Summer EV Road Trip W/Steve Birkett

Summary
Steve Birkett from @plugandplayEV shares his experience of an 8,500 mile road trip in an electric vehicle (EV) across the US. Ranging from level 2 charging at over night stops to the different fast charging networks he used, including Electrify America, ChargePoint, and regional providers. We discuss the gaps in charging infrastructure in the middle of the country and the need for more fast chargers in those areas. Steve also highlights the impact of extreme heat on EV charging and the importance of planning for weather conditions during a road trip.We also discussed the need for more charging infrastructure near national parks and the benefits of level 2 charging in those areas. Overall, Steve's trip was uneventful and he highlighted the incremental improvements in the charging network. He shared some statistics from his trip, including the number of miles driven, charging sessions, and the cost of charging.

Upcoming Coast-to-Coast EVs Episode discussing EV Fast Charging Challenges.

Takeaways

1. Finding level 2 charging at hotels is more challenging than expected in summer of 2024, especially in the middle of the country.
2. Extreme heat can impact EV charging efficiency, especially when temperatures reach the mid-90s and above.
3. Dealership charging, such as Ford Charge, can be a convenient option for fast charging, with good site design and high-power stations. Dealerships are becoming more EV-friendly by providing multiple charging stalls and amenities.
4. Planning for weather conditions, including extreme heat, is important when embarking on a long road trip in an EV. 
5. Positive interactions with people at charging stations during road trips help dispel skepticism about EVs.
6. Charger vandalism is a problem impacting EV ownership in cities and especially in the Northwest of the US.
7. More charging infrastructure is needed near national parks, and level 2 charging can be beneficial in those areas.
8. Steve's road trip was overall uneventful, highlighting the incremental improvements in the charging network.

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Creators & Guests

Host

Chase Drum

Host of Grid Connections and Founder of Bespoke EVs

Guest

Steve Birkett

EV Educator and Founder of Plug and Play EV

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Good morning grid connections listeners today we're joined again by Steve Birkett, the
host of plug and play EV.

He recently embarked on an incredible 8 ,500 mile road trip across the U S and his
electric vehicle.

Steve shares his highs and lows of the journey, offering insights in the current state of
EV travel and what he hopes will improve in the future.

Whether you're an EV enthusiast or just curious about what it's like to hit the road in
electric vehicle.

This episode has something for everyone.

Also for those listening and in the San Francisco Bay area, I will be hosting the Amazon
recharge zone and electrify expo in San Francisco this weekend, August 24th and 25th.

If you'll be attending or are in the Bay area and want to meet up to talk about electric
vehicles or anything grid related, hit me up.

You can either tweet at us on our social pages or leave a comment on YouTube for this
episode, or even email me at chase at connecting the grid .com.

That's chase at connecting the grid .com.

If you enjoy today's episode, please share it with at least one other person who might
find it interesting as well.

And don't forget to leave a pause review on our podcast page.

Your support helps us continue bringing you great content with that.

Enjoy.

I'm joined by Steve Birkett again from Plug and Play EV.

Thanks again for coming on today, Steve.

Thanks for inviting me, I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you again.

Yeah, I, one, I've just always been enjoying the, I guess fortnightly live episodes you've
been doing with the rest of the coast to coast Evie team on YouTube.

And I've, I definitely recommend anyone that hasn't been watching those to check them out.

I'll definitely make sure to have a link in today's show notes, but we were just kind of
chatting, one about being on an upcoming episode and unfortunately, I just haven't done

many road trips this year.

It's been pretty kind of.

Couple hundred miles or something, just point to point.

So I've really haven't had to use public fast charging.

And so you took quite the trip recently.

And I think it'd be really interesting to just talk about your EV road trip and your
experience on today's episode and kind of let that guide us.

And I think it'll be really informational and interesting to our listeners, especially
too.

For sure, yeah.

Thanks for the opportunity to share.

So I mean, I've been a long time EV owner, as we've spoken about in the past, almost a
decade now, but I've never done a coast to coast trip.

And coming from the UK, which is probably the size of some states in many cases, it's kind
of a new thing to think about going across a country and driving for thousands and

thousands of miles and still not running out of land.

So that had been on my radar for a long time.

I got pretty close to it in the ball TV days going down to Boston, Texas from Boston to
fully charge live in 2020.

But that was not still not quite reaching the other coast.

So this year decided to make the most of the last year of free electrify America charging
head across to we started actually in the eastern most point of the lower 48 states up in

Maine in a place called West Cawdye Head.

has a lighthouse as you would expect from scenic coastal Maine and then headed across the
country via various national parks to the technically the northwest and most point not

quite the the western most but a place called Cape Flattery in Washington state so think
headline numbers were around just over 8500 miles covered 23 states and overall efficiency

for the nerds out there was 2 .9 miles per hour which is

not great until you consider you're doing 80 plus miles an hour in some of those plain
states.

gets pretty heavy on the arrow at that point.

Well, was going to ask you, how do you, when you a road trip, how do you drive?

Cause I usually do anywhere from five to 10 over, through a lot of these.

So yeah.

although once you get to 80 miles an hour, it's only really the brodozer trucks in the
left lane that cranking out that.

It was pretty comfortable to just stay 80, 82 at that point, but anything in that kind of
70, 75 miles an hour speed limit zones is just a little low.

Although I have to say, I think people are driving crazier since the end of the pandemic.

It definitely seems to be a little more wild out there, whether you're in the coast or...

of in the middle of the country there seem to be those speedsters going no matter what the
situation.

Yeah, I've definitely experienced that too.

I have driven I 80, especially quite a bit.

And then also I 90, but I'm kind of curious on your trip.

you share what, I guess let's, let's start with the coast and then maybe what were, cause
you didn't take the same way, back as you did across the country, right?

You did kind of do a little bit of a different.

on myself along the same route.

It's always if I can do some kind of weird loop, it's always my preference to do that.

I'm the same flying.

can't fly back over myself and go the same route.

It just messes with my head.

So we started in Maine, so I was going say coastal Maine.

you're on the kind of scenic route one there.

And I won't remember all the highways or the interstates as we go across, but it kind of,
we had to drop kids off in Pennsylvania.

So we did the usual kind of Northeast to Midwest route.

PT or IAT4 down through IAT through Ohio so that's all fairly familiar stomping ground to
anyone who watches Plug and Play V, we've got family over in Ohio so we do that quite a

lot.

But then kind of moved on to relatively new states to us through Iowa, South Dakota, did
the Badlands over there so all your IAT kind of routes and snuck in a corner of Wyoming to

just say we'd been there and show what a charging desert it was in the north.

northeast corner I guess, then headed through, I get this right, Montana, this tiny sliver
of Idaho which I guess is panhandle goes north and then into Washington state but we came

back or I came back because my wife kind of bailed out in South Dakota she'd had enough
but she also had to be back for an event in Pennsylvania.

