Charging details from a 7400 mile trip (spoiler alert no real issues)

[SANZC02]

I know there are a lot of threads about how bad EV charging is, especially with EA, it has not been my experience on the trips I have taken. My latest trip was from SoCal, through Yellowstone, northern route to Boston, down the east coast to the FL panhandle, the southern route back to SoCal.

The trip consisted of 48 DCFC charges, 2 were at the same charger in Destin FL so it was 47 unique locations (23 EA, 16 RAN, 6 Tesla, 1 ChargePoint, and 1 independent 175 kWh charger ENGLX).

I had 6 issues, in Foxborough, MA the Tesla Magic Dock station would not start, just sat there saying starting, tried both my A2Z and the Magic Dock Adapter on 2 different chargers both with the Tesla App and plug and charge, same behavior from each try, ended up going to an EA station 3 miles away. The only other issues that caused me to go to a different station was EA in Houston TX, it had 6 stations, all were working and full and there were 3 people waiting, I went to a Tesla station .3 miles away that was open.

Here are the locations of the issues

Foxborough, MA - Tesla
Tesla Magic Dock, fail to start 2 stations, adapter and magic dock adapter went to EA 3 miles away

Destin, FL - Tesla
Had to move, 4 of the 12 stations are down, was told they had been down for a week, Tesla was aware

Beaver, UT - EA
1 of the 4 Stations was not working, 3 full, waited 5 minutes for 1 to open up

Richmond, VA      EA
Had to move to a different station, the first one did not start

Houston, TX - EA
EA Full, 6 stations all working, 3 in line waiting, went to Tesla .3 miles away

Deming, NM - EA
150 Started and stopped after 11 kWh, moved to the 350 worked but limited to 150 kWh 3 of the 4 were de-rated but location was open and nobody there


Here is the list of locations and chargers, I hope this helps anyone considering a trip in their EV. I picked my Rivian up in January of 2023, since then I have taken a 5500 and 7400 mile trip in the Rivian and a 6500 mile trip in the Tesla, all three of these trips were pretty much trouble free. The available chargers in the last 17 months have grown quite a bit making it even easier to plan a trip.

Ran Stations - 16
RAN - Barstow, CA
RAN - Las Vegas, NV
RAN - Granger, IN
RAN - Maumee, OH
RAN - Strongsville, OH
RAN - Newburgh, NY
RAN - East Greenwich, RI
RAN - Belcamp, MD
RAN - Henderson, NC
RAN - Charlotte, NC
RAN - Greenville, SC
RAN - Atlanta, GA
RAN - Slidell, LA
RAN - San Antonio, TX
RAN - Gila Bend, AZ
RAN - Quartzite, AZ

EA Stations - 23
EA - Washington, UT
EA - Beaver, UT
EA - Salt Lake City, UT
EA - Chubbuck, ID
EA - Idaho Falls, ID
EA - Gillette, WY
EA - Rapid City, SD
EA - Chamberlain, SD
EA - Sioux Falls, SD
EA - Albert Lea, MN
EA - Tomah, WI
EA - Rockford, IL
EA - Clarion, PA
EA - Bloomsburg, PA
EA - Foxborough, MA
EA - Fort Lee, NJ
EA - Richmond, VA
EA - Montgomery, AL
EA - Beaux Bridge, LA
EA - Fort Stockton, TX
EA - Van Horn, TX
EA - Deming, NM
EA - Benson, AZ

Tesla - 6
Tesla - Belgrade, MT
Tesla - Billings, MT
Tesla - Hanover, MA
Tesla - Destin, FL
Tesla - Houston, TX
Tesla - Ozona, TX

ChargePoint - 1
ChargePoint - Sheridan, WY

ENGLIX - 1
ENGLIX - Ashton, ID

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[iansriv]

Epic journey mate! Wow!

 

[COdogman]

It’s almost like you deliberately avoided setting foot in Colorado territory!

 

[Rivgirl1]

I know there are a lot of threads about how bad EV charging is, especially with EA, it has not been my experience on the trips I have taken. My latest trip was from SoCal, through Yellowstone, northern route to Boston, down the east coast to the FL panhandle, the southern route back to SoCal.

