Driving long distances

  • Thread starter Thread starter JedK
  • Start date Start date
  • Replies Replies 22
  • Views Views 3K
JedK

JedK

Member
Reading through the forum I see that a few people have already driven their Konas well past a full charge. There are just so many of the high-speed charges out there at this time.
So let's say I want to drive from NY to like Columbus Ohio (500 miles about?).
That will require at least two charges in each direction.
In a fossil fuel car, basically you just drive, when you get to like a quarter of a tank, you get off the highway and put gas in the car, and continue on.
With the limited number of these CCS/SAE high-speed chargers, it seems like you have to plan your trip and make some assumptions before you even leave your house (is this true?).

I am wondering.
1) If you're the plan-ahead type, then how low are you willing to plan for before getting a charge? Like your point to point, charging is every 150 miles kind of thing?
2) Are you not the plan-ahead type so you just bring up the map, (or App), as you start getting to a certain miles left level? And again how low would you go in this scenario?

Jed K
 
NEVER do #2. You will end up stranded!
Yes, always plan ahead. An app like Plugshare and the website abetterrouteplanner.com are really good. It's also a good idea to sign up with several charge companies like Chargepoint and EVgo. Depends a little in which area of the country you're driving.

Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk
 
Esprit1st said:
NEVER do #2. You will end up stranded!
Yes, always plan ahead. An app like Plugshare and the website abetterrouteplanner.com are really good. It's also a good idea to sign up with several charge companies like Chargepoint and EVgo. Depends a little in which area of the country you're driving.

Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply Esprit1st.
Yes, I have PlugShare. I filtered out every charger except the CCS/SAE high-speed chargers.
I will create accounts with Chargepoint and EVgo. (Thanks for that advise).
How far do you plan for between charges? I'm thinking do a full charge, and then do about 150 miles for the first charge.
Then I'm not sure what happens after that.
Jed K
 
JedK said:
So let's say I want to drive from NY to like Columbus Ohio (500 miles about?).
That will require at least two charges in each direction.
Click to expand...

no, that will require at least one full charge.

you can do it in two smaller charges if you want, and this may actually save you time, but it doesn't require two full charges.
(EDIT: well, this was for a theoretical 500 mile trip with plenty of chargers. But looking at the columbus-NY trip, it's actually more than 500 miles and using the DC chargers may not take you on the most direct route. so you probably need to stop for charging two or three times. You won't charge to 100%, but you need to charge enough to comfortably get you to the next charger.

EDIT 2: the more I think about it the more complicated it gets... in reality you are never using 100% of the battery capacity, more like 60%, because you don't really want to drop below 20% and you don't want to charge above 80% because then it gets much slower. so that gives you a realistic range of about 150 miles.
so you'd have to stop every 150 miles or so and do a 20-80% charge, which is probably about 45 minutes on a 50 kW charger. )



of course this depends greatly on the number and location of available chargers and how you drive.

the amount of power consumed depends greatly on the driving conditions. When I drive the car it always uses a lot more power than when my girlfriend drives it. She did some long highway drives where the car did not consume nearly as much power as I expected, based on the amount of charge left and the kilometers driven she could have done 500 km on one charge (drove 270 km and had 45% battery left). Meaning she averaged about 13 kWh per hundred Km or 7.67 km (4.76 miles) per kwh, which is very impressive, considering when I drive it's anywhere from 15 to 18 kwh/100. But I like the strong acceleration... a bit too much I guess. and I don't drive at 100 km/h either. speed kills the range.

JedK said:
With the limited number of these CCS/SAE high-speed chargers, it seems like you have to plan your trip and make some assumptions before you even leave your house (is this true?).
Click to expand...

yes, a minimal amount of planning is required.

if you want to drive straight there without long stops then you require a quick charger every 150 miles let's say, just to make sure you don't get stuck.


JedK said:
1) If you're the plan-ahead type, then how low are you willing to plan for before getting a charge? Like your point to point, charging is every 150 miles kind of thing?
Click to expand...

you don't need to do it every 150 miles, but it might make sense to stop for 15 minutes every 150 miles, or you might need to depending on how the chargers are located. (EDIT: my numbers are messed up because I am not used to thinking in miles. it wouldn't be a 15 minute charge every 150 miles. I'm used to doing small charges just to top up and combine that with a bathroom break or quick break, since 15 minutes quick charge gives me a 100 km boost)

if you have chargers every 50 miles, then you don't need to do it at 150 miles.

but I wouldn't personally go beyond 200 miles.

It's hard for me to think in miles so my numbers may be a bit off.


yes, some planning is required.
yes, it will take longer to charge than to fill up in a gas car.
no, it's not that long and it's not the end of the world.
you can combine it with a pit stop, have lunch, go to bathroom etc.
 
