1,450 MILE ROAD TRIP, AND BACK

Tazbeaux said:

...how many miles of cushion should I add to the distance required to reach my next charge stop?

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General rule of thumb is 10% (that's the default that ABRP uses). It would give you around a 15-25 mile margin, depending on various factors. Other than that, it depends:

• Have you done any long distance highway trips before, and are you confident in your range estimates?
• What are the recent Plugshare reviews for the next charging stop? Is it reliable?
• Are you traveling during a busy time? Is the next charging stop likely to be available?
• If the next charging stop isn't available or reliable, how far is it to an alternative / back-up charging station?
• What's the weather? Will be cold? Will you be driving into a headwind?
• What's the terrain? Will you be driving up a mountain? Or driving down one?

Edit: A lot of these questions can be answered through simple experience - you'll get a feel for the impact of weather, terrain, even DCFC reliability and availability. And in a worst case scenario, you can always slow down to increase range.

Tazbeaux said:

... To minimize charging times, my plan is to just charge enough to get to my next stop, instead of to 80%. ....

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That's exactly the data Abetterrouteplanner shows you. You can even set the amount of buffer you want when arriving at the next DCFC.
Give it a try on a PC just to play with it and see all the settings and data. It's free to play with!
It will even show the elevation profile of each leg when you click on that part of your route along with the SOC on that leg. Comin' down the mountains you'll see the SOC increase!

MichBolt said:

General rule of thumb is 10% (that's the default that ABRP uses). It would give you around a 15-25 mile margin, depending on various factors. Other than that, it depends:

• Have you done any long distance highway trips before, and are you confident in your range estimates?
• What are the recent Plugshare reviews for the next charging stop? Is it reliable?
• Are you traveling during a busy time? Is the next charging stop likely to be available?
• If the next charging stop isn't available or reliable, how far is it to an alternative / back-up charging station?
• What's the weather? Will be cold? Will you be driving into a headwind?
• What's the terrain? Will you be driving up a mountain? Or driving down one?

Edit: A lot of these questions can be answered through simple experience - you'll get a feel for the impact of weather, terrain, even DCFC reliability and availability. And in a worst case scenario, you can always slow down to increase range.

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Thanks for the reply. When I purchased the car I had a 750 mile drive to bring it back home. That worked out pretty well. My up coming trip is my second road trip in the car. I will be traveling from sea level through the Appalachians, and a few steep inclines in the final 100 miles. I am not sure at this point what the temperatures will be. All of my planned stops currently have good reviews and I plan on checking again before departing. I was thinking about allowing a 20-30 mile cushion, depending on how far the next stop will be.

NortonCommando said:

That's exactly the data Abetterrouteplanner shows you. You can even set the amount of buffer you want when arriving at the next DCFC.
Give it a try on a PC just to play with it and see all the settings and data. It's free to play with!
It will even show the elevation profile of each leg when you click on that part of your route along with the SOC on that leg. Comin' down the mountains you'll see the SOC increase!

Click to expand...

Thanks, I will check that out.

Tazbeaux said:

Next month I will be doing a road trip for Easter, from the Gulf Coast of Louisiana to Northeast PA in my 23 Bolt EV. The trip is roughly 1,450 miles , then will be driving a different route back home. I used Plug Share to plan my route and will mostly be using Electrify America stops. Many of the distances between stops are much shorter than the range of my car. To minimize charging times, my plan is to just charge enough to get to my next stop, instead of to 80%. My question is, how many miles of cushion should I add to the distance required to reach my next charge stop?

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My MO is a little less on the technical side, more seat of the pants method. My wife dislikes seeing the GOM turn orange, gets really anxious. So I try to leave 30+ miles of buffer with works out to about 20% arrival SOC.

If you watch (and don't reset the trip meter) the mi/kWh becomes a fairly accurate running measure of efficiency. When you know the road ahead will be similar to the road behind (elevation, speed, temp, HVAC use), then the 30 mile buffer on top of what's needed to reach the next stop works well. If you know it is going to be more efficient (downhill), you can cut it a little shorter, and if you know it will be less efficient, add another 10-20 miles of buffer and you will generally be fine. You can always slow down 5-10 MPH to stretch things if you get worried you will come up short.

PSA: Passengers tend to appreciate not pushing the vehicle right to the limit. Will you have any?

Zapster said:

PSA: Passengers tend to appreciate not pushing the vehicle right to the limit. Will you have any?

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Yes, 1 passenger, his first EV road trip

Run a route planner like the Chevy app. That app constantly updates guess. Other planners exist too and may require an OBD2 connected. Since you made it there you seem to have a good planning skill already. You also kinda know what goes on the way and how your estimates have faired.