I came back through your neck of the woods which apologies again for not giving you a hug,
didn't realize you were so close.

I just moved.

So I know.

Yeah.

I figured you're no worries at all.

kind of Northern Oregon, I guess, with the Columbia River Gorge, as you're familiar with.

Then back through the main bit of Idaho, so through Boise, down through Utah, Colorado,
and then again, more familiar stomping grounds because I used to live in Colorado for a

little bit.

We've done that Kansas, Missouri kind of route.

So yeah, 23 states, of IAT, I -90, cross -country routes for the most part, I -70 a little
bit as well.

Yeah, I'm sure just coming back from all of that, but I, I'm curious.

were there any kind of rules or it, cause it sounds like this was more of a leisurely
trip, but where were you trying to do just DC fast charging or were you like looking for

hotels, especially that you would stay overnight at to use level two or any sorts of hacks
or kind of tips to how you're doing this cross country trip, or you were just kind of

focused on speed or enjoyment.

sounds more like enjoyment.

On the way across it was enjoyment, I was with my wife and we took lot of time out to, we
did some kind of boondocking camping but we're not hardcore campers, we did maybe three

days maximum, we had a hotel break so you know we had a chance to get a nice warm shower
and do our laundry in actually a wonderful place that I'd highly recommend to folks called

I think it was the Bavarian Inn in Custer, South Dakota, lots of really nice facilities,
EV charging, Tesla, J1772, all the kind of mod cons for EV drivers.

was a highlight but actually I really didn't practice what I preach on this not through
want of trying but there is we've started to identify on coast to coast EVs there is a bit

of a lack of you know accessible hotel charging I stayed I've about eight of the 16 days
camping a couple of the days were at home or with family and then the five hotel nights

only one of them had EV charging that was the one that I mentioned the Bavarian Inn

I'm not through really, you know, lack of trying.

did look at the places we were going to stop.

planned at least two more of those hotel nights.

couple of them were just winging it, you know, so kind of took it where I could.

But instead of getting the level two charging, because it just wasn't really out there in
the places we visited, I had to kind of fall back on the other side of things where you

get near to a fast charger, right?

So you arrive with whatever state of charge and then either

or there later in the night, or more likely as I did in the morning grab breakfast for my
wife and charge at the same time.

So I mean, that works okay.

But I did realize, you know, over the 60 or so fast charging sessions we have, we could
have cut out four or five of those by just, you know, being able to find a hotel to have a

level two.

And it's just not really that common.

Or if it's, you know, if it's there, it's in a

a place where you know it's going to be iced if you're doing this in the city quite often,
you know, that it just looks more trouble than it's worth and you don't want to plan your

charging around a place that is almost certainly going to be a hassle, especially when
you're arriving in as we did at, you know, 11, 11 .30 PM and just want to hit the sack.

Fair.

I guess that brings up a couple of other questions.

So you mentioned you camped a couple of nights where these, was this kind of more like
dispersed camping or any of these like official campgrounds where you could actually like

plug into an RV plugin.

a good mix actually that one of the best ones was Ledges State Park.

I tend to find the state parks and the ones that are in a run that way have electric
hookups.

So we've done that a couple of times over the years.

So the place in Iowa Ledges State Park was definitely a good one for plugging in.

Minor plug, but we use the J plus, so guess J2 booster.

It's kind of got all the adapters, you know, on the end, you can take the pigtails off and
use it for the TT30 camping adapters and

we've used NEMA 1450, but there's a bunch that you can use with a nice little product to
kind of be able to adapt to whatever campsite has.

But a lot of them were either the dispersed camping or just places that had the RV.

A lot of these are in RV places where you can get that slot, but you don't necessarily
want to be with the RVs.

know, the kind of tents and this small car in between all the massive rigs doesn't always
work that way.

So a lot of it was actually, you know, just kind of regular campsites without the electric
hookup.

just enjoying really actually then the power kind of reverses because you're using the
cars the onyc 5 as the V2L feature and we took a portable power bank so we were able to

kind of just you know make breakfast use the cars features was either using the car to
kind of power the battery and then the battery goes around the campsite wherever it's some

you know most needed to kind of cook or power devices or in some cases just using right
out the car to to plug into the the various kind of

induction hob or know the kettle for a nice morning cup of tea.

But yeah, it was it was a lot of camping but not really a whole lot of opportunity to
charge.

again, that was planning in the fast charge before you stop so that you're at 80%.

And then typically we don't really use more than 10 to 20 % of the battery pack in the
ionic five itself, it kind of does enough to to kind of power your devices and get that

cooking done.

But

It's nice to be able to wake up to a full charge, and that happened less than I would have
expected it to be able to happen on this trip.

kind of curious because I haven't heard much about it this year, but I remember last year
when I was doing a bit of a trip, there were a couple of campsites I was looking at and

It just seemed like I was seeing a lot of things posted online that campsites were, if
they did offer like RV charging, they were now trying to either ban or like charge more

specifically for EVs because there were concerns that they use more electricity or would
throw the breakers, which I could definitely understand.

have used a friend's, RV charger that they have at their home.

when I've gone there to stay, cause it's in a of a remote area, but

We've had to, and I don't know if you can do, I think you can do this in the onyx.

You can turn down the AC amperage.

And that's what we found is if we just brought it down, it was still more than just
plugged into a regular wall outlet.

but then it wouldn't throw the breaker.

And so I'd heard quite a few last year, like campgrounds were sharing pushback on EVs.

And I'm, just kind of curious if you've heard more about that or came across that at all
in your trip.

It doesn't sound like it.

No, so mean obviously the only one as I say that we really got to charge out was this one
in Ira and I don't think that they've quite reached the level of adoption where people are

constantly plugging in and tripping their breakers but we did hit a couple with the kids
last year when we traveled which were more family oriented sites, heavier volume that had

specifically no EV charging from these outlets.

A lot of CoAs or the kind of name brand campsites that you see.

but where they've obviously had a problem in the past, something has kind of triggered
them to put up these signs.

And I think some of them are in the process of figuring out how to best add EV charging,
whether it's a central point where you can go and park your car, which is, it works okay,

but we did some car camping as well.

So, you know, if the car becomes your tent because it's inclement weather, or you just
arrive late and it's more convenient to not set the tent up, then that becomes, you can't

really then drive off and camp by the charger because that's kind of in the middle.

the campsite and defeats the entire point of having your own little berth.

So no nothing specific this time they certainly didn't have any problem at the place in
Iowa that we went to but I can see that becoming more more of a thing as you get into

these areas where you know camping and being able to charge your car is quite a bonus.

I can see more and more draw being put on those circuits and as you say as long as your
car can dial back that amperage and be a little on the safer side I think you're fine but

there's definitely going to be some people just

plugging it in, hoping it works and maybe waking up in the middle the night with a power
outage.

