First EV Road trip - Complete

This will be part journal, part post I guess. 

As the title states, we had our first longer road trip in the EV earlier in the month. It wasn't super long. Long enough that it would be impossible to make it on a full charge (about 450KM in colder weather @ 100KM/hour most of the time). Here are my thoughts:

1. EV Charging Complaints are largely unfounded
2. The trip was longer and less convenient, but not as bad as worried
3. While my trip was short for a road trip, it optimized the bad

To begin, I'll say this; we left AC/Heat on the whole trip. Most of the journey we simply drove whatever speed we desired and did very little to intentionally save range. I'm not willing to sacrifice the ride quality for range. 

As for EV Charging complaints; Infrastructure isn't great, but is mostly a non-issue. We left on a Friday, mid-day and came back on a Sunday in the morning. We never had issues finding an open charging stall at a fast charger, or getting to a working charger. We did plan in advance so we had reason to hope the chargers we planned for would be operational. That is extra planning, but not really a big deal. 

I'll also note that the only DC fast chargers we found were 50kw along our route. This isn't much below the max speed for our Niro EV and I think it is reasonable to expect that without extra planning that this is the speed you will find in most places. Less likely to be less disappointed that way.

As stated, the trip WAS longer and less convenient. We stopped for maybe 45 minutes on the way there. It wasn't that bad, maybe 15 minutes worse than usual. In both cases we grabbed food. 

The last point I wanted to make before diving in is that the trip was about as far from ideal as possible while still being doable. Our trip was mostly along the Trans-Canada highway, ending up Ontario's cottage country. The trip itself had just barely enough infrastructure to get us to our destination and the nearest "real" city to our destination had just 1 non-Tesla DC Fast charger. If we could tolerate a slower trip we could have come along the 401 instead which would have had more and faster chargers, but would have been less direct and higher speed

Onto the journal portion of the post. 

First stop we did was at a McD's where we just ate inside and left as soon as we were done. This is early in the journey but far enough that a charge makes sense. We've also been here before and consider it reliable. On a typical road trip we probably would have eaten on the road. As the driver, I've never been a huge fan of that, so eating inside then leaving is a non-issue. In fact, some times we would just sit and eat in the car. 

The second stop was an un-necessary one. We stopped at a random fast charger in a small town. It was maybe 30KM from the next charger. We stopped here as an insurance policy. It was close to 200km from the last charger so we were pretty low, maybe 25% by the time we got here. Could have made it to the next fast charger, but didn't want to risk it. Had no need for restrooms or food so we just sat for about 15 minutes. It was a short stop and was for peace of mind. 

Last stop (sort of) was at a Tim Horton's a little over 100KM from our destination. We more or less just used the bathrooms, grabbed some snacks and left. Spent maybe 10 minutes here. If we were to do this trip again, I'd stay here longer. This got us to our destination with less than 100KM to spare.

Our destination is out in the country and doesn't have an outlet for my L2 charger. We had a 150KM+ road trip the next day. Because of that, I had to make a separate stop in town to top us back up. I sat in the car alone for 45 minutes to us back up to near 80%. That was the worst charge of the entire trip. The amenities around the charger weren't great to begin with, and they were closed at the time. We should have just stayed at the Tim Horton's charger longer.

The next day we hopped on the road. This trip was via faster highways and the battery was cold from sitting over night. We stopped along the highway to top up on the way to our destination for 15 minutes. It had 4 stalls, all open, but 2 appeared to be turned off. Charging was slower here, they were 50kw chargers, but we were only getting 25-30.

Because of the slow speeds on the charger on the way there, we also hit up a charger on the way back. Didn't want a repeat of the previous night, so we spent probably 35-45 minutes here. We ate and used the restrooms. This was our first time seeing another car charging at a fast charger with us. There were 4 stalls here as well, so plenty of room for more people still. Charge wasn't as fast as on the trip down, but we used the battery conditioning and it was better. Still a longer stop, but my daughter had her tablet, my wife and I could talk and it was sunny and the time passed well enough.

Then the trip home. We had more than enough range to reach our first charger but now we had our winter tires on (a secondary reason for the trip). So, when we reached our first stop we waited until the charging speeds dropped at 77%. This is our first somewhat negative experience. When we pulled up there was a Rivian there. While I didn't read the display, I could tell at a glance, they had about 60% when we pulled in. No big deal. Having them there slowed down the charge rate. Not ideal. But, when they hit around 80% it sped up again.

The negative? The Rivian. They were charging for 20-40 minutes even after their charge speed slowed down. The Rivian has a much larger battery and could/should have left once they hit 80%. At this point they are just wasting their own time and holding up chargers. When we left, there was a Tesla waiting to charge. Think they had just pulled in, but by this point the Rivian had been charging at a much reduced rate for 20 minutes or more. It didn't impact me much, but it highlights one source of the infrastructure issues. 

Next we drove to the small town we hit the first time and topped back up again. A quick stop just to make sure we made it back to the McD charger. Again just long enough to get food in us. Pulled into the garage at home at the lowest ever. Not sure the charge % but just 40KM of range left. Maybe 10-15%. Woke up to 90%. Perfect.

About that Rivian. Right now infrastructure is what I would call "sufficient but fragile". There is enough for a trip like this. The problem is that the bar is so low that it only takes a few people charging past the point where the intake slows down to put the whole thing in jeopardy. If everybody "plays nice" then the number of chargers needed is absurdly small. When most people only need public charging on road trips it is actually a bit absurd how few chargers are needed. We saw a fair number of EVs on the road, and we only passed maybe a dozen chargers on our entire trip. And yet on the way there we never once saw a single stall in use.

When people sit on a fast charger past the point where the charge slow downs, the math changes. It often doubles the overall charge time (if not more) just to top up that last 20-30% and if there is any backlog it gets painful fast.