The cost of gas nationwide ($4.18 a gallon) and in Ohio ($4.13 a gallon) shows no sign of decreasing any time soon. Diesel hit a record national average price over $6 a gallon this past week. Owning an EV remains an effective way to reduce your high fossil fuel costs. And road tripping with an EV is now easier than ever with a robust charging network.
I just took my 2020 Niro EV on two back to back trips for business this past week. First was an overnight trip from Kent to Pittsburgh to give a talk at the University of Pittsburgh, then back home and out to Columbus the next day to attend an event with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. Both trips went smoothly. In warm temperatures, my EV charges up to an estimated range of 280 miles at city speeds, which delivers ~240 miles of range at highway speeds. I charged to 100% at home with electricity that costs18.6 cents a kilowatt hour (kWh) so that I would maximize my range for the road trip.
I used Plugshare to navigate along the route to a ChargePoint DC fast charger and spent about 20 minutes charging from 40% to 80% so that I was ready to head back home the following day. For longer trips, I will use A Better Route Planner (ABRP), which offers more advanced route planning, but this worked well for a simple day trip.
Easy Pay With a Mobile App
I have a credit card loaded into my mobile wallet and so can initiate charging by connecting the charging cable to my car and then holding my phone near the charger. The phone initiates between the charger and vehicle. I don't recall the last time I had an issue with charging the EV on a road trip.
I often strike up conversations with folks who are charging to pass the time. There was a self-driving cab that a Waymo employee was charging, so it as interesting to see one of these vehicles up close. The Waymno uses a combination of radar and LiDAR sensors and optical cameras for navigation.
I was pleased to see that the University of Pittsburgh operates EVs for its parking services vehicles. I am sure that they are saving considerably on the operating and maintenance costs with these vehicles.
For the second part of the road trip, I was also able to drive to Columbus on a single charge. I decided to top up my battery to 80% again for the ride back. If could have made it back without charging, but there's no reason to cut it close on charge when there are plenty of charging stations available.
What Fast Charging Really Means
I did not bother to work out a trip plan for this leg of my journey. I just pulled up PlugShare and navigated to the nearest charging location, which was a Mercedes-Benz dealership. It was 10 minutes from where my meeting was located and on the way back home. I grabbed a to-go lunch at a fast-food place along the way and headed to the chargers.
They had new Ionna 400 kW) chargers. They were fast and easy to use. No app to download. Just plug in your EV, then tap or slide your credit card with the card reader and the charging process starts. These chargers are well designed. They have swinging arms that are mounted up high that can be pulled into position at the front of the charger to keep the cables out of the way and long cables to accommodate a variety of EV charge port placements.
They also have plugs for CCS1, NACS and CHAdeMO equipped EVs and so can charge any EV that can be DC fast charged. It was easy to plug in my Niro EV with its front, driver side charging port.
The monitor screen and card reader on the Ionna charger is on the side of the charger, out of the way of the charging plug storage. You don't need to use the touchscreen to select a plug type or charger location. Operation was easy. The geek in me liked the fact that the Ionna chargers display the charging curve for the EV. I was able to see that it ramped up quickly to 77kW, which is the maximum charge rating for my EV.
You can also use the monitor to see pricing and cost of the charge or to terminate and disconnect the charge.
EV charging on road trips has greatly improved in the six years that I have been driving my EV. I downloaded apps for various charging networks years ago, configured them once and now things work smoothly when I need to travel with my EV. EVA of Ohio can help you learn the ins and outs of charging when you join.