Last edited:
JedK said:
How far do you plan for between charges? I'm thinking do a full charge, and then do about 150 miles for the first charge.
Then I'm not sure what happens after that.
Jed K
Click to expand...

if we're talking about the real NY to columbus trip, I see many chargers on plugshare.

going from columbus to NY it looks to me like the the longest distance without chargers seems to be around 100 miles, between columbus and pittsburgh and then pittsburch to hagerstown, after that plenty of chargers around.

so on that segment you could stop and charge for 15 min in cambridge, although you can also make it from columbus to pittshburgh in one go. but then for sure you need to stop in pittsburgh.

I would attempt columbus- pittsburgh -hagerstown- new york. but of course new york is big so it depends where exactly you're going.
in pittsburgh you would be down to maybe 25%. you'd have to charge to 80%. but then you might reach hagerstown at maybe 12%... which is low but this all depends on how you drive. charge again to 80% but then you need to do another stop somewhere, I think.

I would take a look at the power consumption and decide from there. You can stop to be sure, or keep going to the next one. Just have your stops mapped out.
 
OK, this is great. Thanks so much for the info. I have had the Kona for 6 days now, and I'm learning as I go.
So 15 minutes on a 50 kW charger gets about 150 miles (240 km).
Going below 20% would make me a bit nervous, especially around the cities where you can get stuck in traffic.
The drive is definitely longer than 500 miles (800 km). I just used Google's measure and stretched a straight line. That route is for when we get our human drone vehicles.

So when my daughter goes back to college, I'll have to see if I can get my wife to attempt this trip. We usually stay at a Marriott and they have chargers in their parking lots.


Thanks again,
Jed K
 
JedK said:
So 15 minutes on a 50 kW charger gets about 150 miles (240 km).
Click to expand...

No, like i edited my original message, i got messed up with kilometers and miles.

The battery is 64kwh, at 50kw charging rate you are getting 12.5 kwh in 25 minutes which is 20% of the battery so at most 100 km, if you drive nicely and keep it under 60 mph.
 
Plugshare is the best app to plan your route. In case of multiple charging options, I research Restaurants near each charger and will pick the one with better food options. If I travel with wife and kids, I may choose a charger at a Park where the kids can play. Just research what kind of things you can do around the particular charging location to kill some time.
 
Just in general: you'll find out quickly that driving style makes a huge difference on energy consumption. Even just a few mph in speed is huge. For example going 60 mph versus 65 or 70 will save you lots of electrons and will get you a lot further.

Terrain is a huge factor as well. That's where abetterrouteplanner.com comes in very handy because it factors in terrain like going uphill versus downhill.

Depending on the charging network it might make sense to stop at certain chargers. Here in Nevada they have the electric highway. You can actually fast charge for free at certain chargers. A lot of that info can be found in the comments of the chargers in Plugshare.

And help others out by checking into the chargers in the Plugshare app and share your experience so others know what to expect as well.

Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk
 
So 25 minutes on a 50 kW charger gets about 100 km or 60 miles. That's a bit rough on a long drive. That's like 8 to 10 stops along the way (NY to Columbus Ohio) at 30 mins about per stop adds another 300 minutes (or 6 hours).
 
I just charged the other day and I have the receipt here:

23min = 63miles
46min = 135miles
38min = 112miles

They all were at 50kW chargers which charged at 49kW.

Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk
 
Always have a plan B in case of a faulty charger (rapids particularly) . I wouldn't be concerned if my plan b left me at 20% when I got there, but I'd probably slow down a bit!
Bear in mind that there is little point charging over about 80% at a rapid as the charge rate is much slower - often quicker to go to the next rapid and charge faster from a lower starting point.
 
So i figured out how my girlfriend got 13 kwh/100 km

She hates AC and i hate heat. She turns it off and i set AC to the max.

Today on my way home my average halfway through my drive was 15 but i noticed that 30% was being used by AC (this was city driving portion) so i turned AC off and on the highway i went at 90 km/hr and my average in the end was 13 kwh/100 km. It would have been less if i didn't switch AC on at all.

So if you can suffer the heat and limit speed to less than 60 mph/100 km/hr then you can do more than 500 km or 300 miles on one 100% charge.
 
victor_2019 said:
So i figured out how my girlfriend got 13 kwh/100 km

She hates AC and i hate heat. She turns it off and i set AC to the max.

Today on my way home my average halfway through my drive was 15 but i noticed that 30% was being used by AC (this was city driving portion) so i turned AC off and on the highway i went at 90 km/hr and my average in the end was 13 kwh/100 km. It would have been less if i didn't switch AC on at all.

So if you can suffer the heat and limit speed to less than 60 mph/100 km/hr then you can do more than 500 km or 300 miles on one 100% charge.
Click to expand...
Sounds great, I'll leave my AC on, though. It's 43°C/110°F here in Vegas! [emoji3062]

Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk
 
Esprit1st said:
Oh definitely. It's pretty much always on. Using mostly 0.6kW. but I've seen it using 1.6kW.

Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Good to hear, small range reduction- too small to alarmed about. Would much prefer a cool pack than the alternative.:)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top