A comment that you often hear when people talk about electric vehicles is that they’re not great for road trips. At first glance they require charging too often and the charging sessions are too long. And it’s quite true that EVs don’t have the same range as gas-powered vehicles, and they will never be able to refuel at the same rate. But when you listen to folks who own EVs they are quick to point out a few flaws in the comparison.
Take for example, the standard gas station stop on a road trip. Rarely is it a 5-minute pump and go. Usually there’s a bathroom trip involved, maybe grabbing some new snacks for the next leg of the journey. That means that you’re going to be at that station for at least 10 minutes. For many modern fast-charging EVs that ten minutes can add a ton of range back into the tank.
Then there is also the complaint about the number of times you need to stop. Yes, this is true, the overall range of an EV on a single charge doesn’t match most gas vehicles. Maybe when I was younger and more of a road warrior on my trips I could go longer than a couple of hours without stopping. But as I’ve gotten older I need more breaks on my body. My bladder doesn’t last as long, and my legs and back need more stretching than when I was in my 30s. So for me, the idea of needing to take more breaks doesn’t seem like a bad thing.
Having said all of this, we still hadn’t actually done a proper road trip yet in our new Chevy Bolt. This weekend we changed that. We had a weekend planned up at Cove Point Lodge in Beaver Bay, MN (one of our favorite places) and decided to give it a try with the EV to see how it went. We started mid-day on Friday with the battery at 100%, which in the cooler temps gave us an estimated range around 220 miles.
For our first leg we planned to stop at the Kwik Trip in Moose Lake to try out their new fast chargers they just installed. We arrived with around 69 miles of range left, and after negotiating how best to pull into the charger we plugged in and headed inside for a restroom break and some food.
One caveat with the Chevy Bolt is that it is not the fastest charging vehicle out there. It can only accept around 50kWh’s on a DC fast charger, meaning it would take over an hour to fill the battery from completely empty to full. Most modern EVs have much faster charging (usually around 150kWh) and are a little bit better suited for road tripping, but for now this is what we have.
We headed inside Kwik Trip and after using the restroom, grabbed some late lunch. With selecting food and grabbing beverages and waiting in line, it took over 10 minutes before we were walking back out to the car. We had already regained around 8kWh of charge in that time which was enough to get us where we needed to go, but we decided to also take advantage of the break to eat our lunch and not drive at the same time. In the big picture, that’s probably a good change to make as it makes us safer drivers, and allows us to eat food that we couldn’t normally eat while also trying to steer a car.
By the time we finished eating I decided to pee one more time and when we unplugged it had been roughly 18-20 minutes and over 16kWh of charging for $7.90. I forgot to snap a picture of the final screen, so those numbers might be slightly off, but I made sure to keep better records at future stops. Back on the road we went.
One benefit the EVs have over other cars is their ability to regain energy when going downhill. That meant that when we hit Duluth we got to take advantage of the big long hill down into town. Because of the energy that we gained coming down the hill we ended up with a net gain of 13 miles of range by the time we got to the other side of Duluth and on our way to Two Harbors. Not a bad trade-off.
Our next stop was planned for a grocery store visit for us to stock up on some snacks for the weekend (we didn’t want to eat out for every single meal this weekend). Lucky for us the grocery store in Two Harbors also has a Tesla Supercharger in the parking lot. We pulled out our NACS adapter for the first time and fired up the Tesla app. Easy as could be we were maxing out our charging speed and headed into the store to shop.
It took us 29 minutes to get our groceries and check out and when we got back to the car we had another 21kWh for $12.03. Way more than we needed for the rest of journey up to the hotel, but this way we’d have extra if something came up.
The rest of the trip was uneventful, and we got to Cove Point Lodge just before sunset. Unfortunately another EV (Toyota bZ Woodland, first time I’d seen one of those) was taking the Level 2 charger that the hotel has, so we decided to top up on Saturday instead. Sure enough Saturday morning we saw the charger vacant and so I headed out for a nice morning hike and left the car charging while I was out. Two hours later we had another 12.5kWh for $5.03. This charger is a Level 2 and topped out at 6.8kWh. It’s pretty much the same as what we have at home and is meant for long charging sessions. Which was perfect for staying at a hotel.
