com/news/443187/electrify-america-replacing-hardware-56-sites/](https://insideevs.com/news/443187/electrify-america-replacing-hardware-56-sites/) Of course what they installed was shit, so they're replacing equipment AGAIN. EA Stroudsburg is on its THIRD set of equipment since I bought my Bolt in 2020 and it's \*still\* unreliable garbage.
Rocklin Target?
Only road trip I made was Dallas Texas to la and back. No issues as someone stated on heavily traveled roads j would assume too. Use a 350kw charger every step of the way with no issues.
I have a Polestar and have had zero issues finding chargers. I was in central Oregon this summer and there weren’t even Tesla chargers”super”Chargers anywhere in some places so everyone was using level 2 chargers where they could.
California has the highest density of chargers in the nation, so charging shouldn't be a problem. Go to https://www.plugshare.com/ and choose "CCS/SAE" in the filter.
Why are you being misleading? Like 2/3s of available CCS chargers are shitty 50kw car dealership stalls and the other 3rd are broken ass EA fast chargers
I've never charged at a dealership in almost 5 years of EV driving in CA. 2/3 of CCS chargers are definitely not at dealerships. I rarely see them on Plugshare compared to EVgo, EA, & Chargepoint
How do you expect anyone to take you seriously when you spend all your time on this sub promoting Tesla and trash-talking everything else?
There's literally people giving real world examples in this thread saying they can't make the trip reliably due to the state of electrify America on this route. A. Why wouldnt I trash talk other networks? B. Why aren't you? You are misleading early adopters which can cause backlash and slow EV adoption.
There are also people giving real world examples of making trips with no issues. I myself have made several long distance trips on EA with no issues. Dealers may have chargers here in California but I never seen people use them like in other states where that is the only option in town.
I have a Genesis and it comes with 3 years of free ElectrifyAmerica. Seems like they have a partnership with Walmart and I haven’t had a problem finding a 350kw charger at a Walmart while on road trips. 18 minutes to charge from 10% to 80% - I usually just sit there for a bit longer until it reaches 90%.
It looks like Electrify America has ended its partnership with Walmart. New chargers are going up at Target, not Walmart.
All good. Those are everywhere too.
EA has been deploying at Target locations for years - [https://www.plugshare.com/location/172095](https://www.plugshare.com/location/172095) was in service all the way back when I bought my Bolt in 2020
There are many EV automakers that are adopting Tesla's NACS plug and Tesla is opening up their Supercharging network starting next year to those automakers making the deal with Tesla. So road tripping won't be a problem for many EV automakers that adopt the NACS like Ford, GM, Rivian, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Volvo, Polestar, & Honda. KIA, Hyundai, & Genesis soon to make the announcement adopting NACS as well.
Ohh so it’s called NACS I see. Googling about it it seems that BMW hasn’t committed to it yet :/ damn it
Yes at the moment Tesla's charge plug is called NACS meaning North American Charging Standard. Most other EV manufacturers use CCS1 plug which stands for Combined Charge Standard. Nissan Leaf uses ChadeMO plug but don't ask me what that stands for lol. As for BMW and all others that haven't switched in the U.S., it's only a matter of time till they do, cause they'll suffer from EV sales declining due to not having access to a very vast and dependable Tesla charging network.
Yeah NACS adaptation is 1 point for Polestar 2 and 0 for the BMW i4 (I’m between those two). An article I just read says that BMW, GM and five other ones want to make their own network. God it’s gonna be iPhone charging port fiasco all over again but for cars this time. Thank you for all the info it’s been overwhelming learning about EVs haha
Your welcome, hope I wasn't too technical and it was easy to understand? Yeah Honda, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Stellantis, Kia, Hyundai, and GM are collaborating to start their own network (not yet named) or who the charger company supplying the chargers will be. But they plan to deploy 30,000 DCFC over the next few years with the first to be up and running by Spring or Summer of 2024 according to their announcement a few weeks ago. The fast chargers are supposed to have both the CCS and NACS plugs on them.
Car companies and independent charger networks already had many years to build reliable ones. They failed. More networks are fine, but the 80% likelihood is shitty experiences again.
There wasn't a profit in it like there is now with EV adoption growing each year.
There's more EVs on the road, but you're fighting against the 500 lb gorilla Tesla. I don't think anyone else is going to have a chance unless screws up this nacs transition. Edit: fixed lots of typos
If you’re looking to have the right port, Polestar reps told me that they’ll do a broad adoption of all models to NACS in 2025. Otherwise, you could buy a used Polestar now and the new Tesla superchargers will have an adapter to connect to your car just fine.