The trip consisted of 48 DCFC charges, 2 were at the same charger in Destin FL so it was 47 unique locations (23 EA, 16 RAN, 6 Tesla, 1 ChargePoint, and 1 independent 175 kWh charger ENGLX).

I had 6 issues, in Foxborough, MA the Tesla Magic Dock station would not start, just sat there saying starting, tried both my A2Z and the Magic Dock Adapter on 2 different chargers both with the Tesla App and plug and charge, same behavior from each try, ended up going to an EA station 3 miles away. The only other issues that caused me to go to a different station was EA in Houston TX, it had 6 stations, all were working and full and there were 3 people waiting, I went to a Tesla station .3 miles away that was open.

Here are the locations of the issues

Foxborough, MA - Tesla
Tesla Magic Dock, fail to start 2 stations, adapter and magic dock adapter went to EA 3 miles away

Destin, FL - Tesla
Had to move, 4 of the 12 stations are down, was told they had been down for a week, Tesla was aware

Beaver, UT - EA
1 of the 4 Stations was not working, 3 full, waited 5 minutes for 1 to open up

Richmond, VA      EA
Had to move to a different station, the first one did not start

Houston, TX - EA
EA Full, 6 stations all working, 3 in line waiting, went to Tesla .3 miles away

Deming, NM - EA
150 Started and stopped after 11 kWh, moved to the 350 worked but limited to 150 kWh 3 of the 4 were de-rated but location was open and nobody there


Here is the list of locations and chargers, I hope this helps anyone considering a trip in their EV. I picked my Rivian up in January of 2023, since then I have taken a 5500 and 7400 mile trip in the Rivian and a 6500 mile trip in the Tesla, all three of these trips were pretty much trouble free. The available chargers in the last 17 months have grown quite a bit making it even easier to plan a trip.

Ran Stations - 16
RAN - Barstow, CA
RAN - Las Vegas, NV
RAN - Granger, IN
RAN - Maumee, OH
RAN - Strongsville, OH
RAN - Newburgh, NY
RAN - East Greenwich, RI
RAN - Belcamp, MD
RAN - Henderson, NC
RAN - Charlotte, NC
RAN - Greenville, SC
RAN - Atlanta, GA
RAN - Slidell, LA
RAN - San Antonio, TX
RAN - Gila Bend, AZ
RAN - Quartzite, AZ

EA Stations - 23
EA - Washington, UT
EA - Beaver, UT
EA - Salt Lake City, UT
EA - Chubbuck, ID
EA - Idaho Falls, ID
EA - Gillette, WY
EA - Rapid City, SD
EA - Chamberlain, SD
EA - Sioux Falls, SD
EA - Albert Lea, MN
EA - Tomah, WI
EA - Rockford, IL
EA - Clarion, PA
EA - Bloomsburg, PA
EA - Foxborough, MA
EA - Fort Lee, NJ
EA - Richmond, VA
EA - Montgomery, AL
EA - Beaux Bridge, LA
EA - Fort Stockton, TX
EA - Van Horn, TX
EA - Deming, NM
EA - Benson, AZ

Tesla - 6
Tesla - Belgrade, MT
Tesla - Billings, MT
Tesla - Hanover, MA
Tesla - Destin, FL
Tesla - Houston, TX
Tesla - Ozona, TX

ChargePoint - 1
ChargePoint - Sheridan, WY

ENGLIX - 1
ENGLIX - Ashton, ID

How much day or hour wise did charging add to trip? We would like to go from San Clemente Ca to New Hope Pa and where is best place to learn how to map it. Approximately how long in each place. We are newbies can you tell? Thanks

 

[SANZC02]

How much day or hour wise did charging add to trip? We would like to go from San Clemente Ca to New Hope Pa and where is best place to learn how to map it. Approximately how long in each place. We are newbies can you tell? Thanks

I use the app A Better Route Planner (ABRP), you can configure your vehicle, put in starting and ending locations. It will give you the route suggested charging locations and estimated charge times.

On my trip the charge stops averaged Just under 30 minutes. Here is an example from ABRP of your trip with my R1S configured in the app.

