All the Data... First long road trip in the Kona Electric.

We just did our first long trip from Vancouver Island to Calgary in June. Until then, I had only charged on public fast chargers twice in three years. Seems we have better infrastructure here in BC, even though most of the BC Hydro and Fortis chargers are only 50kwh. We did have an opportunity to use the Electrify Canada 150kwh chargers, which didn't help much since my Kona can only accept 75kwh, but it did cut charging time by about 10 mins.

We did meet some nice EVs along the way including a couple of Ionic 5s which were able to charge at around 250kwh on the 350kwh chargers. One of the people with the Ionic 5 had travelled across the US and was heading back across Canada. Brave soul. The guy with the Audi had non-stop problems with charging rates (we were on the same route and ended up at a lot of the same chargers).

We had great conversations with everyone and we are now on a list for the Ionic 5. Talking to owners and having the opportunity to test drive one a few weeks ago helped us make the decision. We will probably end up with the 2023.

I am no longer anxious about road trips! Thanks for your account of your east coast road trip!

 

Interesting that no one wanted to chat. My experience on the west coast is that almost everyone wanted to chat!

 

Thank you so much for sharing your experience and for all the data.

 

I recently took my first long road trip in my 2021 Kona Electric Ultimate through Massachusetts and upstate NY. Lots of major highway driving, but also a major trek into rural upstate Adirondack Mountains. Here are my observations:
EV charging infrastructure is nowhere near what it needs to be for the coming rollout of EVs. My experience below will sound terrible, but overall I survived and loved driving the Kona the whole way. If I repeat the trip, I will now know where the good and bad spots are.

• It took hours of planning ahead of time to figure out where and when I was going to charge, especially getting into rural areas where I was going to be staying for several days. You have to plan for charging issues at any one stop so that you will have enough range to get to the next one if you can't charge for some reason. Adding charge whenever there is an opportunity is helpful.
• There were issues of some sort at 3 out of 5 fast charging spots, including some that were down either completely or partially, people waiting, some that had charging rates throttled back to 35KW at 350KW chargers (for any car), etc.
• Each network (Electrify America, EVGo, EVolve NY, etc. has a different protocol and so you need to set up memberships ahead of time and practice in using them. For example, at Electrify America, one of the chargers kept stopping after 2 minutes so I gave up, but realized later that my account balance had not automatically reloaded as it had at an earlier station. At several stations, the credit card reader was not working so you had to have an account already set up.
• At my Airbnb, I was able to plug in, but needed an extension cord and the outside outlet and one of the inside ones gave charging faults and I had to go in through a window to find one that worked (it was an old house).
• Charging locations can be somewhat hard to find if they are in big shopping centers off the major highways.
• Once charging was started (my rates got up to 72kw at the best spots), the waits were easy to get through by doing some shopping or having a nice meal break. All stations were out in the open so hot sun and rain were issues.

 

Terrific, thanks for sharing. I've taken my 2021 Kona Electric Preferred from Toronto to west coast of Newfoundland and back via PEI. Totally agree, charging infrastructure on the east coast is sparse and out of date, low power. But hey, at least they have something now, even all across Newfoundland, which is almost as remote as it gets.

Last year, I drove 10,500km to the west coast and back. http://yourturn.ca/ev/ Similar experience, though thankfully never such a queue to use a charger as you had in Moncton! The Kona is extremely efficient and will easily do close to 300km on the highway on a full charge.

I have found the same thing as you about apps, that Plugshare and Google Maps/Android Auto is all you need (sign up for the Plugshare beta and it works with Android Auto and an internet connection, but I usually plan all stops in advance, plus contingencies).

I've done up to about 900km in one day, with three stops for charging. I find it works best to have a short break first, second stop for lunch for up to an hour, third stop half an hour tops to stretch your legs and top up for the last leg. Basically the same as driving a gas car.

And only stay overnight where you can charge at a level 2.

It's a fantastic car!

--Julian

 

Also, I noticed in your data you said you weren't charged for the Port aux Basques station, but that one is not internet connected so at some point when they dump the data from it (manually?) they will probably charge your chargepoint account in the future. I had the same experience prior to boarding the ferry.

--Julian

 

Kathryne, don't rule out an EV6 which is so similar to the I5 but a very different look. Its big advantage is that the rear window remains entirely usable and visibility is good during rain events. The road gunk that covers the entire back end of an I5 is limited to below the spoiler on the EV6. Also, I think that advertised range is a bit higher. I'm glad I went with it over the I5.

 

As the saying goes, "East-coasters are kind but not nice. West-coasters are nice but not kind."

East-coasters won't talk to you or acknowledge your presence while they help dig your car out of a snowbank. West-coasters will smile and make conversation right before cutting ahead of you in line to use the charger. At least, that's how it works in America.

 

But don't move that old folding chair reserving the parking spot they shoveled out!

 

Yes, it is a terrific car! I got mine in September 21, replacing a Volt. I had considered waiting for an ID.4, Mach-E, or Ioniq 5 due to faster charging rates. However, like you, I don't do much long travel. The Kona was less expensive to buy and more efficient to drive. The slower charging speed was not that much of an issue at all, especially compared to the other charging hassles. Very happy that I got the Kona.

 

Just an FYI - ABRP can use either a manually input efficiency setting for better calculations, or you can get an OBDII BT LE plug and have it read and calibrate consumption on the fly. That's what we do, and if you use it with carplay it shows your expected charge at the next stop in the upper right corner. Since I set it up, ABRP has been bang-on for guess-o-meter purposes.

 

That's our thoughts as well! The higher efficiency offsets the slower charging nicely, gives us a similar drive/charge time ratio to our 2016 MX we replaced with it, even though that charged quite a bit faster. Very happy with it.

 

Looks like a great trip! We were in PEI at the end of July on our own long distance journey! I recognize a couple of those stops. Maybe we crossed paths. We definitely came to much the same conclusions about driving, ABRP/Plugshare, etc. I put up all the data and experiences on my blog. https://chrisalemany.ca/2022/08/15/saving-co2-on-a-cross-country-ev-journey/
I'll create a thread too but I thought I'd reply here too.

 

LOL yeah. Woe betide you if you steal the spot someone else shoveled out.

 

Canada's Official Greenhouse Gas Inventory has some strange data for their 2020 projections used for @kalel681's adventure.

New Brunswick 467MW coal capacity - 1,140 kt CO2 equivalent, 1,170 GWh generation
Saskatchewan 1,530MW coal capacity - 8,700 kt CO2 equivalent, 7,900 GWh generation
Alberta 1,326MW coal capacity - 20,500 kt CO2 equivalent, 22,400 GWh generation

Hopefully the data will be updated to account for decommissioned stations or dual fuel conversions as well.