L.A. to Vegas and Back by Electric Car: 8 Hours Driving; 5 More Plugged In
Most electric cars need to be plugged in after they’ve traveled 200 to 250 miles — a much shorter distance than similarly sized gasoline vehicles can run on a full tank — and charging them can take an hour or more.
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To better understand what life with an electric car is like, I hopped into a Chevrolet Bolt recently and traveled from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, a 540-mile round trip that many people make regularly.
The Bolt is the first in a lineup of electric cars that General Motors hopes to sell in the coming years.
The hatchback, which costs about $37,500 before federal and state tax breaks, can travel about 240 miles on a full charge, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
But for Bolts as for other electric vehicles, experts generally recommend keeping it 30 to 80 percent charged for optimal battery life.
I rode with representatives of EVgo, a company that is building fast-charging stations across the country.
On top of the eight hours or so that we were actually on the road, we spent close to five and a half hours charging the car.
In one case, the Bolt could not accept the fastest charging speeds from the most powerful units.
In another, the charger could not deliver the power as fast as the Bolt could accept it.
It could have been worse: We always found a charger available, though more than once we got the last one, and drivers arriving after us had to wait.
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On our way to Las Vegas, we met Alina Yamaeva, a 27-year-old law student from West Hollywood, Calif., who was napping while her BMW i3 charged at an EVgo charger behind a J. C. Penney at the Mall of Victor Valley in Victorville, Calif., on Interstate 15.
Her two-year-old car cannot charge as fast as more recent models — for each hour it was plugged in, the car’s range increased by just 10 miles.
All told, her i3 travels less than 120 miles on a full charge, though it also has a gasoline engine that can add 66 miles.
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Heading back to Los Angeles, we met Tiaerra Young, a Chevy Bolt owner, at the same station.
Though she was more satisfied with her vehicle, she was huddled under a blanket at 11 p.m. because it would take about an hour to charge her car.
Ms. Young estimated that it would take her and a friend a full day to get to Las Vegas from her home near San Francisco, a trip that would require about 10 hours in a conventional car.
“It’s been fun, though,” she said cheerfully, noting that they had watched three movies at their charging stops, including the Beyoncé documentary “Homecoming” and “The Emperor’s New Groove.
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Engineers haven’t created batteries that can store as much energy as a gas tank, or be filled as quickly.
While costs have come down a lot, batteries remain expensive, adding to the cost of the car, and they degrade over time, which means maximum mileage might decrease.
These cars have been held back partly by decisions that automakers and other businesses have made.
Companies have often gone their own way, rather than adopting universal standards.
Tesla, for example, has built more than 1,500 charging stations around the world, but they can fill up only Tesla cars; Teslas can generally be fueled at stations built by other businesses.
There is not a single standard for plugs, so some electric-car drivers have to carry multiple adapters.
Nor is there a single approach for how car owners pay for electricity, with some companies charging by the power consumed — as with a home utility bill — and others charging by the time spent at the charger.
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Charging on average costs $10 for about 200 miles, depending on the car, or about half the typical cost of gasoline for that distance, according to AAA.
Our experience was not as economical: We spent about $67 on electricity, perhaps $10 less than we might have on gas.
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All told, the United States has about 24,000 public charging stations, with an average of fewer than three charging posts.
By comparison, there are about 150,000 gas stations, some with dozens of pumps.
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Chargers are classified by how quickly they dispense electricity.
A Level 1 charger is about as fast as a standard wall outlet and can take a day or more to fill a car battery, depending on the model.
A Level 2 charger, akin to a 240-volt outlet used for dryers and other large appliances, can replenish a car battery in a few hours.
Level 3 chargers can achieve similar results in a fraction of the time but can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
The fastest Level 3 public chargers available fill up electric cars like the Chevy Bolt, Nissan Leaf or Tesla Model S in 30 minutes to an hour.
Later this year, Porsche will start selling a Taycan for $130,000 that it claims can be topped up in 10 minutes at newer, faster Level 3 chargers.
Companies like EVgo and Electrify America have begun installing such chargers.
But in practice, car chargers are often much slower than their advertised top speeds, especially when many cars are plugged in at the same time.
That’s because banks of chargers typically share a single power source.
John de Lancie, the Hollywood actor, didn’t realize that limitation until he recently showed up at Tesla’s charging station in Hawthorne, Calif., with his Model S for the first time.
When he arrived, one charger was available among eight stalls.
He was lucky.
Tesla owners have been known to wait an hour or more for a charger to open up.
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