After a nice relaxing weekend where we didn’t do much of anything but chill and play board games, it was time to begin the trip home. We headed out after breakfast on Sunday with the vehicle around 70%. Driving down Highway 61 we were approaching Gooseberry Falls and both of us remembered hearing that the falls were quite full this weekend so we decided to stop in for the fun of it. It was still quite early so we were well ahead of the crowds. As we turned into the parking lot I noticed some EV chargers off to the side and so we pulled up to them. Sure enough there were two level 2 chargers available free of charge. We hadn’t planned on charging here, but why not, it was free and convenient. So we plugged in and got around 3kWh while we did a little hike out to the falls and back.
Our next stop was our planned charging stop in Two Harbors again. I wanted to get a drink at Cedar Coffee Company which is a couple blocks from the Tesla Supercharger we used on the way up, so we parked and I walked over and got my drink. They’re always super busy on a Sunday morning so we actually got in a 27 minute charging session. Since the car was already over 60% we were in the slow part of the charging curve. That meant we only got 8.4kWh, but that really wasn’t a big deal. That was enough to get us to our next destination which was all we needed, and I was stopping for the drink anyway. Cost this time was $4.72.
At this point we had enough juice to make it all the way back to Pine City. So we hopped on I-35 and set the cruise to 71 and away we went. We did stop to pee and swap driving at the General Andrews rest area, but otherwise we went straight through. When we got to Pine City we were down to about 15-17% charge which meant this session was going to be nice and fast. It was also lunch time so we plugged in to the really nice Electrify America chargers there and walked over to Subway.
As we ate lunch I periodically checked out status and sure enough we were cranking at 50kWh. As we finished eating I checked one more time and realized that we were way beyond what we needed to get home. In 36 minutes we got 29.2kWh for a cost of $15.04. That’s roughly half our battery pack, and given we only had 70 miles to go we could have probably stopped it early. Oh well, we knew we were set though.
For this next leg of the journey my wife suggested we hit the county highways instead of the interstate and I happily agreed. I played navigator with some help from Apple Maps and we cut across country to the main highway that leads to our home city. It’s always shocking how much more efficient it is to go slower. It’s a true fact for all vehicles, gas or electric, that as soon as you start pushing over 55mph you start seeing your efficiency curve drop quickly. You just don’t notice it as much in a gas vehicle. Even though it’s a little slower, we’ve found we much prefer slower roads and spending more time enjoying the journey instead of just locking into 75mph on the interstate.
We pulled into our driveway with plenty of charge left over (somewhere around 30%) and a successful first EV roadtrip under our belts. I did a bit of number crunching and we spent $46.72 (including $2 for our home charge up the night before). Total trip mileage was 437.7 miles and our car registered an efficiency of 3.4 miles/kWh.
If we were to compare this with our previous gas powered Subaru Forester, which would average around 27mpg on a good day, that same cost would have been $60.79 (we’re averaging $3.75 per gallon right now). We saved $14.07, which isn’t a huge change from gas, but it’s at least not more expensive. A very real benefit is that our first full charge was only $2 because of how cheap electricity is on our home charger.
Cost isn’t a big driver for roadtrip in an EV, but if we were to compare our normal weekly driving to gas the number would be much different. When I went back and looked at our October charging numbers (just driving around the cities like normal) we saved over $120 on gas. That’s a really significant change.
So what did we think of traveling with an EV? Frankly it wasn’t that big a deal. It required a little different planning, but I think the more we do it the more natural it’ll become. We’ve all formed habits from how we travel in gas cars and this is just re-learning some new things. As we watch the charging networks continue to grow, and more amenities develop around them, it’s just going to get easier and easier to make more little stops along the way and have it feel natural.
The benefit is that we get to drive a type of vehicle that is more fun to drive (I love the instant power of an EV and how it drives), and we’re not spewing nearly as much pollution into the areas that we vacation in. For us, this was a win and I can see us eventually doing more roadtrips electrically in the future. Especially if we end up eventually getting a faster charging EV someday.
