It was time to get the 2020 Chevrolet Bolt to the mountains - this means a road trip from Kansas to Colorado. The Bolt has a range of over 250 miles which makes it practical for road trips.
We used an app called "A Better Route Planner" to plan the trip. This app takes into account your choice of vehicle and its expected range and then shows you the available electric car chargers along the way. It offers recommendations of available routes and time needed to charge at each.
Electric car chargers are kind of like gasoline stations. There are various companies selling electricity for electric cars and they each have their line of charge stations. If you travel widely you will want to have activation cards for each of the various companies. We used the following companies chargers on our road trip:
Electrify America - as part of the settlement for the Diesel emissions scandal Volkswagen created Electrify American with a goal of investing $2 Billion in EV infrastructure over a 10 year period. We used a credit card at these chargers and all worked well. These were easy to use, had large displays and required nothing but a credit card to use. You can join their club and get a discounted rate for charging.
Chargepoint - These chargers require the use of a Chargepoint activation card. They do not take a credit card directly. They add a certain dollar amount from your credit card to their activation card as you use up your allotment. These chargers typically had the best rates.
EVgo - EVgo states they are the nations largest public fast charging network for electric vehicles and the first to be powered by 100% renewable energy. They have more than 800 fast charging locations in 66 markets across 34 states and serve more than 200,000 customers.
Tesla - Their DC fast chargers are for Tesla vehicles only. They also have what are known as "Destination Chargers" which are basically Level 2 chargers and are typically found at hotels, restaurants and shopping centers. Adaptors are available to use these on other makes of automobiles. We did not use any Tesla chargers on our trip.
There are two different kinds of charging cords at the DC Fast Chargers. CHAdeMO chargers are used by Nissan and Mitsubishi and all remaining non-Tesla automobiles use CCS charger plugs.
Chevrolet Bolts come standard with a charge plug port that supports the Level 2 J1772 plug. The car has an option to allow the factory installation of the faster charge rate 'Level 3' DC fast charge CCS plug. If you wish to do road trips in a Bolt you will want the optional DC fast charge option.
When you pull up to a charger you first plug the charge cable into the charge port and let the car establish communication with the charger. It will then show the state of charge of the car on the display screen and will tell you how many minutes it will take to bring the car up to an 80% state of charge (SOC). To preserve the battery life the charge rate slows down greatly after the car reaches 80% SOC, enough that it makes sense to disconnect at that point. We typically charged for about 40 minutes.
I tend to like to drive non stop for hours on a road trip in an internal combustion vehicle and was concerned that stopping every few hours to charge for 40 minutes would be troublesome. It turned out to not be much of an issue as the dog likes to get out and run, potty stops are more often and there is time to eat a civilized meal. Electric car road trips are a bit more relaxing, but internal combustion trips are still much faster.
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Typical screen at a charging station - this one shows we had 53% of our battery charge.
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The Bolt gets about 4 miles of range for every kW used in reasonable weather - less in cold weather due to the heater and a cold battery. If you are paying 16 cents for a kW your cost per mile is 4 cents. The rates at the various chargers ranged from 16 to 42 cents per kW.
The vast majority of electric car owners will charge at home using Level 1 and Level 2 chargers and pay whatever their home electric rate is. We pay 13 cents per kW at our home.
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| The electric car chargers are easy to find under the pink Cadillac at the I-70 Diner at Flagler Colorado |
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| The diner is very much a 50's style diner with particularly good food. |
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Lots of fun posters on the walls
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Typical card reader and screen
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| The Electrify America chargers we found in Kansas and Colorado were often found at Walmarts and Sams Clubs |
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| This Electrify America charger is the only one we found that was installed adjacent to a gas station, a Casey's in Salina KS |
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Most chargers require you to nose in, but the ones that let you drive alongside are much easier to use
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One of the nice things about multiple chargers at a given location is you get to visit with other owners and talk about their choice in electric cars
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This is the DC fast charger in Salida, Colorado. They are putting support for a solar car port in place. There will be 16kW of solar panels in place when completed.
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I'm a bit worried about snow sliding off the panels and onto the car in winter weather
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Most locations give you a ten minute grace period after your charge is complete to move your car. After that they charge 40 cents a minute - it is kind of like leaving your car at a gas pump while you go eat dinner - kinda rude to those waiting.
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