Edit: I have preferred charging networks as Rivian first and EA second, you can add Tesla stations as well.

 

[mkhuffman]

Don't get me wrong, I love BEVs, really I do, but if you did the same trip in an ICEV you would have had zero refueling issues. Zero. And you could have driven much farther between stops. And you could have stopped at any restaurant or fast-food place you wanted, instead of picking the one located next to a DCFC. And you could have taken the route you wanted to take, rather than the one with the necessary charging stops. (That's a big deal, BTW.)

As early adopters, we make excuses for all the problems. Personally I don't mind the problems because I am a BEV lover. (It's plutonic love, FYI.) But for normal people (I admit, I am not normal) it is not a good experience. Nope.

Sorry to be negative. I am glad your trip went well. And it is a great report. Personally I would love to take an R1T across the country with a bed tent or roof top tent for various stops along the way. It might happen one day!

 

[iamnid]

Don't get me wrong, I love BEVs, really I do, but if you did the same trip in an ICEV you would have had zero refueling issues. Zero. And you could have driven much farther between stops. And you could have stopped at any restaurant or fast-food place you wanted, instead of picking the one located next to a DCFC. And you could have taken the route you wanted to take, rather than the one with the necessary charging stops. (That's a big deal, BTW.)

As early adopters, we make excuses for all the problems. Personally I don't mind the problems because I am a BEV lover. (It's plutonic love, FYI.) But for normal people (I admit, I am not normal) it is not a good experience. Nope.

Sorry to be negative. I am glad your trip went well. And it is a great report. Personally I would love to take an R1T across the country with a bed tent or roof top tent for various stops along the way. It might happen one day!

Not to mention that this trip would have been a lot faster and with less stops if OP had simply taken an airplane.

 

[SANZC02]

Don't get me wrong, I love BEVs, really I do, but if you did the same trip in an ICEV you would have had zero refueling issues. Zero. And you could have driven much farther between stops. And you could have stopped at any restaurant or fast-food place you wanted, instead of picking the one located next to a DCFC. And you could have taken the route you wanted to take, rather than the one with the necessary charging stops. (That's a big deal, BTW.)

As early adopters, we make excuses for all the problems. Personally I don't mind the problems because I am a BEV lover. (It's plutonic love, FYI.) But for normal people (I admit, I am not normal) it is not a good experience. Nope.

Sorry to be negative. I am glad your trip went well. And it is a great report. Personally I would love to take an R1T across the country with a bed tent or roof top tent for various stops along the way. It might happen one day!

I pretty much did whatever route I wanted to, being old and retired I would be stopping every couple of hours anyways. ?

On a side note, the only time I was ever stranded on a cross country trip was on a route I had taken several times in an ICE vehicle. I planned to stop at a particular gas station on a stretch with very few stations, to my surprise that station had gone out of business a few weeks earlier, I had enough gas to go 30 more miles, needed 33…??

Honestly, my point was EV road trips are feasible and can be done with little fanfare. Not saying it is better or should be first choice, just don’t be afraid to do it if you are inclined to because of charging horror stories you read on line. The charging infrastructure is better than it was 18 months ago and will probably be that much better in the next 18 months.

DCFC charging is also more expensive than it was 18 months ago. I compared the cost of this trip to my old Grand Cherokee that could get 20 mpg on a trip. Based on the national average of 3.37 a gallon the fuel cost in that vehicle would have been about the same as I paid for DCFC charges.

 

[HokieBird7980]

