My youngest son and I drove from Columbus to Chicago (400 miles) in his Chevy Bolt on Thursday.

Midwest electric car charging infrastructure is sparse. We had to take a longer route as a result. And chargers are rarely placed conveniently always at the back of a parking lot, so we had to walk a quarter mile to find a bathroom and get lunch. The weather was good, but in bad weather... eh. (*)

Range anxiety is a thing... once you get below 50 miles you start freaking out. You are completely dependent on cellular connectivity to find and use chargers. Cell is down ? You're toast.

Sitting and charging for an hour is weird. I took a nap. The seats were not comfortable for my old bones.

Supercruise (Chevy's self driving driver assist feature) is pretty darn cool, but nerve wracking in traffic. Passing big trucks in high winds without touching the steering wheel felt like riding an out of control horse in a full gallop. Aaaaaaa ! But it's AWESOME in stop and go traffic.

All in all, I would not want to take another long trip in one. I'm too impatient.

(*) The smartest man I ever met, Dr. George E., PhD in Physics, worked on the Manhattan project, shared this bit of wisdom with me:
"Never walk past a bathroom".

>You are completely dependent on cellular connectivity to find and use chargers. Cell is down ? You're toast.

Seems like there should be some sort of offline maps for this.

Do you need to find a particular kind of charger?

I'm looking at picking one up sometime this year if I can still find one when we are ready to buy. Won't be using it for trips longer than 250-300 miles, but if I did I would just plan a long lunch.

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C(-)ris
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There are a couple of apps that can definitely help for travel. ABRP or A Better Route Planner is great for for planning out a route ahead of time so you know what you are dealing with. The second "must have" app is Plugshare. Plugshare is the number one place that I trust for knowing whether sites are functioning or down. When I plan a trip, I look to see if a station seems to be reliable or frequently has trouble. Then I plan accordingly.

One thing I have learned is that I can cut down on anxiety a lot if I keep my battery charge in the 30-80 percent range. Charging above 80 percent takes forever and going below 30% just gives me too much anxiety.

EV adoption does depend a lot of what kind of driving you do and the charging infrastructure that is available. It works for me as 28 days of the month I am just taking local trips and can just plug in to 110v at home a couple of times a week. I've taken a few 1000 mile trips in our Bolt EV and it just requires a slightly different mindset of having a meal while charging for 45 minutes, or taking a walk, reading a book or watching a movie on my iPad or people watching at WallyWorld.

Lately I find myself having the same anxiety due to gas prices. In our truck, I have to watch to make sure that I dont have to buy gas in town at $6.59 a gallon. I need to plan ahead so I can get to Reno where gas is $4.99 a gallon. Often, I am getting to Reno with the "get gas NOW" light on.

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“Live your life, love your life, don’t regret…live, learn and move forward positively.” – CR Johnson
Loving life in Lake Tahoe, CA

David, the 8-Bit Guy, has done a handful of videos about his EV experiences; a recent one (September) outlined his trip from Dallas TX to (near) Chicago IL for a Vintage Computer Expo. The first half(ish) of the 16 minute video details the trip in his wife's Chevy Bolt and the overall EV long-trip experience. Very much worth a watch.

[youtu.be]

(The Bolt has been on my radar for a few years, but life & family expenses are keeping me from making the jump. I currently drive a 2016 Kia Soul, and it'd mostly be an in-town/city area trip vehicle, so it'd be fairly practical for me.)

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The Bolt is not great for long distance travel. It's great as a local commuter. It charges at about 1/5 the speed of Tesla, Porsche, etc.

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MacResource User Map: [www.zeemaps.com]#

As an EV user myself, I understand. However since ours is a Tesla, we don't have nearly the same kind of problems. Superchargers are pretty much everywhere. One trip home to near Asheville NC from the NC beach it was near 100 degrees and that reduced our range. We had to charge 4 times which is just crazy. Of course, each charge was only about 15 minutes. Also, the seats are really comfortable. But we usually head for the restrooms and grab a snack and then we're off. So, we pretty much don't worry about range anxiety.

