April 2025: 1900-mile eastern USA road trip experiences

A few days ago, I completed a 1900-mile road trip from Massachusetts to North Carolina and back in my 2021 CT4 in under a week (went for a funeral and visited friends and relatives along the way). I've posted some information at FB forums for Taycan and Electrify America, but thought some people here might benefit from my experiences with a different slant.

Overall, I was very impressed with the charging infrastructure. I charged twelve times at EA and five times at non-EA locations. I never had to use my iPhone to initiate any charging sessions. All EA sessions were easy plug-and-charge (the longest took 2-3 minutes to start charging). The best charging location by far was Love's Travel Stop in Jonestown, PA, where I stopped both ways; it's a Chargepoint location with four pumps under a huge canopy (adjacent to their many gas pumps) with great windshield-washing supplies, and there are two boxes -- each box with 320 kW shared cables -- and charging started quickly via my Chargepoint RFID card. I also stopped at an EVgo off I-81 in Virginia, where I used my EVgo RFID card, and at Porsche Greensboro, where the fine people there let me charge up for free.

Only one or two EA pumps were out in all of my EA sessions, and one or two that were apparently out recently (like 1-2 weeks previously) according to posts on PlugShare had been fixed prior to my arrival. Some of the cables at some of the EA sites and the EVgo site were in awkward justapositioning for my car, but I managed with a little creative parking. But most of the cables were well-placed for my passenger-side front port. Numerous of the locations were not places I'd care to be at 3 am. Most of the EA sites were at Walmarts. (This is why charging stations like that at Love's, which has services 24/7 and lots of people around, are far superior to any sites off by themselves.) My fastest charging speeds at my seventeen sessions were 237, 255, and 261 kW -- all at EA sites. My slowest peak charging rates in a single session were 96 kW at the EVgo stop (no sharing), 103 kW at one of the Love's sessions (when I had to share a box), and 105 kW at a shared 150-kW box at Newburgh EA. The car's charging curve is impressive: I frequently stayed at around 100 kW right up to near 90% SoC.

I did stay at two hotels in NC that each had 240-volt (level-2) charging, but none of them worked; one was a Blink and the other were Shell Recharge units.

I charged on average for 19.2 minutes at each session, not counting a few minutes (2-3) to initiate charging and unplug. I spent $311 in DC charging, compared to an estimated $360 or so if I had brought my PHEV and paid for premium gasoline only. I had to wait only three times to charge: once about 5 minutes, once about 10 minutes, and once about 20 minutes; twice I had a single car waiting in front of me to charge, and once I was the first car in line. All the other fourteen charging sessions were pulling directly into a charger and starting. I had to change chargers twice, so that added a little time, as well.

But overall there was no range anxiety; I typically pulled in with 26-40% SoC by design and left with 80%-90% within a half hour. Restroom visits at each stop, dealing with work email and relative/friend texts, and setting up my next charge stop in navigation, made each stop go quickly (no twiddling of thumbs). My range was consistently 220-230 miles on a full charge (calculated, as I never charged to 100%), occasionally close to 240 miles; I drove 70-75 mph when I could, but I had lots of traffic (especially truck traffic) even far from urban areas. My car has 48k miles on the odometer, so that's pretty good range in "early middle age" in cool temps (40-55 deg F most of the trip).

I used Google Maps to map out my basic route, then PlugShare to map out my charging stops. I used Porsche navigation to let me know predicted SoC at arrival station and to get the battery pack automatically preconditioned for faster charging speeds. Two things really suck in my Taycan CT4 on road trips like this: (1) the voice-recognition for putting in destinations is dreadful, and I ended up typing in almost all of the destinations (and even then, there were a couple of charging stations that were not recognized by the Porsche software, so I had to just put in a local store address); and (2) the rear-view camera is just plain horrible, making for a lot more time spent when I have back into charging spots (or into any parking spots).

