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837.9 mile road trip

4K views 9 replies 7 participants last post by  dennis 
#1 ·
I took a road trip this past weekend. It was a trip I've done before in other vehicles.

I had to take a longer route than usual in order to do it in the I-pace. A few weeks ago I scoped out the locations and distances between high powered chargers in order to make for shorter charging stops. The choice came down to Electrify America chargers at 4 possible locations.

I stopped at charger #1 to charge from 61% to just over 80% in order to get to charger #2. 89 miles covered and 28 minute stop. $13.61

Distance to charger #2 121.3 miles. 1 hour 12 minute stop. I started the charge and walked to a restaurant for lunch. A charging fault occurred. I was able to start charging again after I got back to the car. $23.17 (I think) It may have been more. I'm not sure if the "fault" charging was charged to the credit card.

Distance to charger #3 145.1 miles. 54 minute stop. $36.35

Driving to my destination, local driving and back to charger #3 129.5 miles. $30.04 for a 1 hour 6 minute stop.

Distance to charger #2 144.3 miles. 59 minute stop. $36.04 to go to 90% because I expected a longer route to the next charger.

Distance to a free Chargepoint charger 191.1 miles. 1 hr 50 minute stop to charge to 100% adding 70.12 kWh.

Drove home and plugged in there to get back to the 100% starting charge. 1 hr 24 min.

I didn't sign up for an EA account. This was an experiment to find out how much it would cost and how much extra time it would take.
The return trip included travelling on alternate roads due to road construction having shut down a lengthy section of an interstate.

The car reported: 33.6 kWh/100 miles. Avg speed 52 mph. 15.2 kWh regen. 837.9 miles total.

The charging stops added 3 hours 56 minutes going (partly due to the time lost for the charging fault) and 3 hours 8 minutes on the return. I also had several other brief stops along the way that I didn't count along the way.

Normally my stops amount to about 1 hour each way. None would be for fuel but I would top up at my destination.
Based on average fuel costs for my other vehicles, I'd say driving the I-pace cost up to 50% more for "fuel" using EA chargers.

Charging rate wasn't near the 100kWh rate except for a brief few seconds at the start of charging a couple of times. It tapered down fairly quickly from that but remained above 40 kWh until I stopped the charging.

At charger location #3 on the return, I tried to initiate the charging at a different charge than I had used before but it got stuck in "processing" the credit card. I moved to another charger only to have it tell me the card read wasn't working and I should call customer support to start charging. Customer support asked me to move to another charger that someone had used the day before (me!). It worked. This highlights the risk that chargers may not be in working order. This can present challenges when they are the only chargers available for many miles around

I don't think I'll be taking the I-pace on this journey again. The added time and cost don't justify it when I have alternate choices. The free local chargers do justify it for local driving and work commuting.
 
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#2 ·
EA Rates are definitely higher than most and until the I-PACE can take advantage of the higher rates of charge, meaning being able to charge at 100kW+. If we really could charge close to the 150kW or the 300kW, the stop times would be much lower. Then you deal with the cost only. Until the charging infrastructure for non-Teslas is better and the cars can take advantage of the higher charge rates, it's best to use an ICE if you don't have the extra time.
 
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#4 ·
Are these prices typical? They seem ridiculously high. 100kW charging in and around Montreal is about $12CDN/hr ($9USD) and a full charge at home using a level 2 charger costs me around $7. I though the EA chargers are subsidized by the VW diesel debacle, so how can they justify such prices?
 
#5 ·
My actual cost was about 10.4 cents/mile to use the Level 3 chargers (50kW - $12/hr; ~2 hours to bring it 0%-100%) that I had access to when traveling in my car. Coincidently, this is almost the same as I now have with the Discovery (~10.1 cents/mile). To charge at home it is 10 cents/kW, to bring it from 0-100% would be about $8.50, making my costs about 4.3 cents/mile most of the time.
 
#6 ·
EA's rates vary by location. Charger #3 above was the stated $0.69/min. The other two were $0.58/min. Plus taxes (in some locations). There's also a $1 session charge. Rates are cheaper if you want to in their Plus plan at $4/month. I didn't do this for this one time trip. I would consider it if I planned to do more long distance trips that required charging at EA locations. I'd look for an EVgo charger, and possibly others, before using EA, for cheaper rates.

Other locations may charge by the kW instead of by the minute.

EA is a subsidiary of VW. It is not subsidized. It is being built by VW and not expected to be a money losing venture, or a place to divert profits from the rest of the company. It isn't cheap to build a charging location, either.

You should read that statement as EA is another profit making part of VW. That profit is replenishing their coffers after the big payout for diesel and petrol emissions cheating.

Yes, charging at home for me is between 5 and 6 cents per kW. That's about 1/10 of EA rates.
 
#9 ·
Thanks. I thought they were being built in compensation for the Deisel engine fraud case. Not sure why VW, with only one EV currently in their offering, would build out a charging network unless it was part of that deal. Still seems quite high compared to other charge stations. Hopefully a bit of competition will help get that under control.
 
#8 ·
Check out if other chargers are available. The Plugshare app is a good one to help map out where they are and what they are.

Home charging is a good option. A Juicebox Pro 40 or the new Chargepoint Home Flex charger, among other choices, can charge the car in reasonable times when provided with 40-50A circuits.

I might have been able to use lower cost alternate chargers instead of #2. One purpose of this "test drive" was to find out "what if I only use EA chargers?"
 
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