This post started off as planning for a road trip from Vienna VA to a town in rural upstate New York. The catch being that I planned to take my Chevy Bolt EV.
If you look at the map above, it seems like it should be easy. There appear to be EV charging stations all over my planned route. But the more I looked at the details, the less I understood. And the more I realized that most of those chargers pictured above are useless to me.
En route, I need a non-Tesla Level 3 (DC fast) charger. The overwhelming majority of pins on the map are Level 2 chargers (explained below), which are too slow for en-route charging. Most of the rest are Tesla fast chargers, most of which, per Tesla, can’t be used by a Bolt. Yet.
I could just wing it, I suppose. The internet (and the real news media) are full of first-person stories about surviving a road trip in a non-Tesla EV. Putting aside all the people who took road trips without incident (and so have nothing sound-bite-worthy to report, and so remain invisible), there’s little point in offering yet another tale of self-imposed penalties for failing to plan appropriately.
Instead of taking a trip and publicly airing my troubles, I’m taking a real-world example of an EV road trip that I’d like to take, and showing you the homework. This post records what I went through, and what I learned, trying to figure out how to take an EV road trip, for the very first time, with the current U.S. charger network.
Turns out, for the route I want to take, it’s not hard at all to find what looks like a robust set of recharging points. That is, cities with multiple different fast charger locations, near the highway, using the CCS plug that fits the Chevy Bolt.
Arguably the most surprising thing I learned is that not all Tesla chargers are off-limits to the unwashed masses (such as Bolt drivers). The vaunted Tesla charging network has two parts: Fast chargers that operate along the lines of a gas station, and “destination” chargers that can provide an overnight charge, suitable for (say) a guest staying at a hotel. I can’t use Tesla fast chargers (yet), even ones open to non-Tesla uses, because I can’t get my hands on a fast-charger adapter. But with a cheap, simple, and readily-available AC (slow) charging adapter, I think I can use most Tesla destination chargers.
Source: Amazon.com
Future EV charging bliss
Source: Lectron.
The U.S. EV charger network is currently a mish-mosh. Different plugs, different electronic interfaces. Numerous networks, each of which requires its own app and payment method.
This makes it hard to plan a long trip in an EV, let alone actually take one.
But that’s going to change. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, or BIL, signed into law November 2021, offered huge subsidies for building new EV chargers — but only if they can serve a wide range of cars. It then took two years for private industry to coalesce around a single standard, called NACS (North American Charging Standard). NACS combines the Tesla plug with the non-brand-specific electronics that everybody but Tesla uses now (called CCS, Combined Charging System).
The SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) began codifying this private-sector standard in December 2023, (reference SAE). This will allow Federal subsidy of private investment in charging stations to more forward, now that they know what to build. Wasting no time, in January 2024, the Federal government awarded more than half a billion dollars in charger subsidy grants, for “community” (public) charging locations owned by public entities such as local governments. With more in the pipeline.
All of that detail is from Wikipedia.
Anyway, if you wondered what was taking so long, to implement the charger network from the BIL, now you know. It took a couple of years of wrangling for private industry to agree on one standard. The SAE began publishing the details of the standard in December 2023. That same month, the Federal Highway Administration provided its blessing by saying that NACS chargers qualify for the BIL subsidy. And as of January 2024, we’re off to the races.
FWIW, the target from the BIL seems to be 500,000 additional EV chargers by 2030. My point being that anybody who has bothered to look up the law understands that this is going to take a while.
In theory, all new EVs offered for sale in the U.S. will be able to charge from these NACS chargers. Better yet (from my perspective), existing cars using the CCS plug should be able to fast-charge from NACS chargers using a cheap and simple adapter. That’s because, from the non-Tesla perspective, NACS is just CCS with a different layout of the pins. (A major caveat there is that Tesla (and only Tesla) says it will only charge cars using a manufacturer-supplied adapter, and so far, GM has said nothing about making a genuine-GM adapter available for the Bolt.)
The only EVs that might be left behind are those using the Japanese standard plug, termed CHADeMO. Notably, this includes Nissan Leaf, other Nissans, the Kia Soul EV, and a handful of others. That said, there now appears to be at least one (rather expensive) adapter that will allow CHADeMO cars to use CCS chargers (reference YouTube video). So it’s possible that the chargers can be standardized as NACS and nobody will be left behind.
Current charging chaos
Source: Plugshare.com
While the future may look bright, the present state of the U.S. EV charging network is absolutely chaotic. I got a little taste of that a couple of years ago, via my wife’s plug-in Prius Prime. This, in a couple of trips to Ocean City, Maryland (Post #1458, Post #1853).
If you’re in a heavily urbanized area, or maybe on the U.S. West Coast, or drive a Tesla, or are driving on certain interstate highway, chances are you’ve got fairly good access to some form of on-the-go charging.
Elsewhere? Not so much. My limited experience outside of the urbanized DC area is that there are scant offerings, no posted prices, high prices, out-of-service equipment, and unreliable service.