Well, so, okay, so that's really interesting to hear that you did come across that last
year, but not on this trip.

And let's talk about then the level two, what in your opinion was, was it just kind of
challenges with planning and just the places you were going to find level two charging at

these hotels?

Or were there any reasons in particular you think that these areas were more of a desert
than others?

I think in the middle states, you know, as you get to the plains and the kind of high
deserts there, it definitely becomes just a lack of hotels in general, there's only so

many of them and then you have, know, then becomes there's not that many with the
foresight to put in level two charging.

I think there's certainly more around the routes we've gone in the New York, New England
region, but again, they tend to be quite I mean, as Tesla led this, as you know, with the

destination charger program, that tends to be a higher end resorts.

know, B &Bs, guest houses, that kind of thing, which we do from time to time.

But for the majority, if we're going on a longer trip, we'll usually do a mix of camping
and mid -level hotels.

So in the East, hasn't been as much of a problem to find that charging, although you do
have to book it ahead of time.

But when I was looking on the spot and even in Indiana, which was just like a stop off
after dropping off the kids, just an easy way to get a good drive day in and then stop

around Indianapolis.

Just couldn't find anything that was

conveniently placed around that kind of east side of Indy that was a good option to
charge.

Again, maybe people weigh in the comments with a million different options that I missed,
but I've done this for a few years and most of the settings on Plug Share or Chargeway

figured out and just couldn't find anywhere that was that good of a fit.

And then in the middle of the country, as I say, it just becomes more and more sparse in
terms of who offers EV charging unless it's a NEMA 1450 at an RV site.

Yeah, that's kind of interesting because, the road trip I've done in a mentally the
furthest East it's been to is Iowa and just barely Iowa.

I was also road tripping to cover distance and not really like to enjoy it.

So I was able to find hotels that I could like strategically.

I was like, okay, at this point I could stay here for the night and they have level two.

It's a high enough plug shares where I don't have to worry about it, but it definitely
does seem, a little bit like.

If you're trying to do a trip for enjoyment or a little bit more spontaneously, then yeah,
you're more likely than not going to just have to deal with getting up early or before you

go to the hotel and charging with the supercharger or at a DC fast charger, unfortunately.

Yeah, and I mean, I guess there's an opportunity there to we've heard about the deals
with, you know, Tesla charging and some of hotel chains.

I certainly have a couple of chains that I know in the Northeast would be, you know,
regularly offering charging, but as a nationwide franchise or brand, I don't know of

anybody.

There's not really a go to who I would say that chain I know is going to offer EV
charging.

And obviously none of this really takes into account sort of like Airbnbs, vacation
rentals by owner.

So maybe there's an entire

wing there that I just didn't look at.

And maybe people can use that as more of a travel hack to have a secondary or tertiary
option.

the hotels, which again, it's just easier to roll up, check in, be gone the next morning.

Known quantity kind of thing.

None of them were a known quantity for EV charging or something.

I could say, there's a XYZ brand.

I know there's going to be two or three, you know, level two charges that I can just rely
on.

Yeah, that's kind of interesting.

I think it's totally true about it being more coastal because I know I usually will go
with Hilton, especially if I'm kind of on coasts.

Just there's a very high likelihood they usually have level two and it's same with
Marriott, but I've just usually used Hilton more from personal travel.

so with when you're traveling, you mentioned that when you use has come an adapter, do you
have an adapter for the Tesla charger to use with your ionic to charge at these level two

as well?

Yeah.

I won't actually had J1772, but I usually travel with the Electron, just, you know, the
type of kind of handle easily to throw in the frunk, even though the Ionic 5's frunk is

minuscule, it's big enough to carry a portable charge cord and a few different, you know,
adapters.

So do use that, use the Juice J2 booster and try and think what else we had in there.

V12 adapter that's about the size of a regular Tesla adapter so that's in the frunk as
well and a 12 volt battery booster just in case.

had one incident last year or thankfully on a relatively local trip where the battery kept
dying and we had the 12 volt drain issue but that's all in the past, thankfully haven't

needed it since.

That's good.

I guess like, yeah, just before we get into the fast charging side of stuff, I'm kind of
curious, maybe to take a step back when you were doing this trip, was there, you mentioned

you having those charge cables and it sounds like you always have those in your car in the
front there.

And I kind of do the same thing, but, I think maybe to people listening who haven't done a
big road trip in an EV, is there any kind of planning or specific things you make sure to

pack with you?

How do you go about your road trip?

And cause I'm kind of curious, cause when I know I'm going to do like a couple of thousand
mile thing, like I have it, I'm not focused on sometimes fun.

I'm focused on like, okay, I've got the, the tire repair kit.

got this, I got like, just to make sure I get the miles done.

And I'm kind of curious to hear, if that plays into your, or how you approach this road
trip and road trips in general.

three years old.

So we've already, you know, we've done this, the hard yards over what was missing in the
first year that we building the, the trunk and the trunk.

Not really.

mean, the camp, by virtue of camping, you take a lot of stuff with you.

So we have, you know, a lot of chairs, tents, pillows, comfort stuff.

All of the charges are in the front anyway, now locally as well as going on a cross
country trip.

I don't think too much about that.

really I guess just the usual stuff of making sure your tires are inflated.

We definitely need to change the tires now but before they were in pretty good condition.

And the usual checks, know, we do have a local shop here that does a pretty good job of
doing the once -over of EVs and independent shop but obviously you can go to your

dealership and just get them to, you know, rotate the tires, make sure you're in good
shape before you head off on several thousand miles worth of drip.

No, that's great.

So let's get to the interesting side of stuff.

I think that gets all the headlines anyway, even though this is kind of the example on the
time you need DC Fast Charging, which is on that big road trip.

let's start from the beginning and kind of hear what your experience was as the Tickliss
trip with using fast chargers and any of the different CPOs in particular that seemed to

give you a good pros and cons.

Yeah, so I mean, I'm kind of biased on this one, because as I say, we were on the
Electrify America free charging plan.

This is our last kind of few months of complimentary 30 minute sessions, which the Ionic 5
pretty much gets the charging done within that period.

So we did about 76 % of the sessions on Electrify America, which is just the way it is,
you know, that's what we're looking at.

There also are, you know, just

as the nationwide provider, if you look at the maps, they're the only one that truly does
the kind of coast to coast routes outside of Tesla superchargers.

So you can probably get across the country on a mix of other CBOs, but they were the ones
that we kind of went with for both, you know, financial and just ease of access.

But there were gaps, you know, I tried to make sure just as a channel, I tried to, you
know, compare and contrast what the other CBOs are doing, where the presence are of

different providers.

And then obviously you've got regional ones that

I've never even come across until this trip.

So stuff like Francis Energy, 24 seven travel centers in Kansas, just a bunch of the whole
Volvo Starbucks partnership that goes down from Seattle to I think Denver, Colorado.

That, you know, that was just one that you don't come across in the West.

