My 2017 Chevy Bolt during a 2,400-mile round-trip road trip from Denver to Santa Barbara parked at a rest area in Vail, Colo. in the Summer of 2018.

What happens when EVERYONE has an EV and is on a road trip at the same time?

Christof Demont-Heinrich
Editor's blog
EVgo solar canopy EV charging station
A Chevy Bolt fills up at a DCFC station complete with a solar canopy. What happens when instead of 1% of people driving EVs, we have 100% — what will the long-distance road-trip look like?

This article, “The fastest way to get more people to buy electric vehicles: America’s EV charging station infrastructure is woefully lacking,” by Vox reporter Ella Nilsen, which focuses on how sufficient (DCFC) charging infrastructure is crucial to more widespread EV adoption, got me to thinking ==>

Honestly, when I really reflect on a time when 100% of vehicles on the road are plug-ins, and I think about all those people wanting to do road trips, and I think about charge times, and rude people and lack of charging etiquette, and lack of sufficient charging, well, I just can’t even wrap my head around it, and even I begin to wonder if it is possible to service millions of people doing simultaneous long-distance road trips in BEVs.

I certainly don’t want to head out on a road trip from here in Denver to Santa Barbara, where I drove my Chevy Bolt in Summer of 2018, knowing that I might face hours-long waits just to cue up for a DCFC station because tens of thousands of people are heading along the same interstate corridor that I am in BEVs at the very same time and also need to plug in for 30 to 60 minutes every 200 miles.

My 2017 Chevy Bolt parked in front of the Pacific Ocean at sunset after successfully completing a 1,200-mile journal from Denver, Colo. to Santa Barbara, Calif. in Summer 2018.

Who wants to be doing that — duking it out for charging spots, waiting in long lines, worrying about people unplugging you when you go to lunch, etc.?

Seriously, what does this all ACTUALLY look like if EVERYONE is road tripping at the same time in an EV, millions of people across the United States?

Have we EV advocates really actually, truly contemplated this in a real way and moved our minds beyond the present we are currently in where, say, 1% of road trip drivers are doing DCFC vs. 99% tanking up with gasoline to a time in which 50%, 75%, 100% of drivers on a road trip are doing DCFC?



Can we, with a straight face, tell non-EV drivers this is all going to work out, absolutely no problem? And if we do, on what empirical/concrete basis are we claiming it will all work out?

What do you think: Is it going to work (right away), or we going to be (inevitably?) going through a time of a lot of frustration and exasperation when we move from 1% of Americans with EVs to 20%, to 50%, to 75%+ with literally millions of them wanting to do a long-distance road trip at the very same time?

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Christof Demont-Heinrich
Christof Demont-Heinrich is founder, creator and editor of SolarChargedDriving.Com, which he launched in September 2009. A journalism professor at the University of Denver (DU), Demont-Heinrich is a lifelong environmentalist who loves to bird, hike, camp, and bike. As passionate as he is about the environment -- and about promoting the synergy between solar power and electric cars, he is equally passionate about writing.

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11 Responses

  1. “Tesla has implemented, and controls, the largest proprietary EV charging network in the world and it continues to expand globally on a regular basis. Even when a new (and very compelling) electric vehicle comes to market, one of the first flaws most Tesla owners will point out is the lack of a charging network.”
    Reference source, read the full article here:
    https://insideevs.com/news/464386/tesla-supercharger-map-update-stations-timelines/

    We cannot think of the answer to the hypothetical situation posed in the question using our current mindset. In reality if in fact everybody has an EV then it is logical that everybody will have a home charging station. Which means that your relatives and friends will have 240 V chargers in their garage or out front of their house. And in 35 years there will be batteries that don’t need to be charged for perhaps a 1000 miles. So as we see the problem growing, in reality technology will shrink the problem so it’s not an issue at all.

    And my personal view is that everything above is correct.
    When I bought a Tesla, I didn’t buy a car from a car company, I bought a car from a tech, software, hardware and most critically a global energy and energy distribution company.
    I think they are in their field standing alone.
    1st they built a network and then they built the cars. Precisely what an intelligent company would do

    Reply

    1. Yes, I think the home charging situation will be robust — but will still be a challenge for 1/3 of people who don’t have easy access to a garage, live in apartment buildings, etc.

      But I still foresee some serious potential for some serious bumps in the road vis-a-vis long-distance road trips and thousands and thousands of people having to charge every 200 miles across heavily travelled interstate corridors during peak travel weekends, holidays, etc..

