I’m about to drive 550 miles in an EV BMW | Ask me anything

Having to put significant thought into charging station locations reminds me of when I first started driving diesel pickup trucks as my main vehicle in 1995.  If you stayed on the interstates fuel was readily available.  When you started traveling more off the beaten path you really had to look for places to buy fuel.  Farm stores and fuel oil places would sometimes have diesel pumps hidden around back that the locals would know about.  A call on the CB for local information or a scan through the yellow pages at a phone booth were sometimes needed to find them.

Now gas stations without diesel are the exception rather than the norm.

In reply to APEowner :

That sounds like a fair analogy. 

Suggestion made by a friend of mine: Sonic needs to get into the charger business.

Well, yes. Yes, they do.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

I know that EA has a partnership with Walmart. If that's the case, can we assume that more would be on the way?

EA charger at every Waffle House, for example? Sonic as well? 

I wish our local Costco would have them.  I know in some cities they do but if they have them at some Sheetz then every Costco should have them IMO

For me, I think the lack of chargers isn't quite as much of an obstacle as time.

My commute is 80 miles round trip, which is well within the limits of modern EVs, even with no charger at my office. However, my girlfriend lives in an apartment in Eastern TN, 3 hours in the opposite direction from where I work. If I want to see her (and I very much do), I can meet her in the middle, which gives me a ~180 mile round trip before I get home to charge. Probably still doable without taking the time to stop for a charge in the middle, though I'd be a little worried about the 80 mi commute the next day if the car hadn't started the trip with max charge.

If I go to visit her on a Friday night, that's 207 miles of travel from home to work to her apartment. She obviously doesn't have any place to charge there, so I'd have to find some other place to charge to near max capacity before I went home the next day. That's starting to take a pretty good chunk out of my already short visit with my girlfriend, and if I have to choose between 30 minutes of charging a car or 30 extra minutes with my girlfriend, I'm gonna choose the latter every time.

I get that my situation is unusual - most people probably aren't making such time-sensitive trips hundreds of miles multiple times per week, but the fact that I can fill my car up in 5 minutes on my way home is a major help in my life right now.

In reply to AMiataCalledSteve :

Yeah, I can see that. Your situation sounds like me visiting my folks in that it's probably in that 1% or something. 

If I had a normal commute–even an hour-long commute–an EV makes a lot of sense. Getting range from 60 miles to 200+ is huge. 

Like Tom noted, recharge at night for a few bucks and then go to work. And no stop necessary to fill the tank. Come home, plug in the car, be home. 

David S. Wallens said:

In reply to AMiataCalledSteve :

If I had a normal commute–even an hour-long commute–an EV makes a lot of sense. Getting range from 60 miles to 200+ is huge. 

Like Tom noted, recharge at night for a few bucks and then go to work. And no stop necessary to fill the tank. Come home, plug in the car, be home. 

That's still a problem for a lot of folks though, especially in urban areas. We have street parking at our house, as its on a smaller lot and the house takes up most of it.   So, where to charge...

There's also a lot of folks that live in apartments / condos / etc that can't charge at night due to the same circumstances.  Can't charge at the shop either, as all our inside bays are full of projects, and we park across the street, in the parking lot. 

Logistically speaking, they're still not an ideal for a lot of people. If somebody came out of with a more afforable performance hybrid, something like the Ioniq 5 or whatever that thing is, with a dumbed down version of Porsche's hybrid drive...gas or diesel, I'd be all over it. And I have a feeling a LOT of other folks would be more willing to make the switch to a setup like that as well.   Full electrics are great...for a small sect of the population. Everybody else is caught in this grey zone, currently. I wouldn't mind an electric setup, but its currently too big of a pain in the ass logistics wise to even consider. 

In reply to GaryC83 :

Good points, charging for some could be a challenge. 

One day, will charge points be as common as parking meters? Or will hybrids be the answer for those living in urban areas? 

