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I recently bought an EV with a 220-ish mile range, but that's really a 160ish mile range given fast charge craps out at 80%. I drove it ~900 miles and I had to

I recently bought an EV with a 220-ish mile range, but that's really a 160ish mile range given fast charge craps out at 80%. I drove it ~900 miles and I had to recharge seven times. This added 3.5 to 4 hours to the trip. I'd say the first 2 of those were good for my mental health but the remaining 90 minutes were spent at broken charging stations with low charging rates or just broken. Love the car, hate the current charging infrastructure. And the anxiety induced when power drops below 20% and you're approaching the next charger sucks, doubly so when you get there and it's broken and now you have to find another fast charger before you run out of juice. There's fancy route planning software (ABRP for example) that will try to minimize charging times and total travel time but it seems to make the assumption that you will always hit a perfectly functional fast charger and it doesn't seem to take weather into account. I was averaging 3 to 3.5 miles per kWh until I approached the Bay area in 100+ degree weather and it dropped to 2 miles per kWh. Fortunately having been burned many times already (every single Fred Meyer seemed to have a broken charger for example but the navigation software kept directing me to them), I had instituted a hard rule to always charge to 80%. So I made it to Richmond and the next charger before I ran out of power. America's clean electrical future remains a work in progress. So what you really seem to need is about ~400 miles of range which translates to ~300 miles of range at an 80% charge or so. I think we're getting there.

spicybright 5y ago
Not that you should have to, but have you tried a fuel efficient style of driving? I've been able to extend my gasoline + other's hybrids MPG quite a bit from it.
- varelse 5y ago
  Driving at ~50 mph IMO is not a practical driving style for a long trip on ~70 mph highways. But I do mostly set the adaptive cruise control and let it do the mileage management. When I drive around town I get between 4 and 5 miles per kWh doing exactly what you suggest.
- bartread 5y ago
  I don't hate this idea, but GP already added 3.5 - 4 hours to their trip just in charging. You really do have to start taking this stuff into account. I visit my parents who are ~200 miles away several times a year. The drive, during the day, averages 4 - 4.5 hours without stopping. At night it can come down to about 3 hours, but that's not always practical or - if I'm too tired - safe. Factoring in a charge along the way, assuming everything works, and I don't need to queue for a charger, would add 30 - 45 minutes. I'd have to do this because my parents live in a flat with no charging facilities onsite. Fuel efficient driving might add another 30 - 60 minutes to the journey, so suddenly we're into maybe a 5 - 6 hour drive each way even for the night driving option. Bearing in mind I'm often only able to go and visit them for a weekend, and that's a lot of time being sucked up just getting there and back. Shoddy charging infrastructure here in the UK is one of the main reasons I went plug-in hybrid in the end. I can charge at home overnight and do the journey to the office and back (not that I'm doing that very often) on electricity alone, and then the petrol engine is good for longer trips. Also, the car's pretty quick in "power" mode because it uses both electric and petrol together. (I'd also observe that fuel efficient driving can be aggravating for other road users and may not be practical or safe on some types/classifications of road.)
- BluePen8 5y ago
  On the flip side, I wish EV makers would advertise range at higher speeds. Hell, I wish ICE car makers would advertise MPG at higher speeds. Every weekend I head up around 200 miles away, and it's on an empty mountain pass with a 80MPH speed limit. In town, my sports sedan gets the same fuel economy as my old Tacoma, but on that trip the Tacoma consumes over 50% more if driven even remotely comparably (80+). The sports sedan has surprisingly little variance between 70-90MPH. While the truck's aerodynamics aren't helping, I've experienced the same in other "fuel-efficient" vehicles, where the fuel economy falls off a cliff once you go above 60MPH. A Chevy Aveo I owned was actually one of the worst offenders, you'd get on the highway and get SUV-tier fuel mileage.
  - dahfizz 5y ago
    Its a trade-off with engine power. A small, low power engine is really efficient around town at low speeds (and scores well on EPA tests). But to drive at 80 mph, you have to put significant load on that tiny engine, making it really inefficient. A more powerful engine consumes more gas in general, but is operating in a much more efficient range at 80mph because it is not under much load.
  - spicybright 5y ago
    It's weird, I've driven a few different cars and measured the MPG in them, and that's what I'm finding too. 60mph seems like the sweet spot. I wonder if they design specifically for that speed, as it's the speed on most highways in america (someone correct me if not true)
    - BizarroLand 5y ago
      Anecdotally I was once told that vehicles are turned to optimize their fuel economy around the 55mph mark.
avianlyric 5y ago
These experiences really sucks, and show where Tesla has a significant edge over the competition. Their superchargers always work, and their built in routing is great. It's such a shame that other manufactures have taken the "oh we make cars, we can't fix the infrastructure" approach to EVs, which is so short sighted. Really hope they quickly figure out that they need to invest in EV infrastructure, not just EV R&D. With a bit of luck Tesla Model 2 will hit its price point, then the old auto manufactures are going to have a really bad time selling EVs.
- varelse 5y ago
  If Elon Musk follows through on opening up the supercharger network to all EVs, it will be profitable for him and a gamechanger for all EVs. When I'm traveling, time is money, and I'm happy to pay for the charge. Electrify America saved my butt on my recent odyssey by mostly providing 100 kWh fast charges, but the semi-broken fast chargers in Grants Pass and Albany, Oregon both cost me an unnecessary additional hour delivering only 33 kWh apiece. https://electrek.co/2021/07/26/elon-musk-explains-tesla-open-supercharger-network/ https://electrek.co/2021/07/26/elon-musk-explains-tesla-open...
  - TroisM 5y ago
    > When I'm traveling, time is money, and I'm happy to pay for the charge. You are not happy to pay for gas that is a lot quicker?
- sanj 5y ago
  Almost always work. My M3 ended up on a flatbed after the bank of chargers failed.
  - canadianfella 5y ago
    Electric BMW M3?
    - avianlyric 5y ago
bko 5y ago
What ever happened to battery swaps?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- snotrockets 5y ago
  They don't make economical sense, and the government grants for developing those ran out
Mountain_Skies 5y ago
Almost every EV post ends up with a discussion about broken chargers but I wonder why are they broken so often? How much maintenance do they need? I had use of a friend's Leaf for a couple of months and was disappointed in how frequently I came across broken chargers. Luckily there was usually at least one in the bank of chargers that still worked and my travel habits only required 30-40 minutes of charging to extend the range enough for me to get home but it still gave me anxiety that one day every charger would be out of service and I'd be looking for an extension cord and someone who'd let me use a 110v outlet. The Department of Energy gave a resort town in my state a grant to add a bunch of charging stations. The thought was that people from the city would be more willing to use their EV to travel to the resort town if there were plenty of chargers. But after a year almost all of them were broken. On review sites, there were also complaints about ICE vehicles sitting in the EV charging spots all day and no one would do anything about it. Even the chargers outside City Hall were broken. Most (all?) EVs won't allow you to drive off while they're plugged into a charger, so I doubt it's vehicle collisions, at least not EVs, causing the charging stations to need frequent maintenance.
- idiotsecant 5y ago
  Compare the construction of your average EV charger to, for example, a gas pump. Gas pump nozzles are covered and shaded, they are heavy, all the important parts are steel, theyre designed to make it nearly impossible to leave a cable on the ground, and they're way way over engineered because the public interacts with them. The average EV charger is an uncovered exposed pedestal made out of unreinforced nylon with a barely thought out cable retention or ux incentive to return cables. Like so much in tech its all about image and not engineering and user experience design fundamentals and it shows.
- rasz 5y ago
  Misaligned incentives. Other charging networks buy station hardware from outside vendors who optimize for lowest price point. Tesla designs all the hardware in house.
rasz 5y ago
> spent at broken charging stations with low charging rates or just broken Should of bought a Tesla. Competition is cheaper for a reason.

