Road trips w/ electric vehicles

Factual Questions
61

You might note that that is from a couple years ago. Tesla is continuing to add more charging stations all the time. For instance, just last fall, they added a huge (more than 50 stall) station along I-5, about halfway between LA and northern California. And that was in addition to the stations they already had along that route.

About making long trips in general, unless there’s some need to make a really long run between recharges, there is a technique that lets you get away with saving lots of time.

Recharging batteries is not a linear function. That is, you don’t get the same number of additional miles/km for a given time at the recharger. When the battery is low, the charge rate is much higher than when it’s almost full. So many drivers only charge enough to get to the next station plus a small buffer. They likely never charge to more than maybe 50 or 60% full, which means they may never spend more than 10 minutes at any one station. Yes, that means they have to stop at every station along the way, but the minutes that they do spend recharging are optimized.

62

I’ll bet a lot of charging stations will be at existing gas stations, where an island or 2 of gas pumps will be converted to plug-ins.

63

I’ll add more complaints about my ICE car, if I’d always driven an EV:
Why do I have to baby the engine while it’s cold?
Why isn’t the throttle linear? I set the pedal to halfway, and I get some power, but as the tach needle goes up, I get more power. Why?
Why don’t I get cabin heat right after I turn the car on?
Why can’t I get hot air to the windshield right after I turn the car on?
Why can’t I turn on those heat sources, or the AC, before I get in the car?
Why do I have to lug around a tank of flammable liquid?
Why is there poisonous gas coming from the back of the car?
Why is it so noisy, inside and out?
Why is the acceleration so weak, and why is there a delay for the weak acceleration?
Why isn’t my momentum harnessed when I decelerate?
Why do I have to use, and wear, my brakes for gradual stops?

64

Yes, but they’ll also likely be at McDonald’s, Starbuck’s, Rest Areas, etc.

65

In terms of “affordable” EVs, in the last decade we’ve gone from essentially toy cars with < 100 miles range (Nissan Leaf, Golf EV, Mini Cooper EV, etc) to cars that can easily do 200+ miles (Kona/Niro twins, Model 3, Mach E, etc).

So we’ve got 15 years of additional technology improvements before GM stops selling ICE cars, and then probably 10 years after that before your 2034 gas-powered Impala needs to be replaced anyway. The technology is going to improve a lot in that period.

It just seems a little premature to be worrying right now about whether or not your 2045 trip to Yellowstone will take an extra hour or two because of charging stops.

66

So sticking to the OP, distance travel by car, in a future in which all new cars are all electric.

Well as pointed out already, the last ICE car sold will be on the road for maybe 200,000 miles, so it is a long time until the stock is replaced to the degree that ICE vehicles will not be available for those who perceive the need, which likely will be overweighted to those who do significant distance travel by car.

By even a decade battery and charging technology may change. In that time we have gone from 73 miles for the Leaf to many coming with 250 to 300 miles plus. And that is really not with major technology shifts. Rapid charge options have increased similarly. No promise they will continue to but it would surprise if they did not.

Still the share of cars on interstates needing to charge up along the way will be increasing. Having the distributed capacity to handle peak usage needs will require investments, likely piggybacked on what gets done for electric long haul transport by trucks. The advantage of open spaces on those long roads is the space to distribute solar plants and wind farms to meet that new need. It won’t happen in the space of five years or ten, but there is time. The huge demand will not occur suddenly either.

67

Even so, I’m honestly not sure if “Thanksgiving/Christmas travel” is a solvable problem for EVs. Current charging infrastructure is sized for owners doing ~95%+ of their charging at home, with the remaining 5% being evenly sprinkled throughout the year.

While a gas station can easily handle the extra surge in fuel demand for holiday travel, since it’s every-day base load is higher, its much harder for an EV charger to handle a situation where that 5% demand suddenly becomes ~50% over a few short days.

You either have to massively overbuild chargers that will mostly sit almost completely empty for 350 days of the year, truck in large amounts of portable generators just for those 10 days (I guess they just sit in storage for the rest of the year?), or just let supply and demand work itself out and EV owners just end up avoiding long-distance Holiday travel.

68

And where would you truck in portable chargers? The weird thing about the Thanksgiving/Christmas travel surge is that it happens everywhere in the US, all at once.

Sort of like how we could have handled the shortages of medical equipment and PPE easily if this pandemic had been confined to only one part of the country or even one part of the world. But when everyone everywhere is similarly affected, things like N95 masks become hard to get.

69

I’m honestly not sure how big of a problem it is.

What are the actual numbers of vehicles on the road during those times driving over 400 to 500 miles in one day? (Given that we currently have vehicles that travel over 300 on one charge, 400 to 500 by another ten years or so seems very conservative.)