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Asheville, NC Area

I think the 1-35 Corridor is the dividing line. East of that, plenty of density=infrastructure.
West of that, except along the interstates, not so much.

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San Antonio, TX (in the old city)


"All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke
“Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented." - Eli Weisel

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." - Theodore Roosevelt (1918)

"I don’t want to see religious bigotry in any form. It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it." - Billy Graham 1981

"Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise" - Barry Goldwater

I wish that there was either an option for high efficiency rang extender generator that would mount like a bike rack on a trailer hitch, or a double size battery that you could charge via a dedicated second connector.

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In tha 360. MRF User Map

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ztirffritz
The Bolt is not great for long distance travel. It's great as a local commuter. It charges at about 1/5 the speed of Tesla, Porsche, etc.

This is a very important consideration to make. It seems the Bolt can do 55 kW fast DC charging, but even with the same brand and model you might have different charging capacities. For example, where the regular Nissan Leaf might charge at up to 50kW, the Leaf+ (with larger battery) can charge at up to 100kW/h. Assuming of course the charging station you go to can provide that much.

From a quick search, Teslas start at 170 kW, depending on the model, so much faster.

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Markintosh
One thing I have learned is that I can cut down on anxiety a lot if I keep my battery charge in the 30-80 percent range. Charging above 80 percent takes forever and going below 30% just gives me too much anxiety.

I would find it useful if there were more available specs on things like, what is the range from 80% to 30% (at 65mph). What is the full range at 65mph? (Since an EV with a published 300 mile range almost certainly can't do 300 miles at 65mph). What is the charging time from 30% to 80%? Since if you are going to take a trip in an EV, these are the things you'd need to know to plan accordingly.

Here’s What It Cost To Drive A Dirty Diesel 760 Miles Vs An EV 500 Miles
[www.theautopian.com]

(This article is another "real world" experience, although I think the math is a bit funky, i.e. they didn't include all the diesel used, just what they filled up during the trip, and didn't account for what they used after that fill up, but it's not meant to be a scientific test, and it still illustrates the experience and either way, the net result seems to be that cost per mile when road tripping, an EV is very similar to a diesel car).

I didn’t read the article you linked but I’m betting that they went to DC fast chargers, didn’t use ones with a membership discount and didn’t calculate cost to charge at home. Having said that, it remains a valid criticism. EV trucks will pull a tree out by the roots and haul a multi-story home but only a short distance. If your vehicle operates at 80% efficiency, a 50% increase in energy demand will hammer the range HARD. If your truck only gets 20% efficiency optimistically you might not even notice a loss of efficiency, heck it might actually become more efficient.

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Gareth

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Markintosh
One thing I have learned is that I can cut down on anxiety a lot if I keep my battery charge in the 30-80 percent range. Charging above 80 percent takes forever and going below 30% just gives me too much anxiety.

I would find it useful if there were more available specs on things like, what is the range from 80% to 30% (at 65mph). What is the full range at 65mph? (Since an EV with a published 300 mile range almost certainly can't do 300 miles at 65mph). What is the charging time from 30% to 80%? Since if you are going to take a trip in an EV, these are the things you'd need to know to plan accordingly.

Here’s What It Cost To Drive A Dirty Diesel 760 Miles Vs An EV 500 Miles
[www.theautopian.com]

(This article is another "real world" experience, although I think the math is a bit funky, i.e. they didn't include all the diesel used, just what they filled up during the trip, and didn't account for what they used after that fill up, but it's not meant to be a scientific test, and it still illustrates the experience and either way, the net result seems to be that cost per mile when road tripping, an EV is very similar to a diesel car).

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MacResource User Map: [www.zeemaps.com]#

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mikebw

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ztirffritz
The Bolt is not great for long distance travel. It's great as a local commuter. It charges at about 1/5 the speed of Tesla, Porsche, etc.

This is a very important consideration to make. It seems the Bolt can do 55 kW fast DC charging, but even with the same brand and model you might have different charging capacities. For example, where the regular Nissan Leaf might charge at up to 50kW, the Leaf+ (with larger battery) can charge at up to 100kW/h. Assuming of course the charging station you go to can provide that much.

From a quick search, Teslas start at 170 kW, depending on the model, so much faster.

