I’ve lurked for a while and appreciate the tips and experience I’ve gained from reading others’ post. In that spirit, I’ll share the embarrassing story of my trip yesterday and the many things I learned.
I live in Atlanta and travel to Charlotte for work 1-2 times each month. The Niro is technically my wife’s car, but I take it on these trips because it’s either “free gas” for my travel or (even better) the client’s mileage reimbursement subsidizes the car payment.
Normally I stay in hotels in Charlotte that have EV charging. This means I leave CLT with a full charge and, if I have to stop at all, I can stop for a 10-15 minute top-off at a free charger off I-85. This trip, the prices on hotels without EV charging were SO much cheaper I couldn’t resist the savings and decided to roll the dice with charging.
One thing I learned: Charlotte (at least outside of Uptown) does not have a lot of good charging options. If I was going to make this choice again, I’d use one of the EVGO chargers to fill up once I arrive in Charlotte. I’ve done that once before and it was the most expensive charger I’d ever used, so I didn’t do that this time.
I left Charlotte with about 150 miles of range. Just outside of Greenville, SC is a Sam’s Club with multiple ElectrifyAmerica chargers. My plan was to stop there and get 30-45 minutes of charging while I walked across the parking lot to a restaurant for dinner. I’ve never had a seamless experience with EA chargers. I normally have to plug/unplug several times to get it working. The credit card readers are often offline. Twice I’ve had to call EA to reset something. Still, once I’ve gotten them started, they’ve always worked in the past. They’re fast and I find the price is reasonable for the speed.
Sure enough, the credit card reader was offline, there was an error message about reduced charging speeds, and it took 4 tries of scanning my card, plugging in, unplugging, scanning...to get things working. Finally, the car starts charging and I walk across the parking lot.
14 minutes later, my food has just arrived, and the car stops charging. I call EA while eating as quickly as a can and beginning to see the idle fees start to rise. The customer support from EA was terrible. No sympathy, no willingness to understand the situation. All he cared about was making sure I understood that the idle fees would not be refunded and I needed to get to the car immediately and unplug if I wanted to avoid paying them. After a few minutes of trying to be rational, I gave up on him and asked for a manager. He put me on hold for 20 minutes and came back to inform me there was no one else available I could talk to. Lesson learned: you can’t actually walk very far away from your car when on an EA charger. You may need to unexpectedly intervene.
While on hold, I paid my bill, left the restaurant and went to the car. This fill up was supposed to be all I needed to get me home but I was way short of the range needed and the night was already slipping away. The available range was within ~3 miles of what I’d need to make it to the next EA chargers in Commerce, GA - so I decided to press on rather than risk wasting more time here waiting for EA to get their act together. I put the car in ECO+ and tried to make up the 3 miles of range I needed over the next 80 of travel. It didn’t work.
Lesson learned: take the range estimate seriously, especially if there’s a chance of rain. (It started raining hard about halfway into the 80 mile trek). The EA chargers in Commerce are in a Walmart parking lot that’s at the very top of a big hill right off the main road. The car became immobile in the turn lane to go into the parking lot. I was no more than 250 yards from the charger (albeit straight up hill) with absolutely no way to get there.
The cops came and wanted me to move the car out of the turn lane. This is when I realized I didn’t know how to put the car in neutral when you’re in Park and the car won’t start. They were (reasonably) frustrated with me. Looking in the user manual didn’t help - the instructions there are not correct. Lesson learned: foot on brake, press the power button, press “P Release” just below the shifter until the car goes into neutral).
Tow truck arrives 20 minutes later. 20 more to get the car on the bed. 2 minutes to get from there, up the hill, to the EA charger. Those chargers also had offline credit card readers and warning messages about reduced charging speeds. I had to do the plug/unplug dance 12-15 times trying 3 different plugs in this case. Finally - one of them started working. Charged to 40%, drove home.
This morning I googled around looking for emergency batteries for EVs. Seems like the only ones that exist at this point are for commercial applications (tow trucks, AAA, etc.) and cost thousands of dollars. Might be a good business model though, if you could become the go-to emergency charger in a particular city.