      I’d like to see a hard-core, detailed analysis of, say, traffic flow from I-95 in Boston to Washington, D.C. on Thanksgiving weekend that looks at how many vehicles are traveling simultaneously, how far each one is likely to go and what it would take for an interstate DCFC station infrastructure to handle 25% of total traffic switching from ICE fueling to EV fueling, 50%, 75%, 100%.

      It really seems to me that we are still relatively clueless about what this all will look like because we are still operating in a situation in which 1% of vehicles, tops, are BEVs. There’s a huge difference between 1%, 5%, 10%, and, of course, 50%, or 100%.

      I expect many more instances like this one — https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7755753/Chaos-California-Tesla-drivers-stranded-hours-half-mile-long-line-charge.html

      Reply

      1. I am more optimistic based on what I see and my own experience. The Daily… article is 2 years old and is not representative of 99% of our experience. There will be so many new technologies with batteries that the problem will never materialize by the time there are so many electric vehicles.
        Besides, Tesla is producing these small temporary portable superchargers to address the issue further. See link below.
        If anything would contribute to the hypothetical problem its the other manufacturers who are sitting on their haunches and not creating the infrastructure that Tesla is. That’s the real problem.
        Hopefully pressure from Tesla’s progress will force them out of their comfort zone and they will contribute to the overall infrastructure that we might need. But I really think battery development will pre empt the problem. My personal experience is that and when I pull up to a supercharger station in Albany New York there’s 20 superchargers and I’m the only person there. I’ve never experienced contention for a supercharger traveling around the North East for almost 3 years.

        https://www.tesla.com/it_IT/blog/supercharging-cities

        Reply

        1. Excellent points.

          However, I still say that at less than 1% of total vehicles on the road right now, the kinds of experiences we are having at charging centers, especially Tesla ones, are not representative of what could be coming down the pike. I still have considerable fear about it.

          I should get out on another road trip in my 2020 Chevy Bolt! Maybe in August I will try to road trip somewhere if I can. First hand experience is anecdotal, I know, but it would be helpful.

          It would also be interesting to do a story where I survey many different EV owners with extensive long-distance road trip experience to see what they have experienced. I am especially interested in non-Tesla EV road-trip experiences. Not sure I will have the time to do that. I have not really done a “real” interview-based article on SolarChargedDriving.Com for several years now. Only blog entries.

          Reply

          1. Actually everyone should be indebted to your Solar Charged Driving blog simply because it reflects a forward thinking positive attitude about how to make our world a better place, it is educational, and shows a clear path to making it so using means that are available to almost all of us. Teachers of science and technology could direct students to your articles and essays as thought starters to get them thinking of things they could build or do to explore how they can bring some aspects of sustainable living to their own home or community. Even if it means bugging their parents to put in some solar arrays on their home or shed or garage or purchasing a used EV.
            What reasonable kid with even the mildest interest in their ecological future would not want to build a cool project…an electric go kart or an electric operated airplane or a solar powered cellphone/tablet charger or a wind generator made from an old ceiling fan?
            A solid academic and technical education K – 12 (which is fun and inspiring) is the key to a future-minded adult population who will gleefully act on great ideas and enter the future right here and now. Our future depends on inspired parents inspiring and engaging their children…. helping them find books and science as opposed to helping them find the remote control for the TV or the video game controller. Instead of America’s got talent or the voice, why don’t we see ” America’s got some really smart kids who work real hard, do their homework, and make progress In epidemiology, medical Science, and Technology” Sports Hero worship for bouncing a ball? How about bouncing our economy to a whole new level??
            I know I’m not the only person that thinks like this and I personally know kids that grew up and are responsible for inventing drugs and vaccines that keep us alive. I just wish I knew more of them.
            It begins in the mind and ends in the state of the environment and the world.
            In psychology they call this “early imprinting for later action.”
            Let’s get those “later actions” planted now through formal education and parental enthusiasm.
            Keep up the inspiring work!

            Charge and live long!

