EVs on Long Trips
If you are interested in getting an electric vehicle (EV) but apprehensive about how to charge it on a trip longer than the battery will supply, our recent trip to Maine might answer a few of your questions.
We were headed to my brother and sister-in-law’s house in Hope, Maine, near Camden -- a distance of 251 miles. My Volkswagen ID.4 said it would go 273 miles when I unplugged from my home charger. (I had set it to charge to 100%, rather than the 80% charge that is the default.) But 273 miles is an estimate based on past driving, so the route planner in the car proposed we charge en route in Gardner, Maine about 237 miles from home. I wanted to be cautious, and the charger near Portland, some 190 miles from home, was an Electrify America charger, which is free for my vehicle for 3 years, so we headed there. When we got close, the charger showed up on the navigation screen. When I tapped it, it told me there were 4 plugs and gave me directions right to the chargers in a Walmart parking lot. One charger was non-functional, the other three were being used, and one car was waiting. So, we had to wait for 15 minutes and then charged for 30 minutes, while visiting the rest rooms and getting a snack. I would have charged again closer to our destination, about 87 miles further, but I knew I could charge at my brother’s house. A normal 110 volt outlet would have added about 4 extra miles per hour of charging, but he has a 220 volt outlet in his barn that can charge much faster. I had scoped this out previously and had an adapter from his welder outlet to a dryer plug which was needed to feed into the charger supplied with my car.
So, we had to do a little more route planning, but most of it was done by the navigation system in the car. And we spent more time getting fuel than in a typical gas station fill-up. But we got there with very little CO2 emissions, except from the electricity in Portsmouth (both my brother and I have solar panels). There are lots of fast chargers available -- more than 60 in NH alone and more in our neighboring states. Chargers show up on the navigation screen or at Plug Share or ABRP (A Better Route Planner) both available as apps. They can take you to California if you want. Plus, many more chargers are being built as the Inflation Reduction Act funds become available. Note some of the current changers have heavy use. I have often seen cars waiting for the Electrify America chargers in West Lebanon, while multiple ports at the adjacent Tesla and Rivian chargers are vacant. Tesla chargers will soon become available for all EVs, but that transition has been delayed several times.
There is a worry-free alternative to full electric vehicles. Plug-in hybrids use a battery for a number of miles that varies by model. Then the hybrid engine kicks in, and you can continue seamlessly with gas. There are 82 plug-in hybrid models available; they get between 22 and 44 miles on the battery (not counting models over $100,000). If most of your daily driving is within the range of the battery, then you can make a big impact on your carbon footprint with a plug-in hybrid, not to mention saving money.
Sales of EV’s continue to grow exponentially, both nationally and in Hanover, so we are getting closer to the carbon free transportation that should mitigate the damaging impact of climate change that we are sadly now seeing. It is becoming easier to do your part. That’s very good news indeed!