First Time EV Owner: Live experience report

[R1TVT]

I have ZERO RFID cards for DCFC chargers. I usually initiate the charge from the App (not the terminal) at EA chargers. You might have better luck if you try initiating directly from the App.

You plug in first (I believe) then choose the charger from the EA App (if you haven't tried that already), although I am going by pure recollection and have not been to an EA charger since last summer.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

I regularly use EA when I travel. I don’t think EA sends out an RFID card. I’ve never used a card for any network.

To get the EA subscription discount at a charger, these are my steps:

1. Turn off any VPN on the phone;
2. Open the EA app and find my location on the map;
3. Select the correct charging station;
4. Select the charger by ID, which is usually on the front of the post;
5. Select start charge;
6. Plug in the charger to the vehicle;
7. Race to get lunch, eat lunch, use the restroom, etc., before the charge is done;
8. Enjoy the discount

If the internet connection is flakey, the transaction can sometimes time out.

I have had some luck opening the app and waving the phone at the RFID terminal on the charger when the internet connection fails. But I don’t use the Wallet apps, so sometimes this doesn’t work.

If all else fails—which is rare for me—you can just use Plug-And-Charge. Afterward, you can sometimes get a good Customer Service Rep who will refund you the discount amount. You usually have to get on the phone with them, so I rarely do this. You need to keep a record of your charge session. Take a photo of the total cost and session screen on the charging post. Make sure you include the time and date and the charger ID.

 

[strider]

I have ZERO RFID cards for DCFC chargers. I usually initiate the charge from the App (not the terminal) at EA chargers. You might have better luck if you try initiating directly from the App.

You plug in first (I believe) then choose the charger from the EA App (if you haven't tried that already), although I am going by pure recollection and have not been to an EA charger since last summer.

Using the app worked for @Logan most of the time but he reported at one charger there was no cell service so couldn't access the app.

 

[Logan]

I have ZERO RFID cards for DCFC chargers. I usually initiate the charge from the App (not the terminal) at EA chargers. You might have better luck if you try initiating directly from the App.

You plug in first (I believe) then choose the charger from the EA App (if you haven't tried that already), although I am going by pure recollection and have not been to an EA charger since last summer.

Yep, this is the method I’ve settled on using so far.

Plug in, open app, find charger, click “start charge”, and away we go.

Using the app worked for @Logan most of the time but he reported at one charger there was no cell service so couldn't access the app.

Yep, this was it. Super remote charger, tiny town (a one gas pump at a general store sort of place), and no internet reception.

I bit the bullet and went ahead and paid the money with the card reader. I just wasn’t able to confirm where any other chargers were within range. And given it was only my third stop, I didn’t know how far I could push it. (Was at 27%??).

 

[R1TVT]

I bit the bullet and went ahead and paid the money with the card reader. I just wasn’t able to confirm where any other chargers were within range. And given it was only my third stop, I didn’t know how far I could push it. (Was at 27%??).

Nice knowing even when you bite the bullet for a card without your member discount, your trip is still going to cost way less than a gas trip!

 

[BeerParty]

I regularly use EA when I travel. I don’t think EA sends out an RFID card. I’ve never used a card for any network.

<snip>

I have had some luck opening the app and waving the phone at the RFID terminal on the charger when the internet connection fails. But I don’t use the Wallet apps, so sometimes this doesn’t work.

I have been using EA for over two years; I was not aware of a RFID card, I though that was only available via a phone.

I always try the sensor approach first. I open the app on my phone, plug in my car, and then hold the phone in front of the sensor panel on the charger cabinet. That's always been the fastest way to initiate charging for me. I don't even have to select the charging location on the EA phone app, it just works. I have had to revert to using the EA app when the phone sensor approach doesn't work, but that has been rare.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

I have been using EA for over two years; I was not aware of a RFID card, I though that was only available via a phone.

I always try the sensor approach first. I open the app on my phone, plug in my car, and then hold the phone in front of the sensor panel on the charger cabinet. That's always been the fastest way to initiate charging for me. I don't even have to select the charging location on the EA phone app, it just works. I have had to revert to using the EA app when the phone sensor approach doesn't work, but that has been rare.

One of the reasons I use the app is that sometimes my vehicle responds to the plug-in event too quickly and starts charging before I’ve had a chance to activate my subscription.

It would be nice if vehicles could securely hold your account information for the various subscriptions so P&C just worked with subscriptions. Ford was developing that capability, but I haven’t heard anything useful since they announced their tax scam…er write-down.

 

[J Alynn]

I have been using EA for over two years; I was not aware of a RFID card, I though that was only available via a phone.