If you made it this far through my saga, I hope you learned something that helped. If not, at least you can shake your head and wag your finger at me in rebuke.
I live in Atlanta and travel to Charlotte for work 1-2 times each month. The Niro is technically my wife’s car, but I take it on these trips because it’s either “free gas” for my travel or (even better) the client’s mileage reimbursement subsidizes the car payment.
Normally I stay in hotels in Charlotte that have EV charging. This means I leave CLT with a full charge and, if I have to stop at all, I can stop for a 10-15 minute top-off at a free charger off I-85. This trip, the prices on hotels without EV charging were SO much cheaper I couldn’t resist the savings and decided to roll the dice with charging.
One thing I learned: Charlotte (at least outside of Uptown) does not have a lot of good charging options. If I was going to make this choice again, I’d use one of the EVGO chargers to fill up once I arrive in Charlotte. I’ve done that once before and it was the most expensive charger I’d ever used, so I didn’t do that this time.
I left Charlotte with about 150 miles of range. Just outside of Greenville, SC is a Sam’s Club with multiple ElectrifyAmerica chargers. My plan was to stop there and get 30-45 minutes of charging while I walked across the parking lot to a restaurant for dinner. I’ve never had a seamless experience with EA chargers. I normally have to plug/unplug several times to get it working. The credit card readers are often offline. Twice I’ve had to call EA to reset something. Still, once I’ve gotten them started, they’ve always worked in the past. They’re fast and I find the price is reasonable for the speed.
Sure enough, the credit card reader was offline, there was an error message about reduced charging speeds, and it took 4 tries of scanning my card, plugging in, unplugging, scanning...to get things working. Finally, the car starts charging and I walk across the parking lot.
14 minutes later, my food has just arrived, and the car stops charging. I call EA while eating as quickly as a can and beginning to see the idle fees start to rise. The customer support from EA was terrible. No sympathy, no willingness to understand the situation. All he cared about was making sure I understood that the idle fees would not be refunded and I needed to get to the car immediately and unplug if I wanted to avoid paying them. After a few minutes of trying to be rational, I gave up on him and asked for a manager. He put me on hold for 20 minutes and came back to inform me there was no one else available I could talk to. Lesson learned: you can’t actually walk very far away from your car when on an EA charger. You may need to unexpectedly intervene.
While on hold, I paid my bill, left the restaurant and went to the car. This fill up was supposed to be all I needed to get me home but I was way short of the range needed and the night was already slipping away. The available range was within ~3 miles of what I’d need to make it to the next EA chargers in Commerce, GA - so I decided to press on rather than risk wasting more time here waiting for EA to get their act together. I put the car in ECO+ and tried to make up the 3 miles of range I needed over the next 80 of travel. It didn’t work.
Lesson learned: take the range estimate seriously, especially if there’s a chance of rain. (It started raining hard about halfway into the 80 mile trek). The EA chargers in Commerce are in a Walmart parking lot that’s at the very top of a big hill right off the main road. The car became immobile in the turn lane to go into the parking lot. I was no more than 250 yards from the charger (albeit straight up hill) with absolutely no way to get there.
The cops came and wanted me to move the car out of the turn lane. This is when I realized I didn’t know how to put the car in neutral when you’re in Park and the car won’t start. They were (reasonably) frustrated with me. Looking in the user manual didn’t help - the instructions there are not correct. Lesson learned: foot on brake, press the power button, press “P Release” just below the shifter until the car goes into neutral).
Tow truck arrives 20 minutes later. 20 more to get the car on the bed. 2 minutes to get from there, up the hill, to the EA charger. Those chargers also had offline credit card readers and warning messages about reduced charging speeds. I had to do the plug/unplug dance 12-15 times trying 3 different plugs in this case. Finally - one of them started working. Charged to 40%, drove home.
This morning I googled around looking for emergency batteries for EVs. Seems like the only ones that exist at this point are for commercial applications (tow trucks, AAA, etc.) and cost thousands of dollars. Might be a good business model though, if you could become the go-to emergency charger in a particular city.
If you made it this far through my saga, I hope you learned something that helped. If not, at least you can shake your head and wag your finger at me in rebuke.
