The EV Roadmap Unpacked

By Andrea Gara

The weather is warming and maybe your thoughts are turning to a road trip. Range anxiety and the power of habit still have some turning to gas or hybrid vehicles for longer trips. Or, avoiding EV ownership altogether. But are those fears warranted? We decided to put our VW ID.4 to the test! 

The Challenge: 

We wanted to take a month-long road trip to attend a wedding in New Mexico and visit our son in Boulder, CO with an unspecified route home. (Spoiler alert: We went through Wyoming). How would our VW ID.4 do out of the California charging bubble? 

The Trip

Palo Alto → King’s Canyon National Park, CA → Mojave, CA → Flagstaff/Sedona AZ→ Albuquerque/Santa Fe NM → Pueblo, CO → Boulder/Golden, CO → Laramie, WY → Park City, UT → Elko, NV  → Tahoe  → Palo Alto.

A shared love of adventure travel lit the spark between my husband (Al) and me. However, like many, I have become concerned about the environmental impact of air travel.  So, these days I am challenging myself to find more adventures closer to home. Al has always loved a road trip, but I feared fast-food meals and long stints trapped in the car.  Would an EV road trip be for me? With the prospect of a wedding in Santa Fe and visiting with family in Colorado, I decided to give it a go. 

The verdict? EV road trips are indeed different from gas ones, but how they stack up may depend on the driver. If you like to blast through, in a feat of endurance, to your destination, they may cramp your style a bit. But, if like me, you appreciate extra chances to stretch your legs and take a look around, you may find an EV trip much more fun than a gas one.

In many ways, an EV road trip felt like a throwback to a time before we all just filled up without leaving the interstate. While there is no shortage of EV chargers just off the highway, I loved that charge time allowed me to check out more small towns than I would have otherwise, including the historic town of Las Vegas, NM (who knew?) where we found an excellent hole-in-the-wall sandwich shop. Or Gallup, NM, where nearly 50% of the population is Native American and there is a thriving Native American art scene. Or Barstow, CA on Route 66, where we enjoyed the kitsch and a classic diner lunch. Maybe charging will prove a boon to small town America and make everyone’s road trips more interesting. Towns like Mojave, CA are clearly banking on it, and their ample charging stations did entice us to make that a stop. 

One challenge for us was that our car came with 3 years of free charging at Electrify America stations, highly incentivizing us to use them. They have a robust network, but are concentrated outside of town centers, often in a Walmart parking lot, with some fast-food joints nearby. As a vegetarian and a picky eater, I found I needed good picnic fixings, just in case. Next year, when our freebie period with Electrify America ends, we will be making even more stops in small towns. 

Another unusual aspect of our EV road trip was meeting fellow travelers while charging. Some of the best conversations were with the woman pulling a teardrop camper with her EV (who said she had taken multiple 4k mile trips!) and the older couple who were completing a round trip from AZ to NY and back. 

After 3.5K miles through blue states, red states, mountains, high desert, and city centers, temperatures over 100℉ and below freezing, we are more confident than ever about EV road tripping. All told, we had a great adventure, and I am happy to report that the high-adrenaline moments were attributable to my poor gravel bike skills and unexpected wildlife in the bathroom….not that we were  driving an EV! 

Usual Wait time for Chargers: 0 minutes. 

Total Wait Time for Chargers: 9 minutes. 

Average Charge Time: 30 minutes. 

Average Charge Speed: 100 kW dropping to 80 kW

Useful Apps: 

• ABRP (A Better Route Planner) -- Don’t leave home without it! You can input your starting point, destination, starting charge and the buffer charge you want when you arrive. Add way stops, and get info on amenities at the charging station. You can also play around with how many stops you want versus time charging to customize your trip.  It takes elevation into account (critical!)! One pitfall: the navigation app. is not great. We just plugged the charge spots into Google after we got the route. 

• PlugShare – Good for seeing all of the chargers along a route, including slow chargers and free chargers. You can filter for amenities such as nearby dining, hiking, or shopping. Useful info on pricing and reliability plus user reviews. 

