road trip with electric car

The ultimate guide to road tripping with an electric car

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The past couple of years have changed the travel world in many ways, but two things stand out to me: road trips and electric cars.

Early in the pandemic, we saw road trips take the spotlight during a coronavirus-fueled dip in air travel. Even after vaccines helped air travel rebound, many travelers still prefer to take the great American road trip when visiting national parks , cities and everywhere in between.

At the same time, more and more drivers are switching to electric cars, with adoption steadily rising both in the U.S. and abroad. This has become more prevalent as gas prices continue to rise due to world conflict and supply chain issues, and even rental car companies have begun to add EVs to their fleets.

Related: 5 lessons learned from taking a road trip in the age of coronavirus

After a summer of rental car road trips, I purchased a used 2016 BMW i3 in August 2020. It's a range-extended electric compact car, meaning that it also has a small gas motor that can charge the battery on the go. This, combined with the car being a hatchback, makes it — in my opinion — the ultimate road trip vehicle for those living in a major city like New York .

Since buying the i3, I've taken it on a couple of short trips. It's a different experience than road tripping with a gas car, and newcomers to the electric car world might be deterred if they don't know what to expect.

In this article, I'll share some tips I've picked up while on the road with my EV. I'll discuss everything from what to look for when buying an EV for road trips to how to find charging stations. I'll also share some trip-planning tips.

Let's dive (drive?) in!

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Choosing an electric car for road trips

There are some important considerations if you're in the market for an electric car and plan on road tripping it. Here are some elements to examine as you go through the car buying process, such as car range and whether or not you should purchase a plug-in hybrid.

Related: Should I buy a used car instead of renting this summer?

Criteria for a road-trip capable electric car

It's important to look for a car that has appropriate range for the trips you plan to take. So, don't buy a car with an 80-mile range if you plan to take 500+ mile road trips regularly. That said, you don't need an ultra-long-range electric car for these trips. Something like the BMW i3 94ah has a 153-mile range which — if you don't mind making a few stops — can be a good bet for longer trips.

Consider a long-range Tesla or a Chevrolet Bolt if you want to avoid frequent charges. These cars have well over 200 miles of electric range. This means you're subject to less charging stops, but you'll generally spend more on the car. This is especially true on the used market where long-range cars tend to have a higher resale value.

In my opinion, road trippers should avoid cars like the Fiat 500e and the electric Mercedes-Benz B-Class. These cars have sub-100-mile electric range and don't offer a range extender option. That means you'll have to charge frequently on long trips. Further, these cars may not be able to handle longer trips that don't have chargers en route.

Related: The pros and cons of Amex's Auto Purchasing Program

Consider a plug-in hybrid or range-extended vehicle

Further, you may want to consider an electric car that's not fully electric. You have two options here: plug-in hybrids and range-extended electric vehicles. The former are essentially standard hybrid vehicles with larger batteries that can be charged externally. These cars generally have 15 to 50 miles of electric range and full-size gas tanks.

That said, these vehicles don't have a fully electric driving experience and don't generally offer fast charging options (more on that soon). I find these cars less fun to drive and — if you want to drive in electric mode — considerably more inconvenient to charge. At the same time, they can make great road-trip vehicles with a gas engine.

On the other hand, range-extended electric cars are fully electric vehicles with a small gas motor. This motor effectively charges the car's battery to provide additional range when driving long distances. My BMW i3 is equipped with the range extender option, and it's saved me on longer trips where I find myself far away from a public charger.

I prefer range-extended cars to plug-in hybrids since you always have the electric driving experience (think: immediate torque). Plus, these cars are usually equipped with fast charging and other EV-specific technology features.

Related: The best credit cards for purchasing a car

DC fast charging is key for a sane road trip

Here's a big one: only purchase a car with included DC fast charging if you plan on road tripping. More and more fast chargers are popping up around the country which can charge a vehicle — as in the case of the BMW i3 — to 80% in just 45 minutes. This is possible as fast chargers — commonly called Level 3 chargers — provide up to 250kW+ per hour.

On the other hand, a vehicle without this option can only use Level 2 public chargers, which charge at around 11kW per hour. This is still faster than plugging in at home but will take a ton of extra time to charge when on the go. Going back to the i3 example, it takes around three hours to charge from 0% to 80%.

This option is even more important when on long road trips. If you have to wait hours every time your vehicle runs low on battery, it will take you quite a long time to get to your destination. On the other hand, a 45-minute stop is enough time to grab lunch and set navigation to your next charge point or final destination.

Thankfully, almost all new fully electric vehicles and range-extended cars are equipped with fast charging. Some older electric cars don't have this option, though, so make sure to inquire about it before you go for a test drive. Some cars that aren't equipped with this feature include some 2014 and 2015 BMW i3s, all models of the Fiat 500e and some older Nissan Leafs.

Check battery degradation when buying a used car

Plan on buying used? Make sure to check the car's battery status before you buy. Like all batteries, the battery inside of an electric car will degrade over time. This is normal, but excessive degradation can make your road trip life difficult. You can usually check battery status on the car's infotainment system.

Thankfully, most electric cars have long battery warranties. For example, my used BMW i3 has a 100,000 mile/eight-year warranty on the battery, meaning I'm covered through 2024 on my 2016 model. According to BMW, a battery replacement can be authorized if a battery degrades 30% or more during the warranty period.

How to plan a road trip with an electric car

As discussed, road tripping with an electric car is different than with a gas car. It requires a bit more planning for pure electric vehicles which — while tedious — isn't too bad once you get the hang of it. Let's take a look at how I plan road trips in my electric car.

Plan your route around fast chargers and be mindful of range

First things first: You'll need to charge when out on the road, so you must plan your driving route around available public chargers located near highways, expressways or wherever else you're driving. You'll need to charge before your battery dies to avoid calling roadside assistance , but there's a bit more to it than this.

Unfortunately, electric car range is dynamic. You'll use more battery when accelerating quickly, going up hills and when using climate control. Always give yourself at least a 10% buffer when looking for chargers. This means that if you have a car with a 100-mile range, plan chargers that are no more than 90 miles apart.

Additionally, try and stick to fast chargers when you're on the road. This ensures that you're not stuck at a given charger for hours while waiting for your car to charge. Instead, you can plug in for 30 to 40 minutes and you're back on the road without issue.

You can plan your trips manually or use an app like PlugShare. I'll go in-depth on this app in the next section, but in short, it's a crowdsourced directory of all chargers available near your location. The app's built-in route planner can be a huge timesaver when mapping out long, multi-charge road trips.

Look for hotels with chargers

Another way to save time on charging is by staying at hotels that offer electric car charging in their parking lots or garages. These are becoming more and more common, and oftentimes charging is either free or included with the parking fee. These are generally Level 2 chargers, though, so they're best suited for charging overnight.

No charging at your hotel? Ask the hotel staff if they have an outdoor plug you can use. Most electric vehicles include a Level 1 wall charger that can be used with any standard wall socket. If the hotel is OK with it, this charger will slowly charge your vehicle overnight and give you at least enough power to make it to your next destination.

Related: 7 mistakes every road tripper makes at least once

Use these apps and charging networks to find public chargers

Now that you know how to plan a trip, let's take a look at the best way to find public chargers. As mentioned in the last section, several charging networks exist nationwide in the U.S. Some of these include ChargePoint and Electrify America. That said, there are many non-networked public chargers that you can find in parking garages and on city streets.

Here's a look at the apps and charging networks I use on electric car road trips. Before you head out on your first electric road trip, make sure to download these.

PlugShare for most public chargers

PlugShare is a community-powered electric charger app. You can use this app to view networked, non-networked and home chargers that are open to the public. Even better, you can sort chargers by speed, connector type and cost. This can be immensely helpful when trying to find a fast charger on a long trip.

Further, the app has a trip-planning feature that will help you find electric car charge points along a given route. Just enter your origin and destination and the app will show you all the chargers nearby. You can even input your car's range to plan your route around charging stops.

Tesla owners are also in luck with the ChargePoint app. It shows all Tesla Destination Chargers, SuperChargers and other compatible chargers on the map. Just toggle on the Tesla connector in the app and locations will appear on the map.

ChargePoint has chargers around the US

ChargePoint is one of the biggest electric car charging networks in the U.S., offering both Level 2 and Level 3 chargers in major cities and along some major highways. Many ChargePoint locations will show on the PlugShare app, but I recommend downloading both apps, as PlugShare will often miss specific chargers. Also, you can use the ChargePoint app to pay for charging at several charging locations.

One word of caution: The ChargePoint app sometimes shows chargers that aren't available for public use. This is especially the case here in New York where many city vehicles have transitioned to plug-in hybrids or full electric vehicles. Keep an eye out for this when looking for places to charge.

Electrify America for DC fast chargers near highways

In the Northeast, I almost exclusively use Electrify America chargers on road trips. The company has a huge network of fast chargers located both within cities and near major highways, usually located at Walmarts, Targets and other shopping centers. Pricing is pretty reasonable, too — it varies based on how fast you're able to charge and you can get a discount by signing up for a membership ($4 per month).

Using these chargers is remarkably simple. Just drive up, plug in your car and select the charger you're using on the Electrify America app to start charging. The charge fee is billed to your credit card after you're finished charging.

One downside to Electrify America, however, is that its stations can be unreliable. On a recent drive from Philadelphia to New York, I stopped at a charger only to find three of the four available chargers were out of service. The fourth charger was in use, so I called tech support who offered me a free fill-up at a nearby charger.

Earn bonus miles on electric car charging

Since you'll usually pay for charging when on the road, why not earn miles in the process? Most chargers do not code as travel, so you'll want to use a credit card that earns extra points on general spending . There's a variety of these cards on the market, and some of our favorites include:

• The Blue Business®️ Plus Credit Card from American Express (2 Membership Rewards points per dollar on the first $50,000 in purchases per calendar year; then 1 point per dollar, giving you a 4% return based on TPG's valuation )
• Chase Freedom Unlimited (1.5% cash back/1.5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar for a 3% return based on TPG's valuation )
• Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card (2 miles per dollar on purchases, giving you a 2.8% return based on TPG's valuations )

If you're completing a credit card spending requirement , you may want to use it to pay for your charging. For example, I use my Delta SkyMiles® Reserve American Express Card to pay for charging so I can earn bonus Medallion Qualifying Miles to qualify for Delta elite status .

Related: Maximizing points and miles on summer road trips

Bottom line

Road tripping in an electric car is different from a road trip in a gasoline car, but it's still fun. In fact, I've often found that road trips are more enjoyable in my EV as I see new places I otherwise wouldn't. On top of this, money saved on gas can be used to stay in better hotels and eat at nicer restaurants. Sounds like a win-win to me.

I think the biggest takeaway is to always be mindful of your range. Planning your route along charge points and stopping to charge before you need to charge is key to an enjoyable and stress-free trip. If this isn't for you, consider a range-extended electric car or a plug-in hybrid for more flexibility.

Drive safe!

Feature photo by Andrew Kunesh/The Points Guy.

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Everything You Need to Know About Road Tripping in an Electric Car This Summer

Your eco-friendly adventure awaits.

As someone who's driven a 2001 Isuzu Trooper most of her life, getting the keys to an electric car made me feel like I was trading in a Blackberry for an iPhone. With electric cars exploding in popularity, I traveled to sunny California last summer for a weeklong trip in Palm Springs where I rented an Audi E-Tron Sportback and took it all the way to Joshua Tree National Park .

Since this was my first time getting behind the wheel of an electric vehicle (EV), I wanted to make sure I was in an area filled with charging stations. To my surprise, I lasted the entire week without needing to use one. This was due to a combination of limiting myself to short drives and being able to charge up at my hotel — the Parker Palm Springs — but also because many of the latest EV models also have a median range of more than 250 miles .

All in all, there are many benefits to going green. Not only is opting for an EV great for the environment, but it even allows you to use the HOV lanes in certain states. Plus, you'll save on gas — basically a selling feature in itself these days with gas prices soaring to more than $4 per gallon on average nationally and even topping more than $6 per gallon in California — and don't get me started on how useful it is to have two separate trunks (thanks to no engine).Convinced and ready to hit the road ? Here's everything you need to know to take the best EV road trip based on tips and tricks from my own time behind the wheel, guidance from experts, and even advice from my friends who drove a Tesla from Virginia all the way to Yellowstone National Park .

You can travel across the country.

As a first-time EV driver, I decided not to push the limits by only going from Palm Springs to Joshua Tree. However, it is possible to get your electric car across the country. Electrify America , one of the largest networks of EV charging stations, is set up in many states and continues to expand. "You can also search for EV chargers in Google Maps or Waze," Lauren Matison reported in the July 2023 issue of  Travel + Leisure . "Networks such as ChargePoint and Electrify America have helpful apps, too."

Certain states also allow EV drivers to use the HOV lanes , a great way to get to where you're going faster and save power. A popular long-haul route is from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C. via Interstates 15 and 70; another is from San Diego to Jacksonville, FL., through Interstates 10 and 8.

Newlyweds and Tesla owners Wes McLaughlin and Emily Martin took a road trip from Virginia to Yellowstone, and back again.

"For our honeymoon, we drove from Richmond through the Midwest to Colorado, where we stayed for a few days before continuing north to Yellowstone," McLaughlin said. "We stayed near west Yellowstone in Idaho, and there was a charger just outside the park. We drove through snowstorms and buffalo herds without issues or worry that we wouldn't be able to get to a charger."

Choose hotels with charging stations.

When considering where to stay, opt for a hotel with a charging station. This way, you can park the car when you're done for the day and power it up overnight. PlugShare offers an easy-to-use map that shows accommodations with free charging stations alongside ones you have to pay for. Keep in mind, depending on the type of electric car you have, you may need an adapter to plug in (like plugging a Tesla into a non-Tesla charger, for example).

Fortunately, the Parker Palm Springs offered a charger, which fully juiced up the car battery overnight. For more options across the country, travelers can also search for electric charging as an amenity when looking for a place to stay on hotel search engines like Expedia.com .

RV parks are made for EVs.

One of the best ways to save during your trip is by stopping at RV parks along the way. In addition to giving you a place to camp and park as well as eliminating the need to pay for a hotel, RV parks allow you to charge your vehicle.

"Level 2 chargers are the same ones used by RVs for power," McLaughlin said. "If you rent a spot for an RV — typically $35 to $50 — you get a full charge and a good night's rest for a decent price. We spent several nights camping in the car when we just needed a place to sleep before continuing on the next day."

Know the different types of EV charging stations.

Not all EV chargers are the same. In fact, there are three different tiers. Level one is the slowest (think a standard 120-volt plug), according to the U.S. Department of Transportation . If your battery is nearing empty, it could take up to 50 hours to power it all the way up.

Level two is the most common and delivers a full charge from empty in anywhere from four to 10 hours. As for cost, it varies, but is typically significantly cheaper than paying for gas — especially these days.

"Shopping centers are popular places for EV charging stations — some even offer preferred parking spots," said Jason Zehr, a Chase Auto product strategy director. "You can have a meal and/or run errands while the car is charging, and some stores offer free charging to shoppers."

Level three, also known as Direct Current Fast Chargers, is the quickest option and gets you back on the road with a near-full battery in as little as 20 minutes. Again, the cost can vary and some Tesla Supercharger locations, for example, even offer on-peak and off-peak rates.

To conserve power, drivers can "[switch] off the heat or AC, [select] eco mode, if available, and avoid hard acceleration," Matison reported.

The warmer, the better.

Similar to your phone, EVs lose power quicker in cold weather, proving that summer road trips are the way to go. For those who end up hitting the open road in the winter, you're going to have to charge your car more often.

"If you're driving to a destination in cold weather, make sure to have an extra charge to get you there," Martin said. "We drove at 17 degrees Fahrenheit and lost battery fast."

Matison noted that chargers can fill up quickly in the summertime and advises travelers to "always keep some juice in reserve in case you need to find another plug-in."

Test the waters by renting an electric car.

If you don't own an EV — and aren't quite ready to commit — a road trip is the perfect way to try one out. Rental companies like Turo , Sixt , Hertz , and Enterprise all have their own electric car fleets, making it easy to set up a rental .

Understand the pros of buying an electric car.

There are incentives for investing in an electric vehicle of your own. Car owners can snag up to $7,500 in federal tax credits on plug-in EVs, according to the Internal Revenue Service , depending on the make of the car and how many vehicles have been sold. There are even more possible tax incentives at the state level.

