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Payne: Road trip! An urgent journey exposes EV challenges
Posted by Talbot Payne on October 28, 2021
Charleston, W. Va. — This month, I had to make a hurried roundtrip from Detroit to my hometown on family-related affairs. Who hasn’t had to make one of these journeys? To paraphrase the Blues Brothers, it was 388 miles to Charleston, I had a full tank of gas, half a bottle of water, it was noon, and I was wearing sunglasses.
But unlike Jake and Elwood Blues and their Dodge sedan, I had the option of driving a fully charged electric vehicle instead.
Sitting in the driveway were my 315-mile range Tesla Model 3 Performance EV, a 260-mile range Volkswagen ID.4 EV tester, and my wife’s 460-mile range, gas-powered Subaru Impreza hatchback.
I took an EV. This is a chronicle of that journey.
Electrics are all the rage these days as governments force electrification and automakers try to comply with vehicles that also meet customers’ needs. It’s a tall order. Fun to drive with instant torque, EVs are excellent commuter cars and have gained a niche among luxury buyers who drive locally, then plug them in at home.
But with limited range and steep sticker prices, EVs lack the dexterity of gas cars.
EVs “post significant time costs to drivers as a result of both inadequate infrastructure and wait times associated with fueling, which can be five to ten times the cost for ICE (internal combustion engine) drivers,” reports a new study from economist Patrick Anderson of the East Lansing-based Anderson Economic Group.
Electrics typically find a home in multi-car garages where families can afford a local car as well as a gas-powered mule for road trips. Families like the Paynes.
Governments aren’t satisfied with this niche status, however, and have declared EVs the future, offering buyers generous subsidies and billions for infrastructure to hurry adoption. But adoption will only happen when customers deem EVs superior to gas cars — not just around town, but as a primary car for all of their needs.
Like sudden road trips.
The gas-powered Subaru was the obvious choice to get me to West Virginia. Its 460-mile range would cover the 388-mile journey without a stop in 6 hours, 18 minutes — plenty of time to make my 7:30 p.m. Charleston dinner date. And when I arrived, I would be able to fill a new tank of gas in five minutes to meet more appointments.
I quickly ruled out the ID.4, VW’s flagship EV.
With just 260 miles of range, it would need to recharge en route. I charted my trip in the V-Dub’s navigation system, which planned a time of 15 hours and 53 minutes — with two recharging stops at slow, Level 2 chargers totaling 8 hours 53 minutes. What? Seems VW has not yet programmed its maps system for Level 3 fast chargers.
With infrastructure everywhere, gas cars face no such planning. With 116,090 BTUs of energy per gallon, every gas station is a fast, 5-minute stop. Not so electric chargers.
Level 3 DC fast chargers are desired, providing about 10 miles per minute on average (a Level 2 charger will only add 12 miles per hour of charge). Running out of patience, I checked Electrify America — the most reliable fast-charging network outside of Tesla. They listed one charger in Columbus, none in Charleston.
That is to say, I would be severely hampered in Charleston with no fast charging available. Other fast-charging networks exist (ChargePoint, for example) but third-party chargers are notoriously unreliable — a Mustang Mach-E recently took an extra 6.5 hours to make a New York-Niagara Falls roundtrip because two chargers along the way were out of order.
For my jaunt, I decided on the Tesla and its reliable, proprietary Supercharger network with multiple stations along the way — including in Charleston.
I barked my destination to the Model 3 (its superb voice recognition system the industry standard) and it charted a trip in 6 hours and 53 minutes with a single 30-minute recharging stop in north Columbus. I would arrive in Charleston ahead of my appointment with 13% charge to spare.
At noon, I was on the road — hustling south on I-75 at 75 mph on a perfect, 75-degree fall day.
Moderate weather had been an important factor in my taking the EV. Extreme temps can sap up to 25% of battery, another area in which gas vehicles are worry-free.
At 1 p.m., my stomach growled for lunch. In the Subaru, I might have simply stopped at a fast food drive-thru and eaten on the road. But coordinating meal breaks is key to EV trip efficiency. Once again, Tesla’s superior software showed its stuff.
I asked the nav system for the nearest Supercharger in Toledo, where I could stop for a 30-minute charge and eat lunch while I charged. Tesla not only found a Supercharger but listed food joints nearby. My stomach craved tacos. Taco Bell was close. Perfect.
With the car plugged into a Tesla charger in a Meijer parking lot, I walked 0.2 miles to Taco Bell. It was closed, except for drive-thrus, due to the labor shortage. With the Model 3 already plugged in, my only choice was to order via the restaurant app — which took 30 minutes.
I returned to the Tesla to find it needed an extra 10 minutes to reach my charge target (chargers can be inconsistent that way) — enough time to eat my taco. My lunch stop also meant I’d require a second stop in Columbus, adding another 20 minutes to my journey.
While less efficient than the $28K ‘Ru in making the long journey, the $60K Tesla was more entertaining.
I was inevitably challenged by muscle cars out of stoplights. ZOT! I dispatched a Mustang GT in Columbus. The car’s Navigate on Autopilot self-driving system is not only state-of-the-art, it is constantly improving thanks to over-the-air updates.
I drove for miles hands-free. When it encountered a slower car ahead, the Tesla would automatically change lanes to get around it. Highway exit ahead? The Model 3 would automatically exit. The system even recognized construction barrels — then urged me to move a lane away from them.
The Columbus recharge took 20 minutes and I entered the home stretch to West Virginia.
Outside affluent metro bubbles like Oakland County and Los Angeles, it’s notable how few electric cars are on the road. Advocates predict 40% of sales will be EV by the end of this decade — an ambitious target from only 2% today with close to half of those sales in politically green California.
But for other Teslas (most of them at chargers), I rarely encountered another EV on my journey across Ohio and West Virginia. No Mustang Mach-Es, Chevy Bolts or Nissan Leafs. For Middle America, gasoline power means affordable, reliable transportation.
“Before consumers can feel comfortable buying EVs in large numbers, they need to understand the true costs involved,” Anderson said in his report.
My added charging (the EV was an hour longer than the predicted gas journey) put my arrival in Charleston at 7:32 p.m., so I pushed my dinner date back 30 minutes. With only 30 miles of battery charge remaining, I detoured to a Tesla Supercharger — topping up for 10 minutes to get the 110 miles I would need for local errands the next morning.
My Charleston business complete, I headed back to Detroit at 3 p.m. Wednesday, retracing my steps (including another long wait at a worker-short food joint). I recharged for 25 minutes at the Charleston charger — then twice more at Superchargers in south Columbus and Toledo.
All told, six charging stops added 2 hours and 20 minutes to my trip versus a comparable 10 minutes and two stops for gas. At an average cost of 30 cents per kWh, my Tesla Supercharging costs came to $68.74 for the trip. If I had taken the Subaru, two full tanks of regular gas at $3 a gallon would have set me back $79.20.
When I got home at 10:45 p.m., Mrs. Payne asked how my trip had been. I recounted the journey, EV stops and all.
“How come you didn’t take the Subaru?” she said, rolling her eyes. “It would have been a lot easier.”
Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Find him at hpayne@detroitnews.com or Twitter @HenryEPayne.