The Back Road From El Paso to Phoenix Is Better Than I-10 For EVs – CleanTechnica

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A week ago, I needed to take a quick trip from the region near El Paso over to Phoenix, Arizona. On most past trips out there in EVs, I’ve had to stick mostly to I-10. That’s where the EV charging all was, with stations in Las Cruces, Deming, Lordsburg, Benson, Tucson, and Casa Grande. The stretch between Lordsburg and Benson can be a little iffy in some EVs, as the V2 Supercharger in Willcox doesn’t support non-Tesla EVs, and won’t until V3/V4 upgrades are done.

But, before I got into road tripping in EVs, I almost never went through Tucson to get to Phoenix. Other than maybe Texas Canyon and Tucson itself, it’s a pretty boring drive. Maybe if you’re coming from east of the Mississippi for the first time, you’d find the desert scenery enchanting, but if you grew up in it, you eventually get to the point where you need more variety on your drive to stay awake. That’s why I typically leave the interstate either in Deming or Lordsburg and take the back roads.

Even for Teslas, going on US-70 and then US-60 was pretty challenging until recently. To get there, you’d have to fill up almost to full and then hope you have enough charge to go through Safford, Globe, and then Superior without running out of charge on any of the steep mountain segments or the rolling hills of the San Carlos reservation. Speed limits are lower, which helps, but the lack of charging along the way discouraged people from leaving the interstate in many cases.

In the last couple of years, things have changed, though. First, Electrify America set up a station in Globe, greatly shrinking the gap. Then, earlier this year, an auto dealer in Safford set up a charging station that’s open 24/7 across the street from the car lot with 160 kW speeds. This leaves only 70–80 mile gaps between chargers along the whole route. Even if you speed demon your way up every mountain pass, almost any EV can get through the area or even head off into the hinterlands on other routes.

This doesn’t meet NEVI specifications of four stalls every 50 miles or less, but it’s sure a lot better than what the route had before (RV parks).

Why Closely Spaced EV Chargers Mattered

As I’ve pointed out before, EVs need to hit their stride to maximize overall speeds down the road. While EVs can often go hundreds of miles now, charging to near 100% and then discharging down to almost zero doesn’t work out. Charging slows down at around 60%. It slows down even more at 80–90%. That last 5–10% above that can get as low as Level 2 speeds. Spending time charging over 60% usually means spending a lot more time doing that instead of driving.

So, ideally, you really need stations spaced about half of a vehicle’s range to get the most efficient trip.

But, that ideal 10–60% differs greatly from vehicle to vehicle. Every vehicle model has its own range, obviously. Then, consider that every car will be carrying different amounts of weight or dealing with things like roof racks, cargo boxes, skis, bikes, and such. Non-factory spec tires for off-roading, for better pavement performance, or for cost savings can also affect range. The different speeds people will drive along the same road can greatly affect range. Towing trailers can affect range even greater.

In the end, no two EVs driving down the same road are going to have the same 10–60% range. This is true even if two drivers pick the same speed and choose the same make and model of car, but even more true for the broad variety of people and cars going down the road.

To accommodate every EV at maximum speed down the road, we can’t have stations every 50 miles. We really need charging stations as closely spaced as possible. 20 miles would be great. 10 would be better. Every exit and every phone pole a coyote can piss on would be best, but that’s not happening, ever. However, we need to get things as close as we can get to keep everyone on their best stride and make opportunities available for people who are falling a little shorter than expected.

On my most recent trip, I found that this 70–80 mile spacing was pretty good, even if not perfect. For most of it, I managed to stick between about 15% and 60%, keeping almost perfect charging speeds (as much as is possible in a Bolt, of course) at every stop. Instead of spending over an hour charging, I was able to stop for only 20–30 minutes in most cases, saving a lot of time.

How It Could Have Been Better (Driving My Point Home)

With my tires (LTX truck tires) and at those speeds, I’d get about 200 miles on a full charge. So, my 10–60% range is about 100 miles. Having to stop 20–30 miles early meant that my stops were a little less efficient than they otherwise would have been, arriving at 15–20% instead of at 10%. This was good, but not great.

If I had my choice of station locations and could set the route up perfect for my vehicle (something we obviously can’t do in the real world), I wouldn’t put stations in Globe and Safford. For my personal needs, I’d put a station at Meg’s Place, a little country store in Fort Thomas, Arizona. That would be 97 miles from Lordsburg. The next perfect stop would be at the Arizonian RV Resort near Gold Canyon, Arizona, 99 miles from the country store. For the return trip from Phoenix, ideal stops would be at Cutter, Arizona, and Duncan, Arizona.

That alone means an ideal trip for me would require four special stations. For everyone else, the perfect distance can drop almost anywhere. So, ideally and within reason, covering this as perfect as possible for everyone would require stations in Lordsburg, Safford, Thatcher, Pima, Fort Thomas, Bylas, Peridot, Cutter, Globe, Claypool, Miami, Top-Of-The-World, Superior, and Gold Canyon. Or, in other words, every place a station could reasonably be put.

Most charging providers would rather put mega-stations with dozens of stalls in the larger towns, but what we really need are a few stations every few miles like old school gas stations, so that trip planning software can give everyone the best possible speed.

Featured image by Jennifer Sensiba.