I always try the sensor approach first. I open the app on my phone, plug in my car, and then hold the phone in front of the sensor panel on the charger cabinet. That's always been the fastest way to initiate charging for me. I don't even have to select the charging location on the EA phone app, it just works. I have had to revert to using the EA app when the phone sensor approach doesn't work, but that has been rare.

Learning so much! Had the Lexus now for well over a month and still getting by on trickle charge. Realized the park less than half mile away has an EV Go charger and still holding at $.25/Kwh so in a pinch we can run there to do a full charge vs trying to trickle over night if something comes up

 

[N Wilson]

One of the reasons I use the app is that sometimes my vehicle responds to the plug-in event too quickly and starts charging before I’ve had a chance to activate my subscription.

It would be nice if vehicles could securely hold your account information for the various subscriptions so P&C just worked with subscriptions. Ford was developing that capability, but I haven’t heard anything useful since they announced their tax scam…er write-down.

This is something I am thinking about as I prepare to embark on a cross-country road trip later this month. i plan to get memberships with a few of the networks to get the discounted pricing, but I know that if I use Plug and Charge through the Ford app, I won't get the discounts. Wondering if I should temporarily disable P&C while on the trip so as to make sure I get the discounts?

I recently watched an episode of State of Charge where Tom was interviewing the head of Walmart charging division about the buildout of their charging network, and they discussed the issue of P&C convenience vs network discounts. Apparently it's being worked on to be able to get the discounts through manufacturer P&C programs, but it's not a reality as of today.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

This is something I am thinking about as I prepare to embark on a cross-country road trip later this month. i plan to get memberships with a few of the networks to get the discounted pricing, but I know that if I use Plug and Charge through the Ford app, I won't get the discounts. Wondering if I should temporarily disable P&C while on the trip so as to make sure I get the discounts?

I keep it on, but only because I’m lazy.

 

[Logan]

Made the return trip last night.

We made the ~830 mile drive with only 4 stops. I used the built in navigation guidance with built in charging station selection this time (although did check with ABRP).

I did have one segment of the trip that got more exciting than intended, where I thought we’d be rolling up to the charger with like 1%, but it turned out better than anticipated, with 11% left.

We had charged in Boise ID up to 92% (eating and getting snacks/medication at the Walmart). We were cruising at about 80mph for 2.5hrs, and it was telling us to charge in La Grand OR. But when we got to La Grand, we still had 32% charge, had already done 170 miles on the first 60% charge, and thought our next stop was in Pendleton OR, which is only another 40-50 miles past La Grand. So we skipped the stop, and pressed on.

Then we found out that the next charging stop that was available was actually in hermiston OR, instead of Pendleton. And that was a total of 75 miles or so past our first stop. And our minimum range on the guess-o-meter was a few miles less than the distance to the charging station in Hermiston.

I slowed down, and drafted more, as we headed up the long slow incline out of La Grand, and that climb of a few thousand feet kept me sweating about if we’d have enough charge to make it to the charger. But the route planning navigation still said we’d be ok, and my mental math and knowledge of the upcoming terrain had me pretty sure we’d be ok.

After the long gentle climb there, you come down “deadman’s pass” into Pendleton. It’s 6 miles of 6% grade. That downhill gave us a pretty constant 15-45kw of regen power, and almost 3% charge back. And once you’re down, there is still a fairly downhill elevation profile for miles.

We rolled into the charging station in Hermiston with 11%. I was wishing for a bit more emotional support battery, but it was fine. And this is now the longest distance I’ve done on a charge at speed on the highway (the time included 15-20min of waiting with the ac on while the wife and kids got stuff in Walmart), and is the lowest SOC I’ve ever gotten the vehicle to.

The other observation this time was how much better the efficiency was. My avg efficiency for the trip, was about 2.7 miles/kwh. And my avg speed was pretty high, in the 75mph range. But the overall elevation profile of this trip was from ~4500ft in UT, down to -~500ft where I live in WA. Plus, it was decent weather, and not tons of wind (but not no wind). Also the drive was earlier in the day with more traffic, so I could draft a bit more .

 

[Logan]

I keep my trip meters to the 10k mile limit, just because I like seeing long term stats.

But we hit the 10k limit about 1/4 the way into the drive. And when I took the photo here last night as I got home, all of this mileage and drive time was our trip (the least efficient part too). And you can see we hit 2.7 miles/kWh.

Way better than the trip out where I was at 2 miles/kwh for the last two stops in ID.

 

[strider]

Thanks for the follow-up! Glad to hear the internal nav worked well. Though did you figure out why it got the one charging site wrong?