Beyond not having to waste money on gas, you'll also save on maintenance. "I don't miss oil changes or replacing alternators and belts," McLaughlin said. "As someone who has never been a 'car guy,' it's nice to know that I can actually do all the maintenance on my car by myself, which is just adding windshield washer fluid."

When you're venturing out on long distances, it's also reassuring to drive something that has a lower chance of breaking down. Even when I was imagining a worst-case scenario of the EV running out of battery, I relaxed after remembering that Audi offers complimentary towing .

"Should a customer run out of battery unexpectedly, Audi roadside assistance will dispatch a tow truck and bring the customer and vehicle to the nearest charging location to ensure they can get back on the road as soon as possible," said Matt Mostafaei, an Audi E-Tron product manager.

Can you do the all-American road trip in an electric car? Expert tips for planning your route

Jul 22, 2022 • 10 min read

Are US roads ready for electric cars? © miroslav_1 / Getty Images

Gas guzzlers beware: electric cars are catching on quicker than the Electric Slide at a sweet sixteen, and it's only a matter of time before an American shift toward sustainability convinces drivers to fall in line.

In the past year, President Joe Biden pledged to replace the federal government's fleet of roughly 650,000 cars with electric vehicles (EVs) and introduce 500,000 new charging stations within a decade . Automotive heavyweights from Ford to Volkswagen announced similar plans, promising to invest billions in developing EVs and their related infrastructure. 

The timing couldn't be better – as gas prices soar and concerns over climate change reach a fiery crescendo, interest in EVs is hitting all-time highs. In 2021, EV sales in the US more than doubled the previous year, with 608,000 new cars hitting the highway. In March, Google searches for electric vehicles reached their highest point in history, and this year, research company S&P Global expects EV sales to reach nearly 900,000. 

By 2030, Americans will purchase an estimated 4.7 million EVs – a trend supported by local governments. Forty-five states and the District of Columbia currently provide incentives like tax cuts and rebates for EVs or plug-in hybrid vehicles, further fueling the race toward an electric future.

But if the future is electric, what does that mean for one of the country's time-honored traditions – the gas-powered road trip? 

Plan a drive on America's most iconic road trips

The all-American road trip

Road trips are a cornerstone of US culture, immortalized in so many novels, films and songs they've inspired a genre all their own. The tales may range from Jack Kerouac's poetic musings to Thelma and Louise's feminist quest, but they're connected by an ingredient more American than Huckleberry Finn – the search for freedom. 

Finding freedom on the open road hasn't always been easy. Victor Hugo Green's Negro Motorist Greenbook attempted to help Black travelers navigate racist roadways in Jim Crow-era America, while early iterations of Bob Damron's travel guides gave gay men a map to hidden communities in unlikely places. This ongoing desire to navigate America's highways – sometimes despite the dangers of driving as a minority – expresses a universal craving for liberation through travel.

For the past century, gas-powered cars have been the means for finding open-road liberation. Travelers can hop into internal combustion vehicles without worrying where or when they'll refuel next. Unless you're traveling the lonely 167-mile stretch from Ely to Tonopah, Nevada, the ubiquity of gas stations is par for the course in the United States. But as gas prices increase, so does the price tag on this kind of freedom. 

The same rules don't apply while traveling in electric cars. Although fuel prices are cheaper (roughly 60% less than gas-powered cars, according to a 2020 Consumer Reports study ), refueling is more complicated. This reality leads to range anxiety: the fear that an EV will run out of power before reaching its destination or a place to recharge. 

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Driving an electric car (EV) in the US and managing range anxiety

For EV users who stay close to home or live in parts of the country with sufficient charging stations, range anxiety poses little threat. "The vast majority of electric vehicles are on the West Coast: LA, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle," says Greg Brannon, AAA's Director of Automotive Engineering , "and the charging infrastructure is heavily focused there." This makes West Coast-area road trips to parks like Yosemite , Joshua Tree  and Mt. Hood National Forest all EV-viable excursions. 

But not all excursions are so easy. In 2019, Wade Anderson took a 19,000-mile road trip around North America in a Tesla Model 3 (which he documented on YouTube ) and experienced this fear firsthand. While driving through the Yukon Territory and Alaska , he barely reached a maintenance camp. "My battery had 0% charge as I rolled in there," he recalls. "I used RV parks to plug in, which are very slow-charging, and a typical one-day journey ended up taking three days." 

The north midwest proved similarly treacherous for EV travel, and Wade once found himself stuck at a desolate campground in rural Montana while waiting for his car to recharge. 

But range anxiety isn't something he often experiences while traveling, and soon, "these minor inconveniences will be a thing of the past," he muses. 

Quick recharging stations across the country are expanding rapidly

Since Wade's road trip, companies like EVGo, Tesla and Electrify America have worked at breakneck speed to meet the country's growing demand for charging stations. From 2020 to 2021, the number of DC fast chargers (the gold standard for quick recharging) increased by 24%, indicating that today's EV issues will soon become tomorrow's old news. 

"Electrify America built its first charging station in May of 2018," says Anthony Lambkin, the company’s Senior Director of Operations. "In just four short years, we have expanded to 800 charging stations comprised of about 3500 individual chargers open or with construction completed."

Part of the company's current infrastructure includes two cross-country routes – LA to DC and Jacksonville to San Diego – and two coastal routes connecting California to Washington and Florida to Maine . By 2026, the company expects to have over 1800 charging stations with over 10,000 chargers in the US and Canada, spanning 49 states and the District of Columbia.

With the growing number of chargers, range anxiety is something Anthony rarely experiences. On a recent trip from Washington, DC to Cleveland, Ohio , he stopped three times to charge at Electrify America stations and didn't need to stay longer than 20 minutes per stop using a 150KW charger.

"The ability to charge quickly is a game-changer for road trips and makes the experience seamless," he says. "The only downside was that 20 minutes was not enough at some stops for my kids."

A coast-to-coast US road trip in an electric car is now easier than ever

Top tips and advice for EV road trippers in 2022

Even with increasingly excellent EV infrastructure, touring the country Tesla-style provides a set of unique challenges for drivers new to the electric life. Here are the top things road trippers should consider before shifting into high gear. 

​​Find the proper car for a long-distance road trip

For road trips spanning hundreds of miles, rent or buy a car supporting long-range travel. Vehicles with over 200 miles of electric range – including many Teslas models, the Chevrolet Bolt and the Ford Mustang Mach-E – will help drivers avoid frequent charging stops. 

"With the early EVs I've owned, the limited sub-100 mile range certainly required some trip planning," says Anthony. Travelers in cars like the Mazda MX-30, which has an estimated range of 100 miles, will spend more time looking for chargers than enjoying the actual adventure.

It's also helpful to use a car that supports DC fast charging (also known as level 3 charging). While DC chargers can replenish a battery in 15-45 minutes, more commonly found level 2 chargers may require 3-5 hours. 

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Make charging part of your itinerary

Even when high-speed chargers are available on a given route, Brannon advises travelers to schedule bio breaks or meals around charging stations. "Plan to be there for a minimum of an hour, and in some cases, a few hours," he says. Drivers can find many fast chargers in shopping centers, and if you get creative, it's possible to find them within walking distance to museums and other points of interest. Choosing hotels, homestays or RV parks with EV outlets is another necessary way to charge without wasting travel time. 

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Download apps to find charging stations

When mapping out charging stations, Wade relies on A Better Route Planner – an app that helps drivers estimate where and when they'll need to recharge based on their destination and car type. 

PlugShare , a free community-fueled app that allows users to find charging stations and leave reviews, is another helpful tool. Use this in conjunction with ChargePoint , one of the country's largest networks of charging stations, to find locations that don't always appear on Plugshare.

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Prepare an alternate charging plan

EV drivers should know that recharging "is not like going to the gas station," says Bannon. While charging stations are increasingly more common, they're not ubiquitous and a charging site that looks available on an app might be incompatible with your car, out of service or in use upon arrival. A recent study conducted by the Bay Area-based group Cool The Earth found that roughly one-quarter of all charging stations were inoperable when visited.

Brannon suggests drivers "plan a route, know where the charging locations are, and have a plan b and a plan c for those locations." Wade Anderson suggests bringing plenty of adapters to plug into as many outlet types as possible. 

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Think about the elements that affect an electric car's range

While the average range for an electric car is currently around 250 miles, "research shows that range is reduced by almost 40% at cold temperatures," says Brannon. That can make a winter sojourn through places like Badlands National Park , South Dakota – a state where chargers can be over one-hundred miles apart – a questionable prospect. 

Cold isn't the only element that changes a battery's capacity – wind, speed, air conditioning and heat can also deplete power. Consider how the time of year, location and weather will change your EV's range while planning when to recharge. 

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Choose a trip with a successful EV track record 

Intrepid EV travelers like Wade wrote the rulebook on electric car road trips so you don't have to. Going on excursions that don't support charging isn't worth the range anxiety, so pick a route you know you can enjoy. 

The Pacific Coast Highway – arguably the country's most scenic drive – is also one of the country's most EV-friendly roadways. Take the eight-state trek along America's 'Mother Road,' Route 66 and you'll find over 1800 charging stations. Thanks to Electrify America, a series of charging stations along Interstate 95 makes it possible to ride from Maine to Miami on electric power alone. While you may have to forgo the pleasures of improvised detours to towns off the well-trod path, you won't have to spend time hunting for a charge. 

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Look to the EV community for support 

When it comes to recharging, Wade isn't only looking for electricity – he's sometimes searching for personal connection. Through Plugshare, Wade finds charging locations at non-obvious locations like hospitals, libraries and even the homes of fellow app users. "It's a very supportive network," he says. "Most of us are concerned about the environment and climate change, and that pulls people together."

Wade also belongs to the Facebook group Tesla Road Trippers , which offers travel advice to newbies and encourages EV owners to share up-to-date information on their latest vacations. Users who post itineraries often receive valuable feedback from seasoned members.

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Consider the environmental impact 

With the necessity for so much planning, it may seem like EVs destroy the freedom synonymous with the all-American road trip. But on the contrary, this trending form of travel makes modern pioneers out of early adopters.

According to researchers from the universities of Cambridge, Exeter and Nijmegen, driving an EV is better for the environment than driving a gas-powered car in 95% of the world. Most electric vehicles made today produce far fewer planet-warming emissions than internal combustion engines, and while there's plenty of work needed to regulate the making and recycling of batteries, EVs are still a noble step toward environmental preservation. 

The EV road trip is like manifest destiny for a green generation. It's an entirely new take on a classic American adventure, and if embraced by enough drivers, it could protect the country's wonders for future generations. 

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This article was first published March 2021 and updated July 2022

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How to Take a Road Trip with Electric Cars

David Kuchta, Ph.D. has 10 years of experience in gardening and has read widely in environmental history and the energy transition. An environmental activist since the 1970s, he is also a historian, author, gardener, and educator. 

• Wesleyan University, University of California, Berkeley

• University of Tennessee

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Estimating Battery Time

Planning your route, charging on the road, unconventional charging options, ev road trip benefits.

• Frequently Asked Questions

Road trips in electric vehicles (EV) are getting easier every year as national charging networks improve.

The average EV range approaches 300 miles. But drivers may still be anxious about running out of battery.

With proper planning and sensible driving, however, it's possible to overcome any range limitations. Electric vehicle owners may even encounter some surprising road trip benefits.

Your battery is impacted by your driving patterns. While one of the joys of EV driving is the rapid acceleration, putting the pedal to the metal puts more strain on the battery and will reduce your range. Set your vehicle to economy mode, which increases the amount of regenerative braking and energy efficiency. 

EVs are most efficient when driving in cities or traffic, so you are unlikely to reach maximum range on the highway. Depending on your vehicle, driving at a constant 70 miles per hour may result in a lower range than the official EPA estimate, which assumes a 45% / 55% mix of city and highway driving.

The weather can also impact your battery life. EV batteries perform better in temperate weather than in the cold. Under one test, EVs lost an average of 18.5% of their range in temperatures below freezing, at -2 degrees C (28.4 degrees F). 

But keep in mind that Norway has one of the highest rates of electric purchases in the world. You can take a road trip under any weather conditions that you can in a gas-powered vehicle: you just need to plan accordingly.

Plan ahead to identify charging stations along your route before you hit the road. Teslas come with their own route planner, and you can use apps like A Better Route Planner or PlugShare. Google Maps can also be filtered to highlight EV charging stations. 

However, plans don’t always match reality. Charging stations that are part of networks often require their own app or RFID cards, and may not accept credit cards. Alternatively, you can arrive at a charging station to find it in use, out of service, or occupied. 

dagasansener / Getty Images

Here are some planning tips to make sure you have a smooth charging experience on the road.

• Have an alternative charging option at each step of your route. 
• Try to find charging stations with local accommodations, like restaurants or grocery stores, to make the most of your charging time.
• Select hotels with charging stations. It's often free, and you don't have to go looking for a gas station in a strange city. Completely charging an EV battery from almost empty to full usually costs about $10.00, so it’s worth paying a little extra.
• Bring your charging cord, an extension cord, and adaptors if you have them. 
• Don’t try to fill up your battery at every charging station. Just get enough juice to get you comfortably to your next stop, so you can spend time enjoying your trip.

SOPHIE-CARON / Getty Images

Borrowing or renting an EV for a road trip is a great way to gauge your interest in buying one. A rental agreement might even come with charging, essentially granting you free fuel. Be sure to read charging plans carefully, as they will specify where and how you can charge on the road.

If you are staying with friends or family, you can try charging by plugging into their grid. However, since this will cost them money, consider offering to reimburse them or return the favor. 

Another option for road trip lodgings in an electric vehicle is RV parks. There are often sites in or near national parks and they often come with 240-volt hookups that give the same power as Level 2 charging stations. Just make sure that the RV park you're interested in has hookups available, as many of those in national parks do not come with electricity hookups.

Don't let range anxiety prevent you from taking a road trip in an electric vehicle. Recent EVs have ample range to get you to your destination if you plan wisely and drive rationally. You may even find they can take you on unexpected adventures.

EV road trips may be novel, but they offer benefits over gas-powered cars when it comes to comfort and safety. 

EVs are uniquely suited for highway driving, even if they are less than optimally efficient. The instant torque of an EV's motor allows drivers to accelerate more quickly than a gas-powered vehicle. Quick acceleration improves safety by making it easier to enter highways, pass other vehicles, and avoid dangerous driving situations.

Electric vehicles also enable comfortable sleeping in your car. Plug in your EV at a campground or public charging station, set the climate control to a comfortable sleeping temperature, fold down the rear seats, and you don't need to look for lodging.

However, running the climate control all night will slow down battery charging , so you may not have a full charge in the morning. If you can, set the climate control so that it uses less power once you're asleep. Or bring an electric blanket that you can plug into your EV so that you can sleep comfortably without climate control.

Most electric cars can go 250 to 350 miles on a single charge.

Contrary to gas-powered cars, EVs are far more efficient in the city than they are on highways and other high-speed roads. So, as often as possible, travel slow on road trips.

As of 2022, the electric vehicle with the longest range is the Tesla Roadster, able to drive 620 miles on one charge.

PlugShare is a free app that helps its more than 300,000 active users find public charging stations by reading other user reviews. It features some 140,000 charging stations throughout the U.S. and Canada. Another great resource is EVHotels , specifically for finding hotels with charge points.

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How-To Geek

How to plan a road trip in an ev.

It takes a lot of planning, but it's possible.

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What to do when planning an electric car road trip.

Modern electric vehicles (EVs) are chipping away at range anxiety , but long-distance trips still feel difficult to many considering a switch to electric. With better batteries and increased charging infrastructure, is it finally possible to take a real road trip in an electric car?

Related: How Far Can an Electric Car Go on One Charge?

If you want to drive cross-country in your EV, it will take a bit of planning beforehand. You'll need to make sure you have access to charging infrastructure --- and a backup plan if the ones you find don't work out.

Find Charging Stations Before You Go

As travel publication Roadtrippers demonstrates in a short and sweet video  on the topic, apps like ChargeHub and PlugShare will help you find stations along your trip route. Depending on how advanced your EV's navigation system is, you can then make those stations stops on your route. Even Google Maps will tell you the most efficient route for traveling in an EV now.

Most of these apps also tell you if the charging station you're looking at is out of order and have user-contributed photos. If you see that stations are down or people complain about the chargers being broken a lot in the comments, it might be best to pick another spot.

