Faster Charging Doesn’t Help As Much As We Think – CleanTechnica

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If you look around on social media, people have a lot of bad to say about the Chevy Bolt. It charges slower than most EVs these days, and with its charging curve, it’s not uncommon to spend an hour at a charging station. Plus, some people are in the habit of charging them up to 100% instead of just getting enough charge to get to the next charger, leading to even longer time spent hogging up a stall. While there are nuts like me who use one to tow a trailer 4,200 miles, most EV fans online tell you that Bolts are basically unusable for road trips.

But what we haven’t really seen is what happens when a Bolt goes head to head against what most people consider the gold standard for EV road trips: a Tesla. Now we have that, because The EV Geek on YouTube tested to see how much time driving a cheap EV really loses you.

They start out at Franklin’s Charging in Little Rock, Arkansas (a place I’ve written about before). The goal? To do the “southern sprint” from Little Rock to Austin on their way to the Electrify Expo. It was obvious who would win this “race,” with the Model Y having faster charging, greater range, and likely access to some V2 Superchargers that the Bolt can’t use. However, the question was whether it would make a huge difference or a small one.

Really, the difference in range wasn’t that much. By EPA rating, the Model Y has a range of 288 miles, while the Bolt (non-EUV) has an EPA range of about 260 miles. Most Superchargers are open to the Bolt now (via adapter). So, it’s mostly going to come down to charging speed! 55 kW vs 250 kW (maximum) is a big deal, but, altogether, how much?

There were some rules. They weren’t trying to do an actual Cannonball-style race, so both cars were limited to 5 MPH over the limit. In Arkansas, that’s mostly 80 MPH, while in Texas, it’s pretty much the same. They used GPS speed and not necessarily car speedometer for that. The drive for both started at exactly 9:00 AM with 100% charge.

For trip planning with ABRP, the Bolt had an estimated trip time of about 10 hours, with 3 charging stops over the 500 mile trip. The stops were predicted to be somewhat long, as there are very few places to charge and there was very little choice. The Tesla’s trip plan (via in-car trip planning) was very similar, with three shorter stops in basically the same places. The predicted time was about 8 hours and 45 minutes.

Because they were both aiming for about 80 MPH, the cars stayed pretty close together. As they were leaving the Little Rock metro area, the cars were side by side after the Bolt got behind in traffic, making for a pretty even “race.” Both cars got pretty decent efficiency, as it was a cloudy day and not too cold. One challenge the Tesla driver ran into was that his car’s range was greater than his bladder’s range (something most people in EVs know happens, especially with kids), and he had to stop at a rest area for a quick break.

As they got into Texas, the rain started, cutting some range and efficiency and necessitating lower speeds for safety. This would have put the Tesla in range for a charger further away, but they decided to not try that. The rain continued into Texarkana and on to New Boston, Texas. The Tesla driver went for the Nash Supercharger, while the Bolt driver went for a charger 20 miles further.

The first stops weren’t bad at first. One time waster came up right away in Nash, Texas, when the first charger wouldn’t work for the Tesla (something people hate on Electrify America for). It took re-parking and plugging back in to get it going. The Bolt driver stopped at a travel center, where he found a mostly empty Supercharger. His worked on the first try (via the app). Unfortunately, after trying to charge for a few minutes, the Tesla driver found that the Supercharger was going slow, so he went on to New Boston, too, hoping for a faster charge and meeting up with the Bolt driver.

By the time they left New Boston, the Tesla’s faster charging speed more than made up for the bathroom break, and they were headed out for Royse City to charge at Buc-ee’s. They both decided to use the Supercharger station there instead of giving ChargePoint and Mercedes-Benz a chance (something I’ve done that worked out pretty well). At this point, the Tesla was pretty far into its charge, putting him leaving at about the time that the Bolt was pulling in. But it wasn’t long before the Tesla got stuck in Dallas traffic.

When the Tesla showed up at the second charging stop in Abbott, he chose to not stay very long because the station was very full and he didn’t need very long to get to the next one. When the Bolt got to Abbott, the station was actually full, and he didn’t think he had enough of a charge to get anywhere else. He figured out that he could get to an Electrify America station instead of waiting (and watching two Teslas cut him in line), so he bailed and went to Walmart, where he found that half of the stalls were dead and the working ones were all in use. They figured that the extra charger traffic could be due to Electrify Expo.

The Tesla’s last stop in Temple, Texas, was at a station with a mix of V3 and V3/V4 charging stalls. By this time, he was a ways ahead of the Bolt and only needed a 10 minute stop. To avoid needing more stops, the Bolt driver stayed at the Electrify America station for long enough to get the 93 miles needed to get to the next charger.

All in all, the Tesla took 10.5 hours, with traffic and weather causing the extra 1.5 hours of time along the way. Exactly an hour later, the Bolt driver showed up to the hotel, and that was after dealing with a 35-minute charging wait in Waco.

Final Thoughts

Ultimately, the trip time wasn’t really all that different between the two vehicles, despite the Tesla having a huge theoretical advantage. Even with problems both vehicles experienced (including a Supercharger with problems), a difference of only an hour really isn’t the big problem people say it is online. But, getting the performance out of the Bolt required some knowledge of EV charging and the use of two apps, while the Tesla handled most of the thinking for the charging.

When you consider that a Bolt like the one in the video can be had for as little as $15,000, it’s hard to say that it’s a clear choice. For many people, the used Bolt is all the EV they can afford, so it makes no sense to tell people that they’d be better off with an fossil fuel car than the Bolt.

Featured image: a screenshot from the embedded video.