You obviously have Chargepoint whose equipment they use, but that was one that kind of
constantly popped up again and again when I was on that kind of route from your kind of

region down.

to Denver, where there was always an option.

It wasn't always the fastest option alongside Electrify America.

was maybe a best to 200 kilowatt.

But again, that's not a bad piece of kit if you're looking for a place where you want to
just change it up because as the old stereotype goes, Electrify America is full of

Walmart's and it's not an uncommon kind of thing to be at either a Walmart or a gas
station.

Starbucks provides kind of an interesting alternative when you're going along that kind of
route.

But yeah, it was mostly Electrify America who, for the most part, did pretty good.

It's, you know, there's a lot of new installations across that planes area because they
were kind of second, third wave for Electrify America.

A lot of the routes they tried to bridge initially were that I -70 route for the cross
country.

And I think it's I -40 for the South, which I didn't cover, but those were their first,
you know, where they were throwing in a lot of this equipment, which has initially proven

to be a problem.

You know, you've got some of that older signet hardware and some of the

providers who they're now ripping out and replacing with the latest generation hardware.

Whereas in the plans, this is just they weren't covered.

So they just learned the lessons elsewhere and implanted their newer hardware into those
locations.

So some of these were six store Luxury Americas, which for them is a step up of, know,
over the previous three or four stall installations, new hardware, a lot of these places

had pull through stalls, which was valuable.

You start to see a lot of people towing as you hit that kind of

middle of the country, Wisconsin, Great Lakes kind of area into Iowa and the plains where
people are going to the national parks, they're towing their big rigs.

And not that I saw any cyber trucks or F -150 lightnings in that particular area, but if
they were using that, they would have had pull through stalls.

So a lot of EA Chargepoint was second, although that's more just ubiquity of, you know,
Chargepoint as a model is pretty much going into a lot of towns and government sites, a

lot of dealerships, that kind of thing.

A couple of pilot flying J's, kind of disappear in the middle of the country, certainly in
the north part, and then reappear in the kind of Idaho, Washington area.

And yeah, just some regional providers as well, Francis Energy did actually quite well.

I've heard horror stories of them from some of the older installations and folks like
Jacob Espinosa down in New Mexico, they have a lot of Francis Energy down there and he's

just constantly complaining about their older kit.

You know, it was interesting to see as I hit all these Electrify Americas and looked at
PlugShare, what other options were out there.

And surprisingly, other than the middle states where there's just a lack of fast charging,
there were some really interesting options for most of the journey, whether it was the

Starbucks -Volvo kind of partnership with Chargepoint.

Circle K had a presence a lot in Illinois, kind of the middle of the country, then back in
Washington.

Thank you all, Rivianne, who, you were just waiting and watching for them to open up the
network.

I wasn't even really looking for them, just kind of stumbled across them a couple of
times.

And then occasionally Tesla superchargers, which the Ionic 5 don't really do much, but the
Magic Dock locations were in places like Ames, Iowa, you know, Forks, Washington.

So there's some places where they would have been potentially useful if I was needing to
charge.

Yeah, that's great.

And I guess one other question would be, what, was like the weather during this trip?

Because I know, when I was coming back through I -90 on the last trip, I was facing just a
horrendous headwind and I pretty much had a charge at every station, unfortunately.

But yeah, I'd just be curious to hear if there was anything like that you came across.

Yeah.

was still, you know, we had a heat wave in Boston, this was mostly end of July, early
August.

And we had a heat wave throughout the Northeast kind of towards the middle of July.

And that continued just kind of followed us across the country.

So while we were hearing, you know, Ohio and the coast, East Coast being battered by the
various hurricanes that were, you know, making their way up the coast, we were just in the

middle of a blazing heat wave.

again, along that Columbia River Gorge, I actually started kind of, you know, Oregon.

Portland, Washington kind of border area.

The temperatures were maybe mid fifties.

It was pretty chilly at that point, but then going up into the kind of desert parts, just,
think we, charged in Hermiston, one of the convenience stores there, no shelter.

That was one of the lacking things, not a whole lot of canopies or shelter, but the
equipment's just baking in the sun.

It's so hot.

And you do start to get a little thermal throttling at that point.

It wasn't, it wasn't too often, but we definitely felt the, you know,

pumping the air conditioning the entire way because that was just blazing blazing heat for
a lot of it.

Yeah, that's something worth talking about.

actually had a friend, as we were kind of mentioned right before this, was texting me this
week and I think it was up to Washington and it was decently warm, but yeah, he kept

texting me like, well, it's a rental.

Is this the issue I'm having?

Is it the car?

Is it the, charger?

And it just seemed like, since he was having this consistently at the, he would move
chargers.

so it seemed more and more like it was charger specific and probably heat related.

was, was that something you

seeing or was it more maybe a little bit of car a little bit of both or what were some of
the challenges you saw around that?

More in terms of energy draw, we don't get that hot over here, it's probably similar for
you.

If you're nearer the coast, you know, those coastal regions tend to hit 80s, 90s, and
that's boiling hot for us, but in the middle it was getting much closer to 100, 110 in

some places, and that's where it starts to just drag on the AC.

Recurrent does some really good studies of this, again, I think they're in your area, but
you don't really hit that heat wall until the mid -90s hitting 100.

but folks in Arizona and Nevada, know, the desert parts of California will definitely be
familiar with how much that heat starts to drain because we hear all the time about winter

and using the, you know, heating system really drains the kind of efficiency and range,
but it does tend to hit as you get up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit and above.

Charging wise, it wasn't that much of an issue.

We pretty much were in and out of most charging sessions with 20, 25 minutes.

Occasionally it'll throttle back at 70, 80 % mile per by that point you're pretty much
done.

More often than not we were waiting, well the car was waiting ready and done.

We were waiting in the store to fill up supplies and go grab dinner, whatever.

The car was ready typically before we were.

No, I've found that to be generally the case, especially when you're traveling with
someone else that, and then if you have kids or a dog, it's always everyone else is

waiting on someone else versus the actual car during the trip.

I mean, this is only the tour, you we have two other kids.

So when we travel as a family, it's definitely a lot of the cars just come never, never
the crunch point is a little shorter stops for me and my wife.

But we're still, know, when you're camping, you tend to have the next eye on where the
campsite is and what you need to prepare an evening.

So unless you're on one of those hotel nights, you need to pick up, you're glad to get to
a grocery store because you need to pick up the fresh produce, more ice for the cooler.

just a bunch of stuff that is kind of a daily pick up.

So at least one or two of the stops were valuable just to kind of resupply and get ready
for the campsite that night.

That's great.

Now, and it sounds like overall, the biggest struggle you had with your trip was really
just the middle of the country, which I don't think is too surprising for most people.

Definitely not impossible, obviously, but that is just where it probably required a little
bit more of just being aware of where the chargers were.

And would you say that's pretty accurate?