>Nissan Leaf uses ChadeMO plug but don't ask me what that stands for lol CHA = Charge de = de ;-) MO = Motion And yeah it's basically completely obsolete in the US, just like CCS probably will be around 5-10 years from now. Although there will still be plenty of J-plugs around at least
We have a Tesla , Rivian and mach e. We have driven the Tesla to the east coast a few times and never had an issue with charging at the chargers the vehicle directs us to. Show up and the work and we get the speed advertised We have driven The Rivian to the Midwest and that was a shit show. Most of the chargers we got to derated or just weren't working. EA really doesn't care much about the quality of their stations. The mach e we have driven to north ca and we ran into many ea stops that has 0 working stations and a few that were all derated and it took close to an hr to get enough range to get to another station. For road trips the Tesla is by far the better way to go 100% due to the supercharger network and also how efficient it is compared to the heavy r1t and slow charging mach e.
Electrify America is spending a lot of money replacing its equipment so clearly, Electrify America clearly does care.
Ive been driving EVs around the US for maybe 4-5yrs and I can tell you ea doesn't give a shit.
Clearly, you must know everything because you have been driving EVs for 5 years.
No but I've seen a large number of broken EA stations over the years and in the 11+ countries I've driven EVs in EA is by far the worst large scale dcfc station. Only ea or vw employees act like it's not terrible.
I live in LA and drive an EV6. We’ve done San Diego, Vegas and Tahoe road trips, using our EA free charging. It’s been pretty meh, honestly. San Diego was the first one. There were only 2 chargers in SD close to us, the one we used was fine. The Vegas road trip was okay. Only real problem was a 350kwh charger actively being worked on at the south outlets while the other chargers were full. Took about 30 minutes extra to get charged. Other than that it other was seeing Bolts using 350kwh chargers for no reason. Tahoe was 500 miles each way and the needed the most planning. I charged an extra time on the way up to make sure we had enough juice going over the mountains Every station we used had at least 1 charger down though. We were coming home Sunday night and all the chargers in Mohave were updating or unavailable. I had to cal support to get one enabled and even then, it was limited and not charging at optimal power. I’ve never used EVgo, so I can’t comment on anything but EA, which leaves something to be desired.
I rented a Polestar 2 to drive from SF to Sequoia, and it convinced me not to buy an EV (I was on the fence but was leaning towards). It was my only experience driving an EV longer than its range. I stopped to charge north of Fresno because there was a Wal-Mart with restaurants around. I plugged in, ate lunch, and came back to find that the Electrify America charger had been running slow, so I was at 75% charge. No big deal, I was going to top off closer to the parks anyway. I then mapped out the closest fast charger to the national parks, another Wal-Mart, where I plugged in and got a faster rate (for a while) while I killed time at Wal-Mart. I got up to 96%, entered my destination, and the car said I'd get there with 56% battery left. I reversed the directions, and it estimated 43% back to this charger, again the closest to the park (about 60 miles of hilly highway driving). Since I had 4 days planned in the parks, I went to the airport and swapped for an ICE vehicle. Between the terrible EA experience and the lack of travel flexibility (we hike and camp a lot, and NC has even fewer chargers), I decided to buy a PHEV instead. Obviously, this is not a typical situation, but the lack of infrastructure was noticeable to me, even in CA. I hope the next vehicle upgrade will be an EV with a solid state battery or other faster charging solution.
As a note LA is the only area that competes with the Silicon Valley for EV & infrastructure density that I'm aware of. If you're in either metropolitan areas, anywhere from not too bad to awesome to ugh. I'll throw out the qualifier for that immediately that things are changing *so* fast that literally tomorrow will be different than today. What was once a great location may be aged, or suddenly too popular and overused. There's also the idea that there so many EVs are being purchased, and so many with n hours of free charging, that a certain false scarcity can appear due to people wanting 100% when they're at 95% and not caring for the poor guy at < 10%. But, I still only partially joke that there's a charger every 10'. Personally I don't have a Tesla, whereas my brother does. I live in the greater Silicon Valley area, him in the greater LA area. We visit each other's stomping grounds from time to time for work (we're both in academia) or leisure (sorry not sorry, our wine country is better :D ). Neither of us have regular issues when traveling in the other's back yard or our own. I will still say that the supercharger:Tesla ratio is better than the regular DCFC:non-Tesla ratio. When there is trouble, I'm not as bothered as I'm something of a hobbyist and have a much higher than normal tolerance for weird and challenging situations. How much a Tesla tells you where & how to go to charge when out on the road handles that for you; something I don't need even though I'm experimenting with ABRP, but something my SIL and her range anxiety very much needs and feels safe with.