• Charger Apps – (Electrify America, Charge Point, EV Connect…). These are good for seeing charger availability, status (are they in use/working), charging speed, and nearby amenities. 

• Google Maps - Has gotten quite good at showing nearby chargers.

• Stay-N-Charge – Find out which hotels have EV chargers. 

Pro Tips: 

1. Download a few different charger apps before leaving on a long trip. You don’t want to be trying to download the app and set up an account in a remote area with weak Wi-Fi. 

2. Take into account temperature, wind, elevation, speed, and AC usage. While the ABRP route takes elevation into account, if you are speeding and blasting the AC, your mileage will go down. (Of course, same is true with gas vehicles).  Range will also go down in freezing temperatures (around 30%) and temps over 95% (around 15%).  

3.  Bring a cooler with some nice picnic fare, especially if you want to grab a bite while charging and you are not a fan of fast food. 

4. Use charging stops to take bathroom breaks, check out local towns, have a snack, and chat with other chargers!

5. Carry an extension cord and a plug adapter so that you can use a wall socket in an emergency, or use (with permission) at lodging. We never needed it, but still. 

6. Remember that your mileage will look bad as you climb a mountain, but will recover as you go down the other side. Use a planning app, such as ABRP, so that you don’t have to stress out or do math! 

7. Remember to check the charger situation at your destination for the day. You need enough to get back out of town to the next charger.  

Pleasant Surprises: 

1. More charging stations than we expected. Even trying to use Electrify America chargers exclusively, we found coverage was well-spaced. Some small towns, such as Mojave, CA, population 3.8K, had tons of chargers. 

2. Free EV charging at some Best Westerns and other hotel chains with on-site chargers. 

3. Free EV chargers in Flagstaff, AZ

4. Little to no wait time for chargers. 

Most Challenging Leg:

1. Mojave, CA to Desert Oasis in Fenner, CA. Our mistakes were: skipping a charge because we didn’t think we needed it, taking a wrong turn, speeding, and blasting the AC with temps over 100℉. After realizing that our mileage was dropping faster than expected, we slowed down (prudent) and turned off the AC for 15 minutes (overreaction). In the end, we rolled into the charge station with 8% charge. Lesson learned: when conditions are extreme, just make the extra stop.

Most Challenging State: WY (Actually, this was the only remotely challenging state!)

Favorite Charge Site: Park City, Utah Visitor Center. Comfy seating areas, cute cafe, tables to plug in and work, Wi-Fi, clean bathrooms. 

Charging at the Park City, Utah Visitor Center

To see what day-to-day EV travel life looked like, check out the detailed report below! Happy fossil fuel free travel! 

Detailed Trip Report

Oct 3: Palo Alto → King’s Canyon. Started from home with a 90% charge. Over the mountains and into the valley. Hit 104℉ degrees on the drive, but arrived at Fresno charger with around 15%. Drove fairly fast.

Electrify America in a strip mall. No wait. Plenty of food options, but we went with Thai. 150kw. Charged quickly to 90 percent in 30 minutes. Moved the car to another spot to free up the charger and finish lunch.

Lunch in Fresno while we charged.

The next day we drove 11 miles and 700 meters from our Airbnb to Kings Canyon park headquarters (our trailhead). We arrived with 44%.  Gained 3% on the way back home. No chargers at the headquarters. Did check with our planning app (ABRP), and we could have made it to Roads End on Kings Canyon–the jumping off point for high Sierra treks–and then back down to chargers in Tulare with 15%.

Oct 5: King’s Canyon → Mojave, CA  Local bike ride before checkout. Got up to 50% charge going to lower elevation.

Stop in Orange Cove for Mexican lunch, then on to Tulare to charge at the Walmart. 

Four minute wait for a charger. Took a bathroom break and made a drinks run. Turned out there was a reasonable looking Mexican Cafe, so lunch at the charger would have been fine. Charged 25 minutes up to 85%. Still 100℉ out.

Climbed to Tehachapi, then down a bit to Mojave, CA. Arrived with 19% charge. I had been kicking myself because I booked a room at the Desert Winds Best Western, but discovered that the Electrify America chargers were located at the Comfort Inn. However, we were pleasantly surprised to find that the Best Western had a few free slow chargers that we will be able to plug into overnight. There was also a large bank of Tesla chargers right next door. 