Related: How to Find an EV Charging Station Near You

When plotting your route, it makes the most sense to pick areas where you'll already be doing something else to stop and charge. Restaurants, shopping centers, and sometimes even places like gyms will let you plug in while you run a few errands or stock up on supplies. For quicker stops, look for DC fast charging (DCFC) stations. Tesla drivers have the Supercharger network, and non-Tesla vehicles can plug in it at level 3 DCFC stations. It's very simple to filter by the level of charging station you want using the apps listed above.

If you're stopping at hotels along the way, their websites should list charging stations as an amenity, so make sure you book a room with one on-site. To be extra careful you can double-check by calling the hotel and looking them up on your app of choice.

Related: Level 1, Level 2, or Level 3? EV Chargers Explained

Want to camp instead? RV parks are your friend. They'll be equipped with outlets that provide the same level of power as a level 2 charging station since heavier power is needed to run the big vehicles that usually stop at RV campgrounds. Nightly rates are also usually reasonable, cheaper than a hotel, and don't limit how many hours you can charge. National parks like Yosemite often have charging stations in and around the park you can use to plug in while you hike or swim. (Check before you go, though, as it's probably not true for every national park).

Whichever route you choose, avoid letting the battery get too low. 20-80% is usually the optimal range to keep an EV's battery working in, so don't let it dip down to 5% before you start looking for a station --- you might end up getting towed to one.

Know Your Range

Of course, before doing any of that you need to be familiar with your EV's range. Different models will have different capabilities, and knowing what yours is will help you build a buffer between charging stations so you can hit the next one before your battery gets too low.

Related: 5 of the Longest Range Electric Cars You Can Buy

If longer trips are important to you, it's probably best to get an electric car with a range of 200 miles per charge or more. You don't need to drive a Tesla to get a decent amount of range out of your EV, either. While some longer-range electric cars are expensive, plenty are within the price range of a typical modern gas car. Kia and Hyundai, for example, make EVs with a roughly 300-mile range. The 2021 Chevy Bolt can travel over 250 miles on a single charge.

If you're on the fence, consider renting an EV for a few days and taking a road trip to try it out. If it's within your budget, it can be a great way to find out what EV is right (or wrong) for you.

Mind the Weather

As many have noted, cold weather is not friendly to electric cars. While they do better these days than in the past, you're going to see a decrease in your range when the temperature drops too low.

Related: How Does Cold Weather Affect Electric Car Battery Life?

If you can still make the trip driving shorter distances between stations then chances are you'll be fine, but you don't want to get stuck in a far-flung area with spotty charging infrastructure in the middle of winter. If you do decide to road trip in colder weather, warming the car's cabin and battery before unplugging from the charging station each time will do a lot to lighten the load on your battery and mitigate range loss.

Extremely hot weather can decrease EV range too, so you'll want to take steps to keep the car cool on summer road trips. Parking in the shade, using the car's battery management system while plugged in, and keeping the battery topped up all help.

Have a Backup Plan

Roadtrippers editor-in-chief Sanna Boman said it best in her article detailing her own EV road trip experience: "If there's one thing I learned during my trip, it's that the key to a successful EV road trip is planning, planning, and more planning."

DCFC stations are great, but get hard to find once you leave major cities and suburbs behind. If you know you'll be heading through a more rural area and have the opportunity to top up before things get sparse, do it.

Even if you do find a station, all the ports could be occupied by other vehicles. Some or all of the stations could also be broken or down for maintenance. Or, as happened with Boman's Chevy Bolt once, the station could just be unable to communicate with your car. If any of those things happen, you'll want to be prepared to wait a little longer or have enough power to travel to the next station.

If you know people in the areas you'll be traveling through that can let you use their garage to plug in and get some juice, that's a great option to have in your back pocket as well. And always know where the charging stations are before you leave.

Related: Electric Vehicles: How Easy Is It to Find a Charging Station?

Why a Multi-State Road Trip Is Even Better in an EV

Can you really take a long-distance road trip in an electric vehicle as it turns out, yes—and it can be even better if you follow some simple rules..

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With fast charging, a modern EV, and a little planning, there’s no limit to how far you can go.

Photo by Weldon Kennedy

The way we saw things, if we were spending two months driving around the western United States with a baby in the middle of the pandemic, it wouldn’t be any more logistically complex doing it in an electric vehicle. As it turned out, being in an EV made the whole thing so much better.

Here was the plan: After 13 years living abroad, we were going to remeet America in grand fashion. We’d drive 5,500 miles around the western U.S. visiting friends and family in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. We’d do the whole thing in a brand new Ford Mustang Mach-E California Route 1 , which has an official range of 304 miles (but which we found on some flat legs of driving to be capable of more like 325–340).

We set off from San Francisco on December 10, 2021, and put in the Holiday Inn, Santa Clarita, some 371 miles away, as the Day 1 destination. The car’s navigation system plotted our charging stops for us and we drove off confidently—into a massive strategic blunder.

At our first bathroom break, just a quick pause at a gas station, we were still confident. Three hours later, we arrived at our first charger in Firebaugh, not far from Fresno, and fumbled around for five minutes before charging. Things seemed to be working.

It was at our next stop that we realized things were off track. Our four-month-old woke up hungry and we had to pull off at Buttonwillow, near Bakersfield, a rest stop with no services and no charging. Then, an hour down the road, we unexpectedly had to stop and charge at a rest area in Lebec as our car hadn’t calculated the added work of driving to higher elevations. Our baby woke up, and the quick 10-minute charge turned into a 45-minute baby care break.

That was when the light bulb came on. At that moment we got it all figured out.

Plan your own charging stops

When we let the car plan our charging stations, the car’s built-in navigation system tried to make the total travel time as short as possible. Since the battery charges fastest when it’s most depleted, the algorithm was having us charge when the battery was closer to 20 percent and not charge it up to the normal stopping point of 80 percent. There were three problems with this approach:

• We took more time during breaks to feed ourselves, relieve ourselves, and feed the baby than it took to charge the car (about 25 minutes at a level 3 charger averaging 75 kW, which is only half of the total potential charge speed for our car). So reducing charge time really wasn’t necessary.
• We wanted to plan our stops to align better with our baby’s naps and feeding needs, and not just push for the longest stretches, which is not as relaxing as knowing you have regular breaks coming.
• The car was optimizing to get us to our final station with a lower battery for faster recharge, but changes in the weather and gradient affected the battery performance, and then it added a charge to our route. As we headed out of the Central Valley and over the Transverse Range, we were climbing and the air temperature plummeted. We were fine, because the planning system knows where the chargers are and stops you from getting into trouble, but the last stop wasn’t how we would have planned our time.

So for the next two months we changed our strategy, picking charges 1.5–2.5 hours down the road to align better with our needs.

The car will recharge quicker than its occupants.

A network of EV charging stations

There are chargers all over the western U.S. We drove across some of the least inhabited parts of the country, through the Sonoran Desert , Great Basin Desert , and even back-country two-lane blacktop across the Columbia Plateau . Still, there were always chargers and we never got close to using the full 300-mile range of our car. Until Fort Collins, Colorado.

We pulled up at an EVGo charging station at the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery to park while we ate an exceptionally chilly brunch at the famed Ginger and Baker, which was kindly offering outdoor seating in midwinter. But we couldn’t get the charger to work, and we had to use an Electrify America station on the way back to Denver.

Almost inadvertently, we had only been using Electricity America and ChargePoint rapid chargers while on the go. They’re both great networks. ChargePoint even has uptime and availability reporting so you can see how many plugs are available. And after that EVGo experience, we stuck with those trusted networks. They both have extensive coverage across the nation, so we never needed anything else anyway.

Finding hotels with EV chargers

Most days we’d charge at the hotel and then use one or two rapid chargers during the drive. We found chargers at a wide range of hotels, and just about every booking site has a way to filter hotels by those who have chargers. Salt Lake City, Utah, was the only place where we couldn’t find a hotel where we wanted to stay with chargers. But when we pulled into the TownePlace in Murray , just south of Salt Lake, we found that it had just installed four chargers and hadn’t listed them on its website yet. The infrastructure is going in quickly.

We’d drive 150 to 200 miles and then take a rapid-charge break. We would pee, feed the baby, and often feed ourselves too. Sometimes pee again, just for good measure. Hydration is important. We were always done charging well before we were done with other activities. If you’re road-tripping with kids, or simply enjoy a chance to stretch your legs, you’ll likely find charging time is not a concern at all if your car can charge at 75 kW.

How EV charging works

It’s important to draw a distinction between home chargers and the type of rapid chargers you use out on the road. At home you can plug into a wall for roughly 1 kilowatt per hour of charging. You can also have a more powerful charger installed that will give you around 4–6 kW; these are called level 2 chargers. But out on the road is where the mighty beasts of charging are to be found. Level 3 chargers run at 50–150 kW, or even faster for some of the newest chargers and cars.

Our car has an 88 kilowatt–hour battery, which gives us an official range of 304 miles. Since we were normally driving two hours, that meant we typically used around 50 percent of our battery between charges. At most chargers, we were topping up in 20 minutes or less. Hopefully, this also shows that you don’t need the great range that we’ve got to do a trip like this. Almost everything we did could have been accomplished in a car with 260 miles of range.

There are plentiful charging stations—and more on the way—across the U.S. Even in the Sonoran Desert.

Photo by Raisa Nastukova/Unsplash

The surprising benefits of road-tripping in an EV

If you’ve got an EV, you should get it out on the open road. If you’ve never driven a long distance in an EV, let us tell you: The difference isn’t subtle. Friends we saw in Seattle called it “magic on wheels.” In comparison to our old 2005 internal combustion car, magic might be understating the case. Without thousands of little controlled explosions, it doesn’t vibrate in the same way and is beautifully quiet. The ride is smooth and the driving is effortless.

At the end of a long day on the road in our EV, we still felt fresh and ready to go play in a park in Salt Lake City, have beers in Flagstaff, or find the best Vietnamese food in Denver.

But our most common meal was the fresh veggies, hummus, and cheese out of our mini-fridge. With such a massive battery on board, plugging in a small electric cooler just cost us a mile or two of electricity each day. In exchange, we kept pumped breastmilk cold, as well as the best road trip eats we’d ever had. And no mess from ice or worry about refreezing blue ice. Another win for the EV.

From Bandelier National Monument to a residential street in Portland, folks always had one question for us: How did we get the car? Admittedly, that was the hardest part of the trip and involved the family calling every dealership in a 50-mile radius. But the supply is already improving, so we hope you’ll join us in this new and improved way to enjoy the classic American road trip.

Weldon documented his adventures in a series of videos. Head to YouTube to see more of the trip.

>> Next: An Electric Road Trip From L.A. to Las Vegas Is Easier Than You May Think

Electric Vehicle Trip Planner

Plan your next electric vehicle road trip and choose from more than 30,000 charging stations in Roadtrippers.

Select the Auto & RV Services category.

Click Filters and then select EV Charging.

Start planning your trip.

Choose a destination and then add charging stations along with your favorite road trip stops.

Start planning your trip

Classic American Road Trips

Explore the country in your electric vehicle. Here’s some of our favorite trips. Save them to your profile and start adding charging stations along your route.

A Highway 1 road trip along California’s Central Coast

The top things to do on a Route 66 road trip

The top things to do on an East Coast road trip

The top things to do on a Blue Ridge Parkway road trip

Get ready to hit the road.

Can you take a road trip in an electric vehicle?

Road trip tips: How to prepare for the road with snacks, apps, and entertainment

How to plan a road trip: 5 steps to get you ready to hit the road

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Electric Vehicle Trip Planner

Easily find all the EV charging stations available along your route in North America.

To learn more about the different types of charging stations and how to charge before planning your trip, check out our guide on   ”How To Charge Your Electric Car With Charging Stations ” .

How To Use The EV Trip Planner?

To access the trip planner from the ChargeHub website, click on “Map”, in the top left corner of the navigation bar.

Once you are on the map page, you can open the trip planner panel by clicking the “Trip Planner” tab on the left side of the charging stations map page.

To enable the planner, click on the “OFF/ON” button so that it is "ON" . Note that at this point, you will have the option to select the unit of measurement by clicking on "KM" .

Once enabled the Trip Planner right sidebar will be displayed.

Enter Your Trip Details

Enter a “ Starting Point” and “ Destination” in the trip planner. It will suggest options based on what you input. Select the option you want, as shown in the following screenshot.

Now you have the option to choose how far away from your route you want the charging stations to be. Then click on "Find Routes". 

After clicking on “Find Routes” you will be asked to choose which route you prefer from the proposed routes as seen below, on the right panel of the Trip Planner :

Once you select a route, click on "Start Planning My Trip" and start adding charging stations to your itinerary, as explained in the following section "Add Charging Stops to your Itinerary".

Add Charging Stops to your Itinerary

At this point, you can add charging stations to your trip by zooming in on the map and clicking on map markers.

If you are planning to use the ChargeHub App to activate the station and pay , please make sure to select charging stations that have a golden thunderbolt in the center, as seen in the image below.

Only the charging stations that have a golden thunderbolt in the center are compatible with ChargeHub’s wallet app. You can pay for your charging sessions , across all available networks, at these charging stations, from within the app.

Once you have selected a charging station, all the information regarding the station will be displayed, on the right side of the screen.

Based on your EV and charging preferences, you can decide if the charging station meets your needs. If it does, add it to your trip by clicking "Add to trip".

NOTE: If you click on “See Complete Details” you will exit the trip planner and it will reset. In this case, you will need to start the whole Trip Planner process again from step one.

Once the charging station has been selected, it will be added to your trip as shown below.

If you need to add more charging stations, select and add as many as you need, by following the same process.

Save And Share Your EV Trip

Once you have finalized your itinerary you can: 

• Save your trip in your account for future reference
• Access your saved trips.

NOTE: To save and load a trip, you must be logged in to your  ChargeHub account.

Check out our other guides and resources on home charging

• A Beginner’s Guide to Electric Cars
• How to choose your charging station
• Top 9 most popular charging stations in 2024
• Incentives available in Canada for EV chargers
• Find the best EVSE solution according to your EV or PHEV

Browse the chargers on the ChargeHub Store

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The Ultimate Electric Vehicle Road Trip

Hint: it's easier—and more fun—than you think

Vanessa Dawson is a freelance photographer and travel writer and the founder of Focus on Photography Tours. Vanessa's work has appeared in publications, including the Toronto Star and Extraordinary Experiences,

Road trips are so much more than just going from point A to point B—after all, the journey is the main attraction. So, when we planned a trip to attend my husband’s college reunion in Las Vegas, New Mexico, we chose to fly into the other Las Vegas, about 700 miles away. We wanted to take in the wide open spaces of the Southwest with its canyons, hoodoos, and big skies. Plus, it was fun to say we were on a Vegas-to-Vegas road trip.

But to add to the madness, we decided to forgo a traditional car rental (and thus leave rising gas prices in the dust!) and make the trip in an electric vehicle. Would it even be possible? With vast distances between small towns, would we even be able to find enough charging stations?

Going Electric

My husband took the trip as a challenge, immediately diving into planning apps like Plug Share and A Better Route Planner , both of which help you find charging stations and even let you rate them. With the latter, you can create your whole itinerary and even choose the type of car you’re driving, so it will only show you the chargers that work with your model. Once we saw that our proposed trip was doable, we started looking at Turo , a platform that allows owners to rent their cars. (Similar to renting an Airbnb, check the rules for each listing because restrictions can vary depending on a car owner's wishes or preferences.) We lucked out, and the car's owner was really excited to hear about our plans and even offered to include a cooler for us.

Grand Canyon

Our first charging stop after leaving Sin City was in Kingman, Arizona, right on the Historic Route 66, the quintessential road trip highway. While the car charged, we bought some souvenirs and ate in a classic diner serving the standard burgers, fries, and milkshakes. We had plenty of juice to make it all the way to Grand Canyon Village, which had destination chargers right near where we were staying at Yavapai Lodge . After checking in and plugging in the car, we jumped on a free park shuttle to catch the sunset along the south rim. Staying right in the park meant we could easily catch both the sunset and the sunrise. 

In nearby Flagstaff, about 80 miles south of Grand Canyon Village, the DoubleTree by Hilton , the Hampton Inn & Suites , and the Holiday Inn Express have EV chargers. We only stopped here for a night so that we could spend most of the day at the Grand Canyon and not have as long a drive the next day, but the convenience was excellent.