spicybright 5y ago

Not that you should have to, but have you tried a fuel efficient style of driving? I've been able to extend my gasoline + other's hybrids MPG quite a bit from it.

varelse 5y ago
Driving at ~50 mph IMO is not a practical driving style for a long trip on ~70 mph highways. But I do mostly set the adaptive cruise control and let it do the mileage management. When I drive around town I get between 4 and 5 miles per kWh doing exactly what you suggest.
bartread 5y ago
I don't hate this idea, but GP already added 3.5 - 4 hours to their trip just in charging. You really do have to start taking this stuff into account. I visit my parents who are ~200 miles away several times a year. The drive, during the day, averages 4 - 4.5 hours without stopping. At night it can come down to about 3 hours, but that's not always practical or - if I'm too tired - safe. Factoring in a charge along the way, assuming everything works, and I don't need to queue for a charger, would add 30 - 45 minutes. I'd have to do this because my parents live in a flat with no charging facilities onsite. Fuel efficient driving might add another 30 - 60 minutes to the journey, so suddenly we're into maybe a 5 - 6 hour drive each way even for the night driving option. Bearing in mind I'm often only able to go and visit them for a weekend, and that's a lot of time being sucked up just getting there and back. Shoddy charging infrastructure here in the UK is one of the main reasons I went plug-in hybrid in the end. I can charge at home overnight and do the journey to the office and back (not that I'm doing that very often) on electricity alone, and then the petrol engine is good for longer trips. Also, the car's pretty quick in "power" mode because it uses both electric and petrol together. (I'd also observe that fuel efficient driving can be aggravating for other road users and may not be practical or safe on some types/classifications of road.)
BluePen8 5y ago
On the flip side, I wish EV makers would advertise range at higher speeds. Hell, I wish ICE car makers would advertise MPG at higher speeds. Every weekend I head up around 200 miles away, and it's on an empty mountain pass with a 80MPH speed limit. In town, my sports sedan gets the same fuel economy as my old Tacoma, but on that trip the Tacoma consumes over 50% more if driven even remotely comparably (80+). The sports sedan has surprisingly little variance between 70-90MPH. While the truck's aerodynamics aren't helping, I've experienced the same in other "fuel-efficient" vehicles, where the fuel economy falls off a cliff once you go above 60MPH. A Chevy Aveo I owned was actually one of the worst offenders, you'd get on the highway and get SUV-tier fuel mileage.
- dahfizz 5y ago
  Its a trade-off with engine power. A small, low power engine is really efficient around town at low speeds (and scores well on EPA tests). But to drive at 80 mph, you have to put significant load on that tiny engine, making it really inefficient. A more powerful engine consumes more gas in general, but is operating in a much more efficient range at 80mph because it is not under much load.
- spicybright 5y ago
  It's weird, I've driven a few different cars and measured the MPG in them, and that's what I'm finding too. 60mph seems like the sweet spot. I wonder if they design specifically for that speed, as it's the speed on most highways in america (someone correct me if not true)
  - BizarroLand 5y ago
    Anecdotally I was once told that vehicles are turned to optimize their fuel economy around the 55mph mark.