I was shopping and considering a Bolt EV for this year. But the 55kW upper limit means it’s not really better than an urban car. My Volt is ~40 miles as EV and gas for the rest. Much more useful IMHO.

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ztirffritz
I didn’t read the article you linked but I’m betting that they went to DC fast chargers, didn’t use ones with a membership discount and didn’t calculate cost to charge at home.

Let's assume (and I believe this is how it went), the vehicle was charged before leaving, and the cost to charge at the end of the trip also wasn't counted (i.e. it was either "charged at home" or simply not charged up to end the trip).

Wouldn't you need to use DC fast chargers on a road trip if you wanted to make any sort of reasonable time? The takeaway issue in this article was really time and infrastructure more than cost. I.e. you pull up to a 350 kW charger and it's broken, so now you have to use a 150 kW. Oh, and when the 350 kW charger was working, it would only charge at that rate for a few minutes and then it dropped to less than 70 kW (don't know if that was an issue with the charger or the vehicle being used), so now your charging time is greatly increased.

Dem Old Bones

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sekker
My Volt is ~40 miles as EV and gas for the rest. Much more useful IMHO.

We spent a little time looking a vehicles recently and I realized that PHEV's would be a much better transition vehicle than going to straight EV. If we could get them up to 50-100 mile EV range (most top out in the low to mid 30's), that would cover a lot more people for daily driving and you wouldn't have the range anxiety and headaches for road trips.

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Gareth

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sekker
My Volt is ~40 miles as EV and gas for the rest. Much more useful IMHO.

We spent a little time looking a vehicles recently and I realized that PHEV's would be a much better transition vehicle than going to straight EV. If we could get them up to 50-100 mile EV range (most top out in the low to mid 30's), that would cover a lot more people for daily driving and you wouldn't have the range anxiety and headaches for road trips.

And they need far fewer battery cells/vehicle, which is a production bottleneck right now. There are a number of PHEVs being made now from a lot of non-EV vendors like Toyota (though not advertised).

Deleted duplicate post



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/07/2022 01:39PM by sekker.

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sekker

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Gareth

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sekker
My Volt is ~40 miles as EV and gas for the rest. Much more useful IMHO.

We spent a little time looking a vehicles recently and I realized that PHEV's would be a much better transition vehicle than going to straight EV. If we could get them up to 50-100 mile EV range (most top out in the low to mid 30's), that would cover a lot more people for daily driving and you wouldn't have the range anxiety and headaches for road trips.

And they need far fewer battery cells/vehicle, which is a production bottleneck right now. There are a number of PHEVs being made now from a lot of non-EV vendors like Toyota (though not advertised).

The Toyota Rav4 PHEV is stellar, but also expensive. We are likely to replace our Prius V with that when the time comes. Or, perhaps an AWD PHEV from Subaru if that makes more sense.

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ztirffritz
The Bolt is not great for long distance travel. It's great as a local commuter. It charges at about 1/5 the speed of Tesla, Porsche, etc.

You forgot the important fact that the Bolt EV also costs 1/5 the cost of Porsche and 1/3 of the cost of cheaper Teslas.

My first Bolt EV cost $16k very lightly used. The second one, purchased new, was less than $21K. So at that price I ham happy to spend a bit more time charging and having money in the bank for more fun pursuits like skiing.

The second thing is that other than one trip to SoCal this spring, which took 3 charging stops each way (We made it a point to charge in places with nice places to eat or take a walk, etc)... Other than that trip, I have used DC fast chargers ONE time in the course of my regular driving in the last year. EV owners that live in a single family residence generally charge at home, where it does not matter if it takes overnight.

I understand if you are an apartment or condo dweller, then DC charge speed could be more of an issue. But many studies show that many of those people are able to charge at work.

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“Live your life, love your life, don’t regret…live, learn and move forward positively.” – CR Johnson
Loving life in Lake Tahoe, CA



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/07/2022 05:44PM by Markintosh.

<<The smartest man I ever met, Dr. George E., PhD in Physics, worked on the Manhattan project, shared this bit of wisdom with me:
"Never walk past a bathroom".>>

That's pretty cool. Did he ever socialize with Dr Oppenheimer?