      2. I am so enthusiastic about sustainable EV use I can’t stop thinking about all the ways it is getting better. Every month I see more and more of every brand…and smiling faces of their owners. I really believe that it is something unique to electric vehicles… smiling faces and people so enthusiastic that they will bend your ear for half an hour if you just ask them a simple question such as “how do you like your brand electric vehicle?”
        When I bought my Tesla Model 3 Long Range and I stopped at different Superchargers in the northeast, although I never had a problem with crowded super charging locations, I always had this dread in the back of my mind that when more people bought Teslas my easy access without waiting would abruptly come to an end. I might get stuck not being able to use a Supercharger because of a long line of people trying to get their charge or broken, vandalized, or ICE’d Superchargers which would adversely impact the timing of my trip.
        I attached a link to an article showing progress in Brand built, owned, and managed charging infrastructure. Now we have Level 3 Superchargers which will charge up to 1000 miles per hour of charge time. This effectively doubles the capacity right off the bat.
        This is evidence of this one brand’s commitment to the philosophy of continuous improvement to forestall charging contention for a future drivers. If you want to sell electric cars to make the world a better place you gotta do the hard work of creating the infrastructure.
        I wish that all brands of EVs would create charging networks that will give owners of those brands unfettered access to their fuel. I look forward to seeing V3 Tesla Superchargers in my area but I know they’ve rolled them out in high congestion areas. So it is with great optimism that I look forward to every vehicle on the road being electric and having batteries that have ranges greater than 500 as some already do.
        Charge and Live Long!
        https://www.tesla.com/blog/introducing-v3-supercharging

        Reply

        1. Glad to hear your optimism! I am not saying my pessimism is correct. But, again, I think we cannot really say with any degree of certainty what long-distance EV charging will be like, especially off the Tesla network, when we go from less than 1% of vehicles on major highways using DCFC stations to even 5%, much less 20%, 50%, or 75%. I’d love to see an EV media outlet with more time do this story do a story on this.

          Interview charging experts, if they exist, who, for instance, have actually calculated IF 20%, 50%, 75% of traffic along a given interstate corridor went from ICE fueling to DCFC fueling, what would the density and number of DCFC chargers need to be to accommodate all of that new/extra traffic, ideally, without massive wait times and huge lines.

          I do worry about the latter scenario. That would be an incredibly HUGE turn off to average people who made the ICE to EV switch, average people, not hard-core EV advocates like you and me who are willing to rough it out for the “cause.” 😉

          Reply

          1. With just a quick search I was able to find some encouraging data from the US Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration which shows current travel trends.
            For household-based travel, short trips account for the vast majority of trips. Over half of all vehicle trips are between 1 and 10 miles. However, these short trips account for less than one-third (28.3 percent) of all household-based vehicle miles travelled. So there may be contention for charging for those who do not have “at home” chargers. But even a 120 Volt extension cable will charge my car at around 5 miles per charging hour. That would be 60 miles per night which would handle most local commuters easily.

            Conversely, trips of 100 miles or more account for less than one percent of all vehicle trips, but nearly 15 percent of all household-based vehicle miles. which lead me to believe the problem of charging station contention for long trips, if it develops, will only effect less than 1% of our trips. To your point, this could still be a problem for people making a purchase of a car built by a company which does not support away from home charging network that allows the car itself to navigate to the charging station, tells you how long you will have to charge and makes range anxiety and trip planning a totally non issue. Just get in , set the destination, and go…no worries. Only one company does this that I am aware of.

            Data Source: U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, Office of Highway Policy Information, National Household Travel Survey.

            ( see https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/pubs/pl08021/fig4_5.cfm. )

  2. Hi Richard,
    Thank you for your kind words about SolarChargedDriving.Com. I have been feeling lately that I have been letting people down by only doing a few blog entries every now and then rather than, say, a story that looks at the issue of DCFC charging density needed to allow for a seamless road trip experience when 5, 15, 25, 50% of people on long-distance road trips are driving EVs. Or a story looking at the significance of K-12 environmental education, which I TOTALLY agree, is the single MOST IMPORTANT thing we can, and MUST, do in order to effect massively needed change in the United States, and around the world, surrounding human beings’ relationship, and understanding of their relationship, to the natural world in which they live, and of which they are part!

    Reply

  3. I will also make the assumption that building out capacity isn’t going to be a problem. Electricity distribution is relatively easy, compared to distributing petroleum fuel to a station. I think we still have to consider how easily Tesla built its network over the years, and how it has improved vehicle charging to the point where savvy drivers can average 50-60 mph with charging stops over long distances. We can also look at Norway for a sense of what’s required. Battery technology is also improving, Tesla will soon offer 500 miles of range. I think today, for non-Tesla vehicles, the road trip charging experience is still a hurdle to widespread adoption.

    Reply

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