Why is it so F'ing Hard

Prologue

A few years ago my daughter gave me a ride into the campus of MIT where I had been invited to do a podcast and share my thoughts on removing CO2 from the atmosphere as a way to mitigate the impacts of climate change. The invitation resulted from a paper I had recently published about using biogenic iron dust as a means of capturing CO2 from the air and storing it in the deep ocean, but that’s another story. We drove from Boston to Cambridge over a bridge across the Charles River. The bridge was old, probably from the 1800s or early 1900s with classic archietecture, but what struck me most was a beautiful set of brand-new bike lanes that had been set up on the bridge in both directions, well-marked, with minimalist barriers that clearly separated travel lanes for bikes, so almost anyone would feel safe riding their bike. The thought hit me, why was this brand new, and not 50 years old! I’ve been riding a bike for over 50 years.  I suppose I qualify as an early adopter of the first ‘bicycling craze’ of the 1970s, when riding a bicycle for pleasure and fitness became a ‘thing’.  Since then, bicycling has remained popular but waxed and waned, especially in terms of commuting and being a meaningful way of getting around without a car in urban areas, in no small part, because in American cities cars and trucks have remained the King, Queen, Prince, and Princess of transportation. What if, Boston/Cambridge and so many other urban areas of the US, but most importantly Americans themselves, had embraced the opportunity for using bicycles for transportation in the 1970s. There was no technology on the current bridge that didn’t exist 50 years ago, paint, a minimal barrier, today maybe it’s a modern plastic, then it could have been concrete or steel posts. High end bikes have changed dramatically, and electric bikes are new and really efficient, but it’s also not uncommon to see someone tootling around on a 50 year-old bike, way more common (and safe) than in a 50 year-old automobile.

The Maine Story

Two years ago, my wife and I bought a Chevy Bolt EUV. It’s been a fine car, great for commuting and local trips, other than the fact it’s a SUV (don’t get me started on why people are so enamored of driving SUVs that drive like pick-up trucks, instead of cars that drive like cars) the electric motor makes it fun to drive, great pick-up and quiet. A mechanical malfunction to our gasoline-powered car meant that this year we would drive the Bolt to Cape Cod for an annual vacation with family. This would be our first trip that required a stop for a re-charge enroute, in fact I hadn’t charged the car anywhere but at our house for over a year.

In preparation, the day before we left, I checked that the charging apps on my phone were up to date and even downloaded an additional one. As an added bonus, Chevy had just started offering a NACs converter that would allow our Bolt to use the Tesla Super Charger network, which is far more extensive than the fast-charging network for other EV’s. The night before we left, I charged the Bolts battery to 100% charge (normally it is recommended to charge to 80 or 90%), and found a nice surprise, the advertised range of the Bolt is around 280 miles, but after some use and in summer, it turns out a full charge is giving us a range of around 305 miles, maybe(?!?) enough to make it to the Cape on a single charge?

We set off on Friday afternoon and our first stop was the Chevy dealership in Portland where we purchased the Tesla converter. We then used the Plugshare app to find a Tesla charger in Danvers, MA, right next to a Texas Road House, a perfect plan to charge the car and go to the Texas Road House for dinner, two novel experiences in one! Siri took us right to the Tesla charging station, where there were 12 chargers and only three Tesla’s. Perfect, I would have time to figure out how to connect, and not feel pressured that other cars were waiting to charge. I pulled into one of the chargers and discovered problem #1, Tesla’s charge in the rear and the cars back into the charging stations, my understanding is that with Tesla’s self-driving, the cars can pretty much do this themselves. The Bolt has it’s charging port on the left front fender. The cord on the Tesla charger is only 4 feet long, designed to reach the rear charging port on a Tesla, but not quite long enough to reach front port on the Bolt, even after I moved the car another foot closer. This problem was solved by straddling two Tesla spots, I could just make the charger reached the charging port. I attached the Tesla adapter, and plugged in the Bolt. I then went back to the charger and assumed there would be some kind of interface that I could interact with to initiate charging. Wrong, Tesla follows the Apple and Google models of clean interfaces, in this case with nothing on the charging station but the cord. I assume that if you own a Tesla, it automatically communicates with the charger, but not with a Bolt. So, my wife and I began searching the internet for a solution, with all the frustration of two people who spent their formative years using black, bakelite telephones. I found a Tesla app and downloaded it, but after putting in credit card information, realized this was some third-party app, cleverly marketed in the App Store, that seemed to only locate Tesla chargers? I still don’t really know what it did, but was able to cancel it, before it started to charge me, instead of my car.

