Reflections after first road trip in my Kona (906 miles)

This week I took my Kona on a 906 mile road trip to northwestern PA for a 2-day conference in a rural area that was 83 miles from the nearest DCFC and 30 miles from the closest L2 charger (horse & buggy crossing signs are frequent in this area). Initially, I was excited but also a bit nervous as this would be a real test of the Kona's ability to meet my needs and my ability to plan appropriately.

The Ride

The Kona was very comfortable on the entire trip. I never felt sore or fatigued as I have in previous vehicles after long trips. The creature comforts (A/C, heat, sunroof, & ventilated seats) worked well and kept me very comfortable. The stop & go ACC & Active LKA made my trip a LOT less stressful as they did their job and helped me be consistent in my speeds and reduced some steering wheel fatigue. ACC was especially helpful during the last 55 miles of my trip which was on a rural highway that constantly changed speeds as I passed through each town. It was nice to simply use the +/- switch to adjust the cruise speed up & down to avoid any over zealous local authorities

Trip Planning

Hands down, ABRP & PlugShare were my best friends when it came to planning this trip & making adjustments and changes during. By the end of the trip, I had made a small number of settings changes to the ABRP defaults for the Kona which I felt worked better:

• Changed "Reference Consumption" to 3.8 instead of 3.68 mi/kWh
• Set "Max Speed" to 75 mph
• Set "Charger Min Arrival" to 20% & "Max Charge" to 85%
• Set "Goal Arrival Charge" on the way home to 15%

The default of 10% charge when arriving to a charger or destination is just too low to compensate for real-world deviations from the estimated burn rate. On the way back, I used a 10% target for one 130 mile leg of my trip and let's just say, it was a close call where I arrived at the charger with 9% SoC and less than 20 miles on the GoM.

Charging

This was the most interesting part of my trip. I was surprised to see that each model of charger has its own peculiarities and limitations either due to design or site limitations. That, combined with the Kona's stepped charging profile (which I didn't realize at the time), gave me some initial confusion at the first charging stop.

Like many, when I bought the Kona as my first EV, all I knew was it could DC charge at up to 77 kW. I didn't understand that so many variables played into determining the actual charge level. Once I found the Kona charging profile for 50 kW vs 175 kW on the FASTned site, suddenly things made sense and I used that to guesstimate the amount of DC kW I should get at each stop.

I used 2 EVgo chargers which were labeled as 50 kW and given my SoC at the time, should have delivered 45-47 kW but only fed at 35 kW as they were only 99 amps so my charging times were a bit longer than I had expected. My average cost @ EVgo was $0.58/kWh or $0.32/min.

I used 1 Electrify America 175 kW charger which delivered the fastest charge of the trip at 70 kW and brought me from 9% to 60% in 30 minutes. My average cost @ EA was $0.58/kWh or $0.65/min. EA needs to improve their software as the phone app said that I had 2940 mins until hitting 80% charge (I believe the unit should have been seconds) but the kiosk screen showed the right estimate. Beware about EA's charging tiers - while my Kona never went over 72 kW (according to the receipt), they still charged me the tier 2 rate (76 kW - 125 kW) I suspect because they had queried the Kona's "max rate" of 77 kW through the CCS. I'll be following up with them to complain as the rate charged should be based on actual max charge rate, not theoretical.

I also used 2 free 50 kW DCFC provided by a Nissan dealership and a NY welcome rest area. These were both very high quality chargers which provided 125 amps of power to fill my Kona up quickly @ 48 kW. I guesstimated that these saved me about $30 in charging costs.

The AirBnB where I stayed was kind enough to let me plug in my granny cable while I was there which afforded me 22 hours of charging. I brought an inexpensive current monitor that I plugged the granny cable into allowing me to measure precisely how many kWh of their electricity I had consumed so I could reimburse them for my usage at the end of the trip.

Summary

Overall, my charging stops coincided well with needed breaks to stretch my feet, use the rest room, and get a cup of coffee or something to eat so the charging time tended to fly by quickly.

For the future, I think I will find a 32A 14-50 EVSE which I can bring with me and a couple adapters to give me the largest options for destination charging. My lodging had an electric range and an electric dryer which I could have unplugged either and used thereby eliminating 1 stop on the way back.

I would happily do another road trip with the Kona and am excited to see that charging infrastructure is expanding and maturing. While the shift from ICE to EV does require a change in mindset and more planning & monitoring, I don't feel that it is an insurmountable amount. As technologies mature and expand, I definitely see that it will only get easier and become acceptable even to the average impatient driver.

 

Hi KiwiME,

I summarized the DC charging costs both per kWh & per minute because when I thought about it, it was more important to me to know what my cost per kWh was (similar to caring more about what my cost per gallon used to be in my ICE vehicles). At face value, the cheaper per minute rate @ EVgo ($0.32/min) sounded like a better deal than the per min rate @ EA ($0.65/min; factoring in their $1 flat fee + taxes). But, EVgo charged slower requiring more time and surprisingly, cost the exact same per kWh. By dividing the total cost by kWh, I feel that it returns the "true rate" of a charge by flattening out all the odd fees that are used to price out a charging session.

You make very good points! My L2 cost @ home is $0.24/kWh placing my DC charging @ 2.4x more expensive (yikes!). But since I'm doing 90% of my charging at home unless I take a trip somewhere, I don't mind since my overhead cost to charge at home was relatively cheap ($700 for the L2 charger + new circuit run). The owners of DC charging infrastructure have far more significant overhead which they need to recoup to cover their R&D since this is still an industry in its infancy. I think eventually the DC charging rates will come down most likely by government regulation to ensure (1) a kWh charged is actually a kWh and (2) that prices are not excessively gouging customers. I think it's inevitable that similar to gas pumps, each public charger will be required to be tested annually & certified by the local weights & measures departments.

 

Based only my observations at the charging stations, the amount of kWh is that which the station provides, not that which my Kona receives. For example, at the EA stop I made, while it reported a max charge rate of 73.68 kW, my Kona stated the top rate as 69 kW. I assumed the difference was part of the typical loss in converting the AC to DC.

I agree that the "open market" should dictate the overall price, but regulation should be in place to ensure there isn't opportunistic gouging. For example, I find it unconscionable that Electrify America sets the price per kWh tier based on the vehicle's THEORETICAL max kW rate rather than the actual max kW rate for the charging session.The difference in cost is more than 1.52x times more based on the Kona's theoretical vs the actual max rate of the session. That adds up fast! I feel that regulation can set basic parameters which prevent such opportunistic gouging like basing price on the actual rate. That said, in Massachusetts, all utility rates must be reviewed & approved by a state panel to ensure they are not ripping off consumers. Why not include public EV chargers as well?

Ouch! That is a hefty road tax! How do they intend to verify mileage and levy the tax? Would it be during the vehicle's annual safety inspection (if those are required in NZ)?