I just got back from my first real road trip in an EV: over 1,200 miles in nine days! I stayed with my brother most of it, but did not even ask to plug-in. I saw many destination chargers, but filtered them out.
I charged only at Tesla superchargers. There was always one close to on my way, and I never felt too delayed. My first charging stop was at the Meadowlands, which is apparently a huge mall when they’re not playing football. It was a huge surprise to see the pop up to continue the trip before we were able to find the food court. I did follow the pattern from trip planning, to charge up frequently for short periods of 10-20 minutes, rather than wait for a full charge, and it worked very well. Basically each stop was to grab a soda, maybe use the bathroom, and go, and I always had a couple hundred miles of charge available
There was only one spot where I was worried. After sitting in traffic over an hour with the AC running, I was getting worried about reaching the planned supercharger. I exited to try a different brand, but discovered I didn’t have that adapter. Oops. However in the end, we did make the planned stop with a decent amount of charge left, despite the traffic delay and a couple detours
The final leg of the trip was 350 miles through mostly rural are with fewer super chargers. Trip planner recommended 2 quick charging stops, but by the time we ate lunch, the first stop was more than sufficient. Even in this rural area, supercharging wasn’t inconvenient!
No more range anxiety here it, it worked very well …… although admittedly in urban areas in the northeast where superchargers are fairly common. Still, destination chargers were common and I could have plugged in at my brothers.
Nice how much did you spend for changing?
I’m not sure how to add it up for the trip: I think of superchargers as about the same as gas, but charging from home is much cheaper and more convenient than gas. Most supercharger stops were $20-$30 but they were a bit more often than gas stops would have been. On a trip, I’m used to the idea of having to pay more for gas and food, so it’s similar, and I’m home a lot more of the time than im traveling
Looking at the charge stats, I can’t narrow it to the trip, but year to date
- 30¢/KWH for home charging
- 40¢/KWH for supercharging
- 81% charging from home
- total spent $707
- gas equivalent given average price, typical similar car would have been $1,021
I haven’t been driving much at all this year, even to work being a very short commute and work from home half the time, but according to this ive saved $314 over gas so far this year. Reading into how they collect data and do the calculations, I’m satisfied that it’s a fair calculation and certainly much more detailed than I would have done
The more you charge at home, the better off you are, and that’s true even in places with fairly expensive electricity. Plenty of people are satisfied with the cost as better than gas even if they can’t charge from home, but charging from home makes it a real winner
The supercharger network is crucial to EV ownership. I know my great car has suddenly turned into a facist-mobile, but I’m not going back to gas.