Why most EV road trip planners are hot garbage and how I actually travel
If you buy an EV because you want to save the world, you’re going to absolutely hate road tripping. I’m serious. If your primary motivation is some lofty environmental goal, the first time you’re stuck at a broken charger in a rainy Target parking lot at 2 AM, you’ll be ready to trade the car in for a 1998 Suburban. You have to love the tech, or at least the challenge, because planning a long-distance drive in an electric car is still a bit of a dumpster fire.
The night I almost slept in a Scranton Walmart parking lot
It was February 2022. I was driving my Chevy Bolt from Philly to Syracuse. I had used the built-in Chevy navigation, which told me I’d have 15% battery left by the time I hit the fast charger in Scranton. What the car didn’t account for was the 18-degree headwind and the fact that I had the heat cranked to 74 because I’m a wimp. I pulled into that Walmart with 2% battery. The car was in ‘reduced power mode,’ which is basically the automotive equivalent of a heart attack.
There were four chargers. Two were dark. One had a ‘handshake error’ every time I plugged in. The last one worked, but it was capped at 17kW. I sat there for three hours eating lukewarm Beef Jerky and watching a guy try to fix a shopping cart wheel. It was miserable. I felt like a total idiot. That was the moment I realized that relying on the car’s internal brain is a recipe for disaster. You need a real road trip planner for ev travel, not just a map with some icons on it.
The only app that actually works (even if it looks like Windows 95)
I’ve tried everything. PlugShare, Google Maps, Apple Maps, the proprietary crap that comes with the car. They all have issues. Google Maps is getting better, but it’s still way too optimistic. It thinks every charger listed is actually functional. It’s not. It’s a lie.
The only tool I actually trust is A Better Routeplanner (ABRP). I know people will disagree with me because the interface is cluttered and it feels like you’re looking at a flight controller’s terminal from 1994, but the data is just better. It lets you input your specific car model, the outside temperature, and even how much extra weight you’re carrying.
What I mean is—actually, let me put it differently. ABRP is for people who want to know the truth, even if the truth is that your trip is going to take two hours longer than a gas car. Most other apps try to sell you a fantasy. I’d rather have a grumpy app that tells me I need to stop three times than a pretty app that leaves me stranded in Scranton.
Planning an EV trip is like trying to solve a Rubik’s cube while someone throws cold water in your face. It requires a level of patience that most people just don’t have.
Why I refuse to use Electrify America
I might be wrong about this, but I’m convinced the people who run Electrify America actually hate electric cars. I know, I know—they have the biggest non-Tesla network. But I actively tell my friends to avoid them if there is literally any other option. I’ve had a 40% failure rate with their stations over the last 14 long-distance trips. Forty percent!
- The screens are always sun-damaged and unreadable.
- The cables are heavy enough to kill a small animal.
- The “Plug & Charge” feature works about as often as a solar-powered flashlight.
- I once spent exactly 42 minutes waiting for a 350kW charger that was actually outputting 34kW.
I’ve started looking for EVgo or even those weird local utility chargers. They might be slower, but at least they usually turn on. If a road trip planner for ev tells me to stop at an EA station in the middle of nowhere, I usually manually reroute to find a backup. It’s paranoid, but it keeps me moving. Total garbage.
The math you can’t ignore
I used to think that the goal was to charge to 100% every time. I was completely wrong. That’s the rookie mistake that adds hours to your trip. The “charging curve” is the only thing that matters. Between 10% and 60%, my car sucks up power like a vacuum. After 80%, it’s like trying to fill a water balloon through a cocktail straw. It’s pathetic.
My rule now is the “coffee and pee” rule. I stop when I’m at 10-15%, I plug in, I go get a coffee, I use the restroom, and I leave the second the car hits 65% or 70%. I’d rather stop twice for 20 minutes than once for an hour. It feels faster. It keeps the blood flowing. Anyway, I digress.
One thing I’m still uncertain about is pre-conditioning the battery in the summer. Everyone says you have to do it to get the best speeds, but I’ve done the math on a few 90-degree days and I honestly couldn’t tell the difference. Maybe my car is just old. Or maybe the “experts” are just repeating what they heard on a forum. I don’t know.
A few things to keep in your trunk
If you’re going to do this, don’t just rely on the software. The software can’t help you when the charger’s cellular modem is dead. I keep a few physical things in my sub-trunk that have saved my ass more than once:
- A Tesla-to-J1772 adapter (for destination chargers, not superchargers).
- A heavy-duty extension cord (the 12-gauge stuff, don’t use the thin orange ones).
- An actual physical credit card because NFC readers on chargers fail constantly.
Is EV road tripping better than gas? No, not really. Not yet. It’s more work. It’s more stressful. But there is something weirdly satisfying about pulling into your driveway after a 600-mile run knowing you did the math right. It feels like you cheated the system, even if the system is currently held together by duct tape and buggy firmware.
Will we ever get to a point where I can just drive without checking three different apps before I leave the driveway? I honestly don’t know. Part of me thinks the infrastructure is getting worse as more people buy cars and the maintenance doesn’t keep up.
Buy a Tesla if you want it to be easy. Buy anything else if you want an adventure. Just don’t go to Scranton in February.
If you buy an EV because you want to save the world, you’re going to absolutely hate road tripping. I’m serious. If your primary motivation is some lofty environmental goal, the first time you’re stuck at a broken charger in a rainy Target parking lot at 2 AM, you’ll be ready to trade the car…
