I Rented an Electric Car for a Four-Day Road Trip. I Spent More Time Charging It Than I Did Sleeping.
By: Rachel Wolfe (WSJ)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
I thought it would be fun.
That's what I told my friend Mack when I asked her to drive with me from New Orleans to Chicago and back in an electric car.
I’d made long road trips before, surviving popped tires, blown headlights and shredded wheel-well liners in my 2008 Volkswagen Jetta. I figured driving the brand-new Kia EV6 I’d rented would be a piece of cake.
If, that is, the public-charging infrastructure cooperated. We wouldn’t be the first to test it. Sales of pure and hybrid plug-ins doubled in the U.S. last year to 656,866—over 4% of the total market, according to database EV-volumes. More than half of car buyers say they want their next car to be an EV, according to recent Ernst & Young Global Ltd. data.
Oh—and we aimed to make the 2,000-mile trip in just under four days so Mack could make her Thursday-afternoon shift as a restaurant server.
Less money, more time
Given our battery range of up to 310 miles, I plotted a meticulous route, splitting our days into four chunks of roughly 7½-hours each. We’d need to charge once or twice each day and plug in near our hotel overnight.
The PlugShare app—a user-generated map of public chargers—showed thousands of charging options between New Orleans and Chicago. But most were classified as Level 2, requiring around 8 hours for a full charge.
While we’d be fine overnight, we required fast chargers during the days. ChargePoint Holdings Inc., which manufactures and maintains many fast-charging stations, promises an 80% charge in 20 to 30 minutes. Longer than stopping for gas—but good for a bite or bathroom break.
The government is spending $5 billion to build a nationwide network of fast chargers, which means thousands more should soon dot major highways. For now, though, fast chargers tend to be located in parking lots of suburban shopping malls, or tethered to gas stations or car dealerships.
Cost varies widely based on factors such as local electricity prices and charger brands. Charging at home tends to be cheaper than using a public charger, though some businesses offer free juice as a perk to existing customers or to entice drivers to come inside while they wait.
Over four days, we spent $175 on charging. We estimated the equivalent cost for gas in a Kia Forte would have been $275, based on the AAA average national gas price for May 19. That $100 savings cost us many hours in waiting time.
But that’s not the whole story.
Charging nuances
New Orleans, our starting point, has exactly zero fast chargers, according to PlugShare. As we set out, one of the closest is at a Harley-Davidson dealership in Slidell, La., about 40 minutes away. So we use our Monday-morning breakfast stop to top off there on the way out of town.
But when we tick down 15% over 35 miles? Disconcerting. And the estimated charging time after plugging in? Even more so. This “quick charge” should take 5 minutes, based on our calculations. So why does the dashboard tell us it will take an hour?
“Maybe it’s just warming up,” I say to Mack. “Maybe it’s broken?” she says.
Over Egg McMuffins at McDonald ’s, we check Google. Chargers slow down when the battery is 80% full, the State of Charge YouTube channel tells us.
Worried about time, we decide to unplug once we return to the car, despite gaining a measly 13% in 40 minutes.
When ‘fast’ isn’t fast
Our real troubles begin when we can’t find the wall-mounted charger at the Kia dealership in Meridian, Miss., the state’s seventh-largest city and hometown of country-music legend Jimmie Rodgers.
When I ask a mechanic working on an SUV a few feet away for help, he says he doesn’t know anything about the machine and points us inside. At the front desk, the receptionist asks if we’ve checked with a technician and sends us back outside.
Not many people use the charger, the mechanic tells us when we return. We soon see why. Once up and running, our dashboard tells us a full charge, from 18% to 100%, will take 3-plus hours.
It turns out not all “fast chargers” live up to the name. The biggest variable, according to State of Charge, is how many kilowatts a unit can churn out in an hour. To be considered “fast,” a charger must be capable of about 24 kW. The fastest chargers can pump out up to 350. Our charger in Meridian claims to meet that standard, but it has trouble cracking 20.
“Even among DC fast chargers, there are different level chargers with different charging speeds,” a ChargePoint spokeswoman says.
Worse, it is a 30-minute walk to downtown restaurants. We set off on foot, passing warehouses with shattered windows and an overgrown lot filled with rusted fuel pumps and gas-station signs. Clambering over a flatcar of a stalled freight train, we half-wish we could hop a boxcar to Chicago.
Missed reservations
By the time we reach our next station, at a Mercedes-Benz dealership outside Birmingham, Ala., we’ve already missed our dinner reservations in Nashville—still 200 miles away.