After 25 futile minutes, we decided to punt and find another charger, and went back to the Plugshare app that shows all available chargers. This being EV friendly Massachusetts, there were literally dozens within 15 miles of us; however, this made me fully appreciate that outside of Tesla Superchargers, how few high-speed EV chargers outside of the Tesla network actually exist. Most of the chargers shown were Level 2 (J1227) chargers, like the one we have at home. These are also referred to as AC chargers, designed to run on home current using essentially a 220v line at 30 Amps, fine for charging at home, but requiring 6 – 7 hours for a full charge, not so convenient for recharging on a long trip! Nonetheless, we didn’t need a full charge, an additional 50 miles of range would get us to the Cape with little stress. So, we ended up at a nearby Lexus dealer that had a couple of Level 2 chargers in the back, and after figuring out how to pay using the Chargepoint app, we went to a nearby Olive Garden for dinner. We did have a relaxing dinner, and spent some time walking through car lots and being impressed with car prices, nothing under 50K, making the Bolt, coming in at slightly over 20K with rebates, seem like a pretty good deal!

Once we reached out destination on Cape Cod, we spent more time researching how to charge a Chevy Bolt using a Tesla charger, and found it surprisingly difficult to get a clear answer, neither the Chevy App or the Chargepoint App were much help.  I watched an interesting 12-minute YouTube video on the in and outs of how the adapter for the Tesla to Bolt charging works, but still nothing on the practical bit of how you actually get electrons from the Tesla charger to the Bolt battery, and pay for those electrons. Nonetheless, with a bit more relaxed scrolling through the App store I realized that among the Tesla apps was an actual Tesla app, so I downloaded this, set up an account with user name, password, and credit card information. Meanwhile, we had also located a Tesla charging station at the local Stop n’ Shop, so Lucy and I drove down in the late afternoon (figuring this would be a time with less use), and once again by straddling two Tesla spots were able to plug the Bolt in, and watch it initialize charging, then nothing, even waving my Chargepoint card in my Apple wallet did nothing! A little more scrolling and sleuthing revealed the problem, not all Tesla chargers are NACs compatible, whatever NACs is (yes, I’ve already forgotten the detailed explanation in the 12 minute Youtube video), but apparently, it’s the standard for all EVs, except Tesla’s. The Tesla charger we were not compatible with the Bolt, NACs adapter or not. Foiled again!

A couple of days later I had to take a trip just off Cape, and by then had located a Bolt compatible Tesla charger in Hyannis, and planned to stop there on my return to charge the Bolt at high speed. The charging station was located conveniently only a few minutes off the Mid-Cape highway, and when I pulled in, there was a row of Tesla’s parked, sterns to their chargers, greedily sucking down electrons. Fortunately, there were three empty spots at the end, so I did what was now my routine of straddling two parking spots, hopped out, and with third time’s a charm confidence hooked up the charger, fired up the Tesla app, which helpfully said it was initializing, and this might take two minutes. Those minutes and another one or two went by and nothing, more scrolling, and then the recognition that the Tesla app was also informing me that chargers 1A, 1B, and 1C were not in service, I was parked at 1C and using 1B! No wonder the Tesla’s were all nestled in at the adjacent chargers. I got out, unhooked the charger, and moved down to the last empty spot, where a woman was just pulling out of the spot next to it, so I could hook up to her charger. Except, no sooner had she pulled out, than another Tesla pulled up, and smoothly backed in, driving itself, I am sure. An attractive young woman got out to plug in her Tesla. I suppose I could have hopped out a few seconds earlier and taken her charger, and I am convinced it would have worked, but feeling a bit like an interloper (and not a Masshole), I decided to once again accept defeat. I did comment to the guys sitting in the Tesla another spot over that I was being paid by the fossil fuel industry to do an advertisement on why no one should drive an electric car. I don’t think they were amused.

So, after another 36 hours of ‘trickle charging’ on normal house current, itself not the easiest of tasks at a house built in 1907, and another great family vacation in the books, Lucy and I were ready to head home to Maine with a nearly full battery. I figured we would stop near the Maine-New Hampshire border, for enough charge to get us home comfortably. We now had the app thing pretty well figured out, and located a compatible Tesla charging station near Portsmouth NH, about 5 minutes off of I-95, since, once again, high speed CCS chargers were a rare species. There were plenty of spots available at this Tesla station, and, lo and behold, this was a newer Tesla charger, that had a 6-foot cable, meaning I could reach the Bolts charging port without straddling two Tesla spots! So out of the car, put on the adapter, plug in the car, fire up the Tesla app and giddily wait to be bedazzled by the near speed of light charging experience. Except, it turns out, despite being in a densely populated area of the I-95 corridor in the most technically advanced country on Earth (seriously, that’s a Joke), we were in a Verizon dead spot, no cell phone service, no handy Tesla app, no electrons…Foiled (or Fooled?) Again!!!