Oct 6: Mojave, CA → Flagstaff/Sedona  Bike for Al and a swim for me before checkout. We left with 90% charge. Both hungry, so just drove an hour then detoured onto route 66 to Barstow for a classic diner lunch. 

Lunch in Barstow, CA

We decided we didn’t need to charge in Barstow. I navigated poorly out of town, and we added some mileage. Temperatures hit 103℉, and we were, um, zipping along. Not surprisingly, we found that we were dropping mileage fast. Al slowed down, and we briefly turned off the AC. In the end, we got to chargers in Fenner with 8% (the app prediction was 9%), so it was a bit of an overreaction, but a good lesson learned: be prudent in extreme heat.

The charger station had indoor tables, cold drinks and snacks. Charged to 85% in around 30 minutes. Then got on route 66 for another 20 miles. 

Overheard conversation in Fenner: Woman: They shouldn’t have him doing the landscaping in the peak summer heat! Man: It’s not summer; it’s October. (Good reminder of why we are driving an EV.)

Beautiful drive to Kingsman, AZ. Chargers at Kroger – 3 of  4 working. No wait. Al did a pharmacy run for an altitude headache while I grabbed groceries for the cooler. Highest temp in this leg  was 107℉. 

Our errands finished, we were at  80%. There were people waiting to charge, so we left. 

Al had struck up a conversation with a woman pulling a teardrop camper! She said she had taken multiple 4k mile trips with it. 

We could have skipped our last charge of the day if we had charged to 97% but charging slows after 90 percent, so we decided to make one more stop at a La Quinta outside of Flagstaff.  Charged to 50% and drove the last 10 minutes to Flagstaff. 

After a day of minimal driving to meals and an area hike, I plugged into a slow (free!) ChargePoint charger just two blocks from where we were staying in Historic Old Town.  The next morning we headed to Sedona to hike. Topped up at another free charger when we returned to Flagstaff.

Oct. 10  Flagstaff → Albuquerque

Drove for 1 hour, then made a very quick stop in Winslow, AZ (Walmart) to get back up to 90%. Next stop Gallup, NV (Walmart) after a two hour drive. Popped in to get some snacks, then cruised the last leg to Albuquerque. 

Oct. 11 Albuquerque → Santa Fe After a bicycle outing before dawn to the balloon festival, we charged up (Walmart) before the short trip to Santa Fe, happily grabbing a quick nap in the car while we charged. Chatted with an older couple who had done a round trip from AZ to NY and back.

We had no need to charge during our three night stay in Santa Fe, which included drives for local hiking and a wedding rehearsal dinner in the foothills. 

Oct 14 Santa Fe → Pueblo, CO

After checkout, we stopped at Walmart for 30 minutes, catching up on some phone calls and getting a quick sunglass repair for Al. Our next charging stop in Wagon Mound, NM looked to have no lunch options, so we stopped in Las Vegas, NM, an interesting old Western town. We were happy to find  a tiny, excellent sandwich shop that was open on the holiday (Indigenous Peoples Day). Strolled the main street and peeked into the closed antique shops. 

We took our lunch to a no-frills Conoco and ate while charging. Some large well-placed boulders served as seating, and we watched a storm blowing in over the  farm fields. 

Finished lunch just as we hit 80%. Our app said we could go to 97% and get to Pueblo, CO with 15%, but we decided to make one more stop instead.

A fifteen minute stop in Trinidad, CO got us up to 75%. Just over an hour of driving brought us to Pueblo.

Oct 16 Pueblo, CO  →  Boulder, CO

After two nights in Pueblo doing local drives only, we were at  30%. Chargers were at Sam's Club, for a change of pace. We charged to 90%, as we wanted to go straight through to Boulder. Used the time to work on upcoming Airbnb reservations. 

We made good time and realized we were going to arrive before check-in, so we stopped at a mall in Broomfield, CO to charge. Large food court with plenty of veggie options. Charger was going slower than advertised. We made it to only 70% in half an hour. Twenty minutes of driving, and we arrived in Boulder. 

