Comment by verdverm
6 days ago
Most current EV owners charge at home for daily needs, you really only need charging stations for long distance and owners w/o options where they park (i.e. renters or street parking only) Even with street parking, I see lots of people running cables across the sidewalk (with safety / step covers thankfully)
I drove across the country and accounted for midwest charging. Generally the rocky mountain states are minimal, but I was not without a charger ever 30-40 minutes of travel time through the midwest. Most of them are either in Big Store parking lots or at gas stations like Casey's. You need far fewer of them than gas stations, so we should expect to see fewer of these vehicle refill stations in the future anyway
Yep. Mine is always charged at home, and so I've never needed to use a charging station locally. They're around just by virtue of the area being part of a major metro, but I haven't needed them.
I haven't yet done a cross-country drive but would like to and have plotted out routes with ABRP, and yes, there's more in the midwest states than you'd think. Enough that just about any EV with EPA 250mi range or better can manage a long haul trip without too much trouble (just with a few more bathroom/snack/coffee stops).
yup ABRP was awesome for the trip, nothing out there comes close
Be warned, as you approach and cross the Rockies, there is a lot of uphill and wind. Didn't mention this, but I also did the trip in early March, temps were just above freezing most of the trip, range was terrible. There's a spot in NE, which I'll never forget. Only stop in the middle of a long gap in stations, steepest incline in NE, blew through most a charge in 90 miles. Then the charger is old and very low charge rate (like 5+ year old speeds). The saving graces are (1) public restroom (2) Awesome awesome coffee shop owner who made me a nice brew after hours when I asked him where I might find one as we passed on the sidewalk.
WY was worse on the charger infra, most unreliable and sketchy part of the trip (mostly because of snow in the mountains as temps dropped below freezing, but also the worst charging infra at any point)
Yeah, if/when the trip happens it'll probably be during the warmer months just to keep things simple, and the west → east half of the loop will probably be on I-40 which shouldn't pose too many problems.
Yes, I think people mistakenly believe that if chargers aren't as ubiquitous as gas stations, there must not be enough of them. Range anxiety can still happen on a cross country trip, but not for the vast majority of daily driving. Now, if you live in an apartment building where it's difficult to charge at home, it's a different story. Not so much because of range anxiety, but because the cost of public fast charging rivals and sometimes exceeds the cost of gasoline.