Petrified Forest National Park

Next, we topped up our battery in Holbrook, Arizona, while we sheltered from a dust storm followed by heavy rain. Then, we made our way toward the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest National Park as the sun came back out. Fallen logs, now completely petrified with minerals in a rainbow of colors, lay broken along the dry dusty earth. It’s illegal to pick up any pieces of petrified wood within the National park, but you can get some in gift shops in the park and in the surrounding area—it's a must-have souvenir for any fossil lover.

Albuquerque

In the past, our visits to Albuquerque included stops at the Natural History Museum and the Explora Science Center, and Children's Museum . This time, we plotted out a "Breaking Bad" and "Stranger Things" filming location tour. Having binge-watched both series during the pandemic, it was fun to drive from one end of the city to the other, checking out familiar-looking spots while not burning any gas. An excellent place for lunch is at the Indian Pueblo Kitchen (make sure to try the house-made fry bread) inside the Pueblo Indian Cultural Center . 

Before heading to our furthest point, Las Vegas, New Mexico, we spent a night in Santa Fe , near the historic center. The Inn of the Governors is within walking distance, and while it didn't have an EV charger, the valet kindly showed us where we could plug into a regular AC outlet in their covered garage—this is where having the car's adapter plug came in really handy. We found chargers at the County Clerk's Office for a faster boost. We popped into the Georgia O'Keefe Museum while we waited and had a tasty lunch at the Pizza Gallery on Grant Street.  

Ship Rock and Monument Valley

The return trip west started with a stop to see Ship Rock , or Tsé Bitʼaʼí in Navajo, which means "rock with wings." This impressive monadnock rises over 1,500 feet from the plain below, with cows grazing lazily in its shadow. Rock climbing is banned not only here but everywhere in Navajo Nation. These rocks and lands are sacred, and the best way to learn more is to hire a Navajo guide. We did just that, and our guide, Vera from Monument Valley Tribal Tours , took us off-roading in an open jeep. We drove past the iconic mittens to visit a traditional kiva where an elder showed us her weaving skills while sharing their Navajo beliefs and customs. Charging was a little more challenging in these parts and required a detour to Blanding, Utah, but worth it to see the unspoiled beauty of the sculpted earth and learn about the people who have such a deep connection to it. 

Page, Arizona

Outside the northwestern border of the Navajo Nation, near Page, Arizona , the Colorado river curves around Horseshoe Bend, a worthy photo stop after charging at one of the eight public charging stations in the city. We also took a guided tour in Antelope Canyon, walking between the wavy walls of orange sandstone of the slot canyons. Our guide, Joe, did a masterful job of showing us how slot canyons are formed using a pile of sand and pouring water from his water bottle over the mound.

Bryce Canyon National Park

Rocks spires, called hoodoos, glowed orange as the sun rose. We stayed just outside Bryce Canyon's gates in the Ruby's Inn complex, where there were several destination chargers. We were a little tired after staying up late for a stargazing tour with Dark Ranger Telescope Tours , where the planets and constellations played hide and seek with the clouds at first, then eventually rolled away, revealing the Milky Way in all its glory. We didn't mind sacrificing sleep when rewarded with shows like this.

Zion National Park

Layered sandstone walls rose on either side of the road, making us crane our necks to admire the grandeur that is Zion. In the summer months, cars can only drive up to a certain point, so we parked and hopped on a shuttle to enjoy the leisurely Riverside Walk Trail. We stayed just east of the park in a glamping tent at Zion Ponderosa Ranch Resort . Nervous about where to charge the car nearby, I inquired with the resort. To my surprise, they said they were installing some on the property that were ready by the time we arrived. Perfect!

Saying Goodbye

Driving back to Las Vegas, Nevada, the temperature rose steadily as the altitude dropped. When we stopped to charge in Mesquite, the thermometer read 111 degrees F. We had started the day canyoneering with East Zion Adventures wearing sweatshirts in 60 degrees F! Feeling exhausted from the heat and days packed with adventures, we were happy to finally get some rest but a little sad to part with our EV car. The owner is looking to sell it soon, and to be honest, if we didn’t live across a border 2,500 miles away, we just might have driven home with it.

With states like Colorado creating a network of chargers no further than 50 miles apart on specific highways and California banning the sale of new gas-powered cars starting in 2035, it’s only going to get easier to go electric on road trips. While charging may take longer than pumping gas, seeing a complete charge for just $20 was a huge plus—we went home with dreams of buying our own EV very soon!

Illustration by Julie Bang

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How to Plan a Road Trip With an EV

With proper preparation, your trip can be as stress-free as ever

For more than two decades, Stephen wrote for Newsday on Long Island. He later covered general assignments, news rewrite, and was later assigned as a music writer, travel writer, and general columnist.

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• Batteries & Range
• Charging & Maintenance
• Buying an EV

Counting down the preparations for a long family road trip usually involves packing suitcases, loading up on snacks, tossing in a few pillows for comfort, and gassing up. If you’re driving an electric vehicle, of course, you can strike the gassing-up part and just be sure the battery is charged up nicely to get you where you’re going. Wait: EVs can make road trips?

It’s true: Today’s EVs are able to drive longer and longer distances due to ongoing improvements in batteries and other EV features. Still, there are a few things to know before you hit the road that are a bit different from road tripping in a gasoline-powered vehicle.

Road Trip Range Planning

There are plenty of benefits to traveling a long way in an EV—you’ll save gas, of course, but you’re also helping the environment by not burning fossil fuels along the way. In certain states, you can even take advantage of HOV lanes, and the storage in an EV is usually at least twice that of a gasoline-powered vehicle.

Plus, when it comes to EVs, a road trip can be a lot further than most people think. Many EVs today can actually cover long distances without excessive worry. Whether the battery power dictates that your ride is limited to a range of 100 miles or 300 miles, you can always be ready to meet the unique situations you might encounter by doing a little homework before you go.

To plan your road trip, keep these things in mind: 

• Know where charging stations are along your route and consider using a rapid charger.
• Pack light for maximum range. 
• Use hotels with on-site charging stations. 
• Enjoy the ride.

Planning Your Route: The Charging Conundrum

Let’s pretend you’re driving from Buffalo to Boston for a long weekend to grab clam chowder, New England style. It’s just under 500 miles each way, and your new EV has a range of 250 miles when fully charged. You’ll need to make at least one charging stop en route but thinking ahead can easily make your road trip successful.

Set Up Your Charging Route

While you can plan any route you like, always consider how you will manage your EV’s range before you turn the key. That means charting the charging stations along the way to plan for both scheduled and unscheduled stops. The best way to do this is to use an EV app that can help you track battery usage and find charging stops with compatible chargers. 

You need to know what kind of charger and/or plug will accommodate your specific vehicle, too. If you’re unsure, you can check your car’s manual or the manufacturer’s website before you hit the road. 

Some manufacturers, like Tesla and GM, have their own charging networks for drivers. Tesla is opening its network to drivers of all EVs; GM announced in late 2021 that it would expand its infrastructure and install up to 40,000 EV charging stations in the U.S. and Canada.

Use an EV Travel Planning App

Some of the EV travel apps are built-in to electric vehicles while others are apps you can easily use on a laptop or smartphone. These apps help you plan routes, locate the stations, offer pricing information, and even tell you if there’s a wait to plug in.   

Our favorites include: 

EVHotels helps drivers find hotels with charging stations and notes free public chargers as well as those available only for hotel guests. (iOS only)

Google Maps has a special built-in for some EVs, this version of Maps lets you estimate your car’s battery charge on arrival at your destination and help you select charging stations along your route.

PlugShare lets you search for free and paid charging stations by area, network, and type of charging connection. You can pay for your charge through the app and plan trips, too.

ChargeHub uses a community of EV owners to help you locate the closest public charging station, regardless of network. 

Electrify America offers fast chargers across the country, with a few that also support Level 2 chargers. The app gives you access to members-only pricing and special features. 

Open Charge is a crowdsourced map of charging stations that claims to be the largest in the world. 

Chargeway works with multiple charging networks, only shows stations that will work with your specific EV and helps you plan road trips by providing estimated charging times along the way plus information about nearby shops and restaurants to use while you’re waiting. 

EVgo is a charging network with an app that helps drivers find available charging stations in real-time and pay for them through the app. 

Stay Flexible

If you’re anxious that the stations on the route you planned yesterday might not be compatible with your EV cable, you can always use your app to change your route as needed or find new stations.

As you plan your travels, prioritize finding a Level 3 station that uses DC fast chargers, perhaps in a mall or near a restaurant so you can eat or shop while waiting. If you can find one of these chargers along your route, getting your vehicle’s battery up to 80 percent or more typically takes less than an hour.

Less efficient Level 2 chargers can take up to eight hours for a full “fill” and are better suited to overnight stays; Level 1 chargers really won’t help you get where you’re going and back again very quickly unless you plan to stay several days in one location.

As of publication, the Lucid Air is your best bet with a range of 520 miles. The Lucid Air is pretty expensive, so the longest-range EV with a modest price is the Kia EV6 which goes for around $41,000 and offers about 310 miles of range.

Technically, yes. Practically, not really. At least not in the way you swap out batteries of your TV's remote or smoke alarm. The batteries in EVs are meant to last for years and years and typically have a lifespan of about 200,000 miles so it's unlikely the batteries will completely give up on you before you give up on the car. We go into more detail in our Can EV Batteries be Replaced or Upgraded? article.

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How to Plan a road trip with an EV

Planning a road trip in your EV? Here are some tips on making the journey as smooth as you can.

Last updated: Oct 11, 2023 • 6 min read

Jump to Section:

• What to check before you set off
• How to find en route rapid chargers available on your journey
• What to expect at rapid charging stations
• Final tips for long range electric car road trips...

Related Guides:

Electric Vehicle Guides

Electric Vehicle Charging Etiquette

How to Optimise the Range of Your Electric Car

Before you set off on a long-distance journey in an electric vehicle, it's important to do a small amount of preparation. In this guide you'll find some key recommendations that will allow you to charge effectively en route.

• Check how far your EV can travel and the type of chargers it's compatible with.
• Plan your journey to include stops with en route chargers.
• Consider the fact that some chargers might not be immediately available, so factor in extra time to complete your journey.

Essential pre-departure checks for your electric vehicle

Vehicle inspection checklist.

• Charge your battery to 80% or more
• Make sure all lights work
• Test your brakes
• Ensure your tyres have the correct pressure for the expected load
• Pack your charging cable

Battery status and range assessment 

When going a long way, a bit of planning goes a longer way. Before you set off, it’s critical that you're aware of your battery status and range to make it from A to B:

• How far you can (realistically) travel on one charge and thus how many en route charges you require. Check out our  vehicle guides for more details on your specific EV.
• The type of en route rapid charger you can use ( CCS / CHAdeMO / Type 2 / Tesla Supercharger ).
• The power of en route rapid charge your car can accept (and thus how long you will be waiting during any charging pit stops).

If you are going to go further than your car can comfortably travel on one charge, you will need to use an en route charger. Read about  Rob Cooling's 600 mile EV road trip  around UK on our blog.

Tip: If you can avoid an en route charger and charge at a destination, particularly overnight, that is always a more convenient (and often cheaper) experience. Picking a hotel/long stay destination with a 7kW-22KW charger is always a great win.

Locating rapid charging stations along your route

Utilising your electric car’s built-in route planner.

Some car’s usefully host chargepoint data in their sat nav, and some will build charging stops into their route planners. Perhaps the most convenient system for EV route planning comes with Tesla vehicles, whose sat nav calculates drivers’ required charging stops and likely charging duration and routes them to their own dedicated “Supercharger” en route charging network.

Leveraging third-party mapping solutions

Outside the car’s sat nav, the following tools and apps are recommended. But only when you are stationary and not driving!

• Pod Point Network - First check the Pod Point App. If there’s a conveniently located and suitable Pod Point for your journey, then you know your car will be charged reliably.
• ZapMap - Crowd sourcing and direct data feeds have made ZapMap the UK’s number one universal charge point map. You can filter to the types of chargers and/or networks that you need.

And for those travelling into Europe.

• PlugShare - PlugShare is a community based tool that guides users to public charging locations throughout Europe (and further afield). Driver participation means there are reviews and photos of thousands of chargepoints.
• Chargemap - Chargemap offers an alternative to Plugshare. Again, drivers can contribute to enhance Chargemap’s information via their mobile app, by adding pictures, comments, charging stations and even edit useful information.

Tip: We recommend not using the very last possible rapid charger; use the one before the penultimate charger en route. Flying by the seat of your pants may briefly feel thrilling, but if that charger fails, or there’s a queue, or you end up using more power than expected (e.g. uphill), then the waiting around is in no way a thrilling experience!

What to anticipate at rapid charging stations

Understanding different access methods.

The common methods include apps, contactless card readers, RFID cards and some just plug and play (Tesla Superchargers). For details on these, please see our guide on  public charging access methods .

Evaluating charger availability

When choosing an en route rapid charging location, you should consider the likelihood that it is available when you arrive. Some rapid chargers show their live status, but ultimately this is liable to change while you are driving to the site, which means the best bet is to pick sites with numerous chargers (particularly if you can see there are several available at that time).

This facet of EV motoring is starting to improve, but many sites only have 1 or 2 chargers, so there is a chance that you have an occasional wait.

Deciphering charging speed and expected waiting time

How fast your car rapid charges depends on how much power the chargers can offer and how much power your car can accept - but also where you are in the state of charge (and a little on the ambient temperature). Unlike a 7kW charger which almost exclusively charges at 7kW regardless of how full your battery is, electric cars manage their rapid charge rate to protect the battery.

Different cars’ rapid charging profiles vary, but an approximate typical profile is shown below. This illustrates that it's quickest to charge from 20% to 80%, but  charging to 100% can take a long time.

Tip: We recommend rapid charging from something like ~20% to ~80% full to minimise the time spent at the charger. If you arrive almost empty the charge rate will take a little time to “warm up”, while the last few kWhs typically take longer to fill than it’s worth waiting for vs heading for the next charging opportunity.

Essential tips and insights for long range EV road trips

Ultimately long journeys in electric cars are similar to long road trips in conventional cars, so the following tips are valid for all.

• Perform important vehicle checks before you set off 
• Take regular breaks (you’ll soon notice how well this fits with en route charging!)
• Stop when you are tired
• Take snacks and drinks (whilst being careful to ensure they do not unduly distract the driver)
• It is better to get there late than in a damaged car/not at all
• Stay zen, the traffic does not improve no matter how angry you get
• Share this guide

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It’s 2022. Can You Finally Take a Road Trip in an Electric Car?

A 330-mile drive into the country doesn’t seem like it should be trouble…right?

By Will Sabel Courtney

Electric cars are officially mainstream. Like ‘em, love ‘em or hate ‘em, there’s no arguing that they’ve become a full-fledged part of the automotive world here in 2022 — not when the likes of Audi , Mercedes-Benz and Ford are cranking them out en masse, with just about every other carmaker close behind.

Why? Well, even setting aside the obvious long-term environmental benefits of swapping millions of cars that spew 20 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every mile for ones that don’t, electric vehicles offer plenty of perks over their internal-combustion equivalents.

They’re more efficient, in terms of pure energy spent. They require less maintenance — there’s no oil to change, few to no gears to keep tabs on, even their brakes wear out more slowly thanks to regenerative braking that uses the motor’s own resistance in lieu of mechanical stoppers. They generally ride more smoothly than gas and diesel rides, thanks to both the lack of large clattering metal pieces beneath the hood and the added low-riding weight of a big battery pack. And unless you have an oil refinery in your backyard, there’s no way to refuel your internal-combustion car overnight at home every night as easily as plugging in your iPhone before bed.

Oh, and don’t forget, they can be a lot of fun, too. Electric motors can crank out incredible amounts of power from a much smaller apparatus than the gas powerplants used in production cars; the Lucid Air’s motor / transmission / differential / inverter assembly, for example, fits in a roller bag, but makes up to 670 horsepower . As a result, performance EVs can pack enough punch to make up for the portly weights brought on by giant battery packs; it’s not by accident that Porsche’s most powerful production car is powered by electricity. On top of that, the instantaneous reactions of electric motors — which don’t need any revving to reach maximum torque — makes an EV feel punchier than an ICE car of equivalent power in most real-world scenarios.

But while they may meet or beat petroleum-powered vehicles in many categories, there’s one part of driving where old-school rides still seem to have a leg over those newfangled tech-tastic electric machines: long journeys. Or, if you prefer the more romantic term…road trips.

