Going up to Humboldt and back this weekend from San Mateo, I stopped at every DCFC location on US-101 between Cloverdale (north of Santa Rosa) and Klamath (bit south of Crescent City and the Oregon border).
Mostly it worked quite well. The big wrinkle was that on Monday around noon, the Oak Fire broke out between Willits and Laytonville and shortly after they closed US-101. It's a very inconvenient spot because there are no feasible alternate routes nearby. Caltrans suggested people go out to the Mendocino Coast which resulted in huge amounts of traffic and very long delays. It didn't help that Google Maps for a while was routing people along the closed highway (even today it hasn't been able to understand that no, the local dirt road that has been closed because there is a fire burning on it does not count as a bypass). That said, the Bolt performed well - I charged in Laytonville to 68% and reached Cloverdale with 40% (plenty) despite the extra 50 miles involved in detouring out to the coast. If you have to be stuck in a jam, the Bolt is a good car to be in...
Observations on DCFCs:
- Cloverdale ChargePoint DCFC (+110 miles). Two 50kW units. One was down when I returned. Back of a decent-sized shopping center but otherwise far from anything interesting (like downtown). A few trees for shade.
- Laytonville ChargePoint DCFC (+75 miles). Two 62.5kW units. Behind a Chinese restaurant, a few hundred from the center of the town. No shade. Tesla SCs were fully occupied when I returned.
- Benbow ChargePoint DCFC (+55 miles). One 50kW unit. Front lot of the historic Benbow Inn. A short walk from the river (nice as it was 97 degrees out when I came through).
- Loleta ChargePoint DCFC (+55 miles). Two 50kW units. Upper lot above the casino's 'Family Entertainment center'. Nice views, but nothing else beside the casino nearby.
- Eureka EA DCFC (+15 miles). Two 350kW units and two 150kW units. Far-side of parking lot of a huge mall. Bit awkward because a lot of traffic uses the same aisle to speed through the parking lot. Walking access to the marsh, but some distance from downtown.
- Klamath ChargePoint DCFC (+65 miles). One 62.5kW unit (second unit is CHAdeMO only). Far-side of Holiday Inn Express parking lot. Nothing else nearby.
There are also two EA locations that aren't yet up:
- Willits EA DCFC. Units are in the busy part of the Safeway parking lot. A decent location (few blocks from much of the town) but likely to be ICEd.
- One Log House (near Garberville) EA DCFC. Located amidst a giant gift shop and some gas stations. Not much doing there.
Note that there's no EvGo north of Windsor on the US-101 corridor.