Yeah.

was much more than even I, you know, I know this stuff inside out after this point, but
there's there's really no sticking point to the only place where there was a gap and

slower charging was that Wyoming, Wyoming's becoming pretty, you know, much more roaming
and Florida are both the kind of Florida for different reasons, but the kind of, you know,

politically motivated leanings are starting to crunch on some of the EV infrastructure in
those states.

federal funding point of view at least.

But Wyoming was the only place where we had to, I used a Stellantis dealership of all
things, but they don't really have any EVs, but they had an EV charger.

So the little gap where it was about 220 miles from the EA in Gillette to wherever it was
in Montana, Billings, I would guess.

There's a little town called Sheridan, which it must be a small place because it has a
four -storey, 150 kilowatt.

V2 Tesla supercharger so you know when you're forced all that it's you know not the the
kind of Oasis of EV charging but that was just a regular old charge point CP 250 so we

were sitting there waiting I waited initially for a Volvo XC 40 recharge for about 10
minutes and then got on a 62 and a half kilowatt charger you know that was probably my

longest charge session I would have had it was about 50 minutes but you know that was the
only place where there was a charging desert I would say on the way across

And then the way back, was, we definitely hit some kind of some more glitchy older EA
stations in the kind of Kansas City, Missouri side.

And that's when I just kind of bailed and went to dealership charging at that point, which
actually was another point of the trip that was quite notable.

Ford charge, especially, I would call out for having really good installs, good site
design, also stalls, mostly high power stations that maxed out the IONIQ 5.

I just wasn't really expecting it.

As I go out, I'm expecting, you know, maybe a of flat J or Circle K to kind of step in as
backup and, know, for charge, certainly in my area, but also across the country really

seems to be doing a really good job of getting in the right equipment and providing places
where you know, you're not going to be blocked by dealer inventory or, you know, trying to

weave between the trucks to find space to charge a car.

Well, yeah, that's how that's what I going to ask you is, I mean, I, I haven't used a
dealership one since like the early days.

And back then they were much slower and usually just level two or something.

and maybe a couple of chat demos, but in your experience, it sounds like these have been
really good lately.

Is that, is there ever the awkward like, I'm showing up in my ionic at a Ford dealership.

It's out of the way or what, what was,

Yeah, just, just share that with us as someone who owns something that's a different
brand.

sounds like it's been positive.

Yeah, I mean, again, I would call out Ford for actually installing stuff that can, you
know, charge a car quickly and is, you know, multiple stalls with, you know, several

dispensers, but you're paying for the service now.

It used to be a case where you'd maybe certainly remember the bad old days of the Chevy
dealerships that are at 25 kilowatts on Bosch units where you're really fighting just, I

mean, it's a free charge.

was the only upside really, because, you know, you're waiting on the dealership for hours.

But no, they were all clear everywhere.

I mean, looked, sent to check them on Plugshare so you have a feel for whether or not it's
a friendly place.

But the middle of the country was really good for those kinds of dealerships, were just
some of them had squeegees and the usual kind of gas station amenities, bins, that kind of

thing.

So yeah, I mean, was just, as you say, you kind of slip out of the dealership charging.

I kind of dismissed that in the last year or two as a

you know, the old days of charging when you really just had to.

But nowadays, it was not that I would make a beeline for a dealership charge, but some of
them have, you know, they're in town centres, they they brought business to their

communities, essentially, because, you know, we were there charging.

And whilst we were doing that, we looked at, you know, local restaurants, grocery stores,
just somewhere to walk around and have a shop.

So it was an interesting kind of

juxtaposition with actual charging networks that are trying to facilitate interstate
travel and cross -country travel with just local community kind of businesses that have

either hopefully put it in intentionally or had their hand forced by Ford when they were
in phase of their modell -y rollout.

Yeah.

So that's a, that actually brings up another interesting question.

when I go on EV road trips, I always a part of it, I really do enjoy, even though usually
when I'm doing these long ones, I'm kind of in the zone.

I always have really interesting conversations with people also at chargers or, probably
more commonly, I just have people, especially in the middle of the country, I would just

have people walk up to me.

And so like, was that thing electric or have these kinds of not negative, but just

You could say like, these things actually exist or, maybe this is becoming less and less
of a thing, but I'm kind of curious.

first, were there any, cause I've had some interesting, not, would say inherently
negative, but I have had some interesting experiences lately with dealerships around EVs.

So I'd be curious, if you've had any conversations like that around, EVs at dealerships
when you've charged, but then also just this road trip in general.

I, I'm again, I don't really try and charge dealerships before, know, this kind of
overlap, you know, I've, I've almost ignored them for the past year or two, other than the

ones locally, which just kind of check out.

I didn't interact with a whole lot of the, the dealership staff per se, the one in Wyoming
was a really nice, you know, place.

Just, I mean, I think it's still more of a curiosity that people are stopping with them.

you know, it's again Stellantis just isn't this big EV brand yet.

So they're still on that kind of cusp of seeing EVs, but they were definitely kind of
eyeballing, you know, looking at the cars as we went by.

And then the locals, you know, the most common question is how long does it take to
charge?

It's just the kind of thing.

And so with the Arnic 5, that's quite a good conversation because I'm usually gone within,
you know, 20, 25 minutes and they can kind of see because they've been hanging around for

the same period of time that, you know, that

actually would fit at least how they refuel whether or not it goes far enough for them is
another question.

Again, I don't know too many people that can drive 300, 400 miles in a sitting without
stopping for some kind of break.

So mostly around recharge times and most of them were at least positive conversations, if
not a little bit kind of, you know, just what is it, know, how does it, how do you get

here from Massachusetts, that kind of thing.

Yeah, I wouldn't say I've ever had like a negative thing.

It's usually just kind of general curiosity and like skepticism.

And it's, yeah.

haven't heard too much.

expected a little more actually, you as you leave the kind of, you know, states that you
know, love that you got into these areas where, you know, there may be an element of

hostility, but I don't, I don't think although the onyx five is distinctive, it doesn't
really scream, EV, it doesn't have a lot of, you know, some Massachusetts EVs have kind of

blank, you know, stuff all over them, and just wasn't the case on this trip.

So

doesn't shout it out but certainly there are people who were intrigued that it could get
that far when they had written the stuff off as a city car.

for sure.

I think that you bring up a couple of interesting things there.

One, yeah, I've never had like a negative thing.

It's more like, so it doesn't, it's like more like kind of curiosity and it's like, so it
doesn't take hours to charge these things.

And you're like, well, yeah, it does.

If you're plugged into like a level two or an outlet at home, but when you're on a road
trip, yeah, you're, you're talking about minutes.

And so that's where it's all, always kind of see like the light bulb go on above people's
minds.

Even though they're like, well, they might not be for me, but it's good to know that, or
not for me just yet.

Or like I have my dually Ram pickup, it's like, can, it's not like a negative thing.