Tazbeaux said:

Next month I will be doing a road trip for Easter, from the Gulf Coast of Louisiana to Northeast PA in my 23 Bolt EV. The trip is roughly 1,450 miles , then will be driving a different route back home. I used Plug Share to plan my route and will mostly be using Electrify America stops. Many of the distances between stops are much shorter than the range of my car. To minimize charging times, my plan is to just charge enough to get to my next stop, instead of to 80%. My question is, how many miles of cushion should I add to the distance required to reach my next charge stop?

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I find the MyChevrolet app excellent for route planning. With any of the route planners, check the charger stops very carefully. They often make significant errors. Today, I checked a route using ABRP and it routed me to an EA charger that's been closed for months. In addition, it is not aware of an important DCFC along the route.

MyChevrolet provided a perfect solution, but I believe it may be "polluted" by my previous usage. The charger status on MyChevrolet did match PlugShare whereas ABRP did not. A lot of folks love ABRP, but I have had poor luck with it.

In all fairness, I have seen some pretty gross errors with MyChevrolet but I have been able to edit those out fairly easily. For example, it may chose a long stop at a L2 charger when a DCFC option is available elsewhere. Cross checking with PlugShare or the charger site can mostly sort out issues like this.

Tazbeaux said:

Yes, 1 passenger, his first EV road trip

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For your entertainment, you should occasionally tell the passenger that you're starting to run low and maybe you won't make it. I do this to my father every time I take him to PA from Maryland.

Tazbeaux said:

Yes, 1 passenger, his first EV road trip

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You want this experience to be as normal and anxiety-free as possible. So DDSS, which would include drafting.

Zapster said:

PSA: Passengers tend to appreciate not pushing the vehicle right to the limit. Will you have any?

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I made my passengers ride the tow trucks as I ran out of juice 3 miles from home. Even 10 miles on the G-O-M isn't enough to go 3 miles when it's cold and going up a steep bridge.

During my 1600 mile Maryland/Texas drives, I used PlugShare to plan the trip and I used conservative 150 mile range radii since I was limited by the 80% recall (plus it would be very slow to charge past 80%). Stops were spaced about 120-130 miles apart. I limited my speed to no more than 65 mph even when speed limits were higher... unless I knew I could go faster and still reach my next charge stop!

On the GOM side, I paid close attention to the Min range prediction. The Min would inch closer to the middle number as I kept driving.

To keep it simple, I always charged to 75-80%. Usually 75% but this one gap between Sulphur, LA and Houston, TX (Vidor, TX was broken) was like 140-150 miles... so I went to 80% while in Sulphur, LA.

Tazbeaux said:

Thanks for the reply. When I purchased the car I had a 750 mile drive to bring it back home. That worked out pretty well. My up coming trip is my second road trip in the car. I will be traveling from sea level through the Appalachians, and a few steep inclines in the final 100 miles. I am not sure at this point what the temperatures will be. All of my planned stops currently have good reviews and I plan on checking again before departing. I was thinking about allowing a 20-30 mile cushion, depending on how far the next stop will be.

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20-30 miles is a great cushion. I was going to see if I can make it with 10 miles cushion. It turns out that I couldn't.

I've wandered to chargers with some very very low numbers. I didn't really like it either. Once the juice icon goes orange you have to really start planning next stop. Since there is still a poor track record on these charger you have to be careful for the one horse connectors. EA usually provides a few. I did spend 2 hours trying to charge at Denton last month, one junky charger after another. You'd walk to restaurant, order then get text car has stopped.

I go 100-150 miles between stops and allow a 20 mile margin using the middle reading on the GOM. Greater distance when temps are between 55-70, less in winter temps below 40. I don't know if it applies to the OP, but if there is clear low traffic highway I allow more like 30 miles extra. Driving through urban low speed or high traffic areas one can allow less.

The Bolt, more than other EV's I've driven is way more efficient in slower traffic conditions.

MarkCapeCod said:

I go 100-150 miles between stops and allow a 20 mile margin using the middle reading on the GOM.

The Bolt, more than other EV's I've driven is way more efficient in slower traffic conditions.

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When I leave the house with a full charge, I will go 180 miles to my first stop. After that all my stops will be 150 miles or under.

I also get much better range when driving "off interstate". However almost all of this trip will be on interstate hwys.

I have gone up to 225 miles on a full charge with 30 miles left on arrival. That was at about 55 degrees and a lot of 50-60 mph state roads. That's about ideal for the Bolt. 180 miles under more typical conditions for a first leg is just about right, I agree.

On my first moderate length trip I learned a lesson on the very first stop. DON'T USE ABRP to guide you to a charger. I ended up in an industrial district with no charger in sight and my wife was already nervous about the whole "running out of battery" thing. So for every stop after I used ABRP to plan the next stop, pull up the charger in Plug Share to verify it exists and see if there is a better charger near by, then plug that address into Waze to route me there. (I like knowing where abandoned cars, roadkill, and cops are on the road). The only other bad stop we had was in Gainsville which was a very popular charger since it was the only one on I-75 for many many miles.
This year we are planning a 1,200 mile road trip each way and trying to determine if the money we would save on gas is worth the hassle.