Such travel, after all, is as deeply ingrained a part of the appeal of the car as anything else: the idea of being able to step into your own personal transport and go wherever you like, stopping whenever you like, knocking out a mile a minute while seated in a comfortable chair at whatever temperature you like, carrying practically whomever or whatever you like. Its roots run as deep as humanity’s nomadic nature, our desire for exploration — the gravitational pull of wondering what’s over the next hill that led us out of the Great Rift Valley and on to every inch of the globe — and even the spheres beyond. To ask people to give that up for the sake of the future is to ask them to cease being human. If electric cars are indeed to succeed in supplanting internal combustion ones, they need to be able to road trip — and without much more trouble than we’re used to.

The two charges traditionally levied against EVs in this regard are that they can’t go far enough, and that they take too long to recharge. To see if those still hold true — and to see whatever other challenges might lie between EV owners and their distant destinations — I took two of today’s freshest, cutting-edge electric cars on a road trip I’ve done many, many times before: the drive from my home in New York City to where I grew up in Stowe, Vermont. In November 2021, I did the trip in an Audi RS E-Tron GT ; in December, I did so in a Mercedes-Benz EQS 580 .

Here’s what I learned.

Fast chargers are too few, and too far between.

Glance at the U.S. Department of Energy’s map of public CCS fast-charging stations across America , and you’ll see a sea of green dots that seems to suggest they’re everywhere. (CCS, in case you’re unfamiliar, is the widely-accepted fast charging standard for most new EVs. Unless you drive a Tesla or a Nissan Leaf , odds are good you’ll use CCS.) That is, until you start zooming in, and you realize that at the initial scale, each of those green dots are half the size of Delaware.

The formal DOE count tallies up 3,994 CCS chargers across these 50 states, which seems like a lot — until you realize there are more than 150,000 gas stations in the nation. And while most of those gas stations have several pumps, each capable of refueling a car in five minutes or less, many of the CCS chargers only have a single connector.

For now, at least, there are few enough EVs that finding an open plug usually isn’t a problem…so long as you live in a part of the country where they’re prevalent. Most of them are located in urban areas — not surprising — or along select major routes, like interstates.

The highways and byways of, and connecting to, Vermont seem like an obvious place for such fast chargers. After all, the state is a huge tourist destination, with close to 50 million people within a day’s drive. Under good conditions, the 332-mile drive from NYC to Stowe should be a one-stop trip for the RS E-Tron GT or EQS 580: drive around 180-200 miles until the battery is comfortably below half-charge (the less charge you have, the quicker the battery recharges, so it’s advantageous to try and get it as low as you feel comfortable doing), plug into a high-speed charger capable of refueling the car at max power, spend 20 minutes or so composing a truly biting clapback tweet, then unplug and finish the trip in style.

Trouble is, Electrify America — the only network with widespread CCS chargers powerful enough to deliver 200–270 kW, and the de facto official charging network of Audi and Mercedes-Benz by virtue of their decision to offer limited free charging with new-car purchase — doesn’t offer an EV charger that’s convenient to that halfway point. Indeed, as of this story, they don’t have a single charger in Vermont — nor in West Virginia, North Dakota or Wyoming. One lies directly over the Vermont-New Hampshire border on Interstate 93, making it a convenient stop for travelers from Boston, but it’s 264 miles from New York — and should it be out of commission, there’s nowhere else nearby for desperate travelers to hook onto for a fast charge. The next-closest one is in Chicopee, MA, 192 miles away from Stowe. That’s within the range of most new EVs under good conditions…but as you’ll see below, good conditions can be more elusive than you might expect in rural winter climes.

In other words, anyone traveling from New York City to Stowe — or Vermont’s biggest city Burlington, or the capital of Montpelier, or major ski resorts like Jay Peak, Smugglers’ Notch or Sugarbush — will likely have to make two stops along the way, and likely need to go a bit out of the way to do it.

Adding inconvenience to insult, Electrify America’s chargers also tend to be located in locations that aren’t always ideal for road trippers. For the most part, they’re located in the (far back of) Target and Walmart parking lots, and often a mile or two away from the highway, if not more — usually down unfamiliar local roads, usually while being taunted by the gas stations clustered by the highway in the process.

Once I reached Vermont, I stumbled across another issue: how to sock enough charge into the battery to get me home. EV owners with their own homes will likely opt to add Level 2 chargers to their garage or driveway that can top up the car overnight — but that does little good when you’re away from home, spending your nights in a hotel or AirBnB or relative’s place without one. A household 110-volt outlet — a.k.a. Level 1 — in my mom’s garage managed to add a couple dozen miles per night, but to actually make it to the first fast charger on the way back, I needed more juice than it could provide. Yet even the well-heeled tourist town of Stowe – a place where visitors’ fancy cars often outnumber local Subarus — only has a handful of Level 2 chargers — mostly at local hotels — and a sole fast-charging station at The Alchemist Brewery, famous creator of Heady Topper . Thus, my trips home were interrupted by sojourns to the electric pumps…and sadly, The Alchemist was closed when I stopped by.

Down in the New York area, chargers are more plentiful; unfortunately, electric cars are, too. On my return home in the EQS, I rolled up to an EA station in White Plains that had shown itself to have an open charger not 10 minutes before — only to find it was not only full, but there was a line waiting to use it. I set off for Queens, where a shopping mall between the Whitestone Bridge and LaGuardia Airport claimed to have open chargers…only for me to find that, in spite of what the app said, both were full. And, to add insult to injury, I was charged $3 for the privilege of not actually parking in said parking garage. (Also, both EA stations had one of their four chargers out of commission — a trait I’ve found common to nearly every EA station I’ve tried this year.)

Public chargers are too hard to use.

Much as there are different chains that run gas stations — Mobil, Shell, Citgo, Irving, BP, 76, Sheetz, etc. — there are several main companies running the majority of public electric car charging points. Unlike gas stations, however, most public EV chargers require you to download an app and set up an account (or at the very least strongly encourage you to do so). That means you not only need a smartphone — which, to be fair, anyone buying a new electric car probably has — but also a strong enough connection for the app to work properly. Oh, and the charger also needs to connect to the cell system in some cases, as well, so here’s hoping nobody’s clogging up the local towers TikToking at a school dance or Citizen streaming a fire.

The ones that don’t require accounts that have credit card readers — but in my attempts to use them, I’ve found they work about one time in six. Whether this is because of the hardware, the software or some other factor, I have no idea. (Even more infuriating, while I often couldn’t get the readers to work, my partner could, suggesting they may just not respond to frustration and testosterone.)

Worse yet, sometimes the stations can go haywire and simply not work with no warning. An EVGo station that served me well on my trip home in the Audi then refused to deliver charge a month later when I tried to power up the Mercedes there. If stations were more prevalent, this wouldn’t be much of an issue — but when they’re scattered about as they are now, one malfunctioning charger can be the difference between being home for Christmas and only being there in your dreams.

Electric car range varies greatly based on temperature.

For years, “range anxiety” was bandied about as the major barrier standing between EVs and widespread adoption. It was a logical concern: with electric cars of less than decade ago only capable of less than 200 miles, and most drivers’ desire to not take their cars all the way down to empty regardless of what propulsion system is in use, past electric vehicles could make any one-way trip of more than 100 miles feel stressful.

That’s far less of an issue with today’s crop of new EVs. The RS E-Tron GT is rated for 232 miles of range, according to the EPA; t he independent team at Edmunds , meanwhile, found it capable of doing 285 miles on a mixed-run test cycle. The EPA says the EQS 580 can do 340 miles on a charge; Edmunds, however, found the EQS 450 (which is about 3% more efficient than its more powerful AWD cousin, according to the EPA) capable of going 422 miles on their test route.

Here’s the thing, though. Lithium-ion batteries are a little like your grandmother: they don’t like being too hot, but they really hate being cold. Edmunds tests their cars in California; the ambient temp the day they drove the EQS was 67º Fahrenheit, and it was 77º when they tested the RS E-Tron GT. My drives, meanwhile, started out in global warming-balmy temps of around 50º in New York City, but by the time I reached Vermont — which, in case you weren’t aware, is a bit chilly in winter — temps were below freezing.

Driving up in the Audi, I’d juiced up the battery all the way to 100 percent in Massachusetts, giving me a claimed 220-mile range — more than enough for the 192 miles to Stowe. As the temps dropped, however, the range began falling faster than the odometer was rising. Before long, range-to-empty was dangerously close to the remaining distance shown on Google Maps , forcing me to begin slowing down from my usual 75-mph cruise: first to 70, then the speed limit of 65, then to 60, then finally all the way down to 55. I switched off the climate control, leaving my poor partner to shiver in her parka in the passenger’s seat — at least, until the windshield fogged up, and I was forced to burst-fire the defroster. Even those measures couldn’t cut the mustard in the end; only a last-minute late-night pit stop at an out-of-the-way 50-kW charger in Barre, Vermont gave me enough juice to get to my destination.

The Mercedes faired a bit better in absolute terms, by virtue of the fact that it simply offers more range overall than the E-Tron GT. Even so, while maximum range rang up around 340 miles in warmer temps, it fell to around 265 miles with the temperature in the mid-20s — and even that proved closer to 250 miles of real-world range once it recalibrated for 75-mph highway driving.

And keep in mind, while gas-powered cars are more efficient on the highway than in-town, the polarity is flipped for EVs, which dump electrons back into the battery more often in variable-speed city traffic than they do on the open road. If you’re planning on driving at the sorts of speeds the average American averages on the highway — say, around 75 mph — your real-world range is likely to track close to the conservative EPA estimate suggested by the window stickers on most (non-Tesla) electric cars, even when driving at shirtsleeve temperatures.

That bodes poorly for rural EV drivers, many of whose trips tend to be at continuous high speeds — and come winter, often in range-sucking temperatures. Bottom line: if you’re planning a longer trip to or through someplace like Vermont in the colder months, plan around your EV having 20-40% less range than you’re used to.

Even many fast chargers are too slow.

Peruse the websites of most cutting-edge electric cars, and you’ll see some sort of claim about how quickly they can guzzle up electrons when needed. “the EQS can get a quick boost in just 15 minutes,” Mercedes-Benz USA’s website says , adding further down that, at its maximum charging power of 200 kW, it can go from 10% to 100% in 31 minutes. An Audi release celebrating the launch of the E-Tron GT last year touts its ability to add 120 miles of range in 10 minutes and 180 miles in 22 minutes, when hooked up to a 270-kW charger.

Here’s the thing, though: Those fast chargers don’t always want to serve up electrons that quickly.

If multiple EVs are all charging at the same complex simultaneously, for example, the maximum output may not be available. Or there could be a hardware or software issue limiting the speeds. Or, for whatever indeterminate reason, it might just not want to charge as quickly as it should. Boom — all of a sudden, your carefully-planned nine-minute pitstop can stretch out twice as long. Most of the time, that’s not a problem — but when you’re racing to meet a deadline (catching a flight, getting to a meeting, trying not to miss a performance), those added seconds can make a big difference.

And — looping back to point number one — that’s if you can even find the really fast chargers. As of now, Electrify America is the only network with widespread chargers offering power in that 200-to-270-kW range. A good number of other fast chargers you’ll come across are in the 50-100 kW range. While that’s certainly far better than a Level 2 charger, it still greatly extends the time needed to add decent range when driving long distances. The EQS, for example, needed 50 minutes on a 50-kW charger to go from 85 miles of range remaining to 220 — 50 minutes in which the poor guy in a Leaf who rolled up behind me to recharge on the only fast-charger on his way home from Christmas was forced to sit and wait.

Even if everything works out exactly the way you want — if your car can charge at 200 or 270 kW or more, if there’s a charger exactly where you need one, if it’s operating at full power — you’ll still be sitting there for three, four, five times as long as you’d need to add the same amount of range to an internal-combustion vehicle. Try as we might, the wonders of man still haven’t invented a mass-producible, cost-efficient battery pack that can come close to matching the energy density of compressed fossil juice, and it’ll likely stay that way for several decades at the very least.

Chargers often aren’t friendly or accessible for many folks.

Honest question: have you ever stopped to take a good look at the layout of a gas station? Apart from a handful of smaller, older ones scattered around the country, pretty much every filling station these days shares a similar layout: four or more brightly-lit gas pumps under a solid roof, with some sort of garage or convenience store attached and manned most, if not all, hours of the day.

Many electric car charging stations benefit from none of that. Instead, they’re often tucked out of the way in the back of buildings or on the far edge of parking lots, with only the patchy light of streetlamps for company at night. Unless there’s someone nearby also charging, there’s a good chance you’ll be all by yourself after the sun goes down.

Being a six-foot-four-inch white male, that was something I’d never considered — not until I had to leave my partner in the car at that quiet, isolated charging spot in Barre while I walked the hundred yards uphill to the nearby 24-hour convenience store / gas station / craft beer emporium. (In Vermont, every gas station is a craft beer emporium.) I came back 10 minutes later, only to find her mildly terrified after a pickup truck had pulled up next to her and blasted her with its headlights, leaving her wondering how to lock the doors. The truck drove off uneventfully — we suspect the driver was just checking out the Audi’s curves — but as she pointed out, being alone in a dark parking lot when an unknown car rolls up is exactly the sort of thing young women are taught to avoid at all costs.

Many EV chargers also don’t seem well-designed for human use. Even at my size and strength, I often struggle with bending and stretching the meaty Level 3 charging cable to my car and plugging it in; the cables are rarely long enough to make the trip without some frustrating finagling. A good deal of chargers are behind concrete bollards or up on curbs, as well — logical steps to keep heavy cars from backing into them, but also steps that make it tough for wheelchair users to reach them in the first place.

If electric cars are truly going to succeed gas-powered ones, they need to be not just as easy to refuel as them — note that I didn’t say as quick , rather, just as easy — but as convenient and safe for everyone, no matter their race, gender, size or level of mobility. Right now, there’s still a good deal of work that needs to be done before we get there.

And of course, there’s always the threat of ICE-ing — when someone in an internal-combustion vehicle, accidentally or intentionally, occupies a parking space meant for an electric car. I only came across such an a-hole once — perhaps unsurprisingly, in New York City, where a gas-powered Mercedes was blocking the spot my electric Mercedes needed to use to recharge. Luckily, however, the charger was one placed by the City of New York — and in a rare instance of clever forethought by that governmental body, the cable mount could swivel away from the charger’s main panel, giving it enough reach to get to my car anyway.

Can you take a road trip in an electric car?

Interpreted strictly, the answer to the question is undoubtedly yes. I did so twice in the span of a month, in two different cars, under conditions that were hardly ideal for an electric car due to low temperatures and a deficit of charging stations.

On the other hand, those two trips were far and away the most stressful of the 100-plus times I’ve driven between New York and Vermont. (The previous runner-up: driving up in a BMW M6 Gran Coupe on summer tires in a mix of freezing rain and snow at night.) Each included at least one instance of borderline panic at the suddenly very real possibility of running out of power on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, several moments of severe frustration at inoperable / uncommunicative charging stations and a constant low-grade anxiety at the ever-dropping percentage of charge remaining as the miles went by. (Guess range anxiety is still a thing.) For the most part, these are small frustrations, but even these micro-annoyances add up to an irritating experience over time for anyone used to taking long trips in gas-powered cars.

The Audi RS E-Tron GT and Mercedes-Benz EQS 580 are spectacular machines, ones that both redefine their brands and remind us what we always loved about them in the first place. They’re fast, comfortable, eye-catching and luxurious, everything you want in a car in so many ways. Yet today’s current charging infrastructure makes driving these wundercars long distances a struggle that feels like something from the early days of motoring.

Help is on the way. Last year’s monumental infrastructure bill includes $7.5 billion for EV charging stations, with $5 billion going to the states to install them and $2.5 billion more for other public entities to do so. That money should enable the creation of an additional 400,000 chargers across the nation, four times the current number.

Will that be enough? That’s up in the air. An IHS Market analysis claims that plan will only give America two-thirds of the new chargers it’ll need by 2026 if people buy electric cars in expected numbers over the next five years. But it’s a start…and as my experience so far has found, a much-needed one. As Elon Musk’s hairline said in the early 2000s, those new plugs can’t come soon enough.

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I've traveled 18,000 miles in an electric car. Here are the 4 things that surprised me about long-distance EV road trips.

• Gia Mora bought the Hyundai Ioniq 5, an EV with a 250-mile range, to reduce her need to fly.
• She and her partner have traveled 18,000 miles in the electric car on multiple road trips. 
• Mora was surprised by how temperature affects charging times and how often she charges at Walmart.

When I decided I would fly only once every three years for environmental reasons in 2021, my main concern was how to tackle long-distance travel.