That's always so funny to see like the online Facebook comments and all that stuff versus
the reality I think is like night and day.

critical when they're on their Facebook posts than they are in, you know, it's
interesting.

I mean, the whole conversation here, there's an undercurrent of we continue to have the
kind of, you know, subsume the benefit of EVs, the home charging or the level two

charging, because you know, as you say, if you're talking about how long it takes to
charge for level two charging, you'd have to say 10, 12 hours in some cases.

But that's the advantage of it.

And this is kind of going around the I don't know what you're reading on LinkedIn and your
various profiles, but there's a lot of this at the moment.

I think there was a Wall Street Journal article on, know, Americans are missing the point
on electric cars.

know, the whole thing here is that you can charge them at home, you have a fueling station
in your driveway.

But these conversations at the fast chargers, they almost do a disservice to this because
you're talking about how fast it charges.

That's the mindset, especially at a gas station or convenience store is

is how quickly can I get out of there?

Where it's more really, how can you cut out this refilling experience altogether for 90 %
of your driving or more?

How can you in your day -to -day life just wake up to a full charge and never think about
anything other than plugging in at night and unplugging in the morning?

For sure.

And then I think the kind of other side of that, that I think some of the Evie haters
always like to, kind of disregard or it's like, that's, that's different is, and I even

had this conversation the other day with my friend, like he likes to go to Costco because
it's cheaper to fill up gas.

And it's really the conversation of.

kind of large metropolis inner city kind of gas stations and yeah, you might be waiting
like 20 50 minutes, especially in the summer on the weekdays around kind of people come on

off of work or large holidays and sure that can also Happen at EV charging stops, but I
just find so much more frequently That it's like I will roll up to a charger and if

there's a gas station there and it's a busy weekend I'll see like a bunch of people
waiting

in line, especially if it's like a Costco to get gas versus just rolling up and plugging
it and then going in using the bathroom, whatever going on.

And, I think it's, I think it's totally valid understanding and kind of criticism, but
it's also just, you kind have to take a step back and have that critical thinking and have

that like just realistic conversation and also approach a lot of these people, as a person
who still drives a gas vehicle occasionally and who

Primarily had driven gas vehicles before they like, yeah, I waited 30 minutes in line to
get cheap gas.

I will admit that.

and it happens, but now I don't have to deal with that, especially since most of the time
I just charge it home.

Yeah, exactly.

It's hard to get that, the nuances across because there are those various levels of
charging, but once you see it and kind of start to realize that that's available, you

know, as long as you have the option at home, it's, you know, that's a lot of people and
there's a lot of people who don't necessarily associate it with that benefit.

Totally.

then I can't remember why I read it I haven't been able to find it since, but I remember
years ago seeing a stat that like someone had done a measurement and on average in a

year's people spent more time at gas stations than they did charging.

Yeah, well, I've always wanted to kind of put a time -lapse on while I try some of these,
you know, EA stations are better than others for this, but there's certain places, State

College in Sheets jumps out of, Sheets in State College, Pennsylvania jumps out of me for
some reason, because you get a really clear view of the whole parking lot.

And I just want to put a time -lapse camera on to see like how long these cars stay,
because if you look, I'm in and out in 20, 25 minutes, there's definitely people where

I've pulled in and they've been there and they haven't left before I've, you know, headed
out.

And that's, you know, it's an overlap with the convenience store becoming a fast food
joint as well.

they're much more, you know, grab your peanuts and hit the road again.

But, it's, it's, it's kind of morphing into that where the dwell time of an EV is not
necessarily even, you know, longer than or the same as some of these gas stops because

they stopped, they think of a rest area, they stopped, they go into the rest area, they do
their bio, they do their

convenience store shop, maybe grab some food that they come out and then they have to do
exactly what you say with the active kind of pumping for three, four minutes and paying.

So the gas piece is another five minutes on top instead of just a passive thing that you
do while you plug in and go and do all that stuff that you were doing in the rest area

anyway.

Yeah.

And I mean, as something I've brought up on this podcast quite a bit, and I just always
talk to people.

was like for a technology to take over and has to, it doesn't have to be just as good.

It has to be better.

And I think with Tesla and obviously with the plug and charge standard, the fact that you
can just plug it in and walk away creates a better thing instead of having to deal with

the terminals.

I'm hoping to see more manufacturers offer that and really see that from the, charge point
operators.

Cause that, especially in a road trip, that does save and add up to a lot of time.

when you can just run.

Yeah, exactly.

a, have to unplug and replug, then you're into, didn't happen much to me again, there were
really very few stall moves, but when it does happen, you're starting to think, all right,

well now people who see this, that becomes a, why would I ever go to that?

Because it looked way harder than plugging in the pump and just, you know, pouring the
gas.

for sure.

And I totally agree with that.

But at the same time, it's like, is such a nice thing when you're on road trip and you
have to use the bathroom so bad, you can just plug it right in, sprint in without having

to deal with it.

But I think like, once again, using a gas thing, still have to plug it in, paint, swipe
the car.

I just love that.

just, it's a separate activity almost, you know, you get the gap, there's a discrete kind
of errand at that point, if you have to do it one way or another.

Right.

And I mean, I've even rolled up to gas stations and then yeah, a gas pump or something's
out.

And so I have to move it, but it's, it's not the same thing that like, it stands in your
mind as much as when it's a charging station.

And I think just the reality versus the, perception is still a challenge in that realm.

I'm hoping I'm starting to see that change, but I think that's where still a long ways is
to be, is to go around trying to,

Position that I think that's even something I've seen a lot of the dealerships around EV
struggle with is how to

not talk about some of those, things that they hear on the news themselves and repeat to
people who are even looking at an EV.

But I think let's, let's talk about another topic that you would kind of mention,
especially once you're in the Seattle area, some interesting things that you had kind of

ran into.

And it was even meeting with one of a guest of this or a listener of this show and your
show as well, that you kind of came across some of issues in Seattle.

And just since we're kind of already on the topic of, city

charging versus kind of interstate charging.

Yeah, so it's worth pointing out, like, I don't know when this will go out, but I think we
have you scheduled for September 11th, not a great date, but you know, it's memorable at

least.

For that one, where we'll be on Coast2CoastTV is talking about Charger vandalism, which
unfortunately seems to be limited very much to your area.

Like I haven't really seen it around Boston, although we're sometimes a little island away
from stuff.

thought maybe, you know, New York City or kind of Philly, Pittsburgh would have this kind
of...

challenge, the only place I've seen it was, know, a fellow viewer, Anthony, giving me a
courtesy of tour around Seattle.

And I think the similar kind of things down into Portland and maybe into parts of
California from what I'm reading.

But it was, you know, just clipped chords.

And this is, know, across the board.

They're not, this isn't one network or any one place so you can kind of easily filter them
out.

