Taking a road trip in an internal-combustion-powered vehicle:
Signs on the freeway saying “Next Gas: 50 miles” and “Gas This Exit”
Gas stations have signs visible a mile away
Gas stations often come with restrooms and convenience stores
It takes 5-10 minutes to go from Empty to Full
All gas pumps are compatible with all vehicles
In an EV:
Signage on the freeway: none.
You use an app on your phone to tell you where the next charging station can be found
The chargers are hidden in the corner of a mall parking lot
There’s the chance that your app directed you to a set of Tesla chargers … and you’re not driving a Tesla, so you’re SOL.
Restrooms and convenience – perhaps your mall parking lot has those nearby. Maybe not.
Takes 45 minutes to go from empty to full.
But despite this I love driving an EV. When my lease is up in 2 months I’m getting another one.
(But the infrastructure has a ways to go)
I found the apps pretty good. But both our EVs have in dash ability to find charging stations. The Tesla in particular is very good, and even tells you if chargers are being used.
You can customize the apps to find non-Tesla units. Not sure if they’re accurate or not.
We spend about 25-35 minutes going from “sort of empty” to “almost full.”
We drove to a resort hotel recently whose web site said they had 10 fast chargers. Technically true … but 9 of them were for Teslas, leaving all their other EV driving guests to fight over one.
Cars
Terrible roads not meant for tyres mean you can not go very fast.
Gasoline needs to be purchased in cans at hardware stores - regular business hours only.
Regular repairs are costly and many blacksmith shops don’t know how to work on them.
Horse
Can go on most any kind of pathway
Hay is available readily and is often free right on the side of the path!
Blacksmiths are plentiful and helpful for any horseshoe or tack repair needed.
this is actually an excellent analogy. I feel like I’m driving a Stanley Steamer surrounded by horse and buggies … I should have somebody walking in front of me with a red flag, so I don’t frighten the horses.
Just like the internal combustion infrastructure got better, so will the EV. Eventually.
I think I would miss having a chance to go to the bathroom while I filled up. Now I would have to make an extra stop, most likely at a gas station. Not a big deal driving around town, but something I would have to plan for in road trip.
Why no EV chargers at Roadside Rest? Don’t states want to encourage EV usage? Not seeing them in SE Michigan rest stops, the state that produces one or two EV’s and plans for many more.
Still, I want an EV and plan on getting one in the not so distant future.
Why can they not put those overhead shade solar panel chargers in the parking lots. Add some sort of trickle charge from the grid to keep battery packs for the charging stations topped up during the overnight. I have seen shopping areas and schools with them.
But essentially I agree with you - they need more charging stations, and more frequently dotted around the landscape.
I will not get an EV in the near future - the property we own in Nevada is 45 minutes from the nearest place of decent shopping [Dyer itself has a convenience store and gas station] and 250 miles from Las Vegas. So, while I might be able to get somewhere, until there is absolute dependable access to a charging station, screw it, I am all about the internal combustion.
There’s a couple I see at lunch every now and then who just bought a Hundai Ioniq. They love it.
We were talking about the logistics of taking a long roadtrip, and they told me about the planning they do, using the Hyundai app. It reminded me of when my folks would go to AAA and get a triptik.
They said that it hasn’t been any problem for them, but I suspect that there are routes that would be difficult or impossible to do. But, the app tells you that.
There are members of Congress who have the same thought - that it just makes sense to have chargers at rest stops.
For rest stops on the Federal interstate system, there’s an old restriction that limits commercial activity, which precludes EV charging.
Apparently, an exception for EV charging was part of the House version of the recent infrastructure bill but got stripped out. No doubt somebody or other, most likely in the Senate, objected to it. There’s a fairly decent sized lobby of truck stop owners and convenience store owners who objected to it, no doubt wanting to drive business towards their own establishments.
The PlugShare app is pretty good about identifying charger types and which are currently operational. There’s a setting to include hotel chargers, which is dependent on crowdsourced info, but I’ve had good luck with its accuracy.
Eventually, convenience stores will add charging stations and they will add features inside, like hot food, slot machines, etc. for you to occcupy yourself while you’re charging. It’s the stuff on the inside where they make money…not on the gas or the electricity.
Mostly I computed it to satisfy my own curiosity, but also to show that the EV was at 75% of (practical) capacity, and the ICE was at 100% of its capacity. One additional person could have come on the EV trip, making the numbers even more in favor of the EV.
We had the option of taking two EVs on the ICE trip, but we didn’t because we didn’t have convenient charging at the destination. It looks like two EVs would have pretty much been break even compared to the one ICE car.
There are a vanishingly few exceptions but this is untrue in general.
There are a few rest areas that predate the Act that set up the Interstate system that will be grandfathered in. But otherwise, drivers have to exit the highway and look for a gas station.
There are state highways in a number of states (I want to say less than a dozen states, but need to confirm) that do have these types of facilities, though. Some states, like California, actually prohibit the practice. Most states will often have rest stop type areas run by private business nearby but not affiliated with the publicly funded area. Also, most major long distance tolled systems, like turnpikes, (which aren’t interstates) will typically have decent sized commercial facilities at somewhat regular intervals.
The Mass Pike (I-90) and Maine Turnpike (I-95) are both toll roads, interstates and have official rest areas with gas stations and restaurants. I’m believe newly built interstate highways can’t be toll roads, but that hasn’t always been the case.
Yes, as I noted, some older highways were grandfathered in. The Mass and Maine (and parts of the PA and parts of some other states) Turnpikes were built first and then added to the Interstate system.
Point is, there’s a lot of federal highway where rest stops cannot have EV chargers installed. Yes, there are exceptions mainly for historic reasons, but they also tend to be in the most densely populated parts of the country where there is reduced (but not zero) need for EV chargers compared to states like Nevada or California or any others with long stretches between populated areas.