My partner and I live in Los Angeles, but my family is in Colorado, and my adventurous other half fretted over the limitations on our holidays.

We compromised last June when we traded in our hybrid SUV for the all-electric Hyundai Ioniq 5 . With its fast-charging 350-kilowatt capacity and 250-mile range battery, the Ioniq 5 allows us to travel long distances for a third of the emissions of our hybrid. 

We paid the sticker price of $54,000, before the $7,500 federal rebate. 

Our first EV excursion to Scottsdale, Arizona, from LA was a success. We've since gone to San Diego, visited family in Colorado, and did a mountain-bike road trip through Nevada, Utah, and New Mexico, racking up over 18,000 miles. 

The Ioniq 5 also came with two years of free charging at any Electrify America charging station — the largest public-charging network in the country. 

We can charge the car at any station or at home, but we plan around Electrify America locations. We only charged somewhere else three times last year. According to the Electrify America app, it's saved us over $2,600 in fees. 

Initially, I was skeptical about owning an electric car, let alone road-tripping in one. Fears of long charging times at isolated stations or getting stranded with a dead battery are enough to stop anyone from switching to electric.

A year after purchase, I'm sold on long-range EVs.

Here are four things people should know if they're planning to travel long distances in an EV.

Plotting out charging is a breeze

Because charging stations aren't as ubiquitous as gas stations, traveling long distances in an electric vehicle requires more planning than a traditional road trip.

The Electrify America app makes finding and getting directions to chargers easy. Plus, it's compatible with Apple Maps and Hyundai's Car Play system, so we can view the route on our dashboard display.  

We arrange to fill up at an Electrify America station every 150 miles or so. The network offers 3,500 fast chargers at 800 stations in 47 states. 

We've never had trouble finding a station and never had to drive more than a mile or two off a major highway to access one.

If we are driving on a Sunday afternoon, we build extra time into our plans, because that's when charging stations are the busiest. 

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In all our travels, we've only encountered one situation when we had to wait 20 minutes for an open charger. With proper preparation, we can avoid charging during peak hours and reduce any delays to our adventures. 

It's faster to travel long distances in the summer in an EV 

EVs are the opposite of gas cars when it comes to temperature regulation. All electric cars, including the Ioniq 5, use more energy to heat than to cool.

That's why EVs experience range loss in colder weather . By our estimates, the Ioniq 5 travels about 15% fewer miles on the same charge in the cold as it does in the heat. It also drastically affects charging times. 

In moderate temperatures, with the 350-kilowatt Hyper-Fast chargers, the Ioniq 5 can go from 10% to 80% charged in under 20 minutes. But on days when the temperature falls below 20 degrees Fahrenheit, it can take as long as 30 or 35 minutes.

Because we charge so frequently, the distance we can cover in a day isn't affected by the cold, but it does mean that we have to be prepared to spend more time waiting for the car to charge.

Conversely, cooling the Ioniq 5 has very little effect on range and charge time.

Last summer in the Phoenix heat, it only took an extra minute or so to reach full charge, and it's much more comfortable to wait 20 minutes in air-conditioning than it is to spend five minutes outside in 100-degree temperatures filling up at the gas pump. 

I gained a newfound appreciation for Walmart

Walmart plays a bigger role in our road-tripping than I ever anticipated.

The vast majority of our charging stops are at one of the 280 Walmart and Sam's Club locations that host Electrify America and EVgo stations. 

I feel safe charging in Walmart's well-lit parking lots, even at night. While charging, we can use the sparkling-clean restrooms or take advantage of the store's extended operating hours to grab any necessities. 

It felt like a serious upgrade from grungy gas-station toilets and limited convenience stores typical of highway pit stops. 

Last month, Walmart announced plans to quadruple its network of chargers. Since 90% of Americans live within 10 miles of a Walmart , this expanded infrastructure could make road-tripping easier and make EV adoption accessible to more people.

More remote charging stations can be adventures in themselves

Plenty of charging stations look exactly as you'd expect, but when we ventured outside of major metropolitan areas, we discovered some unique stops. 

Green River, Utah, is home to 847 people, one Tesla Supercharger, and four Electrify America stations located beside the tiny, quirky Green River Coffee Company . A painting of the establishment's mascot — a scraggly but disarming vulture holding a steaming cup of coffee — keeps watch over the chargers which are available for use 24/7.

One night just outside of Yosemite National Park, we pulled in to charge at a small lodge. Seeking respite from the rain and a public restroom, we went into the Lucky Buck Cafe . 

The locals at the bar welcomed us and were delighted when I sat in with the live guitarist to sing a few country classics.

Road-tripping in the Ioniq 5 is enjoyable 

Despite any challenges, road-tripping along the Electrify America network in our Ioniq 5 is an enjoyable option compared to costly airline tickets and pollution. 

With more charging infrastructure on the horizon, I'm excited to see more people opting for all-electric travel plans.

Watch: Why it's so hard to recycle electric-car batteries

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How to Use the Tesla Trip Planner

Tesla’s Trip Planner can be used on a computer to plan a road trip ahead of time, with the advantage of finding food, lodging, and other stops near chargers. It can also be used on the go to adjust plans. Here’s what you should know.

Telsa Motors, Inc.

What Is Tesla’s Trip Planner?

Tesla’s trip planning tools can be used both before you embark on your trip, as well as when you’re already on the road. Though specific features vary by manufacturer, all electric vehicles have ways to help the owner locate chargers on the go, see chargers’ status, and plan routes to destinations to balance optimizing the car’s range while finding the most convenient available chargers. In that way, Tesla’s trip planning tools are not unique to Tesla vehicles .

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Key Takeaways

• With computer-based and in-car features, Tesla’s Trip Planner can be used well in advance or on the go
• The trip planner helps find the most efficient route to your destination
• Tesla’s tools also help you find chargers along your route.

However, Tesla does have the advantage of being an early innovator in the segment, as well as having access to the formerly proprietary Tesla Supercharger network, widely regarded as the best of its kind in terms of reliability and efficiency.

An EV Road Trip

Warren Clarke Sept. 28, 2023

Tesla’s Trip Planner can be used on a computer to plan a road trip ahead of time, with the advantage of finding food, lodging, and other desired stops near chargers. It can also be used on the go, to adjust plans if needed or desired. Here’s what you need to know.

Get Ready to Go

Use Tesla’s Trip Planner Go Anywhere tool from the comfort of your home, at any or all stages of planning your trip . Whether it’s an overnight or a cross-country jaunt, the Trip Planner can optimize your route, find and recommend Tesla Superchargers, and even suggest Destination Charging . The latter are charging locations specifically located near points of interest, such as restaurants, hotels, and shopping, so you can charge overnight, while eating, or while restocking your road trip supplies and provisions.

How To Charge an EV at a Public Charger

Steven Loveday and Warren Clarke Jan. 8, 2024

Using the Trip Planner ahead of time means you can ensure you’ll hit your desired points of interest and know where you’ll be spending the night, so you can head out confidently. Yet, if your plans change along the way, Tesla’s got you covered there, too.

On the Road

Whether you’ve planned in advance or it’s more of a last-minute or short trip, Tesla’s Trip Planner is also available behind the wheel. If you’re already in your car, your Tesla’s navigation system will show you the fastest route to your destination, and will highlight Tesla Superchargers along the way. This strategy can help you plan your charging to take advantage of nearby sites so you can explore, rest, or grab something to eat.

How Much Does it Cost to Charge an Electric Car?

Warren Clarke Jan. 16, 2024

The lightning bolt icon on your Tesla’s navigation screen will instantly find the nearest Supercharger to your location, along with its current availability and charging rates . Tesla advises using the trip planner during a trip to stay informed of nearby Tesla Superchargers and your car’s recommendations for charging.

Other Tips and Advice

Tesla offers advice to optimize your charging and range while on a trip. When driving, make sure braking is set to the regenerative setting, which means that the car will recapture energy from braking and send it back to the battery pack, which helps maximize range. Also check your tires and ensure they’re set to the proper pressure, which also helps conserve battery power and reduce how often you’ll need to charge.

Whenever possible, park in the shade to keep the vehicle as cool as possible, and leave the air conditioning running while parked. This way, you can come back to a cool and comfortable vehicle. You can monitor and adjust the car’s cabin temperature remotely through Tesla’s smartphone app.

Note that Tesla advises leaving your vehicle plugged in whenever possible when you’re on a trip. Tesla says this will not degrade the battery or battery life over time.

Planning ahead of time will help ensure peace of mind for an extended road trip, but a combined approach of using Tesla’s trip planner tools both beforehand and on the go can help ensure you’re well prepared for your journey with room for some spontaneity and last-minute surprises. After all, what’s a road trip without the opportunity for a little adventure?

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Plan your journey by electric car

The Chargemap route planner is here to help you plan the ideal trip that corresponds to your EV and preferences.

Download the Chargemap app for free on your mobile phone

Scores based on more than 45,000 ratings.

Hit the road in all peace of mind , Chargemap takes care of everything.

Indicate your departure point and destination, the battery level at the start of the journey and the level you want at the end of it, plus any midway stages.

Enter the EV you are taking on the journey.

Prioritise or limit a charging network, avoid tolls and motorways or log in a maximum speed to save on energy. The planner takes your charging preferences on board.

Chargemap automatically calculates your route and selects the charging stations that match up with the information you have logged in. You can also visualise your route directly: distance, overall travel time and the necessary charging stop(s) along the way.

Calculate your journey and come back to it whenever you want. Save time with the Save option for the route you have selected.

Access information about the charging station on the details screen and launch the navigation tool for your next charging stop on your favourite GPS app.

Where are you going?

What car model do you drive, you want to prioritise a charging network on your journey, enjoy the optimum route adapted to your needs, save your route, you're on your way.

Consult the charging stations in the vicinity

You want to see all the charging stations available along your route? Tap on the “Stations” button to find all the charging stations available in your vicinity.

Fine-tune your search for alternative stations

You want to take a charging break near a restaurant or go for a pub lunch? Click on the “Stations” icon then on the “Filter” cursor to fine-tune your charging preferences on your personalised route.

Adapt the Chargemap route to your needs and wishes.

You want to stay a little longer at a charging stop or set off again with a specific battery level.

When you reach a specific point along your way, you want to stop for longer to have a lunch break or take a stroll in the surrounding area. You can modify either the duration of your break, or the battery level you want before resuming your journey.

You need to charge near a specific location?

You want to profit from a charging stop to do a bit of sightseeing or go and see friends and family and so you are looking for a charging station in the vicinity. The route planner allows you to select an alternative charging station along the way.

Want to stop at a different charging station than the one selected?

With Chargemap, plan your ideal route by selecting the charging stations of your favourite networks. The tool automatically calculates a new route based on your preferences.

Electric vehicle charging, made easy

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The leading community of EV drivers in Europe is at your fingertips.

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"One of the best apps when travelling by EV. For me, it’s the main app I use when driving long distances."

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New ways to power up your electric vehicle adventures with Google Maps

Apr 17, 2024

[[read-time]] min read

In time for Earth Day, we’re making it easier to find information about EV charging stations, whether you’re planning a drive or already on the road.

• Bullet points
• Google Maps introduces new features to enhance electric vehicle (EV) charging experiences.
• AI-powered summaries provide detailed descriptions of charger locations based on user reviews.
• In-car maps display nearby chargers with real-time port availability and charging speed.
• Suggested charging stops and forecasted energy consumption for multi-stop trips.
• EV filter on Google Travel helps find hotels with onsite EV charging.
• Basic explainer

Google Maps has new features to help electric car drivers find charging stations.

You can now see detailed descriptions of where chargers are located, like "Enter the underground parking lot and follow the signs toward the exit. Just before exiting, turn right."

You can also see nearby chargers on the in-car map, with information like real-time port availability and charging speed.

If you're planning a trip, Google Maps will suggest the best charging stops along the way, based on your battery's charge level.

Explore other styles:

Electric vehicle ownership is on the rise, which means more people are looking for ways to charge their car — whether they’re on the go or planning their drive. To help EV owners access more helpful information about charging stations, we’re rolling out new features for Google Maps and Search. With these updates you can easily find specific information about the location of EV chargers, plan charging stops for road trips and more.

Easily find exactly where charging stations are located

Navigating to charging stations and finding exactly where the chargers are located — like the right area of a multilevel parking lot — can be tricky. In the coming months, we’ll start showing AI-powered summaries in Google Maps that describe a charger’s specific location based on helpful information from user reviews, so you can find exactly where to go. For example, when you’re headed to a charging station you may see a detailed description, like “Enter the underground parking lot and follow the signs toward the exit. Just before exiting, turn right.”

This information is possible thanks to the millions of reviews posted every day in Maps, which help provide accurate and up-to-date information about places like charging stations. To help make these even more useful, reviews about chargers now prompt you for additional details about your experience, like what type of plug you used and how long you waited.

Find the best charger for you while you're on the go

We’re also thinking about other ways we can give people helpful EV charging information at a glance. For example, if you’re low on charge while on the road or you need to top off while running errands, soon you’ll be able to see nearby chargers on the in-car map, with information like real-time port availability and charging speed. This update will roll out globally, starting with vehicles with Google built-in the coming months.

See suggested charging stops, forecasted energy consumption and more when you plan a trip

In addition to showing you where chargers are at a glance, we want to help you take more complex trips easily. Last year we announced that Maps suggests the best charging locations for vehicles with Google built-in. This capability is expanding to multi-stop trips. So if you're planning a multi-stop summer road trip to several national parks, Maps will suggest the best charging stops along the way, based on your battery’s charge level. This feature will be available globally in the coming months for vehicles with Google built-in.

And if you’re planning overnight stays, we’ve got you covered, because the last thing you want to do after a long day of driving is hunt around for a charging station. With our new EV filter on google.com/travel you can find hotels on Search that offer onsite EV charging.

Whether you’re planning a summer road trip or looking for a last-minute charge, Maps and Search can help you find the charging information you need.

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Business Insider

Tesla owners share their best tips for taking an EV on a road trip

Posted: August 19, 2023 | Last updated: August 19, 2023

• Tesla owners and a renter described their experience taking the EV on cross-country road trips.
• Some Tesla owners highlighted the benefits of taking the EV on long trips
• Take a look at some of their tips for taking a Tesla on a road trip.

While some EV owners have shared horror stories about taking an electric car on a road trip, some Tesla owners say those drivers probably just haven't mastered the learning curve yet.

Eight Tesla veterans and a first-time Tesla renter shared some tips on how to execute a successful EV road trip in a series of conversations with Insider — from avoiding certain routes to planning ahead and getting creative on the road.

Range anxiety and a lack of charging infrastructure are key hurdles when it comes to EV adoption, but Tesla owners say it's possible to ditch concerns about charging on the road and even lean into some of the benefits of taking an electric car across the country, including saving on gas and enjoying Tesla amenities like Autopilot . Still, some drivers say road trips in a Tesla can be a major headache.

Here's what Tesla owners say about their experiences taking the car on a long road trip.

Most people's first road trip can be anxiety-ridden, but learn to trust the car, owners said.

Many Tesla owners said it's common to feel anxious on your first EV road trip.

"After the first outbound trip when I was being very careful and charging to a higher percentage than necessary at each stop, I learned to trust what my Tesla was telling me about the state of charge, my expected range, and that there were chargers along the way," Dennis Duncan, a Model Y owner who has taken his EV on cross-country trips, including on an annual trip from Washington state to Montana, told Insider.

It's best to start out with smaller trips and stay near interstates, drivers said.

"Start somewhere within 200 miles of your origin and become accustomed to the range and how your driving impacts it," said Ken Vizena, a Model Y owner who has taken his vehicle on numerous cross-country trips. "Don't start off driving cross country. Start off with medium trips in hugely populated areas."

Vizena said it's important to pay attention to not only how many charging stations are along your route, but also where they are located along the path. He said new Tesla owners should ask themselves several questions before they set off on a road trip with their EV, namely: How far off course will the chargers take you? Are they located in areas where you would feel safe waiting?

Most Tesla owners agree the Supercharger network is a major advantage.

Tesla has spent over a decade building out more than 20,000 Superchargers in North America, earning it the region's largest network of roadside fast chargers. Moreover, Superchargers are widely regarded as more reliable and easy to use than other networks' chargers. Non-Tesla EV owners rely on a shakier patchwork of public chargers , which can be difficult to find and are plagued by reliability issues .