You know, every site, EB goes in.

underground parking lots, know, where you'd think that's just a really awkward place to go
and try and commit a crime with, you know, being on a closed circuit camera.

It was actually the first thing I noticed charging in Washington state with Electrify
America.

They'd put those kind of famous, you know, the thieves that had the Prius and they've got
them on, you know, the camera, closed circuit camera, and now they're broadcasting their

pictures all over the internet across

they put them on the charger screen saying, have you seen these people, know, these are
committing the cord cutting crimes and taking away the ability to charge our locations.

But it wasn't, you know, it was everything.

And even a pre -opening Tesla supercharger, which was V4 post, really great looking site.

It's like, it's going to be a real boon of the community.

Had half its cords clipped when we were there.

And then I think, you know, a couple of people have posted since that the entire thing has
been, you know, gutted and it's just.

it seems to be a really localized problem to the kind of part of the West Coast and in
certain cities.

It was just heartbreaking to see really because city charging is already a bit of a pain.

It's definitely that's a common theme across the country is you're starting to bump up
against ride chair drivers, more apartment, renters, kind of thing, tenants, and everybody

who's maybe.

returning vehicles for rental EVs, everything kind of collides in these city locations.

know, general takeaway is just try and charge either side of a city or somewhere where you
know that it's not going to be running into that.

But this just compounds that problem, you know, because they're saying some of these
sites, as soon as they replace them, they're clipped within a few days.

you know, it's a

epidemic at this point in these places and it really is impacting local EV ownership
because if you see that constantly and they're actually not going to start repairing them

because it's just throwing you know good money after bad it's it starts to become a real
potential detractor to EV ownership in those locations.

Yeah.

mean, I know it's definitely happened in the Portland area a little bit and kind of
sporadically through California, but it really does seem like everything I've heard

anecdotally and seen in the news is the Seattle area, especially.

It just seems to be really bad for that.

And.

Yeah, I know, you know, people, mean, people throughout the politics, obviously, and, you
know, say, blue cities, but it's, I mean, it really isn't hitting the Chicago is the East

Coast.

It's just, it's hard.

hope it doesn't.

I hope it's not, you know, just starting there and kind of going to spread.

There's obviously there needs to be some kind of thought around the solution.

Maybe we'll have more time to think about in other ways with these kind of things can be
combated before we talk again on that September 11th episode.

But

Yeah, it was an eye -opener because I hadn't really, you know, considered it.

I mean, obviously I'd heard the reports and you kind of place it in a, well, that's just
maybe an isolated site that's getting blasted a few times, but he took me to probably five

or six sites and across the board as let EV go Electrify America, all of them just, you
know, uniformly kind of hit.

Yeah.

And I do know just coincidentally, it does seem like there has been, trying to not make it
political, definitely a lapse in smaller thefts and crimes.

And honestly, with only within the last few months, has there been kind of a change in
actually like persecuting and kind of like falling through with a lot of those, criminal

punishments and stuff.

So hopefully that will, continue, especially with this kind of vandalism.

to kind of minimize that.

But yeah, I mean, it's a fact.

It's not one of those things.

I think it is something like, yeah, it's unfortunate, but it is happening and something
that I think does need to, I think it's a short -term issue.

think there's been talk of ways that you can maybe engineer them better to make them
harder to steal.

But I think if...

there's more of a punishment or like at least follow through for finding people who do
this, then it kind of prevents the added costs and the actual like time having to over

construct something and just, it doesn't happen.

So,

mean, it's also the juxtaposition of the payoff, which, you know, from what people have
said is, you know, $30 to $40 worth of copper at some of these sites for the replacement

costs of not just the parts, but the technician visit is thousands of dollars.

if that's happening, you know, as you say, multiple times in a month, there's only so many
times you're going to do that before the CPR just says, that's not, we're going to wait

till someone else, you know, beefs up security or fixes the...

problem they've got at the site rather than them just being the kind of cash cow for it.

For sure.

No, I completely agree with that.

So let's swing to a more positive now with the trip back and looking out throughout the
whole trip, I guess, what was your takeaway and what were the things like you would like

to see?

Maybe you can share some of the things that maybe surprise you positively.

but then like, what were your takeaways?

Like, Hey, more canopies or some of the things that you're just take away is like this
would make the UV driving experience a lot.

It's not a huge change, but it would make it much better.

Well, I mean, the very fact that we're talking about it being incremental changes, small
things is positive, right?

Because we've been hearing 18, 24 months that the charging networks are a disaster outside
of the superchargers and you just can't travel.

I mean, it was remarkably uneventful for, you know, the vast majority of my trip.

Sometimes there's gaps, sometimes there's, you know, optimal placement, but that's just
really a factor of, you know, we were still building out networks.

So that was a positive takeaway in itself.

There's obviously things that you would want to improve.

mean, know, canopies and shelters are certainly valuable.

I think in the desert, that's more just hot areas just to protect the equipment so that we
don't have those reliability issues again.

Because again, I think a lot of the positive experience that I had coincided with routes
that Electrify America has either installed brand new equipment or just renovated the old

stuff.

So I think you want to protect that hardware.

You know, there's only so much life it's going to have in it and you don't want that.

dying two or three years earlier and having the same problems we've seen over the last
year or so.

On the positive side, know, I'd really like to see those down in Moab, just outside of
Arches National Park, which is well worth a visit, you know, for anyone who's going down

there.

There's recently been activated in Electrify America site with Rocky Mountain Power, so
they have that commercial kind of agreement where the utility sets the pricing and the

location, but the Electrify America is on the back end.

That's right next to the entrance to the National Park.

think there's a few of these.

Electrify America has one near the Grand Canyon as well.

think Rivian is opening one of those charging outposts near to Yosemite, I want to say.

So you're starting to see some of these more adventurous brands or the utilities that
serve the National Park areas, putting and charging right where the entrance to the parks

are.

That was really nice.

It takes out all the thoughts of, because the National Parks are...

Some of them are really prone to driving.

You really have to cover a lot of miles to get in and out of them.

Not so much Arches, but Olympic, which I hit in Washington, was big and didn't really
cover nearly enough of it.

Yeah.

And I mean, in Oregon, it's funny you mentioned that, the big ones, crater Lake actually
here because it is kind of removed and it requires you to go over a mountain pass,

especially if you're coming from my five.

so for anyone that wanted to go up and then it's a decent drive up in elevation.

So to go up there and then to get back for a long time until really just a, maybe not even
a month ago.

Finally, there was a new V4 pull -through supercharger that opened, I guess V3 plus,
whatever you want to call it, but at least made it open to more people, not just Teslas,

to really make that kind of experience a lot greater.

And I'm all for that.

think the National Park partnerships that Rivian and others have done, I would love to see
much more of that.

Yeah, I'm probably, mean, both would probably be the answer, but you can also mix in level
two there.

know, Crescent, I think it was in the center of Olympic has a lodge there with a lot of
hiking trails off it and level two, complimentary level two.