avianlyric 5y ago

These experiences really sucks, and show where Tesla has a significant edge over the competition. Their superchargers always work, and their built in routing is great. It's such a shame that other manufactures have taken the "oh we make cars, we can't fix the infrastructure" approach to EVs, which is so short sighted. Really hope they quickly figure out that they need to invest in EV infrastructure, not just EV R&D. With a bit of luck Tesla Model 2 will hit its price point, then the old auto manufactures are going to have a really bad time selling EVs.

varelse 5y ago
If Elon Musk follows through on opening up the supercharger network to all EVs, it will be profitable for him and a gamechanger for all EVs. When I'm traveling, time is money, and I'm happy to pay for the charge. Electrify America saved my butt on my recent odyssey by mostly providing 100 kWh fast charges, but the semi-broken fast chargers in Grants Pass and Albany, Oregon both cost me an unnecessary additional hour delivering only 33 kWh apiece. https://electrek.co/2021/07/26/elon-musk-explains-tesla-open-supercharger-network/ https://electrek.co/2021/07/26/elon-musk-explains-tesla-open...
- TroisM 5y ago
  > When I'm traveling, time is money, and I'm happy to pay for the charge. You are not happy to pay for gas that is a lot quicker?
sanj 5y ago
Almost always work. My M3 ended up on a flatbed after the bank of chargers failed.
- canadianfella 5y ago
  Electric BMW M3?
  - avianlyric 5y ago

bko 5y ago

What ever happened to battery swaps?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
snotrockets 5y ago
They don't make economical sense, and the government grants for developing those ran out

Mountain_Skies 5y ago

Almost every EV post ends up with a discussion about broken chargers but I wonder why are they broken so often? How much maintenance do they need? I had use of a friend's Leaf for a couple of months and was disappointed in how frequently I came across broken chargers. Luckily there was usually at least one in the bank of chargers that still worked and my travel habits only required 30-40 minutes of charging to extend the range enough for me to get home but it still gave me anxiety that one day every charger would be out of service and I'd be looking for an extension cord and someone who'd let me use a 110v outlet. The Department of Energy gave a resort town in my state a grant to add a bunch of charging stations. The thought was that people from the city would be more willing to use their EV to travel to the resort town if there were plenty of chargers. But after a year almost all of them were broken. On review sites, there were also complaints about ICE vehicles sitting in the EV charging spots all day and no one would do anything about it. Even the chargers outside City Hall were broken. Most (all?) EVs won't allow you to drive off while they're plugged into a charger, so I doubt it's vehicle collisions, at least not EVs, causing the charging stations to need frequent maintenance.

idiotsecant 5y ago
Compare the construction of your average EV charger to, for example, a gas pump. Gas pump nozzles are covered and shaded, they are heavy, all the important parts are steel, theyre designed to make it nearly impossible to leave a cable on the ground, and they're way way over engineered because the public interacts with them. The average EV charger is an uncovered exposed pedestal made out of unreinforced nylon with a barely thought out cable retention or ux incentive to return cables. Like so much in tech its all about image and not engineering and user experience design fundamentals and it shows.
rasz 5y ago
Misaligned incentives. Other charging networks buy station hardware from outside vendors who optimize for lowest price point. Tesla designs all the hardware in house.

rasz 5y ago

> spent at broken charging stations with low charging rates or just broken Should of bought a Tesla. Competition is cheaper for a reason.