For those interested, my route was I-84 through Hartford to Scranton, I-81 from there to Roanoke (VA), US 220 to Greensboro (then two days in the Greensboro/Chapel Hill area), then the return up I-85 north to Petersburg (VA), then I-95 to I-495 outside DC, to I-270 to US 15 to Harrisburg (stayed there with a cousin); then I-81 N to I-80 E to US 209 N to I-84 E. EA stops included Manchester twice, Newburgh (NY) twice, Woodstock (VA), Brugh's Mill (Fincastle, VA), Greensboro (W. Elmsley), Henderson (NC), Richmond (7901 Brook Rd.), Woodbridge (VA), Frederick (MD), and East Stroudsburg (PA). I posted details on each stop at PlugShare.

My overall grade for EA on this trip is a solid "A-" because of the easy plug-and-charge. EA would have gotten an A+ if they had canopies and longer cables. I sometimes worry about the durability of my charging port on my car (the CCS receptacle, not the port door) because of the high pressures on it when charging with some of these heavy cables put in with great difficulty/force at awkward angles.

I went a little out of the way to visit the new Ionna station in Scranton, out of curiosity. It took me a little longer than I expected to get charging initiated with my credit card, as it was a new experience (somewhat different from other charging locations). Good location generally, but the chargers are located well back away from the gas pumps and have no canopies (which are billed as a big deal for most Ionna sites). The lack of a canopy was huge in this case, because it was the only charging session on the entire trip where I had to get out in a steady cold rain. There was nobody else charging at the eight charging boxes there, and I thought that it's too bad that Ionna put one of their first stations in that location, which is unlikely to get a lot of BEV drivers in the near future, vs. putting it in the Boston or suburban NYC areas where they'd be heavily used.

On each of my four long drive days on this trip, I was on the road close to 9 hours each day, with about a half-hour charging stop four times each of those days and the rest being drive time. If I'd have driven my Volvo PHEV instead, I'd have saved about an hour probably each day on the road. But that's ok for me, because I was better off stopping more frequently and walking around and getting some work done. My Taycan is a fabulous road tripper ... a joy to drive with really comfortable seats (I have the 14-way seats). I would like larger side mirrors, as the blind spots are really too large -- requiring lots of extra craning of the neck to be sure there's not a vehicle in my blind spot (I cut off another car accidentally by mistake a couple of times in not seeing them -- people that just sit in your blind spot on highways staying at your speed... I suspect that some of them are gazing at my CT4, as it's not a common vehicle on road trips like this, and it's likely that many other drivers are seeing a Taycan wagon for the first time ever).

Great report. I wonder if your DC Charging Battery Friendly On or Off.

My 1k roundtrip found no benefit and actually potential harm to the battery and cooling components when Friendly is Off, letting the charger blast the car with maximum at times close to 300kW of power and driving the battery temp into 130F range. There is absolutely no advantage in doing so as the time to charge to 85% is the same.

SergeyIndy said:

Great report. I wonder if your DC Charging Battery Friendly On or Off.

My 1k roundtrip found no benefit and actually potential harm to the battery and cooling components when Friendly is Off, letting the charger blast the car with maximum at times close to 300kW of power and driving the battery temp into 130F range. There is absolutely no advantage in doing so as the time to charge to 85% is the same.

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I think mine is off... I guess I should put that on... thanks for the tip.

Were the Chargepoint and EVGo units searchable in the navigation such that you can precondition?

Flying ace said:

Were the Chargepoint and EVGo units searchable in the navigation such that you can precondition?

Click to expand...

the battery was "cool" in those situations and I forgot to check each time until I was at the charging station... The outside air temps were in the 40-50 deg F range each of those times, so not very warm. I think that EVgo station might have been recognized in Porsche navigation and the Chargepoint not, but I'm not sure right now.

cometguy said:

A few days ago, I completed a 1900-mile road trip from Massachusetts to North Carolina and back in my 2021 CT4 in under a week (went for a funeral and visited friends and relatives along the way). I've posted some information at FB forums for Taycan and Electrify America, but thought some people here might benefit from my experiences with a different slant.