The charging market is so chaotic that there’s now a market for helping you deal with the charging market. For example, in 2021, GM introduced Ultium Charge 360, essentially, a piece of software to allow you to use just one app to access and pay for charging your GM vehicle, for chargers in several national networks. (Sounds good, but: It appears that the only way to activate it is via the My Chevy app, which will not run on my phone. Some features require a $300 annual subscription to OnStar, which surely costs more than the electricity I use annually in this car. And it doesn’t work at all chargers, only at chargers in networks with agreements with GM. When all the dust settles, this attempt at simplifying the charging market for me just makes my life more complicated.)
Part of that chaos is technical in nature. There are at least three different mutually-incompatible fast-charging plugs commonly in use in the U.S. today (Tesla, CHADeMO, CCS). There are three charging levels, corresponding to different rates of potential charging speed. Level 1 (120V charging) is pretty much too slow to be useful for anything but emergency charging. Level 2 (240 volt AC charging) is good for an overnight charge. And Level 3 (DC fast charging) is the “gas-station-like” charging experience that you need while en route.
Part of that chaos is economic in nature, due to the sheer variety of public and private charging station owners. Chargers are owned by everybody from local governments, to car manufacturers, to car dealerships, to local businesses (restaurants, hotels), to 30+ regional or national chains. And these charging stations keep changing ownership at a rapid clip, as the industry coalesces. Note the 32 networks circled above. Whether or not you can use a particular charger may depend on your vehicle (e.g., Tesla fast chargers), which apps you’ve downloaded (for various networks), or other criteria (for semi-public locations like car dealerships). It’s as if every store you shopped in required you to use their specific credit card, and then half of them reject the purchase anyway.
And part simply arises from the high variation that comes from small numbers. If there’s only one charger at your destination, and it’s out of service, then you’re out of luck. Or if it’s merely in use, ditto. The fact that chargers are thin on the ground in many areas means that you may be banking on finding a single charging slot that functions, that is unoccupied, and that you can use (right plug, right network, and so on.)
But the most surprising thing was the mind-boggling amount of piecemeal, conflicting information. There is no single, centralized, authoritative source regarding what chargers are where, and who can use them. Even the mighty Google Maps only shows some random subset of charging locations. Of the sources available, Plugshare — essentially, the Wikipedia of charging stations, using consumer self-reports of stations– seems by far the most comprehensive.
That said, I have no business kvetching about the current state of affairs, because I knew this when I bought my EV — a 2020 Chevy Bolt.
I figured I’d only use that Bolt as a grocery-getter. Plus, fast-charging is bad for your batteries. And my wife’s Prius Prime can burn gas for long trips. So I didn’t much care about being able to find charging stations for long-distance road trips.
An armchair adventure, dealing with the current charging network.
Source: Google Maps, with the EV Charger option toggled.
My armchair adventure is pictured above. On a lark, I’m thinking of taking a road trip to a small town near Ithaca, New York, starting from my home town of Vienna VA. Google tells me it’s 326 miles, so I’m going to have to recharge the car coming and going.
It looks like recharging shouldn’t be a problem. Just a quick glance at the map shows plenty of recharging stations on the route, even at this scale. More will show up as I zoom in. Looking at the map above, how hard could it be?
Well …
The devil is in the details
Let me just get to the punchline, then explain the nuances. I’m trying to get to a location that’s about 325 miles from my home, and back, using an EV with a conservative highway range of about 200 miles. (EPA rating is 260, but … ).
Practically speaking, I need to find one fast (Level 3) charger I can use, roughly 200 miles into the trip, and one slow (Level 2) charger either at my hotel or within walking distance of it. (Walking distance, because I’m going to have to leave the car at the destination slow-charger overnight).
To understand what will and won’t work, you have to know a few details.
Speed of charging: LEvel 1, 2, and 3.
Charging is fastest with an empty battery, and gets slower as the battery gets closer to being full. So “charging speed” varies. That said, there are three broad classes of chargers, based on how many KW of power they can provide.
Level 1 charging is 120V, typical about 1 to 1.5 KWH/hour. These are rarely provided at public charging stations and, when available, you typically get just a standard 120V outlet, and you supply your own charging cord.
Level 2 charging is 220V, and might provide anywhere from 6 to 16 KWH/hour.
Level 3 is “DC fast charging” and might provide anywhere from 50 to 300+ KWH/hour. The Bolt itself limits the charge rate to no more than 55 KW.
Assuming I could get 4 miles per KWH on the highway, I get the following time to add 200 miles of range, for a Chevy Bolt:
- Level 1: Two days (40 hours at 5 miles/hour).
- Level 2: Overnight (8 hours at 25 miles per hour, typical).
- Level 3: One hour (at 50 KW).
The upshot is that Level 1 charging (basically, a standard outlet) is uselessly slow in this context. Level 2 would work if I could find it within walking distance of my hotel. And Level 3 is what I must find on the road.
Type of charging plug.
J1772. This is the SAE standard for Level 1 and Level 2 charging. As a slow-charger, the Bolt uses the J1772 plug. Pretty much every car that isn’t CHADeMO or Tesla has these on-board.
CCS or “Combo”: This is the SAE standard that adds DC faster charging to a J1772 plug. The older version, as found on the Bolt, is now known as CCS1. The newer version — more compact, with a different pin configuration — is known as CCS2.