It is not zero to be sure. Some do cross country road trips traveling 600 plus in a day. But I’d wager most fly cross country and that most holiday travel is within 300 to 400 miles of home, doable on one charge by then, and I’d guess that a fairly small minority of those who are distance driving those holiday times travel much over 400 miles in a day.

I’m not convinced there is a major problem here.

70

That would work fine for me. I avoid flying on the day before Thanksgiving for similar reasons. I could easily avoid driving on the peak days. (I acknowledge that others feel differently)

71

Several folk have told me that traveling ON Thanksgiving is much less crowded/expensive. Sure, requires some tweaking of dinner plans, but my thought is that getting together was the important thing, rather than a specific day. Which is why we’ve told our kids not to bother travelling to Chicago in November-December. Instead, come some time that there is a CHANCE of decent weather…

72

She eats snacks that produce crumbs. Nope, no spaghetti.

73

An easily avoidable choice. It would annoy me if my wife insisted on eating messy food ANYWHERE and didn’t clean up after herself.

74

I grew up in a family where One Did Not Eat In The Car.

My late spouse grew up in a family that would have lavish fast-food spreads in the car.

Needless to say, in such a mixed marriage there arose some conflict.

We compromised - a trash can for the vehicle, whoever ate in the car cleaned up after himself, empty trash at end of trip or at least once a week if eating during regular commuting, problem solved (except for an occasional lingering whiff of onion).

I do sometimes eat in my car on long road trips (multiple food allergies motivates the driver to bring her own food) but not while driving and I tidy up after myself.

75

That is how I see it, my journeys are similar. Yes, 90 minutes is about enough at a stretch. As another another Doper pointed out, charging is faster if you don’t let discharge the batteries too far. If you have 250 miles available on a full charge, and recharge after 100 miles, a fast charger could top you off again in about 10 minutes.

If EVs get cheaper, I might get one, and rent a diesel for long trips. But, frankly, if it is going to be a long trip, I would rather fly there if that is an option.

76

Its the opposite. It charges faster the closer the battery is to “empty”. If the goal is to minimize overall time spent charging, the usual strategy is to start out on a full battery (from home overnight charging), drive until the battery is less than 5-10% remaining, stop at a fast charger, and only allow it to charge the minimum it takes to allow you to get to the next fast charger down the highway. That way the battery is kept as close to zero as possible. This may result in more stops overall, but less time spent at each stop.

77

Right now Tesla is taking orders for a car with a “520+” range, the Model S Plaid+ with expected delivery in late 2021. The starting price is $140,000, but that’s for a 500 mile range car that will be here (probably) by first quarter 2022. As always happens in the auto industry, the technology on those cars will move down to lower price points. The technology and battery chemistry that gets a 500 mile range now will show up on the base models within 10 years.

10 years is a long time for EVs. For example, 10 years ago the Nissan Leaf was rated at 73 miles of range and started at about $35,000. Today the base model starts at $32,000 and is rated at 150 miles of range. For about $5,000 more you can upgrade to a plus model that’s rated at 215 miles of range.

As said, batteries charge the fastest when they are closest to empty. Assuming new chemistry charges the same as current batteries, I think the typical way to take a long trip in 10 years will be to charge to 500 miles of range overnight. Drive 400 miles to your destination, then charge overnight again.

For longer trips, drive 450+ miles, then charge for 10-15 minutes to add a few hundred miles to reach the days destination. That will be a 600+ mile, ten hour day. For iron butt people who are going to do 16 hour days, just do the later parts of the trip on the bottom half of the battery. Add 250-300 miles at each stop, probably in 15 minutes, and then do it again.

Tesla’s V3 250kW superchargers are capable of charging at about 1000 miles of added range per hour. The big catch is that’s only for a warm battery that is nearly discharged. If the full speed 250kW charging is only good to 50% capacity, but at 50% you still have 250 miles of range, that could very well be another 3-4 hours until the next 15 minute stop.

I’m using Tesla for all of this, because they have the technology and infrastructure lead in EVs. Where Tesla is today, I expect other car companies to be in a few years. I expect in 10 years they’re all going to have $30,000 cars with 500 mile ranges.

78

That assumes the fast charger is available immediately every time you stop. That seems unlikely, so most people are going to stop as infrequently as possible.

79

Well, that’s the goal, at least. Obviously if you’re at 15% charge driving down the highway, coming up on a charger, and the next one isn’t for another 100 miles, you’re going to stop right now. But sites like abetterrouteplanner allow you to plan an optimal route that minimizes trip time, and its generally designed to get you to a charger with 5% charge left (or as low as you feel comfortable allowing it to). It also tends to avoid ever charging above 80%.

80

Another point is that in 10 to 15 years self-driving cars will probably be common. So if you are browsing Straight Dope or sleeping or watching TV you probably won’t feel the need to stop as frequently and will be willing to drive a lot further in a day than if you were driving.