Manhattan Project is my rabbit hole hobby.

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Gareth


We spent a little time looking a vehicles recently and I realized that PHEV's would be a much better transition vehicle than going to straight EV. If we could get them up to 50-100 mile EV range (most top out in the low to mid 30's), that would cover a lot more people for daily driving and you wouldn't have the range anxiety and headaches for road trips.

This exactly mirrors my thoughts. I would like a little more range but then for road trips, revert to dino juice. Much of my in city driving could exist on about 40mi, tops.

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Hurts like a bastid...

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Markintosh

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ztirffritz
The Bolt is not great for long distance travel. It's great as a local commuter. It charges at about 1/5 the speed of Tesla, Porsche, etc.

You forgot the important fact that the Bolt EV also costs 1/5 the cost of Porsche and 1/3 of the cost of cheaper Teslas.

My first Bolt EV cost $16k very lightly used. The second one, purchased new, was less than $21K. So at that price I ham happy to spend a bit more time charging and having money in the bank for more fun pursuits like skiing.

The second thing is that other than one trip to SoCal this spring, which took 3 charging stops each way (We made it a point to charge in places with nice places to eat or take a walk, etc)... Other than that trip, I have used DC fast chargers ONE time in the course of my regular driving in the last year. EV owners that live in a single family residence generally charge at home, where it does not matter if it takes overnight.

I understand if you are an apartment or condo dweller, then DC charge speed could be more of an issue. But many studies show that many of those people are able to charge at work.

You 'bout to get snowed in.

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Markintosh

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ztirffritz
The Bolt is not great for long distance travel. It's great as a local commuter. It charges at about 1/5 the speed of Tesla, Porsche, etc.

You forgot the important fact that the Bolt EV also costs 1/5 the cost of Porsche and 1/3 of the cost of cheaper Teslas.

My first Bolt EV cost $16k very lightly used. The second one, purchased new, was less than $21K. So at that price I ham happy to spend a bit more time charging and having money in the bank for more fun pursuits like skiing.

The second thing is that other than one trip to SoCal this spring, which took 3 charging stops each way (We made it a point to charge in places with nice places to eat or take a walk, etc)... Other than that trip, I have used DC fast chargers ONE time in the course of my regular driving in the last year. EV owners that live in a single family residence generally charge at home, where it does not matter if it takes overnight.

I understand if you are an apartment or condo dweller, then DC charge speed could be more of an issue. But many studies show that many of those people are able to charge at work.

Apartment dwellers are a real challenge for EV use regardless of overall range. One reason I was looking to buy the Bolt is that I am a homeowner, and the Volt would be better for one of my kids. But even the PHEV is a challenge if there isn’t charging at work for them.

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mrbigstuff

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Gareth


We spent a little time looking a vehicles recently and I realized that PHEV's would be a much better transition vehicle than going to straight EV. If we could get them up to 50-100 mile EV range (most top out in the low to mid 30's), that would cover a lot more people for daily driving and you wouldn't have the range anxiety and headaches for road trips.

This exactly mirrors my thoughts. I would like a little more range but then for road trips, revert to dino juice. Much of my in city driving could exist on about 40mi, tops.

I have a friend who had a Ford MachE. Loved the car! Except - when he had a terrible road trip where he ended up stranded where the only charger was going to take him 11 hours to continue his journey. It was a job interview. He ended up getting a rental car and had his wife come out to get the MachE.

He sold the MachE the next week and purchased a PHEV that he’s quite happy with.

Bottom line: the only working fast charge network in the country is owned by Tesla. The transportation funds to add many thousands of open charging stations (good for Tesla owners, too!) cannot happen fast enough.

Clearly, the Bolt, with its slow charging speed, is not designed for routine long distance travel, though it and similar cars such as the Leaf is great as a local errand runner/commuter. There is a groundswell of other non-Tesla EVs out there (e.g. Ford MachE, Volvo, Mercedes, etc) that are either in production or coming soon that will be able to fill the long distance role, but not until the charge network is built out. Fortunately, Tesla in July announced that it is opening its charge stations to non-Tesla cars, which will be a game changer since their network is orders of magnitude bigger than other networks and is growing rapidly. Not so fast though...the current superchargers use proprietary plugs so either Tesla has to roll out additional connectors at all the supercharger sites, or (more likely) will need to start selling adapters for other vehicles. I'm not sure how quickly that will happen.