There are already EV owners who can't (or don't bother to) charge at home. Those people charge while doing something else, like grocery shopping. I think that's the market EVgo is targeting. It's like a ICE vehicle in that regard, only you don't have to make a special stop at a special car feeding place.

David S. Wallens said:

Although speaking of on-the-road fill-ups, it's been eye-opening to see the open chargers along I-95. 

Those with EVs, how often are you recharging away from home and/or work? 

Almost never. The parking garage downtown where I park sometimes has free charging. My wife uses the free charger in Hendorsonville when she brings my son up there to volunteer, so maybe 4.1x per month.

Keith Tanner said:

chandler said:

I'm interested in JC Penney, "the retail magnet "....just kidding. You nailed my main concern with your notation about where your parents live. Once some major fuel station adds the charging stations; Pilot? Loves? Petro? I think it'll break it open.

GM is working with Pilot to put chargers in about 500 Flyin' J and Pilot stations.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a40614414/gm-ev-fast-chargers-pilot-flying-j-truck-stops/

There was a charger rollout at the various "Travel Ontario" stops along the 401 and other big Ontario highways a few years back. It's happening.

Rural areas will always be the last, although it's easier to put a charger in the middle of nowhere than a gas station because the infrastructure is already there, if only partially. If you're only passing two gas stations on the way to mama's house, well, it's going to take a while before someone sees fit to put a high speed DC charger there. For the time being,the solution would be a mobile charger that can be plugged in overnight while you visit. Or look at other networks like EVgo or Chargepoint instead of just EA. When the Tesla network opens up to other vehicles, that'll unlock a bunch of options as well.

The sketchiness of a charger out behind a Walmart surrounded by shipping containers is an excellent point. Like filling up in Detroit where the attendant is behind an inch of Lexan.

Our EV very rarely gets charged away from home. By far the most common is a high speed charger near the interstate if we are on a road trip. 

This is a game changer. Coupled with the 5% early adoption rule of thumb, and some of the 2030ish predictions sound about right.

AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:

So did I read this correctly?  One charging station was $14.79 for 80 miles of range?  Ouch.  My Honda goes a lot farther on that kind of coin.  It really appears that EVs work because a lot of the charging stations are "free" or heavily subsidized.  Once everyone is weened of gas and everyone is using EVs I bet those subsidies will disappear.

You're leaving out the 99.9% of the time you're charging from home at something like 1/10th the price of a ICE vehicle.

In reply to tuna55 :

Yep, see Tom's post about charging at home: about $6 to add 117 miles of range.

David S. Wallens said:

In reply to tuna55 :

Yep, see Tom's post about charging at home: about $6 to add 117 miles of range.

I did see that. I spend quite a bit less. Depending on gas prices, I was spending something between 1/6-1/10 of what I spent to fuel my 30 mpg Accord. I think I calculated roughly half of what Tom quoted.

In reply to tuna55 :

Impressive. 

In reply to tuna55 :

Average electricity cost in the US right now is about 16.6c/kWh. We're using 29 kWh/100 miles on average (3.4 miles/kWh if you think that way, and just about the same rating as a Bolt), so 117 miles would be $5.63. Tom's numbers aren't that far off. I think some of that is the difference between the raw $/kWh listed on your bill and the actual delivered price after everything else is bolted on, because that site shows Denver as being 50% higher than our raw price.

So that's roughly 5c per mile. National gas price average is $3.738 to $4.487. To bring the cost-per-mile down to 5c, you'd have to get 77.6 mpg on regular or 93.2 mpg on premium.

The Hummer EV uses 64.6 kWh/100 miles, so it'll cost you 10.7c/mile or the equivalent or 36 mpg on regular. That's about the same as my CRX :)

Reliability and consistency is why Tesla will still have the lead for at least a few years. Having road tripped in both my Tesla and a non-Tesla EV, it is a world of difference. 