Here, at least, the estimated charging time is only an hour—and we get to make use of two automatic massage chairs while we wait.
Salesman Kurt Long tells us the dealership upgraded its chargers to 54-kW models a few weeks earlier when the 2022 Mercedes EQS-Class arrived.
“Everyone’s concern is how far can the cars go on a charge,” he says. He adds that he would trade in his car for an EV tomorrow if he could afford the $102,000 price tag. “Just because it would be convenient for me because I work here,” he says. “Otherwise, I don’t know if I would just yet.”
A customer who has just bought a new BMW says he’d consider an EV one day—if the price drops.
“You remember when the microwave came out? Or DVD players?” says Dennis Boatwright, a 58-year-old tree surgeon. “When you first get them the prices were real high, but the older they are, the cheaper they get.”
When we tell him about our trip, he asks if we’ll make it to Chicago.
“We’re hoping,” I say.
“I’m hoping, too,” he says.
A giant chicken
After the Birmingham suburbs, our journey takes us along nightmarish, dark mountain roads. We stop for snacks at a gas station featuring a giant chicken in a chef’s costume. We lean heavily on cruise control, which helps conserve battery life by reducing inadvertent acceleration and deceleration. We are beat when we finally stumble into our Nashville hotel at 12:30 a.m.
For the most part, we are right. Thanks to vastly better charging infrastructure on this leg, all our stops last less than an hour.
It isn’t all smooth sailing, though. At one point we find ourselves wandering through a Kroger , sopping wet, in search of coffee after wrestling with a particularly finicky charger in the rain. By this point, not once have we managed to back in close enough to reach the pump, or gotten the stiff cord hooked around the right way on the first try.
In the parking lot of a Clarksville, Ind., Walmart , we barely have time for lunch, as the Electrify America charging station fills up our battery in about 25 minutes, as advertised.
The woman charging next to us describes a harrowing recent trip in her Volkswagen ID.4. Deborah Carrico, 65, had to be towed twice while driving between her Louisville, Ky., apartment and Boulder, Colo., where her daughter was getting married.
“My daughter was like, ‘You’ve lost it mom; just fly,’ ” the retired hairdresser says. She says she felt safer in a car during the pandemic—but also vulnerable when waiting at remote charging stations alone late at night. “But if someone is going to get me, they’re going to have to really fight me,” she says, wielding her key between her fingers like a weapon.
While she loves embracing the future, she says, her family has been giving her so much pushback that she is considering trading the car in and going back to gas.
Smiling at gas prices
At another Walmart, in Indianapolis, we meet Bill Stempowski as he waits for his Ford Mustang Mach-E to charge. A medical-equipment operations manager, 45, he drives all over the Midwest from his home in LaGrange, Ohio, for work.
In nine months, he says, he’s put 30,000 miles on the car and figures he’s saved thousands on gas. “I smile as the gas-sign prices tick up,” he says. That day, his charge comes to about $15, similar to what we are paying to fill up.
We pull into Chicago at 9 p.m., having made the planned 7½-hour trip in 12 hours. Not bad, we agree.
‘What if we just risk it?’
Leaving Chicago after a full night of sleep, I tell Mack I might write only about the journey’s first half. “The rest will just be the same,” I predict, as thunder claps ominously overhead.
“Don’t say that!” she says. “We’re at the mercy of this goddamn spaceship.” She still hasn’t mastered the lie-flat door handles after three days.
As intense wind and rain whip around us, the car cautions, “Conditions have not been met” for its cruise-control system. Soon the battery starts bleeding life. What began as a 100-mile cushion between Chicago and our planned first stop in Effingham, Ill., has fallen to 30.
“If it gets down to 10, we’re stopping at a Level 2,” Mack says as she frantically searches PlugShare.
We feel defeated pulling into a Nissan Mazda dealership in Mattoon, Ill. “How long could it possibly take to charge the 30 miles we need to make it to the next fast station?” I wonder.
Three hours. It takes 3 hours.
I begin to lose my mind as I set out in search of gas-station doughnuts, the wind driving sheets of rain into my face.
Seated atop a pyramid of Smirnoff Ice 12-packs, Little Debbie powdered sugar sprinkled down the pajama shirt I haven’t removed in three days, I phone Mack. “What if we just risk it?” I say. “Maybe we’ll make it there on electrical fumes.”
“That’s a terrible idea!” she says, before asking me to bring back a bag of nuts.
‘Charge, Urgently!’