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"In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion." (1987) -- Carl Sagan

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vision63
You 'bout to get snowed in.

The hype about this storm in Tahoe is ridiculous. This is a very typical early season Tahoe storm. We had four inches the other night, then it melted out yesterday. We had another four inches last night, and probably about the same today. No big deal. I could easily take the Bolt to the store and I don't even have my snow tires on yet.

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“Live your life, love your life, don’t regret…live, learn and move forward positively.” – CR Johnson
Loving life in Lake Tahoe, CA

You have to do an honest evaluation of your driving needs before buying something. We've never charged our EV anywhere but home. We rarely use more than half a charge in a day, but we only have 100mi/ charge. We have an old BMW that we drive a few times a year when range is a problem, or we think it might be. I rented a hertz pickup once to move a mattress etc., and it was less than what we save in two weeks driving electric vs. gas.

Next trip we take (I don't have any idea if/when) we will rent a car.
I think it's silly to think people who tow their horses around would buy an electric. But I also think it's silly that people would drive a pickup every day when they only use the bed a few times a year. No vehicle does everything. When gas hit 5/gal. way back, our neighborhood bought an old beater pickup for community use. I think stuff like that is a great idea.

The odd reasoning I hear all the time though is that if an EV can't do everything anyone would do with a car, no one should buy one. Makes no sense at all.

One thing that does matter to me is that EV's are really not a lot of fun for an enthusiast. I wish there were more tracks available for racing etc., like seems to be available in Europe. Gas cars could be more for hobby/enthusiast use, etc. if there were places to race, etc.

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kj
The odd reasoning I hear all the time though is that if an EV can't do everything anyone would do with a car, no one should buy one. Makes no sense at all.

Yes, that and the people who poo-poo the California 2035 thing. It's pretty short-sighted to think there will be no changes in the technology and that you will feel exactly the same about electric vs gas vehicles 13 years from now.

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kj
One thing that does matter to me is that EV's are really not a lot of fun for an enthusiast. I wish there were more tracks available for racing etc., like seems to be available in Europe. Gas cars could be more for hobby/enthusiast use, etc. if there were places to race, etc.

Apparently you have never driven a Model 3, which feels to me like a little Ferrari with quick steering, blinding acceleration, and a nice driving position. Also note that I am a car guy, with a BMW 330Ci (with the optional performance package) and two vintage british sports cars so I am quite familiar with enthusiast cars.

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"In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion." (1987) -- Carl Sagan

For apartment dwellers and people who just can't add a homebase charging station, an HV is probably the best choice. I'm all for getting an EV (pfft, like I will ever be able to afford it), but there's some good to great HVs out there. You just need to remember it needs gas occasionally (had a friend with a Prius who more than once ran out of all energy b'c she kept forgetting about it).

I was eyeing the Ford Maverick HV when it was announced; it would be nice to have a simple truck again and the numbers are good.

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davester

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kj
One thing that does matter to me is that EV's are really not a lot of fun for an enthusiast. I wish there were more tracks available for racing etc., like seems to be available in Europe. Gas cars could be more for hobby/enthusiast use, etc. if there were places to race, etc.

Apparently you have never driven a Model 3, which feels to me like a little Ferrari with quick steering, blinding acceleration, and a nice driving position. Also note that I am a car guy, with a BMW 330Ci (with the optional performance package) and two vintage british sports cars so I am quite familiar with enthusiast cars.

I have driven a dual-motor Model 3, and it's not an enthusiast car, for most enthusiasts anyway. I like it a lot, but both my Alfas sounds were entertaining, and even my 3 series makes a lot cooler noises. And I like shifting. Most enthusiasts like stuff like that. Most like tinkering too, and there's not much you can do to a Tesla.
If that kind of thing doesn't matter to you, that doesn't mean others don't like it a lot.