CHADeMO: This is the common-but-going-obsolete-in-the-U.S. plug found on Nissan Leaf and a few other vehicles. The Bolt — a CCS car — can’t use a CHADeMO charger. (N.B., CHADeMO is based on the Japanese name, so it’s not an acronym for anything.)
Tesla: Tesla has its own plug both for Level 1/2 charging at “destination” chargers (think, hotels), and for Level 3 (fast) charging.
Can other cars use Tesla chargers? At present, I believe that a relatively cheap adapter allows a J1772 car to use a Tesla destination (Level 2) charger. For Tesla DC fast chargers, as Tesla converts its chargers to the new NACS standard, those converted charges could be used by CCS vehicles, with an adapter. (Caveat: Tesla says it will only allow charging using a manufacturer-supplied adapter, not a third-party adapter, so whether or not Bolts can ever access standard Tesla NACS superchargers will be up to GM’s willingness to offer an adapter.) Plugshare clearly marks the Tesla fast chargers that are (in theory) open to non-Tesla vehicles. Exactly which non-Tesla vehicles may use those is still in flux, I think. Finally, a small fraction of Tesla fast-chargers have “magic dock” adapters — essentially, built-in CCS adapters — and in theory, those chargers will work with any CCS car. If Tesla allows it. In theory, if you download the Tesla app, and tell it your non-Tesla vehicle, the Tesla app will show you which Tesla chargers you can use. I haven’t tried that yet.
NACS: North American Charging Standard. This is, essentially, a Tesla plug with electronics to make it compatible with other cars. This standard has been adopted by all (?) manufacturers going forward, as well as by the Federal government. It’s not clear that anything other than some Tesla fast chargers are implementing the NACS standard yet.
The problem restated
With one stop, I need to find a Level 3 (fast) charger with a CCS plug in or around Williamsport, PA. And a Level 2 (overnight) charger within walking distance of my hotel. But as it turns out, the only way to do that is to use a Tesla supercharger. Something I can’t do yet, at least until I buy the relevant adapter. I’d have to do the trip with two stops.
With one stop: Williamsport PA and environs — TEsla charger only.
The only Level 3 (fast) charger in Williamsport is a Tesla charger. That says it’s open to non-Tesla users, so that appears to be one that has already been modified to be an NACS charger. As a Chevy driver, I think all I would need is an adapter (pictured earlier, but currently out of stock).
With two stops: Relying on chargers at car dealerships.
Without that adapter, the nearest city with natively CCS fast chargers is Harrisburg. Harrisburg has several fast-charger locations with CCS plus, mostly at car dealerships, but open to the public.
Harrisburg is only about 100 miles from Vienna, so that if I stop in Harrisburg, I’ll need another stop between there and my destination.
Elmira, NY has at least two Level 3 chargers with CCS ports. So that would do. And it’s only 40 miles from my destination of Trumansburg NY. So I could either find a charger in Trumansburg or not.
Finally, Trumansburg, NY has exactly one charger. It’s a Level 2 charger at town hall, and is within walking distance of the only hotel in town. Thus, that would serve to top up the charge, if needed.
Oddly, while this two-stop trip seems like a lot more hassle than the one-stop trip, total charging time will be about the same. The only wasted time in the two-stop trip is all the monkeying around finding the charger and getting set up.
Summary
On paper, it looks like I could make this trip with some confidence. Both stops (Harrisburg PA, 100 miles; Elmira NY 280 miles) have multiple CCS fast-charging options, using different networks.
Trying to do this with just one recharging stop would be modestly more convenient, but at a much higher risk of failure. There, the recharge point would be Williamsport PA, but the only fast-charger there is a Tesla machine open to non-Tesla users, and I don’t yet have an adapter for that. And I would absolutely need a full recharge at the single Level 2 charger available at my destination. If I got there and that charger was out of service, I’d be very much out of luck, because the nearest alternative charger is four miles away and does not allow for overnight charging (it’s in a state park).
The bottom line is that to make this proposed 325-mile journey with minimal risk of running out of charge, I’m going to have to take two recharging stops. One around 100 miles in, one around 280 miles in. In both cases, I’ll have several CCS fast-chargers available, no adapter required. And I won’t have to rely on the sole slow-charger available at my destination.
The only clear downside is that this might add as much as two hours, to what would otherwise be a roughly six-hour road trip in (say) a hybrid. So it’s feasible to do this in a Bolt, but it’s significantly faster and more convenient do use a gas-powered car for this trip.
But the upside is the lower C02 emissions. This round trip would take about 10 gallons of gas in a Prius, resulting in about 200 pounds of C02 emissions. Using electricity, at Virginia’s current generating mix (0.65 lbs C02 per KWH), it would generate a bit less than 100 pounds. Whether it’s worth it to extend the trip that much, to save that much C02 emission, is up to the user.
I guess this reinforces the notion that the Bolt is a fine car for around-town transportation, but is awkward for long trips. The 55 KW charging rate cap means that it’s going to take some time to charge the car, no matter what. That said, if I had a pressing need to take this trip, and the Bolt was the only car available to me, it would work just fine.