Back on the road, we can’t even make it 200 miles on a full charge en route to Miner, Mo. Clearly, tornado warnings and electric cars don’t mix. The car’s highway range actually seems worse than its range in cities.
Indeed, highway driving doesn’t benefit as much from the car’s regenerative-braking technology—which uses energy generated in slowing down to help a car recharge its battery—Kia spokesman James Bell tells me later. He suspects our car is the less-expensive EV6 model with a range not of 310 miles, as listed on Turo, but 250. He says he can’t be sure what model we were driving without physically inspecting the car.
“As we have all learned over many years of experience with internal combustion engine vehicles, factors such as average highway speed, altitude changes, and total cargo weight can all impact range, whether derived from a tank of gasoline or a fully charged battery,” he says.
To save power, we turn off the car’s cooling system and the radio, unplug our phones and lower the windshield wipers to the lowest possible setting while still being able to see. Three miles away from the station, we have one mile of estimated range.
“Charge, Urgently!” the dashboard urges. “We know!” we respond.
At zero miles, we fly screeching into a gas-station parking lot. A trash can goes flying and lands with a clatter to greet us. Dinner is beef jerky, our plans to dine at a kitschy beauty shop-turned-restaurant in Memphis long gone.
Then we start to argue. Mack reminds me she needs to be back in time for her shift the next day. There’s no way we’ll make it, I tell her.
“Should we just drive straight through to New Orleans?” I finally ask desperately, even as I realize I’ve failed to map out the last 400 miles of our route.
To scout our options, Mack calls a McDonald’s in Winona, Miss., that is home to one of the few fast chargers along our route back to New Orleans. PlugShare tells us the last user has reported the charger broken. An employee who picks up reasonably responds that given the rain, she’ll pass on checking to see if an error message is flashing across the charger’s screen.
Home, sweet $4-a-gallon home
At our hotel, we decide 4 hours of sleep is better than none, and set our alarms for 4 a.m.
We figure 11 hours should be plenty for a trip that would normally take half as long. That is, if absolutely everything goes right.
Miraculously, it does. At the McDonald’s where we stop for our first charge at 6 a.m., the charger zaps to life. The body shop and parts department director at Rogers-Dabbs Chevrolet in Brandon, Miss., comes out to unlock the charger for us with a keycard at 10 a.m. We’re thrilled we waited for business hours, realizing we can only charge while he’s there.
We pull into New Orleans 30 minutes before Mack’s shift starts—exhausted and grumpy.
The following week, I fill up my Jetta at a local Shell station. Gas is up to $4.08 a gallon.
I inhale deeply. Fumes never smelled so sweet.
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The sad testimony of a woman on a trip with an EV.
The cars that Americans do not want and will not do what certain people think they will.
An unforgettable final sentence!
I don’t think that’s true. I think many people would be happy to have a quiet car that doesn’t put out the fumes a gas car does. They also accelerate like mad (if you’re into that). What no one wants is a car that needs to be refueled excessively or takes a long time to do it.
Sounds like she spent more time whining and pissing and moaning about the whole experience.
If no one wants EVs, why are they still being produced and bought? The problem isn't the EV, it's the infrastructure that is not designed or capable of handling them yet. EVs are currently best suited for city driving or travel between nearby towns where one is likely to return home on the same day. Until the infrastructure is modified to handle an increasing amount of EVs, long distance travel is less feasible, especially in more rural areas.
A big part of that is the promotion of EV's by the current regime.
Here is how it is working out for those doing the producing:
You see, Gordy when buisness produces what people want, THEY MAKE MONEY!
Most families already have two or more vehicles but the vast majority of miles traveled are daily commutes. Many people are now starting with one EV they charge at home and use as a daily driver. Some may opt to rent a vehicle for longer trips a few times per year. The infrastructure is being built because there is the demand. Renting an EV for a long trip doesn't make sense unless you already had an agenda. EVs are coming but they probably will not completely replace ICE vehicles for many years. Hybrid technology is currently efficient and fairly economical...
That's what buggy makers said about cars.
They were outvoted by the people & the marketplace, not by a radical government.
Is this "regime" [you lose any credibility when you spew partisan nonsense like that] forcing anyone to buy an EV? If not, then whats the problem?
If the demand is there, the product will be produced. If the quality of said product is bad or not competitive. It will likely fail. Ford has a colorful history of losing money on certain models. Business is Business.
Yeah, it never turns out well when government attempts to steer the marketplace. The combination of George W. Bush and Obama dropped $100 billion on giveaways to wind and solar power producers, electric cars and for weatherizing homes and buildings. It was arguably one of the largest corporate welfare experiments in American history and who got rich out of it? The industry and it's investors.
Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Solar is great. I have it and I don't pay any electric bill for most of the year. It's already paid for itself. Especially since electric rates have steadily risen over the years.
Hybrids are certainly the best of both worlds.
Back to the past !
You mean staying in the present reality; and not the land of unicorns, rainbows, and make believe that Democrats/leftists live in and refuse to leave.
For long road trips, the EV is useless. So much time (and money) wasted just sitting to charge is ridiculous. I've heard similar stories from friends who tried to take an EV on a long trip (NC to Colorado). A 25 hour drive took them 3 days because of the time wasted at charging stations.
Nobody really wants to hear about the guy who owns the Mustang and doesn't sound like he has any problems.
If we had gotten out in front of this when we could all see it coming, the infrastructure would be in place by now. But noooo, we can't lead the world in technology and design. We have to trail along playing catch up because of the established powers that be were in deep denial.
This story is what, a year old? In the meantime latest rave of the right, Elon Musk has teamed up with Enel to add 2 million fast chargers to the US by 2030.
Ms Wolfe is bitching just for the sake of bitching.
2030. That is 7 years from now. How does that help anyone using an EV as their main mode of transportation right now? Especially on long trips like she was taking?
You must belong to the same party as Brandon the Human Fuck Up Machine; that is putting environmental regulations in place that will force car manufacturers to end production of most gas powered vehicles by 2027- when there will not even be close to enough charging stations in place. And the electric grids will not even come close to handling the extra demand that all of the EV's will cause.
You are denying reality for the sake of denying reality.
7 whole years? Wow! Compare that to how many years it took for gas stations overrun the nation.
You might want to read the current market report:
Seems that growth is huge.
An American entrepreneur's dream is unfolding!
The only party I belong to is the Libertarian Monarchist Party of which I am the sole member and so far in a little over a decade I have not attended a single meeting. Rumor has it a putsch is in the offing and I will be replacing myself with myself via a Darwin pistol:
China has bought up all the cobault mines in the Congo. Maybe it's China's dream through Biden?
That's nice, however, battery makers like your wonderboy Musk are shifting to lithium-iron phosphate. The ongoing rapid evolution of batteries is something to behold. Necessity being a mother and all that sort of stuff ... eh!
Seems like the push toward EVs will hit tourism the hardest. The tourist destinations that survive will rely more heavily on air travel which won't be electrified anytime soon. Fly over country is going to become even more isolated.
How do you mean? If you mean refueling, I expect that over time, gas stations will turn into electric charging stations. Hell, if I had a gas station, I’d already be looking to get into the quick-charging (or battery swapping) business.
That doesn't overcome the problem of supply. Gas stations still depend upon deliveries. Shiny new pumps won't do anything if the storage tanks are empty. Installing a charging station still requires a supply that may or may not be available. And a station owner has far fewer options for finding a different supplier to run their charging station. Gas stations don't produce energy; gas stations only distribute energy.
Of course, in emergencies, a charging station could rely on a gas powered backup generator. But they'll still need a supply to run the generator.
Gas has the same problem. It always has.
If I were getting into the charging business, I think I’d be installing as much solar panels as I could. That way I’d have to worry a little less about supply.
Seems like I said that. I wasn't making an apples & oranges comparison.
If an energy distributor becomes an energy generator then won't they be regulated differently? If I were getting into the charging business, I'd be worried that someone not operating the charger would be setting prices. That is how electricity generation has been regulated.
Indeed, we see that happening already in California. In fact, we are bidding on the engineering for a couple of those projects right now. Of course a standard gas station electrical service doesn't have nearly the capacity to feed EV chargers, especially the Level 3 fast chargers. So there would need to be a full Utility service upgrade (likely 480V 3 phase, to replace what is in most cases a single phase 120/240V service) at every gas station assuming the Utility has capacity for that on their local distribution system. It will be interesting to see how that works in a service station environment where there is limited vehicle space and the minimum full charge time even for a fast charger is about 20 minutes.
Having said that, there are greenfield fast charging stations (mostly Tesla) going up all over California. A huge one was just built here in town at the Walmart parking lot, and multiple huge stations up and down I-5 near Harris Ranch and another in Santa Nella in the central/northern part of the state. I'm keeping an eye on gas prices and electricity prices to see where they go in the next few years as the charging burden starts to impact the grid and costly upgrades will inevitably factor in to electricity prices. I'm fortunate that I could buy an electric car even if it cost me a little more for the "fuel", but most folks don't have that luxury as long as gas prices stay low while electricity inevitably gets more expensive. At present we really like our current vehicle, but I've had my eye on a Tesla for a couple years now and the charging station scenario is really starting to improve. I just love the technology and the acceleration (typical electrical engineer).