Great trip! Agree with you that the anxiety over long road trips has gone away in my opinion if you have an adapter for the tesla charging network. I just got back on a trip from Charlotte to Chicago, then up to Silver Lake Sand Dunes in MI, back to Chicago and then home to Charlotte, all without incident or trouble finding a working charging station. I used RAN twice same day in Benton Harbor MI on trip up to Silver Lake, EA only once on way up to Chicago in Lafayette, IN (and was the only place i had to wait for a charger to open), and Tesla superchargers the rest of the time. To me, even though i did not use the Tesla App to save money on the per kw fee, the convenience of the Tesla network, and the amount of chargers they have per site was well worth the extra price. I know i could have saved by using the tesla App, but i don't go that far that often to maintain having the app as i'm awful about remembering to turn off the app when not using, so i'd just keep racking up monthly fees without using the supercharger. There were a minimum of 8 chargers to a maximum of 24 chargers available at the Tesla sites, and there was always a slot available. I even got end slots several times where i didn't have to block two chargers to get my R1T charged. I did the same trip to Chicago and back in December last year and it took me 16 hours to complete using EA mostly. This trip home using Tesla network took me only 13.5 hours. Some of that is due to range being better in Summer than winter, but winter temps were mainly 45-55 degrees, so not terrible range loss there. The tesla network just allowed me to stop less frequently. Hoping to retire in the next year or so, and then want to take epic journey's like yours!

 

[mkhuffman]

I really don't like taking up two charging spaces when using a SC. Luckily the two times I used a SC, I only used the space available for that charger. The first time I used the end space and the second time a middle space but for some reason it was a much larger space than the others, so I could park diagonally in it and the cable reached.

A2Z is planning to release an extension cable. So is Telsa. I know they will be expensive, but I am getting one as soon as the first one is released.

But it isn't just about taking up two spaces. The last time I used a SC, there were seven dispensers and four were occupied. Tesla drivers like to leave an empty space between them, so the three available spaces were in the middle, with both end spots taken. Luckily there was the super wide space in the middle, but if not, I would have had to wait for someone to leave. With an extension cord, I could use any of the three available spaces.

I am getting one for sure.

 

[Robin]

Not to mention that this trip would have been a lot faster and with less stops if OP had simply taken an airplane.

?

 

[Sempervirens]

Impressive trip and stats.

How many KW over all?
What was the trip efficiency?
What was the total cost of charging? I ask to compare to gas prices, based on 20mpg avg and $3.32 national avg cost.

Lastly - Why more EA than Tesla SC? I feel like the consensus is Tesla is more places and more reliable.

 

[Glembi2]

What an awesome trip!

Looking at the route, would that be a double Cannonball Run? During COViD, someone did the one-way run in 34 or so hours. Your approach is MUCH easier on the back and other parts.

Edit: Wow - record is now 26 hours: https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a32092440/26-hour-38-minute-cannonball-record-coronavirus/

 

[SANZC02]

Impressive trip and stats.

How many KW over all?
What was the trip efficiency?
What was the total cost of charging? I ask to compare to gas prices, based on 20mpg avg and $3.32 national avg cost.

Lastly - Why more EA than Tesla SC? I feel like the consensus is Tesla is more places and more reliable.

Total kWh was 3,153, my total cost was $1,275, my total efficiency (R1S, quad, large battery, on 22s) was 2.32 miles per kWh.

I calculated the cost and it is pretty much the same as my old Grand Cherokee would have cost me. I could get 20 mpg out of that on trips. national average when I did the trip was 3.37 a gallon, would have been $1,249.

I could have saved a few dollars had I paid the Tesla membership for the trip. I had the EA membership and have not had any issues with those traveling. Only reason I was shying away from Tesla was I did not want to deal with blocking spots. The few I stopped at were empty enough or had a spot I could angle into without blocking anyone. I’ve said in another post, if Tesla would re-stripe their stations to center the chargers like they have done in Destin, FL (picture below) anyone can charge as long as the port is on any corner of the vehicle without blocking anything.

Here is the R1S charging in Destin, FL where the chargers are positioned in the center of the spaces.

 

[Glembi2]

’ve said in another post, if Tesla would re-stripe their stations to center the chargers like they have done in Destin, FL (picture below) anyone can charge as long as the port is on any corner of the vehicle without blocking anything.
…

Here is the R1S charging in Destin, FL where the chargers are positioned in the center of the spaces.

Ya know, anyone’s time at a charging station is short. We can argue about “lines” and the pedantic among us who go ballistic when someone’s truck is outside the “lines “.

Would it be bad if one was to carry his or her own lines in the truck to temporarily adjust the lines to be Rivian-friendly? Something like a pair of black mats to cover existing lines and corresponding mats with white stripes to outline the space occupied by the truck?

Asking for a friend.

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