Overall, I was very impressed with the charging infrastructure. I charged twelve times at EA and five times at non-EA locations. I never had to use my iPhone to initiate any charging sessions. All EA sessions were easy plug-and-charge (the longest took 2-3 minutes to start charging). The best charging location by far was Love's Travel Stop in Jonestown, PA, where I stopped both ways; it's a Chargepoint location with four pumps under a huge canopy (adjacent to their many gas pumps) with great windshield-washing supplies, and there are two boxes -- each box with 320 kW shared cables -- and charging started quickly via my Chargepoint RFID card. I also stopped at an EVgo off I-81 in Virginia, where I used my EVgo RFID card, and at Porsche Greensboro, where the fine people there let me charge up for free.

Only one or two EA pumps were out in all of my EA sessions, and one or two that were apparently out recently (like 1-2 weeks previously) according to posts on PlugShare had been fixed prior to my arrival. Some of the cables at some of the EA sites and the EVgo site were in awkward justapositioning for my car, but I managed with a little creative parking. But most of the cables were well-placed for my passenger-side front port. Numerous of the locations were not places I'd care to be at 3 am. Most of the EA sites were at Walmarts. My fastest charging speeds at my seventeen sessions were 237, 255, and 261 kW -- all at EA sites. My slowest peak charging rates in a single session were 96 kW at the EVgo stop (no sharing), 103 kW at one of the Love's sessions (when I had to share a box), and 105 kW at a shared 150-kW box at Newburgh EA. The charging curve was impressive: I frequently stayed at around 100 kW right up to near 90% SoC.

I did stay at two hotels in NC that each had 240-volt (level-2) charging, but none of them worked; one was a Blink and the other were Shell Recharge units.

I charged on average for 19.2 minutes at each session, not counting a few minutes (2-3) to initiate charging and unplug. I spent $311 in DC charging, compared to an estimated $360 or so if I had brought my PHEV and paid for premium gasoline only. I had to wait only three times to charge: once about 5 minutes, once about 10 minutes, and once about 20 minutes; twice I had a single car waiting in front of me to charge, and once I was the first car in line. All the other fourteen charging sessions were pulling directly into a charger and starting. I had to change chargers twice, so that added a little time, as well.

But overall there was no range anxiety; I typically pulled in with 26-40% SoC by design and left with 80%-90% within a half hour. Restroom visits at each stop, dealing with work email and relative/friend texts, and setting up my next charge stop in navigation, made each stop go quickly (no twiddling of thumbs).

I used Google Maps to map out my basic route, then PlugShare to map out my charging stops. I used Porsche navigation to let me know predicted SoC at arrival station and to get the battery pack automatically preconditioned for faster charging speeds. Two things really suck in my Taycan CT4 on road trips like this: (1) the voice-recognition for putting in destinations is dreadful, and I ended up typing in almost all of the destinations (and even then, there were a couple of charging stations that were not recognized by the Porsche software, so I had to just put in a local store address); and (2) the rear-view camera is just plain horrible, making for a lot more time spent when I have back into charging spots (or into any parking spots).

For those interested, my route was I-84 through Hartford to Scranton, I-81 from there to Roanoke (VA), US 220 to Greensboro (then two days in the Greensboro/Chapel Hill area), then the return up I-85 north to Petersburg (VA), then I-95 to I-495 outside DC, to I-270 to US 15 to Harrisburg (stayed there with a cousin); then I-81 N to I-80 E to US 209 N to I-84 E. EA stops included Manchester twice, Newburgh (NY) twice, Woodstock (VA), Brugh's Mill (Fincastle, VA), Greensboro (W. Elmsley), Henderson (NC), Richmond (7901 Brook Rd.), Woodbridge (VA), Frederick (MD), and East Stroudsburg (PA). I posted details on each stop at PlugShare.