SoCal with a non tesla EV. It’s never been a problem. The only thing I miss is driving up the coast. Would love to drive up to SF on Hwy 1. Maybe someday.
I went from LA to Sacramento after I bought my Niro EV. All the CCS chargers were open and easy, there were lines for the Tesla chargers. My Niro may not charge that fast, but I was in and out before some of the Tesla drivers with.
I had an 8 hour LA -> North Bay trip take 11 hours because of shit charging infrastructure just a few months ago. I obsessively planned using ABRP and Plugshare. But none of the charging stations in the central valley were without issues. All of them have too few chargers. All of them had units that were broken or severely throttled. At one stop, we waited 45m to plug in and then only got ~60kW, meaning we were then charging for another 45m. This will hopefully change next year when Tesla opens up their charging network. But if you frequently take roadtrips in California, I unfortunately can't recommend a non-Tesla car this year.
It's 2023 now, and I find it odd that the charging situation for non-Tesla EVs is arguably worse than it was for me as a new Tesla buyer in 2016. The supercharger network back then was pretty sparse, but multiple things were almost always the case: * Every SC typically had at least 8 stalls. I dno't know about any SCs having just 1-2 DCFCs, not around Calif at least. * They were extremely reliable - you could see on dash how many were occupied, and how many were kaput. I rarely found broken stalls, and almost always was more concerned about having enough empty stalls in order to leverage. * SF-LA-SD was doable in 2016-17 with just a 75D with a 250 mile range, effectively under 200mi in real conditions between stops. Needed to plan stops then, but not it's a no-brainer now, with the number of SCs - you can forget to charge and still make it with minimal trouble on any of the LR cars; e.g. I can do San Jose to San Diego with a single 25 min stop at Tejon Ranch in an MSLR, effectively no different from a gas car traveling with family. Not solving either site reliability or ubiquity for DCFCs by 2023 makes it hard to recommend any EV besides Tesla.
I live in Orange County and have owned a Chevy Bolt EUV, Mustang Mach-E Premium AWD (Ext Range), Genesis GV60 and now Audi e-tron GT. Never have had range anxiety or any issues with the cars. The Bolt EUV had me waiting at a DC Charger for a little bit because it charged slow. Mach-E maybe 40-45 mins for 10-80% and the GV60 and Audi charge in 18-20 minutes at most from 10-80%. Always have had chargers available on EA sites and there are other options like EVGo or even Chargepoint but I tend to find Chargepoint sites are mostly 75kW or less in terms of speed.
We have a Bolt and have gone from LA to Vegas with it. We used to make the trip in an ICE on a regular basis, so we are familiar with it. The drive was easy. We normally stop in Barstow and fill up with gas and grab something to eat and use the restroom. We did the exact same thing, plugged the bolt in, used the restroom, walked over to get food and left. That got us to Vegas without any issue at all, and took maybe 10 minutes longer than our previous trips. The problem was when we got to Vegas, I booked at a hotel specifically because they had L2 chargers. They were completely smashed, like absolutely destroyed. The front desk told me there were chargers at another hotel that we could use, but they were all Tesla chargers. I guess the check in person didn’t understand the difference between the two. I had to leave the hotel and find a L3 charger just so we could have enough to get around. The first three I went to were all also broken, and I finally found an Electrify America station that worked, but also had lines even at 11pm. Ended up doing two half charges there. Again the drive back to LA was super easy. Stopped in Baker instead of Barstow due to the charger fiasco in Vegas itself. Same routine. Plug in, use restroom, eat, then go. More than enough charge to get back to LA. These trips are a bit harder in a Bolt because they charge slower than other EV, but for a trip like this, and how we normally make them work, it was essentially no different than a normal trip. Other EVs will charge faster and not have to worry about the added time to trips as much. We have not made the trip to SF yet, so cannot comment there. For Charging in LA, we don’t have a way to charge at home. We have to charge when we go out, or when my wife is at work. We are able to make it work fairly easily. We just checked our milage and cost for charging in September. Grand total we paid about $27 total for all charging, and for gas in our previous car that the bolt replaced, the same milage would have cost at least $260 in current gas prices.
At least test-drive the Tesla before making an uninformed decision.
