There’s a good chance my partner and I would not have wandered into the Jolly Kone or Bridgeport Coffee Roasters one recent morning if our electric car were not in need of a 52-minute charge.
We knew we needed a nearly full charge to get us over the Sierra Nevada Mountains in this rural stretch of California’s eastern edge. It was the final drive of a 3,300-mile round trip from our home in Yreka, Calif., to Colorado Springs, Colo. This 10-day trip would rank as our longest journey in our 2022 Chevrolet Bolt EUV, offering a look into not only the car’s capabilities when thinking of range, but also into the nation’s efforts to build out a public charging network that will give drivers the confidence to rely on EVs for trips beyond commutes and day-to-day needs.
This was a trip that aimed to answer the question: Can consumers turn to EVs to provide the kind of carefree cross-country road trips that are every bit a part of the American experience?
The short answer is, not yet.
In too many cases, we found ourselves altering the route, or ignoring routes, due to a lack of high-speed public charging options, in a landscape still distinctly divided between the Tesla charging network and everything else. Most of our charging was done at Electrify America locations. However, in too many cities — Bridgeport, Calif.; Reno, Nev.; Kingman and Flagstaff in Arizona — only about 25 percent of the chargers were operational. We also came across Electrify America chargers which operated as designed, even if they were out in the blazing sun, uncovered.
High growth means the company’s network “has undergone a tremendous stress test,” Octavio Navarro, an Electrify America spokesperson, said via email. Charging stations in Bridgeport, Kingman and Reno are awaiting parts but the Flagstaff station is “fully functional,” he added.
This is not to say charging infrastructure is not moving along. The federal National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program is investing some $5 billion in public funding as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to all states and territories for the development of electric vehicle charging. The goal is having high-speed charging spaced every 50 miles on major corridors. That funding is helping to pay for infrastructure like the new chargers that recently came online at a Pilot Travel Center in London, Ohio.
Across most of the country, those projects have not yet been built. Nevada proved to be a desert in more ways than one, but in Utah, we came across interesting partnerships. A ChargePoint location in Bluff offered free high-speed charging thanks to an agreement with the Utah Department of Transportation. Another set of ChargePoint fast chargers in Provo, Utah, boasted logos from Starbucks and Volvo. It’s not clear how these relationships are structured. But I will say, the ChargePoint chargers — I used 11 of them on this trip — all worked flawlessly.
The charging landscape could also benefit from more Level 2 “dwell chargers,” the lower-powered chargers which deliver about 20 miles of range for each hour they’re plugged in. These are ideal for overnight stops like hotels. Yet, I encountered fairly few hotels outside of California equipped with these relatively low-cost amenities.
When operating an electric car on a long trip across an unfamiliar route, I became much more aware of elevation changes. Climbing will quickly eat through your battery’s charge. (EVs, however, will pick up energy on the downhill from regenerative braking.) After leaving Kingman, Ariz., on Interstate 40, we burned through 60 miles of range in just 10 miles. The drive through this area of the Mojave Desert gently climbs. That climb was compounded by the extreme temperature, which hovered around 110 degrees on this particular late afternoon. The 246-mile trip from Kingman to Barstow in California required two charging stops, in Needles, Calif. — where the temperature was 120 degrees — and at a desolate gas station known as Najah’s Desert Oasis, on U.S. Highway 66 where gas sold for $8.75 a gallon. To our relief, there stood a bank of Electrify America chargers. We topped off the car’s battery for 56 cents per kilowatt, costing $8.79.
All told, the charging costs for the 3,344-mile trip came to $313.98, or nearly 11 cents per mile. Yes, we benefited from occasional free charging sessions, like the no-cost chargers provided by the California Department of Transportation at rest stops — and by leaving home on a full charge.
Recharging an electric vehicle can have its unexpected pleasures. It forces you to step away from the car and explore the area. In Green River, Utah, I wandered over to the new train platform serving Amtrak, in time to see the California Zephyr arrive. At a rest stop on Highway 395 in California’s Owens Valley, I spent time reading about the native Nuumu people and how they and their culture were all but decimated by the state’s white European settlers. The story stood out as both heartbreaking, and essential in its telling. In Bridgeport, farther up Highway 395, where we recharged at a Shell station — selling gas for $6.79 a gallon — we spent nearly an hour checking out the town (population 402). It includes the Mono County Courthouse, an 1880 Italianate-style wooden building that sits as the centerpiece.
These turned out to be the kinds of unexpected pauses in travel that allow us — force us? — to slow down and see America. And it’s what makes travel an experience, rather than simply a destination.