My overall grade for EA on this trip is a solid "A-" because of the easy plug-and-charge. EA would have gotten an A+ if they had canopies and longer cables. I sometimes worry about the durability of my charging port on my car (the CCS receptacle, not the port door) because of the high pressures on it when charging with some of these heavy cables put in with great difficulty/force at awkward angles.

I went a little out of the way to visit the new Ionna station in Scranton, out of curiosity. It took me a little longer than I expected to get charging initiated with my credit card, as it was a new experience (somewhat different from other charging locations). Good location generally, but the chargers are located well back away from the gas pumps and have no canopies (which are billed as a big deal for most Ionna sites). The lack of a canopy was huge in this case, because it was the only charging session on the entire trip where I had to get out in a steady cold rain. There was nobody else charging at the eight charging boxes there, and I thought that it's too bad that Ionna put one of their first stations in that location, which is unlikely to get a lot of BEV drivers in the near future, vs. putting it in the Boston or suburban NYC areas where they'd be heavily used.

On each of my four long drive days on this trip, I drove pretty close to 9 hours each day, with about a half-hour charging stop four times each of those days. If I'd have driven my Volvo PHEV instead, I'd have saved about an hour probably each day on the road. But that's ok for me, because I was better off stopping more frequently and walking around and getting some work done. My Taycan is a fabulous road tripper ... a joy to drive with really comfortable seats (I have the 14-way seats). I would like larger side mirrors, as the blind spots are really too large -- requiring lots of extra craning of the neck to be sure there's not a vehicle in my blind spot (I cut off another car accidentally by mistake a couple of times in not seeing them -- people that just sit in your blind spot on highways staying at your speed... I suspect that some of them are gazing at my CT4, as it's not a common vehicle on road trips like this, and it's likely that many other drivers are seeing a Taycan wagon for the first time ever).

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what a great and detailed write up - congrats on the trip and thank you for sharing!!!

Flying ace said:

Were the Chargepoint and EVGo units searchable in the navigation such that you can precondition?

Click to expand...

I see local EVGo and Chargepoint and many others in my PCM, almost too many, so I have to filter to a minimum of 150kW. Also, recently local Tesla supercharger showed up in the PCM which is confusing since there is no support open yet. I am not talking about a few that are on the coasts, I am in Indiana, and pretty sure no Tesla superchargers are supported.

Thanks for writing this up! I'm heading down to MD in a few weeks from New Hampshire, and some of the charging stops you mentioned are on my plan, especially the Ionna one in Scranton. It's disappointing that it's not the full experience, canopy and utopian architecture included, but it'll still be a nice change from the usual EA stops. I'll bookmark Love's Travel Stop, though I probably won't make it there on this trip.

SergeyIndy said:

I see local EVGo and Chargepoint and many others in my PCM, almost too many, so I have to filter to a minimum of 150kW. Also, recently local Tesla supercharger showed up in the PCM which is confusing since there is no support open yet. I am not talking about a few that are on the coasts, I am in Indiana, and pretty sure no Tesla superchargers are supported.

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interesting. Yeah most Chargepoint units have 50 - 62 KWs. Rare to see a 200+ unit. EVgo has been very poor quality recently. I wish there's a way to tell PCM not to consider a particular service.

Not sure if you noticed, but you can now prioritize and exclude services in the My Porsche app.

Fully enjoy your detailed description of your road trip. You make me feel like I was riding with you through out your trip. Thank you.

@cometguy - I loved the detailed and factual trip report.

Regarding the two "suck" things --

cometguy said:

Two things really suck in my Taycan CT4 on road trips like this: (1) the voice-recognition for putting in destinations is dreadful, and I ended up typing in almost all of the destinations (and even then, there were a couple of charging stations that were not recognized by the Porsche software, so I had to just put in a local store address); and (2) the rear-view camera is just plain horrible, making for a lot more time spent when I have back into charging spots (or into any parking spots).

Click to expand...

