With gas prices rising to $5 a gallon this summer, Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, took a trip from her hometown to Washington, D.C., in her Chevrolet Bolt EUV to tout the benefits of driving electric.

“I got it and drove it from Michigan to here this last weekend and went by every single gas station, it didn’t matter how high it was,” Stabenow said last month during a Senate Finance Committee hearing that discussed the nation’s highest gas prices since 2008. “I’m looking forward to the opportunity for us to move to vehicles that aren’t going to be dependent on the whims of the oil companies and international markets.”

Moving to electric vehicles, however, comes with its own challenges.

According to a record of the senator’s trip shared with The Detroit News, the Bolt EUV’s journey highlights the trade-offs consumers face in choosing an EV today. While saving in refueling costs compared to a comparable, $22,995 gas-powered Chevy Trailblazer, a $28,195 Bolt EUV not only carries a higher sticker price but also a higher tolerance for travel time. And if gas falls back below $4.25 a gallon, the cost advantage disappears as well.

Stabenow made three stops at Electrify America fast chargers in Toledo, Pittsburgh and Hagerstown, Maryland, over her two-day journey, with a stop overnight in Lordstown, Ohio. The senator didn’t share details of her trip beyond its schedule, but The News recreated her journey using two popular charging apps, A Better Route Planner and Chargeway.

Assuming the senator left her home in Lansing with 100% of charge, the Bolt EUV would have have a maximum battery range of 247 miles. The Bolt EUV is the sister vehicle to the Bolt hatchback, which Chevy delivered in late 2016. In a battle of compact EVs, the Bolt beat the Tesla Model 3 to market, becoming the first mass-market EV to offer more than 200 miles of range. Just as Tesla has supplemented the Model 3 with a Model Y crossover, Chevy introduced the Bolt EUV as a bigger, more luxurious version of its $26k Bolt.

Over the course of her journey, ABRP calculates that the Bolt EUV used almost 200 kWh of energy at a cost of $80. Electrify America charging rates across Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania are a uniform 43 cents per kWh (like gas stations, EA also has discount rates with member programs, and some manufacturers are offering free charging with purchase of an EV).

That compares to $88 if she had driven a comparable, gas-powered Trailblazer SUV, which gets 33 mpg on the highway. That’s a savings of $8 for the 600-mile trip at $5-a-gallon gas.

That savings comes at a price in time. Stabenow’s charging stops added nearly three hours to the 9 hour, 30-minute Lansing-to-D.C. road trip (13 hours, 9 minutes total) compared to a single, 5-minute stop in the Trailblazer to fill up. There are other variables as well, depending on which app you use to plan your trip.

Chargeway, for example, estimates the length of a three-stop trip in the Bolt EUV at 15 hours, 35 minutes with 3 hours, 30 minutes of charging time.

“Our trips are based on real-world data of users,” said Matt Teske, CEO of Chargeway. He said the difference in ABRP and Chargeway app calculations is likely due to ambient temperature conditions and what speed the app calculates the Bolt EUV needs to travel to make long-distance runs between scarce chargers.

“Speed and weather are the #1 and #2 variables in EV trip time. We base our algorithms on warm and cold weather,” said Teske. The same is true of gas-powered vehicles, though refueling convenience helps mitigate the issue.

Chargeway assumes an average speed of 60 mph on the Bolt EUV’s Lansing-to-D.C. trip while ABRP assumes 65 mph — though ABRP urges drivers to travel at, for example, 55 mph in the long leg between Toledo and Pittsburgh. Ohio and Pennsylvania have a 70 mph speed limit.

The high cost of EVs plus the challenges of long-distance travel are key reasons manufacturers have focused their EV lineups on higher-income owner demographics where households typically have multiple vehicles in the garage.

Used as a commuter vehicle, the Bolt EUV, for example, can take advantage of cheaper, 17-cent per kWh when charging at home on a 240-volt wall plug compared to 43 cents at superchargers. Home charging also comes at a price, too, though as installation typically costs $1,500.

While Chevrolet has dramatically reduced the price of the Bolt EUV by more than $6,000 in the last year, it would still take years to recoup its premium over the gas-powered Trailblazer in saved fueling costs. And if gas prices drop to pre-pandemic January 2020 lows of $2.50 per gallon, a Chevy Trailblazer’s gas cost from Lansing to D.C. will be just $44.

Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Find him at hpayne@detroitnews.com or Twitter @HenryEPayne.