Coda: After our fourth Tesla charger debacle, we did find a CCS fast charger, 25 miles further up the line at the I-95 rest stop near Kennebunk. I got a 3-piece signature chicken basket at Popeye’s, another first(!) that had only the kind of down-home Louisana kitchen corporate tastiness a cadre of food technicians in whitecoats could serve up. Thirty minutes later we were back on the road with plenty of juice to get us home, even driving a few mph over the 70 mph speed limit.

Post Coda: If you set aside the cost of the NACs adapter for Tesla chargers, I spent $15 to drive approximately 600 miles.

Post Post Coda: Normally I strap a double kayak to the roof of my Volvo, and bikes to the back. For this trip, those all had to stay at home, because a) the Bolt doesn’t have a roof rack, or tow hitch for a bike rack, and b) I think the bike rack might be OK, but the kayak on the roof would really negatively impact the EV’s driving range. Ask yourself how many times you’ve seen a Tesla, or any EV, with a roof rack or towing a trailer…

Now for the Rant.

When we bought our EV, we assumed that charging it on longer trips, would not be as convenient or easy as pulling into a gas station to ‘fill er up’. Still, we were not early EV adopters, and figured some sacrificial convenience was a reasonable trade-off for the benefits of owning an EV. We took this trip with a little pioneering spirit, and our Quixotic Tesla experience largely became laughable, since there were plenty of options, and we were on vacation, just a few of the ways we are so fortunate. Nonetheless, I do feel a deep sense of frustration as to why all this stuff has to be so F’ing hard. The Biden administration pledged several billion dollars and the promise to build tens of thousands of fast charging stations across the country in 2022, and by 2024 only a handful of these were operational. Tesla started off great, but hasn’t done JS for half a decade. Now the Convicted Felon is in office and is giving free rein to his cadre of backward visionaries. Meanwhile the rest of the world is moving forward with electrification of vehicles and everything else, it feel we are stuck in neutral, and the slope ain’t gettin’ shallower.  Perhaps it all comes back to that bridge across the Charles and bike lanes, brand new in 2022, but why not in 1972? Imagine then if folks then had taken to biking to work or for errands or just for the heck of it, to the point where there would be 20 or 30% less need for cars in most of our urban (and suburban) areas. It’s guaranteed there’d be fewer fat folks, more healthy folks, and less stress associated with getting around a congested area. Why does all this have to be so F’ing hard?

Some Practical points (in case No One who reads my blog find themselves in a similar situation).

Based on our experience it does seem the great majority of chargers that show up on Plugshare are Level 2 or J1227 chargers. The 2023 Bolt charges more slowly than most EV’s, and an hour charging on a Level 2 gave us around 60 additional miles. Plugshare does also show highspeed or DC fast chargers, e.g. CCS. The Chargepoint app seems to be the most useful one for actually paying to charge on the road, you sign up, add your credit card, place a ‘card’ in your Apple Wallet and then wave that at the charger to release the charger so you can begin charging. I’m not entirely sure what the EV Go app does, perhaps works only with EVgo specific chargers? It doesn’t list many charging stations, but could be useful in a pinch. Not sure how you manage with an Android phone, but expect it’s not too different.

Being able to use Tesla fast chargers is definitely an advantage due to Tesla’s relative abundance of charging stations. Once you have purchased the adapter to make vehicle NACs compatible and downloaded the official Tesla app and signed up, it is easy to use.  I think it also only charges your credit card for charging, unlike the other app I downloaded that has a monthly annual fee. So long as you enter your EV model the app will only show you charging stations that are compatible, how many chargers are in use, and will list any chargers at that station that are out of service, however, it doesn’t explain how to straddle two spaces to plug in the 4 foot cord if your charging port is on the front fender of your car.

Amateur driving tips. The Bolt, and I assume this is true of all EV’s with regenerative braking, does great in city and local driving, but not so well at highway speeds. When I set the cruise control to 75 mph on I-95 in Maine, I use a mile of charge for every 0.8 mile traveled, the car does show you the upper and lower mileage limits so you are forewarned. Driving at 65 to 68 on I-95 in Maine and Massachusetts, it definitely did better range wise. Interestingly, driving from Danvers on Route 1, then on congested I-93 through Boston, we used about 15 miles of battery to go around 25 miles. In reality, with the unexpected extra range charging the Bolt to 100% gave us, we could have made it to our destination on Cape Cod in one charge with conservative driving habits, but then we would have missed out on a delicious Olive Garden meal (and 22 oz beers)!