An EV Road Trip This Summer Could Be Costly
Drivers might be more willing to take EVs on road trips, but high charging costs could put a damper on the fun, at least north of the border.
Or maybe not -- as with EV range, your mileage may vary.
CP24 News out of Canada brings us the story of a Chevrolet Equinox EV driver in Manitoba who needed to charge at a dealership while on a road trip. He was charged nearly $700 CAD for a little under two hours of charging.
The dealership claims it was upfront with the driver about its $5.99 per minute fee and an EV advocacy group wondered if the motorist got hit with higher fees for leaving his car there after it reached full charge, thus blocking a spot.
The dealer also expressed sour grapes about even having a charger -- the store didn't want to spend the money on one and claims to have never sold an EV.
This is a one-off incident and it appears to be a "he said, he said" situation in terms of communicating costs. But there's a lesson here for any EV owners who haven't road tripped before -- have a plan on where you'll charge in advance, and check rates in advance if at all possible. It would also be helpful if you can see if chargers are working -- I believe some apps indicate status -- before you go. A backup plan may be necessary.
With increasing ranges and shrinking fast-charge times, an EV road-trip is still possible. Just be ready to plan more thoroughly than you would with an ICE vehicle, confirm costs in advance, and be ready to adjust to any problems.
[Image: Chevrolet]
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Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.
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The cost of charging an EV is a fraction of that of an ICE vehicle. In most places in Canada, $500 of electricity gives you the same range as $2,000 in gasoline. That's for similar bottom spec vehicles.
I could write a better article using Grok in about 30 seconds, that actually includes things like the average cost of charging an EV in a given region.