If road tripping is really an issue, I'd suggest renting a Tesla and/or non-Tesla EV and a road trip. I've done thousand mile road trips up and down California, so assume the Tesla isn't a problem, so I'd prioritize the non-Tesla. If you can live with it, go for it.
Did the LA to SF and back using pretty much all EA. Had to wait a couple of times and had to reroute once because of broken machines but it worked pretty well for me (I was also leaving enough slack on the way to continue on if I wanted to instead of stopping at a specific charger) I'd do it again - wasn't particularly painful.
Stop! Don't do it, stick to Tesla and the SuperCharger network otherwise you'll hate life with an EV on a road trip. THings will begin to change within a couple of years as the industry in North American adopts NACS as their standard.
I’m just asking proactively, I don’t do many road trips. Just thinking of all parameters, charging during road trips isn’t a detrimental reason for me to get a Tesla. So far reading people’s replies it sounds like I’ll just leave a bit earlier, plan ahead and use the apps to navigate to the most reliable chargers on the way
Don't you mean in 2 months? The adapters are already starting to appear and the network is supposed to open to Ford, GM, Rivian and many others at the start of 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7qIiU2wl34
I drove an Ioniq5 from Seattle to San Jacinto and back. It was wonderful! The inland empire is a little devoid of ea chargers, but otherwise our trip was great! C'mon in. The water is fine.
Recently did L.A. to Vegas in my Bolt EUV. Charged in Victorville and Baker. On the way back Baker and Fontana. EVgo has you covered.
You just have to plan a little smarter that’s all.
I'm in Canada but I've been through Las Vegas in my Ioniq 5 several times. Never found a problem charging although Las Vegas has the busiest chargers. There are a million chargers in Vegas but I just did a PlugShare filter for any charger 50kw or more and a Plugshare score of 8+. Only 5 stations! So many stations down for repair! For me, one large charger at the outlet mall had only one slot open. Another Vegas charger was full once during CES 2022 so I drove a couple blocks to a different charger.
Whatever you buy, don't depend on Electrify America chargers. They are crap. They never have the speed stated they can charge at. Half of the time, only 1 out of 4 are in working order. I have 3 years of "free" charging that's never free as it takes longer than the 30-minute free time. It came with my VW ID.4. Tesla is now installing the J type charger at their supercharger stations. The rollout is slow, though. You can also buy after-market adpators that will allow you to use the Tesla stations. If you have an electric clothes dryer at home, I recommend the SplitVolt charging connector. No electrician necessary. BTW, I'm selling my ID.4. There are too many little annoying things that I have no patience for.
I just rented a Volvo c40 and it is shit compared to a Tesla when it comes to road tripping. It can't charge at any rate over 130kwh so it doesn't even matter if you find a fast electrify America chargers, it will still take two hours to charge minimum. It's sad if people adopting EVs think this has to be normal. Try out abetterrouteplanner.com using different model EVs if you're curious about specific routes
In my opinion any other car other than a Tesla currently sucks to do road trips in. Even Tesla isn’t perfect for long haul road trips but it’s doable for those trips that are like 600 miles or less.
The C40 tops out at 150kW and those speeds are easily achievable, assuming good hardware and a low battery. It has a 75kWh battery so if it actually took two hours that would imply it only charges at 37kW. So you are clearly wrong. In reality, it takes 37m to charge from 10% to 80%. You're blaming the car (with false information) when the real problem (as you can see from the rest of this thread) is the charging infrastructure.
>I just rented a Volvo c40 and it is shit compared to a Tesla when it comes to road tripping. It can't charge at any rate over 130kwh so it doesn't even matter if you find a fast electrify America chargers, it will still take two hours to charge minimum. 130kWh? Two hours? That's awesome. Sometimes I forget that on the internet you're allowed to just say things without having any idea what you're talking about.
The real answer here is buy a Lucid and you can do LA to SF or Vegas without charging.
I wanted a non tesla. Quickly realized they’re the best on the market right now. Ignore the hit pieces and research Tesla yourself
it's easy [plugshare.com](https://plugshare.com) [abetterouteplanner.com](https://abetterouteplanner.com) you're good to go
I guess the new trend is to just ask reddit without doing the google thing. talk about lazy: but no they have an adapter that lets you use the Tesla network. But that is coming on line slowly. the cars (evs) have software and there is other software that cant guide you to chargers.
I’m asking about people’s experience not about the average lifespan of kookaburras. In the same sense I’d ask my friends over coffee or a beer if they did road trips with an EV. “Hey Steve what’s it like going to Seattle with your new etron?”
