Charging Up for the Next 500 Miles

The story of this weekend is "I would fly 500 miles, and I would drive 500 more." I flew to Las Vegas on Saturday morning to meet a friend to pick up his new Hyundai Ioniq 5 from a dealer Henderson. From there we'd begin the 500+ mile drive back to San Francisco.

Now, what's one of the first things you do when embarking on a road trip? Make sure the tank is full! So we located a nearby gas station charging station to top off.



Partly this was to literally top off the tank/battery, as the dealer driving it around to pick us up had run the battery down to just under 80%. But more important, it was for David to get the hang of charging while he was still close enough to get help from the dealer if anything went wrong.



Now, physically connecting the charging cable went fine. As you can see in the two photos above, it looks a lot like a gas pump nozzle. It's the same idea, except with an electrical connection for current instead of a pipe for liquid fuel. That part was relatively simple; "Tab A goes in Slot B". It's what happened next that was... well, a good idea we figured out before leaving town.

Activating the charger turned out to be way fussier than we expected. First, the first charging stanchion we tried was busted. The cables connected fine but the screen wouldn't indicate that the system was ready to engage. After fiddling with it for several minutes assuming operator error, we hypothesized it was the pump and tried the stanchion next to it that another customer had just finished using successfully.

We had trouble getting the second pump going, too. Its computer screen showed a bit more progress. We got stuck on getting it to recognize David's account via NFC from his smart phone.

Yes, I said account. This isn't like Teslas years ago, or various employer-funded spots today, where charging is free. You pay for charging now. Now, David's purchase of the Hyundai Ioniq 5 came with a included 2 year subscription to the Electrify America charger network, so the out of pocket cost is zero— except for certain kinds of overages, which can be avoided. But the pump still needs to know who you are and how you're paying before it dispenses electrons.

David tried calling the dealer first. Was the Electrify America membership activated properly? They had said yes at the dealership; this was literally the first field test of that claim. The dealer wasn't answering.

Next David called Electrify America customer support. The 7 minute wait on hold felt like forever. Were they ever going to answer? But a cheery customer service rep came on the line and walked David through the process. The answer was basically, "Oh, the idea of 'Tap your phone to start' often doesn't work; there's this way more cumbersome method of starting the charger that's much more reliable."

David got the process down, started the charger, topped off the battery to 95%, and we were off!

Rolling into Barstow on Electro-Fumes

Saturday afternoon we began our 500+ mile drive back to the Bay Area after eating lunch and charging up the new car's battery. Our plan for the remainder of the day was to drive to Bakersfield, CA, 290 miles away. We'd stay overnight in Bakersfield. But as 290 miles was well beyond the car's maximum rated range of about 250 miles we planned a stop in Barstow, CA, 161 miles away.

Planning stops is a thing you've really got to do with an EV that's so much more critical than when driving a gas or diesel engine car. The reason is, with 100+ years of building out infrastructure, there are gas stations practically everywhere. EV charging stations are not everywhere. And while slow charging stations are somewhat common, the kind that can charge an EV rapidly are few and far between outside large cities.

We didn't expect that getting to Barstow would be a problem. But we almost didn't make it! Fifteen miles outside of town the car flashed up an alert on the dashboard: only 10% charge remaining. And the estimated range remaining was only 15 miles. We'd roll into town on fumes... electro-fumes! 😱

Where did all the range go? We had about 220 miles of range when we started this 161 mile leg of the trip. Well, the car was suffering poorer fuel economy than normally estimated. A few things:

1. It was hot. Temperatures ranged from 100° up to 110° (about 43° C) all through our drive. In hot weather the battery is less efficient and the cooling systems have to work harder.


2. We were driving fast. It was all highways at fairly constant speeds, but we were driving 80-85mph much of the way. (Note: we were driving with the flow of traffic. This is common on I-15 between Vegas and LA.) The motor has to work harder to overcome wind resistance at higher speeds, and resistance increases as a function of the square of the speed.


3. There were a few mountain climbs from elev. 1,000' to 4,000' on the route. While the EV regenerates power coasting downhill, it doesn't recover as much as the extra energy expended climbing uphill.

After the warning flashed up and we had our initial "Oh, shit!" reaction, I decided the best way to stretch the remaining charge was to drive slower. Dropping from 80-85 down to about 65 mph added back a few miles of range. Still, it was close. When we rolled in to the charging station in Barstow we had an estimated 5 miles left.

It's Not Easy— Or Cheap— Being Green

Our second-half drive today was yet another object lesson that it's not so easy, being green. Again on the leg from Barstow to Bakersfield we experienced disappointing electro-mileage, about only two-thirds of the rated range. It wasn't quite as bad as the leg from Henderson, NV to Barstow, CA earlier in the day, which we finished with only 5 miles of range left. Though we did have a white-knuckle moment again.

As we were at the top of the Tehachapi Pass  noticed that the battery had once again depleted way more rapidly than forecast, leaving us with only about 35 miles of range remaining— and we were still about 35 miles out from our destination. We didn't want to roll in on electron fumes again.

I asked David, who was driving, to slow down. Going slower is more efficient. Meanwhile I tried looking up charging stations in the town of Tehachapi. The apps in the car and in Apple Car Play were close to useless while driving. And the small town of Tehachapi seemed to have only slow chargers. I reasoned that an emergency electron stop would be unnecessary as the road ahead entailed a steep downhill grade. Indeed, through the combination of easing off the throttle and letting gravity do some of the work in pulling us downhill toward Bakersfield telescoped our remaining mileage. We reached the hotel with 33 miles of range left.

After checking in, stowing our bags, and going out for dinner it was time to charge up the car. There was a charging station 1/2 mile away. We hooked up the car and waited outside in the still smoldering evening heat for 30 minutes.



While there we discussed the pros and cons of driving an EV. The depleted range of driving in the high heat is a big minus. The sparse availability of fast charging stations outside of major metro areas is a minus. The fussiness of the charging pumps is also a minus. By this point we'd visited three charging stations already during the day, and at each one there was at least one pump that was malfunctioning.

"But at least it's so much cheaper than driving a gas car," David asserted.

"Is it?" I asked.

While it's true that David's not paying out of pocket for charging, it's not really free. Two years of AYCE membership in charging network was rolled into the purchase price of the car. The pumps happily tell you how many dollars you're "saving"— i.e., how much each charge would cost if you were paying as a regular member. Their rate per kWh is not cheap.

"How can you compare it to gas?" David asked.

"Figure out the cost per mile of buying each type of fuel," I responded. I started to do some arithmetic out loud while we stood in the still smoldering evening heat.

By this point the pump refilled the battery to the charge we'd had upon leaving Barstow. The market price shown on the meter was $26. For that money we could have bought 5 gallons of gas. On a trip of 131 miles (Barstow to Bakersfield distance) a gas car would need to get 26.2 mpg to get there on the same cost equivalent of fuel. Our Nissan Xterra SUV wouldn't have beaten that; it would've gotten 18mpg on this trip. Our BMW convertible would've edged out the EV with about 28mpg. And plenty of more economical cars could've thumped the EV with way better than 26mpg fuel economy.

Bottom line, this EV is not showing well in terms of fuel economy right now. Electron filling stations are few and far between, somewhat hit-or-miss to use, and— with the car way under-performing its rated range— no cheaper than buying gas.