First Road Trip Musings/Charging Infrastructure is a Joke

[Archimedes]

I don’t think range matters as much for long road trips as charging network and charging speed. Kyle from out of spec beat a model X and model 3 in his taycan by over an hour from Colorado to Vegas. Both teslas had more “range” and a better charging network.

For me personally, range matters because I want fewer stops. It’s not just about speed for me, it’s simplicity. Out on the open road, the Taycan’s range is just a little too short for me. Obviously, this will be different for everybody based on their preference, but an additional 60-80 miles of range would often work out to one less stop per day for me, and that would be pretty important to me.

I bought my Taycan with eyes open, knowing that the range would limit me, but I don’t really care because I have a home charger and 99% of my driving will be relatively local. This trip just reinforced that conclusion.

On that note, while I was charging in SoCal, a Lucid pulled in. Holy cow, even uglier in person than in pictures.

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[Scandinavian]

For me personally, range matters because I want fewer stops. It’s not just about speed for me, it’s simplicity. Out on the open road, the Taycan’s range is just a little too short for me. Obviously, this will be different for everybody based on their preference, but an additional 60-80 miles of range would often work out to one less stop per day for me, and that would be pretty important to me.

I bought my Taycan with eyes open, knowing that the range would limit me, but I don’t really care because I have a home charger and 99% of my driving will be relatively local. This trip just reinforced that conclusion.

On that note, while I was charging in SoCal, a Lucid pulled in. Holy cow, even uglier in person than in pictures.

I can agree with you a larger battery and /more efficient consumption, that would result in a 60 to 80 miles (100 km or so) increased range would be nice to have. Especially driving on the fast motorways in Germany etc. But on the other hand one is forced to make more frequent stops, which is good as the concentration required driving at 160 + km/h needs to be at the top.

In Europe there are a lot of petrol stations along the motorways that are installing/ converting to EV charging as well. All the facilities required are provided there. In Germany it is now also quite common to see them to have signs indicating EV chargers.

Ionity, which have come under some criticism earlier, seem to have started planning for increase in charging needs. About three weeks ago they opened one of the largest stations I have seen so far: 16 HPC. I passed the site before it was opened but was surprised to see the number of chargers!
Summertime this area is very busy with traffic to both South of Spain as well as towards Italy! And my experience with Ionity has been very satisfactory, with only a very few problems. And they do deliver the max for the Taycan 270 kW nearly every time!

 

[kort]

I don’t think range matters as much for long road trips as charging network and charging speed. Kyle from out of spec beat a model X and model 3 in his taycan by over an hour from Colorado to Vegas. Both teslas had more “range” and a better charging network.

I can agree with your comments, but the EA network has deteriorated. the charging speeds delivered are low, the hardware has a high rate of failure and in some places the chargers are overwhelmed by the volume of cars trying to charge. an example of the problem for me was the last two stops on my drive home are 170 miles or so apart, this was an easy run between chargers and it has turned into a white knuckle drive because of the car's diminished range.
on my last road trip the speed of charging was incredibly slow, one of the 350s that I plugged into delivered 7 kw hours.

 

[kort]

For me personally, range matters because I want fewer stops. It’s not just about speed for me, it’s simplicity. Out on the open road, the Taycan’s range is just a little too short for me. Obviously, this will be different for everybody based on their preference, but an additional 60-80 miles of range would often work out to one less stop per day for me, and that would be pretty important to me.

I bought my Taycan with eyes open, knowing that the range would limit me, but I don’t really care because I have a home charger and 99% of my driving will be relatively local. This trip just reinforced that conclusion.

On that note, while I was charging in SoCal, a Lucid pulled in. Holy cow, even uglier in person than in pictures.

my car went from 240-250 miles at 100% to 200 miles at 100%, what caused this????

 

[xyeahtony]

my car went from 240-250 miles at 100% to 200 miles at 100%, what caused this????

from what i understand the gues-o-meter drops in the winter. Cold weather diminishes EV performance

 

[Bill33525]

The scary issue with CCS public charging is the eventual overcrowding of the stations due to the free juice given away with many of the CCS cars. Locals are going to both EA & EVgo to charge up rather than charging at home bc it's free! On my recent roadtrip on the east coast around Christmas almost all my charging stops were fully loaded. We either, by luck, got the last stall [and it worked] or the station was full by the time we left. This situation will not become better as time goes on. I do not see EA or EVgo expanding exsisting stations to prepare for the onslought of EV drivers wantng to cash in on the free juice! I am considering renting a Tesla from Hertz for my next road trip to gain experiece with the tesla SuC network. There are plety of stories about crowding on their network as well. Unless the oil companies get into EV charging big time I see escalating problems roadtripping CCS car in the near future.

 

[B61]

Point missed. I’m not complaining about ‘now’. I’m saying our approach is fine for a world of low adoption, novelty EV usage. But it’s entirely wrong for mass adoption. Laughably so.

It’s akin to building cars at random workstations rather than a high throughput mass production line.

There are two problems with EV infrastructure: amount of charging stations AND charging time.
As one fill ICE in 5 minutes, we need 30 minutes (or more). Sure, those 30 minutes (every 300km or less) is not problem for me, but it means that i’m making a queue for others…
In other words: we need about six times more charging stations as current for ICE…

 

[Archimedes]

There are two problems with EV infrastructure: amount of charging stations AND charging time.
As one fill ICE in 5 minutes, we need 30 minutes (or more). Sure, those 30 minutes (every 300km or less) is not problem for me, but it means that i’m making a queue for others…
In other words: we need about six times more charging stations as current for ICE…

Yes, but not in Taco Bell parking lots.

 

[Replika]

Public CCS charging is a novelty. That's the best way to put it.

The pushback from the EV zombies is frustrating. The people that proclaim Electrify America works flawlessly and if you have problems it's because you're holding it wrong, or that CCS can take you anywhere in the country that gas can. The online electric vehicle community loves to gaslight their fellow EV (early) adopters. Heck, I've owned 6 of them and I'm just... long over the novelty.

Electrify America is really the only serious game in town and it's gotten worse in my region over the last few years, with more vehicles to contend with for the same resources.

 

[Raphie]

Dude, you are the one coming on the Porsche Taycan forum proclaiming that the Tesla supercharging network is the greatest thing ever. Lighten up.

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