How an EV fares on a long road trip
Americans love road trips. But can you use an electric vehicle for a long highway drive? Snowbirds heading south for winter? A thousand miles with the family to Disney? Or does recharging the battery add a prohibitive amount of time to your trip?
Those are threshold questions for many people to consider EVs, so I just drove from Detroit to Nashville, Tennessee, and back in a 2023 Mercedes-Benz EQE luxury sedan. The EQE has the latest features for route planning and charging.
About 1,100 miles round trip, my drive relied on major interstate highways countless people use every day.
It worked. Not flawlessly, but the issues I encountered are fixable – related to charging stations, not the vehicle.
The EQE is just hitting the market and has the best combination of hardware and software to enable a long drive, with efficiently timed charging stops. It performed flawlessly.
The charging network was another matter, but despite some shortcomings that must be addressed I was able to complete my drive in only slightly more time than it takes in gasoline vehicles.
None of my impressions apply to Tesla, which has the best, fastest, most reliable and extensive network of chargers. Tesla created the model for convenient, reliable charging. The rest of the auto industry is playing catch-up.
Mercedes is investing about $1 billion in a network of North American DC fast chargers. It plans to have more than 400 by 2027. They’ll be open to all EVs, but Mercedes owners can reserve a charger in advance and get a reduced rate. That, a similar plan by General Motors and government infrastructure support should increase the number of DC fast chargers markedly. It can’t happen fast enough, as my drive proved.
What I learned
● Yes, you can use an electric vehicle for long highway trips.
● Charging is more frequent than gasoline fill-ups, but it added less time than I expected – probably less than an hour over more than 570 miles in my one-day return home.
● Many more DC fast chargers are needed.
● New chargers should be located in busy, well-lighted places, with security and amenities.
● Charger reliability is unacceptable. I frequently saw several vehicles waiting because of inoperable chargers, but I never saw anyone stranded.
● Chargers should have roofs to protect users from the elements.
● Setting the Mercedes’ adaptive cruise control to 73 mph, the speed of prevailing traffic, consistently increased my range beyond the route planner’s projection.
●Don’t trust third-party websites that promise your hotel has a charging station.
● EV owners are happy to share their experiences and compare notes.
A car that thinks ahead
A good EV route planner is like a chess player, or a racer trying to set an opponent up for a pass on the next lap: It thinks several steps ahead.
That’s why when I left home with a fully charged battery, a popup in the 12.6-inch nav screen told me my first
charging stop would be in just 38 miles, before I even got to the Ohio line. I studied the route information and saw that stop would be for just 12 minutes, to goose the battery from 82% to around 99% charge.
Why? Because I’d need that extra juice to reach the next the next recommended DC fast charger on my route, in Mason, Ohio, where I’d charge briefly again to get enough power to reach a fast-charging 350kW kiosk in Cincinnati.
I grimaced, set the adaptive cruise control for 73 mph, the prevailing speed on I-75 southbound and resigned myself to what seemed like a ridiculously short first leg. The point of this trip was to test the route planner, not second-guess it before the first stop.
But, lo and behold, the readout for the car’s predicted state of charge at that stop began rising, a percentage point at a time. Before I was halfway to the first predicted stop, it had increased enough the nav system determined that stop was no longer necessary. My first stop was now in Lima, Ohio, followed by a longer stop in Cincinnati. The number of projected stops for the 567-mile drive had decreased from four to three.
At each stop in the EQE, my remaining charge was slightly more than the route planner had predicted. That, in turn, reduced the time I spent at each station.
While my charging stops were more frequent than driving a gasoline vehicle, DC chargers, particularly the increasingly common 150-350kW ones, charge faster than most people think, and unlike a gas pump, you can leave for a cup of coffee, restroom or stroll while you charge.
Charging stations on major highways should be in places with 24-hour amenities, Wi-Fi, restrooms and more. When they offer that, more drivers may look forward to charging breaks, as I came to.
There’s also frequently no shelter from the elements, and stunningly poor reliability compared with gas stations. Time and again, one or more chargers at a stop didn’t work.
I watched a Chevrolet Bolt EUV owner huddle under his umbrella as he plugged into a 350kW charger in front of the Corvette Museum. The kiosk’s small roof of solar panels provided no shelter from the driving rain.
I had to drive several miles from the highway for every charging stop. I also learned that third-party websites – in this case, Reservations.com – shouldn’t be believed when they say a hotel has EV charging. Call the front desk to be sure.