 

[Logan]

Thanks for the follow-up! Glad to hear the internal nav worked well. Though did you figure out why it got the one charging site wrong?

The missed charging station in Pendleton?

My wife was co-driver on this trip, and she was less familiar with the various apps I was trying to use last time (the electrify america app, plugshare, ABRP).

In this case, she was looking at ABRP, and seeing if we'd have enough charge to reach the next charging station, but she hadn't put in different charging network to avoid/prefer, so it was simply showing the next available places to charge were in Pendleton, so she reported to me that was the next stop. And since the Hyundai nav stuff seems to only show you the currently selected charging stop, I didn't realize that we weren't going to hit Pendleton, until we were already past La Grand.

But, this is a user error. And, in this case, we were totally relying on a single charging network. I knew we could reach Pendleton, but wasn't sure we'd make it to Hermiston. But once we got down the pass, I knew we'd be fine, and could carry on.

Worst case I was going to look for other public chargers in Pendleton (or turn around and return to La Grand) So I wasn't really worried about being "stranded", but wasn't quite sure for a while where we'd actually end up charging, or what state of charge we'd be at.

For a moment I did really expect to be low single digit percentage. But 11% was more than fine.

 

[J Alynn]

Made the return trip last night.

We made the ~830 mile drive with only 4 stops. I used the built in navigation guidance with built in charging station selection this time (although did check with ABRP).

I did have one segment of the trip that got more exciting than intended, where I thought we’d be rolling up to the charger with like 1%, but it turned out better than anticipated, with 11% left.

We had charged in Boise ID up to 92% (eating and getting snacks/medication at the Walmart). We were cruising at about 80mph for 2.5hrs, and it was telling us to charge in La Grand OR. But when we got to La Grand, we still had 32% charge, had already done 170 miles on the first 60% charge, and thought our next stop was in Pendleton OR, which is only another 40-50 miles past La Grand. So we skipped the stop, and pressed on.

Then we found out that the next charging stop that was available was actually in hermiston OR, instead of Pendleton. And that was a total of 75 miles or so past our first stop. And our minimum range on the guess-o-meter was a few miles less than the distance to the charging station in Hermiston.

I slowed down, and drafted more, as we headed up the long slow incline out of La Grand, and that climb of a few thousand feet kept me sweating about if we’d have enough charge to make it to the charger. But the route planning navigation still said we’d be ok, and my mental math and knowledge of the upcoming terrain had me pretty sure we’d be ok.

After the long gentle climb there, you come down “deadman’s pass” into Pendleton. It’s 6 miles of 6% grade. That downhill gave us a pretty constant 15-45kw of regen power, and almost 3% charge back. And once you’re down, there is still a fairly downhill elevation profile for miles.

We rolled into the charging station in Hermiston with 11%. I was wishing for a bit more emotional support battery, but it was fine. And this is now the longest distance I’ve done on a charge at speed on the highway (the time included 15-20min of waiting with the ac on while the wife and kids got stuff in Walmart), and is the lowest SOC I’ve ever gotten the vehicle to.

View attachment 16420

The other observation this time was how much better the efficiency was. My avg efficiency for the trip, was about 2.7 miles/kwh. And my avg speed was pretty high, in the 75mph range. But the overall elevation profile of this trip was from ~4500ft in UT, down to -~500ft where I live in WA. Plus, it was decent weather, and not tons of wind (but not no wind). Also the drive was earlier in the day with more traffic, so I could draft a bit more .

So glad it was another good experience

 

[Logan]

I’m sorry to hear about your mother in law. My dad has been fighting Stage 4 Bile Duct Cancer for three years now. They originally gave him a year, but the tough old bastard keeps fighting. Prayers to you and your family!

Sorry, this got buried as I was busy handling life/help/support for the sibling and the funeral.

We got the official diagnosis for my mother in law after a PET scan a week ago or so. Still a bit more to check (MRI to check if it spread to the brain), but even without that, its looking like < 12 months. Potentially another 11 months (oddly specific number of months) if she decides to try a new non-chemo treatment, and potentially a fair number less if its in the brain (hence the MRI being scheduled).

Was great to see everyone at the funeral, love my family, they're all great.

But simultaneously having this on the other side wasn't great.

We will be traveling back out for the reunion on my wifes side of the family here in 5 weeks. Now we just need to check to see if we want to drive the Ioniq 9 again, or go with the Tucson and its normal gas experience.

The argument for the Tucson is less brain thinking for the road trip. The argument for the Ioniq is more interior space (between kids, as well as storage), and the ability to have its own wifi hot spot so we can do more streaming of video/whatever the kids do to entertain themselves

We actually had a sweet setup for kid entertainment this trip. A 18.5in portable monitor powered by USBC ports on the seats, suspend between the front seats and then a Nintendo Switch for games, and a tablet with for video. Felt quite fancy.