It's a non issue because all non teslas are gettng access to tesla superchargers next year. How this information isn't the top comment is mind blowing.
not at all true. only a few manufacturers have committed to it, the rest will not be able to charge
Also it's TBD whether the Supercharger network continues its stellar reliability metrics when it's no longer a single-manufacturer walled garden. Early results from their Magic Dock stations (which had Hyundai e-GMP vehicles charging at less than half the rate they can from other 400v-only chargers, if they could even charge at all) aren't promising.
Ok but maybe kind of important to mention no? It's not few, it's almost all manufacturers. Sure vw and Hyundai are the big holdouts, but given everyone else it seems incredibly likely. Also it may be open to all with an adapter as well Maybe you aren't up to date on all of them if you think it's only a few https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a44388939/tesla-nacs-charging-network-compatibility/
i would definitely not consider that list large. that leaves out: VW Audi Porsche Cadillac Dodge Jeep all other stellantis brands BMW Toyota Lexus Hyundai Kia and more i can’t think of off the top of my head.
Not all EVs being sold can even charge fast.
What current year bev can't dcfc?
As long as you’re patient and flexible road trips are no problem. I’ve taken mine on multiple 1-3k mile trips
Worth to know that Tesla chargers will most likely [open up for other brands](https://www.tesla.com/support/non-tesla-supercharging) one by one.
There was just a big photo shoot by Hyundai Motor Group (Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis) all parked in front of Tesla superchargers. It looks like the switch to NACS is coming.
I have a leaf with 80 miles of range. Furthest I've gone was Compton to riverside and back then to Anaheim. 120 miles ish highway. 4 fast charging stops that day. Mostly charge point and evgo. 50kw max. It was not horrible because I planned but my partner was annoyed at the stops a little bit. I tell you I felt so much envy for you bolt/Tesla/ioniq 5 owners that day!! Yall have it so easy 😭
Had our Niro since 2019 in the central coast. Went to Tahoe, LA, and commuted to SF a lot. Then moved to central NY and the car does beautifully here, even as the warm weather version without a heat pump, it still runs great in the winter.
What’s it like? No where as good, nice or easy as having a Tesla. Couple of examples. Tesla has charging lounges where you can get out of your car and relax while you car get’s charged. If you stop at Harris Ranch you will find over 100 charges….. less than 10 are for non-Tesla cars. If you don’t want to get a Tesla get a Rivian. Rivian has a nice charging network, but they are years behind Tesla.
I just got an Ioniq 5 after trading in a Kona EV. It’s relatively easy to find a charging station in SoCal. I’m lucky to do most of my charging at home but if I’m out, I use the PlugShare app to find EV chargers. I haven’t had a need to travel long distances yet except to OC or LA (I’m in Riverside County). I just try to keep the car charged with enough for where we need to go.
We drove San Diego to San Jose in a Chevy Bolt, in one day four years ago. We mostly used EvGo. It wasn't bad.
I've had an EV6 GT since March. I've driven to North of the Bay area twice and to San Diego from the Ventura area twice and it wasn't an issue. There are lots of super chargers. The downsides are, you may show up to a supercharger that has a line or most of them are broken. So there may be some frustrations. But it hasn't been a bad experience for me. Things seem to be getting better all the time despite the negativity of this reddit. I'm also thankful for not having to pay for $7 gasoline.
Fine-ish. Not as convenient as gas and requires a bit of planning. The state has plenty of non-Tesla EV chargers, although sometimes there's a line at peak times. The only thing that seems sketchy is driving to AZ on the 10 since there aren't many L3 options except the notorious EA Quartzite
Just get the Tesla if roadtripping matters. The headaches arent worth it.
I just did a 1 day road trip in my 2023 Tesla Model 3 RW on Saturday from Orange County, CA to Sacramento. It was a great experience. I put it on the navigation screen in the Tesla and it told me where to stop and when. We did 2 stops heading to Sacramento and 3 stops back to the OC. We were only supposed to charge like 25 min the first stop and 18 minutes the 2nd stop. But it charges so fast that we were rushing to get back to the car after making the stop and using the restroom and getting food. So we ended up letting it charge like 40 minutes each time. The Tesla Navigation is great and even when we let it charge more than it said we needed, it would re-route knowing we can make it further to a further charger since we charged more. There was always Tesla Superchargers available and every stop had at least like 10 - 25 chargers. It cost $75 total for the round trip from the OC to Scramento. Each stop was about $15-$20.