"I couldn't even imagine being with another car company and relying on third-party chargers," Jonathan Baalke, a Model 3 owner in Kentucky who says he drives over 150 miles a day for work, previously told Insider. "It's hard to have range anxiety when you have access to Tesla's network, but if I was with any other brand's cars, I would definitely have some concerns."

More recently, the EV company has said it plans to open some of its exclusive Supercharger network to non-Tesla EV companies like Ford and General Motors .

Some Tesla owners said charging on your road trip isn't too bad if you use it as a natural break to eat lunch or stretch your legs — so long as you're at a Supercharger.

"I stop to charge about every four hours," David Craig, a Model S owner who recently took his Tesla on a 8,500-mile road trip, said. "It's just a natural stopping point. Even if you were driving a traditional car you'd want to take breaks and fuel up. I plug it in at a Supercharger and usually there's a restaurant nearby where I grab lunch."

A Supercharger can recharge a Tesla with up to 200 miles of range in 15 minutes, according to the company's website . A Model 3 standard vehicle delivers an estimated range of about 333 miles, according to Tesla. And the carmaker's longest-range vehicle, the Model S, can deliver an estimated range of up to 405 miles, the company says.

Some Tesla owners said it's best to plan where you will charge on the trip well in advance.

"It requires a lot of planning to take a road trip with an EV," Leonard Zuga, a Model Y owner who plans to take his vehicle on a trip from Ohio to Florida, told Insider. "I use multiple systems, including Tesla's onboard system. I know what hotels and Superchargers I will use before we've even started packing. Every hotel I select is within a few minutes of a Supercharger. If you do not like planning ahead you won't do well as an EV owner."

Zuga said he's using ChatGPT, and several charge-planning applications, including EV Trip Optimizer and PlugShare , to plan his trip to Florida in addition to the car's internal navigation system. It will be the longest road trip he's taken yet with the vehicle.

Vizena said he liked to plan ahead using a site called A Better Route Planner .

Other Tesla owners said they feel comfortable relying solely on the car's internal navigation system.

Brian Loughman, a Model 3 owner, said he typically relies solely on the internal navigation system, which incorporates charging sites into the journey and alerts drivers to which charging sites it predicts will be most efficient and which ones are busier. It's a favorite feature among Tesla owners.

"Hop in the car while connected to your home charger and program the full route into the car," Loughman told Insider over email. "It will tell you where to stop, how low your battery will be when you get there, and how many minutes you'll need to charge before continuing on your route."

Though, sometimes the internal navigation system can lead you astray, some Tesla owners said.

"It took me into an Indian reservation, and the path ended at a gate that said, 'Your GPS is wrong, turn around,'" Vizena told Insider of one of his road trips from Houston, Texas, to Los Angeles. "I had to backtrack to the Supercharger 40 miles away and ignore the built-in map."

Some rural routes you might want to avoid altogether, some Tesla owners said.

Vizena told Insider he's avoided taking his Tesla on trips to more rural states like Idaho or Montana. Zuga and Ken Becker, a Model 3 owner, said when they drove through Ohio Superchargers were few and far between. And Duncan said there's some road trips he's had to put off until Tesla's charging network grows more.

William Scholtz, who rented a Model 3 from Hertz for a cross-country, monthlong trip, said he and his wife weren't able to go to all the places they'd anticipated because they were constrained by a lack of charging options.

"We planned to visit a friend who farms near Sylvia, Kansas, but it was impossible," Scholtz said. "There are simply no charging stations of any kind that would bring us to his farm and back."

Scholtz said the couple attempted to trickle-charge at another point in their journey, but it took too long.

Even so, It's not the end of the world if you can't find a Supercharger.

If you have the patience, you can get by with trickle-charging, some Tesla owners said.

Zuga said he likes to charge his Tesla at RV outlets when he camps. Becker said it makes sense to trickle-charge or use a slower, Level 1 charger, if you're staying in one place for a while.

 A trickle charge can take up to 50 hours or more to bring an EV from empty to 80% of capacity, while a Level 2 charger can do so in four to 10 hours, according to the Department of Transportation.

Insider previously reported that a Model Y owner used a trickle-charge to visit a remote monument in California. "It was only a standard 120V outlet, so we would be trickle charging , not supercharging, but that was sufficient to more than replace, overnight, whatever energy we used on our daily excursions around the Monument," the Model Y owner, Kathleen Goforth said in a blog post about her road trip.

Don't be in too much of a hurry; just enjoy the journey, some Tesla owners said.

"If you're in a major hurry to get to your destination an EV might not be the best idea," Scholtz said. "It will take longer to charge than filling up your tank. It will take time to find chargers on your route, and sometimes those chargers take you off a direct route. Also, if you're driving too fast that will only decrease your range. "

There are also some perks to taking a Tesla on a road trip. Owners said they have fewer worries about maintenance issues on long trips.

"A lot more can fail on an internal combustion engine," Craig said. "Your biggest worry with a Tesla is that you'll get a flat tire.

Driving a Tesla means no more oil changes, and an EV requires less upkeep overall, according to data from Consumer Reports . 

"With an ICE vehicle there is anxiety about a variety of mechanical things like overheating, engine problems of many kinds, or brake burnout going down major grades or in mountain driving," Duncan said. "A Tesla won't overheat and actually recharges your battery going downhill instead of overheating and wearing out your brakes."

Though, Teslas aren't fully immune to breaks. Vizena said he had to spend an entire road trip with a broken air conditioner in his Tesla and showed a picture where the internal temperature in his car reached 99 degrees.

Tesla owners also enjoy not having to spend money on gas during long road trips.

As of July, the average electric car owner could save between $1,000 to $1,200 per year in fuel costs as compared to using an EV charger, according to Consumer Reports. The publication found that EV owners will continue to save money in overall operating and maintenance costs as long as the price for gasoline remains above 50 cents per gallon.

"It's hard to explain the glee of driving by a gas station knowing you don't have to worry about the prices anymore," Nelson Jackson, a Model S owner, previously told Insider.

The car can also be ideal for camping, one owner said.

Craig said he used Tesla's Camp Mode  to sleep in his Model S during his 19-day road trip.

The feature lets the car keep a steady temperature in the cabin, as well as proper airflow. You can also listen to music, stream television, turn on lights, or charge devices while the vehicle is in the mode. The  feature , which was introduced in 2021, uses significantly less energy and even has a video of a crackling fire.

It is one of many specialized Tesla features , including Dog Mode and Sentry Mode.

"With a traditional car you'd have to turn it off, it would get cold and you have to turn it back on," Craig said. "In my Tesla, the temperature stays perfect and I'm comfortable all night long."

Autopilot and Tesla's Full Self-Driving beta feature are also a major plus for relaxing on the road, some drivers said.

All Tesla models are equipped with the Autopilot feature, which enables a car to steer, accelerate, and brake automatically within its lane. The function does not replace the role of a driver, but is intended to make driving easier and cut down on accidents. Some drivers can also opt into Tesla's Full Self-Driving software, a beta feature that costs $15,000 — or $199 per month — and allows the vehicle to change lanes, as well as recognize stop lights and stop signs.

Earlier this year, Model S owner Tim Heckman told Insider the driver assist features were a "lifesaver" on his 6,392-mile road trip.

"It can be a huge cognitive relief. Long trips can take a mental toll," Heckman said at the time, noting that he'sd used Autopilot on previous road trips and discovered he could drive further without getting tired.

Zuga told Insider Autopilot is one of several features that he feels make road trips less stressful and safer in a Tesla.

"Driving that car is a lot less tiring than driving a gas vehicle because of all of the extra driver features like the cameras all around the car and Autopilot," Zuga said. "I can put the blinker on and get a good look of the whole left side and behind and when I'm slowing down and regenerative braking kicks in and you know your tailights are on. It just gives you better situational awareness."

But, not everyone is sold on the features. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating Autopilot  and its potential connection to several accidents and the California Department of Motor Vehicles has  accused the company  of falsely advertising its Autopilot and FSD features.

Despite the perks, some road trippers say they'd still rather stick to a traditional vehicle.

Scholtz said he wasn't fully sold on buying a Tesla after he rented one through Hertz for his road trip. He said his experience renting the EV went downhill fast when he had to take it to more rural areas and he faced a lot of stress with the vehicle's range, as well as finding chargers along his route.

"It was nail biting," Scholtz said, adding that while he thinks the Model 3 is a great car it doesn't fit his lifestyle.

"I still prefer my F-150 with its 40 gallon tank that gives me a 700 miles range."

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment ahead of publication.

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Colorado has ambitious EV goals. We put its charging network to a road trip test

It seemed like a good idea at the time. 

By the fall of 2020, the pandemic had left my partner and me itching to leave the confines of our Denver home. We also had a new set of wheels: a slate-gray Chevy Bolt. With an advertised 259 miles of range, the battery-powered car could theoretically whisk us to the farthest corners of the state — provided we found places to recharge along the way.

I’ve always seen “public guinea pig” as part of my role as a climate reporter. 

The energy transition asks consumers to make expensive and risky decisions to accelerate the shift away from fossil fuels. A heat pump instead of a furnace. Induction cooktops rather than gas stoves. It's easy enough to detail the climate benefit of each product, but the relevant question is always whether the benefits of a switch outweigh any personal sacrifice. 

The same basic idea applies to electric cars. Soon after buying a Bolt, I already appreciated advantages like skipping the gas pump and rapidly accelerating onto highways. The catch, however, was my city driving relied on an easily accessible Level 2 charger in my garage that could “refill” the 66-kilowatt-hour battery overnight. 

A longer trip required Level 3 fast chargers, roadside monoliths capable of adding about a hundred miles of range in less than an hour. A crowd-sourced charger map suggested those plugs were available along major highways.

In our restless state, the information lent us enough confidence to strike out for Colorado’s North Fork Valley, an agricultural region with plenty of hikes and a few friends. We even plotted a digital itinerary: one stop at a fast charger in Carbondale, then over McClure Pass to another high-powered plug near our destination in Paonia. Simple enough. 

Our 2020 journey, however, quickly became a lesson in the reality of EV range anxiety. 

The first hurdle was an “out of order” message at our initial fast charging station. Another system refused to accept our credit card or payment through an app.

The road trip’s saving grace was a charging station relegated to a dark parking lot in Paonia, which — after navigating a complex set of instructions posted on a laminated sheet of paper — thankfully provided our Bolt with a jolt of power.

We limped home with the help of slower public chargers, but the entire experience left us cautious. Our adventure had nearly ended with the hatchback atop a tow truck.

As much as it hurt my early-adopter heart, it seemed a gas or hybrid car remained the gateway to an enjoyable Colorado road trip. 

Rapid investment in rapid charging

There is one reason to believe the situation has shifted: Colorado’s EV charging landscape has blossomed since that 2020 road trip. 

A state-managed internet dashboard now reports Colorado has more than 5,100 public EV plugs, including roughly 4,000 slower Level 2 ports and 1,000 fast charger ports. That’s more than double the number of public chargers available in 2020, data from the Colorado Energy Office show. 

The expansion comes as the state races to hit Gov. Jared Polis’ goal of getting 940,000 plug-in vehicles on Colorado roads by 2030. Colorado is now roughly 13 percent of the way toward the target, but it’s clear the automotive market is also picking up steam. The Colorado Automobile Dealer Association reports that battery-electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids accounted for 16 percent of all new car sales in 2023, up from 10.5 percent a year earlier.

It’s clear why the state is so invested in public electric car charging. Matt Mines, a senior program manager with the Colorado Energy Office overseeing electric vehicle infrastructure, said residents want to drive their cars on longer trips to reach scenic locations across the state. Many other prospective EV buyers lack access to a home charger, too, which means their mobility relies on public fast chargers. 

“It’s an aspect of driver confidence and consumer confidence in transitioning to an electric vehicle,” Mines said. “You want to be able to make those trips to the mountains, to all the places you want to enjoy, and providing that confidence is essential.”

A recent survey from McKinsey & Company found that 42 percent of consumers skeptical of electric vehicles will not consider a battery-powered car until public chargers are as plentiful as gas stations. Even though most EV drivers plug in at home, the firm concluded improving charging infrastructure could encourage greater adoption. 

Colorado updated its electric vehicle plan in March 2023, setting targets to increase charging options. By 2025, it calls for 1,700 fast-charge ports and 5,800 slower ports to be either installed or greenlit with grants or other dedicated funding. That’s roughly 1,500 more plugs than currently in operation across the state. 

Mines is “cautiously optimistic” that Colorado will hit those targets. Earlier this month, the state announced a plan to spend $21 million to expand and install 290 fast-charging ports at 26 sites across the state. 

Those future public chargers are partially funded by the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program, a $5 billion federal initiative to install plugs along major highway corridors. Further financial support comes from Colorado’s Community Access Enterprise, a dedicated fund established to support vehicle electrification and other sustainability projects.

Mines said the state is trying to announce similar rounds of funding through the program twice each year, and it has other parallel projects to further subsidize new charging ports. 

Roaring back to Paonia

The recent energy around EV charging improvements made me curious to retry an all-electric trip to the North Fork Valley. That opportunity came earlier this month when my editor sent me back to Paonia to report a story about an ambitious plan to harness methane seeping from abandoned coal mines. 

I followed the same basic itinerary with a stop in Carbondale. The public charging map suggested the town still had a singular non-Tesla fast charger, but other EV drivers reported it was working just fine and providing a steady stream of power. The problem, it turned out, was another vehicle was using the plug when I arrived. 

The EV belonged to WE-Cycle, a bike-share system operating in Colorado’s Roaring Fork Valley. After waiting for more than half an hour, I called the nonprofit and asked them to move the car. An apologetic employee soon arrived and vacated the charger, which topped off my battery in the time it took to inhale a sandwich. 

It was a small hiccup in an otherwise uneventful trip. The experience suggests Colorado’s charger network has improved, but it hinted at the risks of easing off the accelerator in the race to add new plugs. Any slowdown could increase competition for plugs at charging stations — and strand future EV drivers in lines awaiting a few precious kilowatts.

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Electric cars have a road trip problem, even for the secretary of energy

Camila Domonoske

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is working hard to convince more Americans to embrace electric cars — and she knows this means the country's charging infrastructure needs to improve, fast. Drew Angerer/Getty Images hide caption

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is working hard to convince more Americans to embrace electric cars — and she knows this means the country's charging infrastructure needs to improve, fast.

When Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm set out on a four-day electric-vehicle road trip this summer, she knew charging might be a challenge. But she probably didn't expect anyone to call the cops.

Granholm's trip through the southeast, from Charlotte, N.C., to Memphis, Tenn., was intended to draw attention to the billions of dollars the White House is pouring into green energy and clean cars. The administration's ambitious energy agenda, if successful, could significantly cut U.S. emissions and reshape Americans' lives in fundamental ways, including by putting many more people in electric vehicles.

Granholm approaches a charging station to charge the Cadillac Lyriq she was riding during a four-day road trip through the southeast early this summer. The electric vehicle had charging problems due to an "isolated hardware issue," Cadillac says. But Granholm's team encountered plenty of not-so-isolated problems too. Camila Domonoske/NPR hide caption

Granholm approaches a charging station to charge the Cadillac Lyriq she was riding during a four-day road trip through the southeast early this summer. The electric vehicle had charging problems due to an "isolated hardware issue," Cadillac says. But Granholm's team encountered plenty of not-so-isolated problems too.

On town hall stops along her road trip, Granholm made a passionate, optimistic case for this transition. She often put up a photo of New York City in 1900, full of horses and carriages, with a single car. Then another slide: "Thirteen years later, same street. All these cars. Can you spot the horse?"

One horse was in the frame.

"Things are happening fast. You are in the center of it. Imagine how big clean energy industries will be in 13 years," she told one audience in South Carolina. "How much stronger our economy is going to grow. How many good-paying jobs we're going to create — and where we are going to lead the world."

Going along for the ride

The auto industry, under immense pressure to tackle its contribution to climate change, is undertaking a remarkable switch to electric vehicles — but it's not necessarily going to be a smooth transition.

Not every vehicle in Granholm's caravan was electric. The Secret Service, for instance, rode in large traditional SUVs. Camila Domonoske/NPR hide caption

Not every vehicle in Granholm's caravan was electric. The Secret Service, for instance, rode in large traditional SUVs.

I rode along with Granholm during her trip, eager to see firsthand how the White House intends to promote a potentially transformative initiative to the public and what kind of issues it would encounter on the road.

Granholm is in many ways the perfect person to help pitch the United States' ambitious shift to EVs. As a two-term former governor of Michigan, she helped rescue the auto industry during the 2008 global financial crisis, and she's a longtime EV enthusiast. (Her family recently switched from the Chevy Bolt to the Ford Mustang Mach-E.)