• Charging Destinations -- Are you aware that you can choose the destinations on the My Porsche App and then send it to the car? Once it is in the car you can make it a Favorite. Do this for all stations ahead of time (or during a longer charging session) and it is easy to pick and choose charging stops.
• Backup Camera-- After an initial "I hate this camera!!" period, I have come to like the camera for a couple of reasons --
  • The wide angle gives me advance warning of people and cars who are moving nearby. I use this to slow down my exit from a parking spot.
  • Backing up is actually pretty solid. The key is the lines. The BLUE ones for guidance keep you 6" or so away from whatever they are next to. The RED horizontal line is about 1 foot away from the back of your car. Try backing up and stopping when the RED line is "at" a wall of a garage or a curb and then get out and look at the distance.
  • So this is a long way of saying that once I learned to trust the guidance and backup distance lines I became much more comfortable. To be fair, I still take it super slow when parallel parking and approaching the bumper of another car. The camera still sucks for that IMO. ?

Love the trip report!

SergeyIndy said:

I see local EVGo and Chargepoint and many others in my PCM, almost too many, so I have to filter to a minimum of 150kW. Also, recently local Tesla supercharger showed up in the PCM which is confusing since there is no support open yet. I am not talking about a few that are on the coasts, I am in Indiana, and pretty sure no Tesla superchargers are supported.

Click to expand...

Some Tesla Chargers have MagicDock, and don't require an adapter. There's one in East Point, GA like that, and I have successfully charged my 24 4S at that. My Tesla App shows Haubstadt, IN among others.

snstevens said:

@cometguy - I loved the detailed and factual trip report.

Regarding the two "suck" things --

• Charging Destinations -- Are you aware that you can choose the destinations on the My Porsche App and then send it to the car? Once it is in the car you can make it a Favorite. Do this for all stations ahead of time (or during a longer charging session) and it is easy to pick and choose charging stops.
• Backup Camera-- After an initial "I hate this camera!!" period, I have come to like the camera for a couple of reasons --
  • The wide angle gives me advance warning of people and cars who are moving nearby. I use this to slow down my exit from a parking spot.
  • Backing up is actually pretty solid. The key is the lines. The GRAY ones for guidance keep you 6" or so away from whatever they are next to. The RED horizontal line is about 1 foot away from the back of your car. Try backing up and stopping when the RED line is "at" a wall of a garage or a curb and then get out and look at the distance.
  • So this is a long way of saying that once I learned to trust the guidance and backup distance lines I became much more comfortable. To be fair, I still take it super slow when parallel parking and approaching the bumper of another car. The camera still sucks for that IMO. ?

Love the trip report!

Click to expand...

I was not aware of the Porsche app allowing that, as "Flying ace" exhibited with screen shots above. I will indeed look into that. My tendency has been to not use car phone apps much.

There are plusses to having a wide-angle camera, as you say. I'm not worried about the distances straight behind or in front, as those red lines are indeed useful (being about a foot away from the obstacle, as you note). It's the sides that I worry about -- hitting barriers or other things on the sides of the car. The distortion doesn't help, and I wish that there could be two cameras -- one wide-angle and another normal view, as the latter would be better for back-in parking when worried about what's on either side. The front fenders on my car are so huge from the driver's vision points that I just don't trust the side cameras for front-in parking, either. It shouldn't be this big of a learning curve. As I've said, my '22 Volvo's surround cameras are far superior to Porsche's, and I can park my Volvo SUV anywhere very quickly with little to no hesitation.

Thanks for your compliments. Glad that numerous people are finding my report useful; that was my hope, in writing it up.

Nice write up, and some great tips. We are planning a similar trip this year,so will keep some of your recommendations and suggestions in mind. I have been using a better route planner (ABRP) navigation app for a while now and really like it. you can link it with the Taycan OBD, so it has all the info on your car and will plan your trip with all the stops in advance, so you can see it before you leave and can make changes if you like. It has traffic info, weather, live SoC, consumption, etc. I highly recommend it for trips.

pics?