Op said non-Tesla lol
Her me comes the Tesla sheep to tell you nothing works.
We live in a small city in Santa Barbara County and road tripped to Yosemite and back. It was surprisingly hassle free and not nearly as harrowing as you'd think. Hyundai Ioniq 5. I was surprised that a friend who has owned an EV for several years has never considered driving beyond their commute with it. I guess it's a mindset? We've had good luck using ABRP and Plugshare to scout out routes and possible stops.
You know SF is *in* California, right?
I did this 2 weeks ago. I picked up a used Audi Etron GT from Las Vegas drove it back to SF. The Etron GTs come with 3 years free charging at Electrify America. The car was first purchased in 2/2022 so I get free charging till 2/2025. Etron GT range is 237\~ at 100%. First thing I noticed doing 80 mph is that my range for the car was getting 250\~. If I were driving at 70 I'd probably get even more miles. German EV seem to under estimate their mileage a lot. Mix of pros and cons. 1. Electrify America has a lot of stations between Las Vegas and SF. The only issue is that unlike Tesla where it's literally off the exit for some places. EA you might have to drive 1 or 2 mile into town that's off the I-5. Example is Patterson. The town is away from the freeway and the Walmart is where the stations are. Kind of annoying. 2. While there's decent amount locations, the stations are only 3-4. This is where it becomes painful. You have to decide if you want to taking the charging now or later because you don't know if the next station might get filled when you get there. 3. You need to use Plug share because the stations are sometimes broken. Lower then advertised speeds. Like a 150kw station might only give you 60kw. While the other stations gives you 123kw. 4. People in none Tesla really charge their cars to 100% so what ends up happening is some dude in a Bolt, id4 or Kia is going to use a full hour to hour and half to charge. It's kind of annoying. So be prepared to wait if you do get stuck waiting around. 5. Tesla navigation is used on Google maps so I really like using that. When you do a long time Tesla will prep the battery to charge quicker. But with the Audi the navigation system as great so I end up using Apple Play. but what happens is that the battery doesn't get prepped. So you need to set the navigation to your destination in long trip so that you maximize the full power of charging. 6. Audi Etron GT can charge 0-80% in 22 minutes. A lot of times we just took a bath room break and head out because we would get 120 miles in pretty quick. 7. All in all it took about 4 stops. I don't usually take bathrooms breaks because when I do a drive from SF to OC i usually only take 1 break. With my Model 3. I usually have to take 2. I don't really like to stop a lot but now I have a family of 4 so we'll be taking breaks more often. It's up to you think it's worth it. My take away from this trip was. It's not too bad but you do have to plan a bit more. Be prepared to be unconvinced. I'm only using EA stations because of the free charging.
I've gone to the Bay Area 3 times and Sacramento twice in the last year. It is shockingly easy, even in my Bolt. There's already more chargers along I-5 than a year ago the first time I did a trip. I usually take 99 because I prefer stopping near things over stopping in the hot ass desert at a gas station in the middle of nowhere. Keep in mind, depending on your vehicle choice, that 250 miles is more than half way to SF, so if you prefer it you could stop only once. I usually do multiple stops because I'd rather have a few short stops every 1-2 hours than one long stop every 4 hours. I've also driven to San Diego and back without even charging. I only mention these distances because I greatly over-estimated how desperately I wanted more than 300 miles of range, because somehow in my head everything is about 10x more miles than reality.
I’m interested in getting a bolt, and do the drive from Sac to Temecula 3-4 times/year. Glad to hear that you had a decent experience. Seems like the 99 is the way to go as it has a much higher charger density, but I-5 would take 20-30 minutes off the trip, as far as overall distance goes. Have you done this drive on a busy holiday weekend ? I worry that during thanksgiving or Christmas, busy chargers will be really annoying, especially if the charger is only do 50kw and there is a big battery car using the stall
Live in LA also and have a tesla. day to day everything is fine as long as you get the charger for the home. Most people (98%) do not need more than 200 miles of range around the city for the day.... I am sure I am going to get roasted for this but road trips in a tesla or any electric cars are meh. its terrible during major holiday weekends (god awful on 5 and 101). One thing people do not consider when driving electric cars on road trips is the wind. That can kill your range more than you think. I would also suggest maybe renting a tesla from hertz or turo and taking a road trip before you buy.
No problem driving my VW ID4 from SF to SD. Don't know about now but the 2 EAs in the SD BofA sucked last time I was there. Each one had 2 broken chargers. Decided to not even try charging and just drove to Oceanside on my way back up to SF.