So I plugged in there for about two and a half hours, got enough, you know, charge so I
didn't have to fast charge on the kind of forks, know, outer roads where the Rivian and

Tesla charges are.

So you can, as long as you're, you know,

your stay is not just drive drive drive as long as you're going to do something in that
national park which I hope most people want to do.

Level 2 can play that role as well if it's at the visitor centers, it's at the hiking
trailheads, that kind of thing.

That can be really valuable.

I think you probably need both because some people need the long stay, some people just
literally want to drive it and head out again so fast charging it.

yeah, no, I completely agree with that.

think, I think it is definitely a both thing because, yeah, there are obviously, and I
think it'd be great to see more people go hiking and stuff, but there are a lot of great

like Zion and others that do have hikes that you can do there, but also great parts of
that you drive through.

that I think it's just good to see more people in general, especially if they're driving
electric, visit national parks, have appreciation for nature.

And, I mean, another great example would be the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.

which is phenomenal and highly recommend anyone that can go out there.

But it is so essentially you have to be kind of coming through Northern Arizona to hit it
because it is so remote and out of the way, but it's such a different and awesome

experience.

And that would be a great one to have level two add because yeah, we drove back when we
did that a few years ago in our outback and we drove for hours.

least a couple hours before we even got to Flagstaff and through a good portion of that
there weren't even gas stations.

It's just that remote.

And that's, think, what makes some of the best national parks or some of these monuments
and stuff.

And so I think at the very least level two is required.

But I think a lot of the time it's a bit of both.

And you can appreciate electric vehicles.

I most appreciated them around the Badlands and kind of South Dakota because Sturgis is
happening this month and it was just wall to wall, Harley's and with all due respect, I

think that's probably one of the last things that should be electrified.

But when you're in the middle of a national park and the kind of striking local scenery is
there and trying to enjoy that.

roaring thunder wave comes through.

It's a little bit more jarring than it would be on the interstate.

I completely agree with you on that too.

Well, I realize we've kind of come up to the end of our time today, but I really
appreciate you coming on Steve and sharing this.

I guess to finally wrap up, is there any data, I know you shared a little bit at the
beginning, but any data just to kind of in conclusion to share around the whole trip as

far as miles and total chargers visited and stuff like that?

so it's all headline figures at the moment.

did give me a service and forced me to kind of wrap the numbers as quickly as I could.

So I hit 8 ,518 miles over the course of, I think it was 16 drive days.

Now some of that's a little bit of bloat in terms of driving around the parks and not pure
coast to coast, but solid kind of big trip, obviously.

23 states, I think I said.

61 fast charging sessions, some of that's doubled up and there's videos to come on this
because it's you know, it's there's a lot of main videos for the road trip and then

there'll be the Starbucks versus Electrify America kind of stuff and stuff like that.

So I did want to hit some other CPOs.

And again, only five level two charges, which was disappointing just you know, it's when
you're away for two weeks and you can only charge level two effectively, you know, that

number of times.

Right.

really like to see more hotels and kind of camping opportunities to hit the overnight
charge.

And as I say, we hit 2 .9 miles per kilowatt hour.

So it was not the best we've done in the Ionic.

I think we got up to about 3 .5, 3 .6 around some of the flatter areas, all the slower
roads.

But then we were 80 miles an hour plus you're down to 2 .3, 2 .4 and it's sapping your
range.

was a good interesting mix of driving styles I think.

That's about all I've got in terms of stats you can certainly kind of revisit the channel
and getting these videos out as quickly as I can but hopefully I'll be at least one by the

time this goes out.

Yeah.

And I, I'm curious, do you have a rough ballpark?

know electrify America, a lot of it was free, but do you have a rough ballpark for those
ones that you did have to pay for what your kind of total trip came to?

We're only in low hundreds.

I haven't totaled it all up yet.

I calculate out using just below 3 ,000 kilowatt hours So if you times that out by what
the going rate for fast charging is somewhere between you know, 40 and 50 cents It's well

over a thousand dollars.

So you start to get into gas territory there But again, that's where the kind of level
twos come in if you're getting out free or cheap overnight charge Then you find certain,

you know places do have cheaper charging or free charging you can start to really bring
those costs down

It's evident from looking at the way the prices are going that road trips in electric
vehicles at the moment, unless you're on one of these plans or maybe on like superchargers

tend to be a bit cheaper.

Certainly the Riviera venture network is a little bit cheaper.

They're getting close to parity with gas.

That's not really the strength of selling UVs at the moment.

If you're fast charging a lot, you're going to be paying almost gas prices.

Well, yeah, and there's even level twos I've had to use lately that charge anywhere from
like 35 to 40 cents a kilowatt hour, which to me is like, okay, now that's good.

That just annoys me.

I understand they have to make some money, but yeah, that's just kind of give them a sir.

But no, I appreciate you sharing that with them.

That's still impressive for the amount of miles and everywhere you covered with that.

That's really great to see.

I know we'll have links like we did previously to your plug and play YouTube series and
also the coast to coast TVs.

I'm excited for the upcoming episode on September 11th, discussing the current state of EV
charging and some of the challenges around that, but I'm sure we'll, I'm sure we'll find

some with that crew.

But, is there any other upcoming events or other ways that people can kind of follow you
and learn more about what you're working on right now, Steve?

LinkedIn's an increasingly good place.

it's, I can probably send you the link, but it's just Steve Birkett.

I have, a few projects on the way there.

I'm trying to track the pricing of, DC fast charging specifically, as we talked about
across the country and create a sample of, you know, the average prices month to month.

also pretty closely following the Neve progress or unfortunately lack thereof this summer.

It's a ground to a real halt.

So, I don't really have much to put in the monthly updates at the moment, but those are
the kinds.

of the things that I'm spotlighting and keeping my eye on at the moment.

Well, that's great.

I'll make sure to have links to that in today's show notes for people listening so you can
find more and follow Steve there.

With that, Steve, thank you so much for coming on today and we'll have to do this again
soon.

Yeah, absolutely.

Appreciate the opportunity to share.

Thanks, Chase.

Thank you for tuning into this episode of grid connections.

We hope you enjoyed our conversation with Steve Birkett from plug and play EV about his
epic 8 ,500 mile road trip in an electric vehicle across the U S it's clear that the

future of travel is electric and hearing Steve's firsthand experiences gives us a glimpse
into the exciting possibilities that lie ahead.

As a reminder to those listening in the San Francisco Bay area, I will be hosting the
Amazon recharge zone and electrify expo in San Francisco this weekend, August 24th and

25th.

If you'll be attending or in the Bay area, I want to meet up to talk about EVs or anything
grid related.

Hit me up.

You can either tweet at us or message on any of our social pages.

Leave a comment on the YouTube page for this video or email me at chase at connecting the
grid .com.

That's chase at connecting the grid .com.

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