Oct 22 Boulder/Golden → Laramie, WY  Spent three days in Boulder and four in nearby Golden visiting our son.  Added a roundtrip to Arvada, CO to visit my sister. 

We were down to 12% as we left town. Stopped at a mall again for a charge, and had a five minute wait. Charged for a bit over 30 minutes, using the time to hit the Target for cooler supplies. 

ABRP wanted us to make a stop before Laramie, but PlugShare revealed some slow city chargers, so we decided to drive straight through. In retrospect, we should have stopped at an Electrify America in Cheyenne. The slow chargers in Laramie were EV Connect–an app we did not have. Because we had little connectivity at the site, it took around 15 minutes to download the app, and then another 5 minutes to register. The cost – $5/hr. – was more than we had seen elsewhere. There were a few other slow chargers around town, including one on campus that was $2.50 per hour, but the location of the expensive one was just off the main street, giving us lots of food options. 

Once we were plugged in, we strolled around and got  lunch. $25 for a charge to 80%.

Oct. 25  Laramie, WY → Green River, WY  Local trips in Laramie left us with enough charge to drive to Rawlings, WY. We were excited to try the cute retro diner near the charger, but they were only serving hotel guests. We ended up at Pizza Hut while we charged for 35 min. Up to 90%. 

Next stop,  another Kroger-chain grocery. Jumped in for a bathroom break. There was a bench in a sunny spot outside, but we only needed to charge for 10 minutes before finishing the drive to Green River. 

Oct. 26 Green River WY → Park City, UT   We took a couple of  local drives In Green River to hike and look for horses on Wild Horse Loop. 

Our next stop was remote lodging outside of Park City, so we did a big grocery shop while charging. That took the whole charge time, so we had lunch in town.

After a night at our Airbnb in Coalville, UT,  we drove to the Park City Visitor Center. There were chargers just next door, so we topped off while we made our hiking plans. This was my favorite place to charge on the trip. There was a cozy cafe, local papers and  activity brochures, lounge area, clean restrooms, Wi-Fi, and work spaces.  

 Drove to a state park to hike, then back to our lodging. 

Oct 28 Park City → Elko, NV Next morning we topped of at the Park City Visitor Center again (up to 90%) then drove 150 miles to Elko, NV.

Last stop for coffee while charging at Park City Visitor Center

Next charge was at another grocery store, so we had a “picnic” lunch. Chatted with a neighbor who was also charging an ID.4. He was on a long road trip as well, and was carrying a Tesla adapter, but had not needed it yet. 

Elko, NV  →  Tahoe  Stopped at the Elko Walmart to charge. It was cold out, so I had my breakfast coffee in the car and had a call with my parents. Up to 80%.

Next stop: Walmart in Winnemucca, NV. Got detoured but it was still no problem with added 30 minute drive time. We had another Electrify America that we could have hit if needed.  We wanted a sit down lunch in Winnemucca, so we just hung out reading and took a bathroom break. Up to 90%. 

We were planning on a short stop at our next charger in Fernley, NV (Walmart). But the charge speed was quite good, starting at 159 kW and staying over 80 kW, so we went up to 85%. (We could have had a comfortable buffer at our destination charging to 60%) 

Tahoe →  Palo Alto  After a night crashing at our friends’ ski condo, we charged up to 75% in Truckee, CA.  We didn't need that much charge to get to our next stop in Auburn, CA,  but there was a cozy Starbucks, and with a temp below freezing, we thought giving the road a few minutes to thaw was not a bad idea.

The ABRP app said we would get to Auburn with 56%. We thought it would be good time to run an experiment on cold temperature driving and see how much we were losing, but we abandoned the experiment because temperatures rose over 40℉ too quickly.

Last charge of the trip in Auburn. ABRP said a charge to 80% would get us the last 150 miles with 20% to spare. But Al decided to go to 90%, because speeds can be fast on this stretch. There was another Starbucks across the street,  but we hung out and chatted with another driver as we were planning a last leisurely breakfast in town.