That makes her uniquely well positioned to envision the future of the auto industry and to sell the dream of what that future could look like.

But between stops, Granholm's entourage at times had to grapple with the limitations of the present. Like when her caravan of EVs — including a luxury Cadillac Lyriq, a hefty Ford F-150 and an affordable Bolt electric utility vehicle — was planning to fast-charge in Grovetown, a suburb of Augusta, Georgia.

Her advance team realized there weren't going to be enough plugs to go around. One of the station's four chargers was broken, and others were occupied. So an Energy Department staffer tried parking a nonelectric vehicle by one of those working chargers to reserve a spot for the approaching secretary of energy.

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That did not go down well: a regular gas-powered car blocking the only free spot for a charger?

In fact, a family that was boxed out — on a sweltering day, with a baby in the vehicle — was so upset they decided to get the authorities involved: They called the police.

The sheriff's office couldn't do anything. It's not illegal for a non-EV to claim a charging spot in Georgia. Energy Department staff scrambled to smooth over the situation, including sending other vehicles to slower chargers, until both the frustrated family and the secretary had room to charge.

This charging station in Grovetown, Ga., was overcrowded. An electric school bus that was driving on a statewide clean-energy road show needed one charger; another charger was broken. Camila Domonoske/NPR hide caption

This charging station in Grovetown, Ga., was overcrowded. An electric school bus that was driving on a statewide clean-energy road show needed one charger; another charger was broken.

Getting it together

John Ryan, a driver of an electric BMW, pulled up after everything was settled. It was his turn to wait.

"It's just par for the course," he shrugged. "They'll get it together at some point."

Federal money is now headed to states for building up fast EV chargers on highways

"They" would be the government, the automakers, the charging networks like Electrify America and ChargePoint, and the companies like Walmart, Shell and 7-Eleven that are entering the charging game.

And they are, in fact, desperate to get it together. Carmakers have hundreds of billions of dollars of investment on the line, and they are embracing Tesla's technology and teaming up with rivals to try to tackle the charging problem. Meanwhile, the U.S. government is pouring billions into a nationwide network of electric chargers, trying to fix the very problem Granholm was encountering.

I drive an electric vehicle myself, and I've test-driven many more as NPR's auto reporter. I know how easy it can be to charge when everything goes well and how annoying it can be when things go poorly.

Riding along with Granholm, I came away with a major takeaway: EVs that aren't Teslas have a road trip problem, and the White House knows it's urgent to solve this issue.

Solving the road trip problem

The road trip has long loomed large in the American automotive imagination.

Road trips are a tiny fraction of the trips Americans take; drivers mostly commute or drive around town. And at home, charging an EV is much easier (not to mention cheaper) than fueling up with gasoline; you just plug in overnight, and you're good to go every morning.

On a practical basis, making sure everyone can charge at home would seem much more important than building road trip chargers. And this is a real concern for some drivers.

But for many drivers, it's not charging at home that worries them: It's what they'll do on the road.

An electric vehicle charger stands in front of an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union hall and training center in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Camila Domonoske/NPR hide caption

An electric vehicle charger stands in front of an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union hall and training center in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

According to the auto-data giant J.D. Power, worries about public chargers are the No. 1 reason why would-be EV buyers are reluctant to make the switch, even outranking concerns about high prices. And driver satisfaction with public chargers is getting worse, not better .

Tesla chargers are significantly better than the competition, and most of the electric vehicles in the U.S. are Teslas.

Tesla is opening up its exclusive network to more vehicles, which could transform the charging experience as soon as next year, but not all automakers have embraced Tesla's technology. And although Tesla dominates the EV market, the Biden administration wants every automaker to go electric quickly and every driver to have access to fast, reliable charging.

"Ultimately, we want to make it super-easy for people to travel long distances," Granholm told me.

But as she knows, long-distance travel in non-Tesla EVs is not always "super-easy" today.

Problem 1: Planning is cumbersome

The secretary's trip had been painstakingly mapped out ahead of time to allow for charging. We stopped at hotels with slower "Level 2" plugs for overnight charging and then paused at superfast chargers between cities.

That required upfront work that a gas-powered road trip simply doesn't require. My car can hypothetically locate a nearby charger on the road — as with many EVs, that feature is built into an app on the car's infotainment screen — so I shouldn't have to plan ahead. But in reality, I use multiple apps to find chargers, read reviews to make sure they work and plot out convenient locations for a 30-minute pit stop (a charger by a restaurant, for instance, instead of one located at a car dealership).

At a stop in South Carolina, Granholm told audiences she recognized the importance of making chargers easy to find on apps.

For chargers to qualify for new federal money, the energy secretary explained, "they have to be every 50 miles and within 1 mile off the charging corridor, and they have to be app enabled. So you have to be able to see with your phone, is this charger available so that I can go use it, right?"

Granholm talks to executives from Albemarle, a maker of lithium, a vital component of electric vehicle batteries, in Kings Mountain, N.C. Pictured behind her is NPR reporter Camila Domonoske. Conor McCabe/Department of Energy hide caption

Granholm talks to executives from Albemarle, a maker of lithium, a vital component of electric vehicle batteries, in Kings Mountain, N.C. Pictured behind her is NPR reporter Camila Domonoske.

Problem 2: Not enough chargers

One reason road trips take so much planning: Some parts of the U.S., including much of the southeast, simply don't have many high-speed chargers, also called DC fast chargers.

I happen to live on the edge of a charging desert. In my Virginia hometown, there are no DC fast chargers except for a Tesla Supercharger station, which I can't use ... yet. That's not a problem, since I charge at home. Much more problematic is that if I want to drive through West Virginia, I can access only 11 fast chargers in the entire state. That's actually progress; three weeks ago, there were only eight.

Where chargers are in short supply, drivers sometimes have to wait — like Granholm's team did in Grovetown, Georgia. The experience could get even worse as the number of electric vehicles on the road increases in coming years.

"Clearly, we need more high-speed chargers, particularly in the South," Granholm told me at the end of her trip.

Big carmakers unite to build a charging network and reassure reluctant EV buyers

She emphasized the $7.5 billion investment that the Biden administration is making in building more public chargers — money that's currently being distributed to states.

"By the end of this year, I think we'll start to see [those chargers] popping up along the charging corridors," she said.

Problem 3: Not fast enough

There was another DC charging station about a 10-minute drive from that stop in Grovetown. But that station's chargers were nowhere near as fast. In fact, aside from chargers reserved for Teslas and one charging station just for Rivians, it was more than an hour's drive to the next actually-fast fast charger.

And that brings us to the next problem with America's fast charger network: It's too slow.

When DC fast chargers were first built, 50 kilowatts (a measure of charging speed) was considered speedy. Times have changed. Many newer vehicles can charge at least three times faster than that. But those older chargers remain on roads, making up a sizable chunk of the country's fast-charging infrastructure.

A common sight for electric vehicle drivers: This station is not operating at full speed. Camila Domonoske/NPR hide caption

A common sight for electric vehicle drivers: This station is not operating at full speed.

That doesn't matter much for cheaper vehicles that can't charge very fast anyway, like my Bolt. But for newer, faster-charging vehicles, especially big ones with giant batteries, it could be the difference between waiting 20 minutes to charge — or waiting an hour.

This problem is easing over time. Most new chargers are on the faster end of the spectrum, and the federal incentives are available only for chargers that are 150 kilowatts or faster.

Problem 4: Not reliable enough

Of course, having a superfast charger doesn't do you any good if the dang thing doesn't work.

On the secretary's road trip, that stop in Grovetown included a charger with a dead black screen. At another stop in Tennessee, the Chevy Bolt that I was riding in charged at one-third the rate it should have. Electrify America says that's not an isolated problem; a faulty component has caused a number of chargers to be "derated" while the company works on a fix.

Companies like Electrify America — funded by Volkswagen as part of its penalty for the Dieselgate scandal — are among the private players that have helped build out America's current charging infrastructure. But reliability is proving to be an issue.

How fast can the auto industry go electric? Debate rages as the U.S. sets new rules

J.D. Power found that when non-Tesla drivers pull up at a charging station, they leave without charging 20% of the time, because the chargers were either all busy or not functioning.

The federal government has responded with a new requirement: Highway chargers that get federal funds will have to prove they're operational at least 97% of the time.

The good news: Charging can be great

Despite overcrowding, broken chargers and slow speeds, charging on the road worked most of the time for Granholm's team.

"I think two days in, I would totally buy an EV," an Energy Department staffer who was driving an EV for the first time mused halfway through the trip. "Like, it would be pretty easy to do a road trip. You have to stop for lunch anyway, so you stop, charge, keep going."

Road trip charging can be cheap too. Granholm's 770-mile trip cost one of the Energy Department's drivers just $35 total, less than half of what gasoline would have run in a similar vehicle.

On a more basic level, Granholm's team was ultimately able to charge in every town it stopped at. There was no risk of being stranded, which was the fear of very early adopters of EVs, back before public chargers were available.

And if you have a garage, a driveway or EV chargers at your workplace, day-to-day charging is even easier. Personally, I plug my Bolt into a standard outlet when I'm home and into a Level 2 charger at NPR's headquarters when I'm in Washington, D.C. I don't sit around and wait for it to charge; I just go about my life. And when I'm ready to go, so is the car.

That's not "just as easy" as filling up a gas-powered car. It's significantly easier.

Tesla Superchargers in San Rafael, Calif., on Feb. 15. Tesla invested in chargers as a way to sell cars, building them where people would want them, regardless of whether the chargers could individually be profitable. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images hide caption

Tesla Superchargers in San Rafael, Calif., on Feb. 15. Tesla invested in chargers as a way to sell cars, building them where people would want them, regardless of whether the chargers could individually be profitable.

Tesla's super Superchargers

And then, of course, there are the Tesla chargers, which simply work better than the other chargers out there.

J.D. Power has found that Tesla drivers successfully charge at 96% of the Superchargers they visit.

Tesla invested in chargers as a way to sell cars, building fast, reliable charging stations where people would want them, regardless of whether the chargers could individually be profitable.

Tesla also defied the rest of the auto industry in using its own charging technology rather than the carefully negotiated industrywide standard.

Opening up the walled garden

The strategy paid off. For years, Tesla kept its network of Superchargers as a walled garden. Tesla drivers raved about them, but no one else could use them.

That started to change this year when Tesla struck a deal with the White House to open some chargers to the general public. And the walled garden blew wide open after Ford announced it was adopting Tesla's charging technology. Future Fords will come with the Tesla-style plug, and starting in January, existing-Ford owners can buy an adapter and plug in.

The idea was born — where else? — on a road trip.

Ford CEO Jim Farley recently told NPR he was driving with his kids on a family vacation, past a huge, conveniently located Tesla Supercharger station. His kids wondered why Farley, who was driving a Mustang Mach-E, couldn't just stop there to charge.

Ford is losing a lot of money in electric cars — but CEO Jim Farley is charging ahead

Farley explained that they couldn't because those were Tesla chargers.

When he explained why they couldn't charge there, his kids were blunt, as he recalled to NPR in an interview in August: "'Well, that's stupid. They have, like, a lot of free open spots there.'"

And the idea for the Tesla deal was born.

Other private sector solutions

Ford's announcement kicked off an astonishing shift. In the weeks after, General Motors, Rivian, Volvo, Mercedes-Benz and Nissan all announced that they too were adopting Tesla's technology. This means that as soon as next year, the EV road trip experience could be dramatically different for non-Tesla drivers.

And then, in a separate surprise move this summer, seven legacy automakers — BMW, GM, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz and Stellantis (formerly known as Fiat Chrysler) — announced they were banding together in a joint venture to launch a new , as-yet-unnamed, charging network.

They plan to build 30,000 superfast 350-kilowatt chargers — even bigger and faster than the Supercharger network.

Meanwhile, existing companies like ChargePoint are clearly feeling pressure to fix their unreliable and underperforming chargers. ChargePoint just announced it's spending millions of dollars on a new operations center and other programs meant to "deliver near-100% charging reliability."

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm tests out an electric leaf blower at a Home Depot stop near Atlanta. In addition to promoting electric vehicles, the federal government has funded new rebates for low-income households that buy cleaner appliances or other upgrades. States are still working on the details for administering those programs. Camila Domonoske/NPR hide caption

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm tests out an electric leaf blower at a Home Depot stop near Atlanta. In addition to promoting electric vehicles, the federal government has funded new rebates for low-income households that buy cleaner appliances or other upgrades. States are still working on the details for administering those programs.

The road to the future

Those private-led efforts — as well as the muscle and money provided by the government — could prove a game changer.

"The private sector has stepped up," Granholm told me toward the end of her road trip. The response to federal incentives has been, as she put it, "a blockbuster."

Granholm has long been an energetic and optimistic pitchwoman for the electric vehicle future, even before her current position.

On her road trip this summer, she made the case again and again that switching to green energy and clean cars will save money, create jobs and promote national security, on top of being a crucial component in the plan to fight climate change.

"If you're not persuaded by climate change or you think it's not happening, well, you should be persuaded by lowering the costs," she told me.

And as Granholm knows, the cars themselves can be persuasive. Stop me if you've heard this from an EV driver before — but a quiet, speedy vehicle that never needs an oil change is just plain nice to drive, charging headaches and all.

Or ask Holmesetta Green. I met her when she was sitting on a curb in the back corner of a Walmart parking lot, parked right next to Granholm, waiting for her Volkswagen ID.4 to charge.

Green, a 79-year-old retired teacher, frequently makes the six-hour drive from her home in Louisville, Ky., to her hometown in Holly Springs, Mississippi.

Biden administration proposes new fuel economy standards, with higher bar for trucks

It was hot that day. Hot hot. "You ever fried an egg on a sidewalk?" Green asked me. She wished out loud for a charging station in a park, with a bench in the shade.

I asked her how she likes her SUV. And her answer summed up the anxieties and the hopes of both the Biden administration and the auto industry at large.

"It's not enough chargers over on the major highways," she said. And charging is "kind of slow."

"Other than that, I wouldn't take $100,000 for this car," she said, smiling ear to ear. "We love it. We love the electric."

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If you’ve got an EV, Google Maps is about to become much more valuable

New updates address one of americans’ top concerns about owning an electric car: finding a place to charge.

Google has announced new features in its Maps app designed to help electric-car drivers find a charge.

The updates include a tool to help drivers find nearby chargers with real-time information about availability and charging speed, the ability to find charging stops on longer road trips and more detailed instructions about how to find chargers within parking lots and garages.

Google expects to start rolling out these features “in the coming months,” according to a blog post. Some will come first to people who drive a car that comes with “Google Built-in,” the company’s driver-assistance software. Google updated its other route-finding app, Waze, with information on EV chargers last month.

The update addresses one of Americans’ top concerns about owning an electric vehicle: finding a place to charge. Range anxiety remains a significant barrier for EV sales — especially for drivers who don’t own a house . Among people who don’t drive an EV, roughly half say they think finding a place to charge would be “extremely” or “very” difficult, according to a 2023 Washington Post-University of Maryland poll .

EVs make up roughly 7 percent of new U.S. car sales, which some experts believe is a tipping point at which electric cars will quickly become popular and take over the market. But lately, the EV market appears to be cooling off . Sales slowed in the first quarter of this year.

In addition to building more charging stations, companies can make driving an EV easier by building apps that help drivers find chargers, said Stephanie Valdez Streaty, director of Industry Insights at Cox Automotive. “That could be really helpful with mitigating some of those concerns about charging anxiety,” she said.

Find available EV charging stations

For electric-car drivers who need a last-minute charge, Google is developing a feature that can find nearby chargers with updated information about how many ports are available and their charging speed. The company says this feature will eventually be available to all drivers but will be available first for drivers with Google Built-in.

Plan a road trip with EV charging stops

The Maps update will allow EV owners with Google Built-in to plan where they can power up when taking long trips with multiple stops, such as a cross-country road trip. The feature will access information about your car’s battery life to suggest the best places to charge up.

The company also announced a search feature that allows travelers to look for hotels with electric-car chargers.

Locate hard-to-find EV charging stations

Some EV chargers are tucked in hard-to-find corners of parking garages. The Maps updates will crowdsource information from Google reviewers to generate more detailed instructions about how to get to a charger. According to the company’s blog post, the instructions might read something like, “Enter the underground parking lot and follow the signs toward the exit. Just before exiting, turn right.”