 

[cyure]

Sorry, this got buried as I was busy handling life/help/support for the sibling and the funeral.

We got the official diagnosis for my mother in law after a PET scan a week ago or so. Still a bit more to check (MRI to check if it spread to the brain), but even without that, its looking like < 12 months. Potentially another 11 months (oddly specific number of months) if she decides to try a new non-chemo treatment, and potentially a fair number less if its in the brain (hence the MRI being scheduled).

Was great to see everyone at the funeral, love my family, they're all great.

But simultaneously having this on the other side wasn't great.

We will be traveling back out for the reunion on my wifes side of the family here in 5 weeks. Now we just need to check to see if we want to drive the Ioniq 9 again, or go with the Tucson and its normal gas experience.

The argument for the Tucson is less brain thinking for the road trip. The argument for the Ioniq is more interior space (between kids, as well as storage), and the ability to have its own wifi hot spot so we can do more streaming of video/whatever the kids do to entertain themselves

We actually had a sweet setup for kid entertainment this trip. A 18.5in portable monitor powered by USBC ports on the seats, suspend between the front seats and then a Nintendo Switch for games, and a tablet with for video. Felt quite fancy.

View attachment 16457

I’m so sorry to hear about your mother in law. She’s in my prayers in this difficult time.

 

[Logan]

I’m so sorry to hear about your mother in law. She’s in my prayers in this difficult time.

Thank you very much, I appreciate the generosity/support from you all (internet friends ).

Both her, and the rest of my wifes family have been having a tough time. I actually think my MIL is struggling to process things right now (maybe a protection mechanism??). But as mentioned, we may end up traveling more than intended this summer.

 

[cyure]

Thank you very much, I appreciate the generosity/support from you all (internet friends ).

Both her, and the rest of my wifes family have been having a tough time. I actually think my MIL is struggling to process things right now (maybe a protection mechanism??). But as mentioned, we may end up traveling more than intended this summer.

Just travel safe.

 

[Logan]

Oh, also.

We actually drove quite a bit while we were there. We put 3600 miles on the vehicle in 3 weeks. All the charging was either DC fast charging, or L1 charging.

What it was like:

We were able to charge with our portable L1 charger most of the time we were parked at my Siblings home during the day + at the in laws overnight. However, we couldn't keep up with the usage using just L1 charging.

We were getting ~15-20hrs of charging a day, and each hour was worth ~3 to 3.5 miles of range. So we were getting 45 - 70 miles per day of "free" charging.

However... we were commuting 130-150 miles per day, back and forth from the in laws home, to my siblings home. So we periodically had to supplement our L1 charging with L3 DC fast charging, every few days.

Cost summary:

Since I did all of my fast charging at Electrify America, with their charging pass, I have pretty much all of the charging information/costs in one place (discounting the one charge from 27% - 50% in Huntington Or, and there was a networking error in Hermiston OR, and its not showing up yet).

It has a clunky way of exporting, but I got the data, and it appears that for the trip, we spent $391.95 in fast charging expenses.

We successfully mooched all the L1 charging for "free" (the relative tax/benefit I guess).

Comparison:

I haven't bothered to do an in-depth analysis of the price I'd have paid to drive our other vehicle yet.

But the back of napkin/inaccurate number based on is 3600 miles/30mpg (what it gets with a bike on the back, at 80mph), and using ~$4.25/gal avg gas price we saw while we were there (this isn't counting the gas in OR and WA that is still up in the $5.20-6.20/gal range), it shows it would have cost us $510.

Given, our other vehicle is a PHEV, and we would have gotten better than 30mpg around town, assuming we could charge it up every day (which would have dropped the cost), but I ALSO didn't account for the mileage driven through WA/OR at higher gas prices (which would have increased the cost). So for a quickn'dirty math number, I'm ok with it.

Conclusion:

On this trip, at these high gas prices (which came down a bit while we were there), our 3 row electric SUV, was cheaper to "fuel" than our 2 row hybrid vehicle, by about ~23%.

And yes, this math does absolutely include me "stealing" electricity from my in laws/sibling for a lot of that. And yes, that would make the math a lot closer. I'm too lazy to figure out how much that would cost, but given their $0.10/kwh cost there, and the slow pace of L1 charging, I don't think it would close the gap.

Also keep in mind that the vehicles we're comparing, are very different in size. One is ~200 inches long (Grand Highlander sized), with 3 rows, while the other is 183in long (Rav4 sized) and only seats 5 passengers.