Page 58 - Motor Trend (April 2020)
P. 58
Electrify America “pumps” can be
activated via app, Apple Wallet, or a
credit card swipe; at right, Seabaugh
manhandles the bulky CCS charger.
Despite room elsewhere, a CX-5 and C-Class were parked in EV charging spots.
In the old days of electric vehicles,
TIME AND
leaving L.A. via the 43-mile-long Grape- TRIP ENERGY
MONEY SPENT MILES ENERGY ADDED EFFICIENCY REFUELING TIME COST
vine was a daunting obstacle that would
bleed off battery range. Not the case here. Kona 1.6T actual 514.6 17.15 gal (572 29.3 mpg 10 min $63.03
I lost 67 miles of range on the 30-mile kW-hr equiv)
climb, still had 155 miles left at the 4,144- Kona Electric actual 514.6 168.63 kW-hr 102.8 276 min (L3) $140.97
foot summit near Gorman, and gained mpg-e
back 12 miles on the harrowing 13-mile Optimal L3 charge plan via ABetterRoutePlanner.com 205 min (L3) $98.60
plunge into the San Joaquin Valley.
After a sole half-hour stop near Bakers- Optimal L3/L2 charge plan via ABetterRoutePlanner.com 94 (L3) + 466 $82.90
(L2) = 560 min
field, with me snacking at an Electrify
America station and Reynolds at a Taco Reference, Level 2 home charging for similar distance 575 min (L2) $25.87*
Bell, both the Kona Electric and 1.6T
*Assumes $0.1534/kW-hr average California residential electric price
arrived no worse for the wear 4 hours and
25 minutes after we’d set off. Ducking but the electric one would do it cheaper
an illegally parked non-electric Mazda and more efficiently. As my high school
CX-5 and Mercedes-Benz C-Class (no Army JROTC instructor, Sergeant Wayne
respect!), we plugged the Kona Electric Atherton, was fond of asking, “You know
into Paso Robles’ sole remaining free what happens when you assume, right?”
Electrify America fast charger space, Our over-reliance on Electrify America
charged the battery to full—in retrospect stations, which charge a $1 session fee It would break with the spirit of our
an expensive decision—and went off to plus a per-minute fee based on the charge story, but a little planning would’ve gone
brim the gas Kona’s tank and grab lunch. rate your vehicle is capable of accepting a long way. Although there’s no app avail-
The return trip, this time with me (which in our case works out to $0.69 per able for other EVs as easy to use as Tesla’s
in the gas Kona and Reynolds in the minute for up to 125 kW) to fully charge Trip Planner (because it’s built into Tesla’s
electric, went much the same as the the Kona’s battery is largely to blame for infotainment system), free websites like
first—uneventful. Although I missed the the massive cost—especially because EV ABetterRoutePlanner.com show that we
electric car’s smoothness and quietness, charging rates slow significantly once a could’ve easily saved $40 or so if we’d fast
I didn’t hate getting back to L.A. about 90 battery exceeds 80 percent capacity. charged the Kona’s battery only enough to
minutes before Reynolds, whose 5.5-hour Our two times charging to 100 percent get us to our destination and then opted
journey included a stop at an Electrify were blow-out expensive, Reynolds said, for slower Level 2 charging overnight at
America station to charge and grab a late calling the decision “stupid” in retro- our hotel. Hindsight and whatnot.
lunch—and heavier late-day traffic. spect. Per-minute charging by Electrify
With both cars re-energized, the America and EVgo puts a preposterous
gasser from our local Chevron and the penalty on charging to 90 or 100 percent, As with all things, both gas and electric
electric from an EVgo fast charger across particularly Electrify America, which has powertrains have their compromises. The
the street from our office, we started to higher dollar-per-minute rates. former offers a less refined experience,
crunch the numbers to see how much “Our loosey-goosy planning exposed is generally more expensive to run day to
time and money we’d spent on the trip. how eye-wateringly expensive minimal day around town, and pollutes more. But
The results surprised us. We’d assumed planning can be if you choose to travel there are refueling stations everywhere.
the gas Kona would do the trip quicker across Electrify America’s network,” The latter is generally more expensive
Reynolds said. “The Kona Electric cost us up front, will cost more to travel with,
A half hour to over double what the gas version did to do requires some planning before embarking
add 30 percent basically the same trip—even while using
charge to the
Kona’s battery far less energy. This is completely upside
is pretty quick. down from the usual situation where the
We found EV is about half the cost per mile of a gas
the onboard
charge meter car, based on far cheaper home charging.
to be dead-on If we fumbled like this all the way across
accurate.
the country, we’d be broke by Brooklyn.”