However, as an engineer I am a bit concerned about the fact that lithium ion battery recycling has not yet been perfected, so I am concerned about the environmental impact 10-15 years down the road as batteries are retired, not to mention the impact of mining for the materials needed for mass production of said batteries. This needs more research in my opinion.
I remember long lines and "out of gas" signs in the 70s.
Exactly. Not to mention the fact that it costs $5 a gallon now because supply is still an expensive problem to solve.
This has been the radical left's agenda for decades. Push everyone into city enclaves and destroy suburban and rural areas.
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So you're saying then that Elon Musk is a radical leftist because he makes electric cars or didn't you know that?
I was listening to a local radio talk show and the host was defending the EV's saying it was the future, the man on the phone asked about the expense of charging the EV, and the host said most will charge them overnight during the cheaper "off-peak" hours. Well now this begs the question how long and how many overnight charging's will it take before the "off-peak" hours become the "peak" hours? I don't know if it is any different here than anywhere else, but the sun isn't shining at night and the winds usually die to a breeze to nonexistent after the sun goes down.
Don't know what's worse, taking a road trip in an EV or wearing that pajama shirt three days straight w/o removing - funky. Lume those pits and privates deary.
But seriously, whether a year old or current, it is the same story I hear from the many brave souls who do this. While I applaud them all I would not do it. I would rather pay the extra $100 than have to meticulously plan the route and hope the charger isn't broken, is available, is a fast charger.
Another good point is you cannot "drive" a normal trip - meaning you have to take into account the "external" electrical draws, i.e. lights, radio, HVAC, wipers and plug-ins. Add in the absence of regenerative braking on the regular and "your mileage may vary" (greatly).
Yeah, why didn't she bathe and change her clothes at one of the hotels?
It was like this for a long time with gas cars. Just like with the internal combustion engine, enthusiasts have driven the infrastructure development during the early years of electric travel, but it becomes more mainstream every day.
It has also needed - and will continue to need - a little boost from government. But that’s entirely fair because government has been subsiding the gas car industry for decades.
Even at this early stage in the technology’s development, I think electric cars are already a great option for people in the suburbs or cities. Traveling across the country is the still the biggest challenge, but that shouldn’t surprise anyone. ‘Twas ever thus. When they get all those kinks worked out, the gas car will go the way of the horse - worse even: only wealthy hobbyists will have one.
This all reminds me of a Steven King story called the Jaunt.
Is now a good time to buy an EV, as with most things, it depends. How much can you afford to spend? Is leasing or buying used an option? What size car, SUV or truck do you need? You can have two of the three options: long range, affordable or large, but not three for three.
Affordable solid state batteries instead of today's lithium -ion ones could be a huge game changer. The have the potential to hold two or three times the charge, charge in minutes and at have the wait. Commercially, these batteries are probably about five years out.
The federal subsidy in the Inflation Reduction Act can be confusing, For new car purchases, you can get up to a dfull $7,500 tax credit if your car fully qualifies by being assembled in the USA, the batteries and critical minerals must not be from still to be specified countries and the percentage of tax credit rises depending on current free trade agreements. Leasing a new vehicle regardless of these factors gets you the full $7,500. Buy any used EV get's you up to $4,000 in tax credits.
They're still too costly for the average American
So...all these charging stations will put a greater demand on the existing grids and capacity will need to be expanded. Since power generation at this point mostly requires the consumption of fossil fuels, it seems like not much will be accomplished in the quest to lower carbon emissions.
One of the requirements to rebuild after the Marshall Fire up near Boulder a couple of years ago, was that each new home had to be equipped with a charging station...adding to the cost of reconstruction. Don't know if that requirement has been modified at this point.
The fallacy of EV’s is not only the grid but the generation that supplies the grid. There are about 150,000 gas stations in the US. Last I checked there are less than 50,000 EV charging station in the US today. The shortfall today should be obvious.
That said the energy required to replace all those fossil fuel filling stations, with EV stations, is staggering. Forget the grid required to power those stations. The new power generation plants required to produce the energy needed to power them isn’t on any radars let alone grid upgrades.
Show me a realistic plan and I’m in. Otherwise this is just more backseat greenie quarterbacking.