With the Tesla, we have:

1. Never had to wait for charging

2. Never experienced a broken charger

3. Just plug and play, and it charges to my card automatically

4. Costs around $15 for 10-80%, compared to >$25 for similar kwh at EA stations (I'm in southeast US)

In the non-Tesla, it was about 50/50 whether we would be able to charge after immediately getting to the station. Once (if) Tesla opens up superchargers to other EVs, it will be a game changer.

Charging at home is the same though, so for the vast majority of the time, it's not a big deal.

It's not "if" for the Tesla network opening up, it's when according to friends who work there. I'm not personally looking forward to it because it will decrease the effectiveness of the network for me, but it's something that has to be done.  I definitely agree that the Tesla charging experience is what all other networks should strive to achieve, it's very reliable and could not be simpler.

The Tesla SC prices have been going up. The first time I stopped at the Glenwood Springs SC in October 2019, it was 24c/kWh. The last time, last May, it was 39.6c/kWh (both of these are without tax, which bumps the total by about 3c). That puts my cost per mile at about 12.5c, or 30 mpg on regular.

It's interesting to note that pretty much all journalists are testing EVs in the "cannot charge at home" mode. They're all apartment dwellers in this use case. Rarely do they have a car long enough to get a feel for day to day use, because of course the first thing they want to do when they get an EV is plan a road trip to test the charging network. So from that viewpoint, the state of the charging network along their chosen route becomes all-important and every stop is momentous. You can certainly pick up some good observations from doing this, but it's really not a good indication what what normal use is like. It's like doing all your supercar test driving on a track when most supercars rarely go near one.

Tom's viewpoint, having lived with an EV, is a good counterpoint to this. To properly get a feel for what it's like to live with an EV, all journos should spend a month or two with one, preferably with a home charger. That way they can learn more about the fundamental differences about the mode of propulsion and can then review the cars on other aspects taking the charging experience as a constant (for everything not a Tesla).

The Tesla charging system is a game-changer. What's the latest on Tesla opening its network to everyone else? 

Oddly, they also don't have chargers near my parents. 

My parents had some friends visit with their Tesla. Yeah, my dad said, it was a pain. The nearest fast charger is half an hour away. 

In reply to Keith Tanner :

This was the most time/miles I spent with an EV. Very educational. Speaking as a journalist, a week with an EV is very different than a day with an EV. 

I'm also thinking that soon our garage will need a proper outlet for EVs. 

An all electric vehicle is HIGH on my list of next vehicle related purchase (flat deck trailer is #1 right now, hopefully next year) and if I used it as a daily driver to work the number of times I would need to charge away from home is in the 0.5% range, the occasional trip to a bigger city center would be the only time I'd need to charge, and I am sure I could make a stop at a store that also has a charger while I am in the city. 

I guess for myself it'll comes down to features/setup, pricing and if I like how it looks, but I can live with an ugly car if it's inexpensive enough and does what I need it to do. 

David S. Wallens said:

In reply to Keith Tanner :

This was the most time/miles I spent with an EV. Very educational. Speaking as a journalist, a week with an EV is very different than a day with an EV. 

I'm also thinking that soon our garage will need a proper outlet for EVs. 

It's the nature of the journalist lifestyle. You are more likely to have the equivalent of a rental car experience than an ownership experience :) That's pretty hard to avoid.

My charger is plugged into the same kind of outlet I use for my welder. You need an outlet for a welder in your garage, obviously.

The nearest Tesla fast charger being a half hour away isn't a problem if it's on the way. If it's a half hour out of the way, that's a problem.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

It's half an hour in the other direction....

In reply to David S. Wallens :

Not ideal. Wouldn't be a problem for your parents, but it will make it harder to visit. The networks are growing fast, though - since we got our car, there have been a whole bunch pop up to make back country road trips easier in the Colorado mountains. They're in places that don't seem to make sense until you look at what they're between instead of where they are.