PART 1.  HISTORY

Choir directors aren't supposed to talk about cars, but I keep getting asked about mine. About a year ago, I went to a book signing at my old school in New Jersey. Staying in New York, I needed to rent a car, and the local Avis in Manhattan had a deal on an electric vehicle for the day. I'd never driven an electric vehicle before, so when they handed me the keys to a Hyundai Kona Electric, I was nervous about charging.  I'd heard all kinds of horrible things. But the person at Avis assured me that it was so rare that anyone rented this car that I could just bring it back with a low state of charge. Combined with my all-access toll pass, how could I lose? I drove down to Princeton and on to Lawrenceville for the book signing and was amazed at how much more I looked at the scenery rather than worrying about if I had enough power.

Mount Lassen National Park - another EV test

In July, 2024, I took a trip during my sabbatical to Lassen Volcanic National Park.  By now, I should mention, that my Ford Focus ST - the manual transmission version - was having serious problems.  It had a constant set of error codes repaired many times to no avail, strange messages in the driver display at startup after it rained, and after stalling out on one of the Houston freeways, I just didn't trust it anymore.  Once again, it was far cheaper to rent an EV than a gas car, so I thought I'd give it a try.  

PART 2.  BUT WHY an EV?

This is my own personal experience.  I would never tell anyone to get a different car than what they enjoy, or what would be most needed for them. I got an EV - more than anything else - because I enjoyed the ride.  I love driving big vans and SUV's and have often driven box trucks and all kinds of gas cars, but this works well for me.   I'm writing this because I get a lot of legitimate, curious questions.

Why I bought it:

• Big back seat (I have three dogs and one is a great pyrenees!) that can be turned into a large cargo area, capable of carrying a 10' board or two.
• Convenience of not having to visit gas stations (had cc info stolen several times at those pump swipe things)
• Fast acceleration - the biggest reason
• Ability to see out the windows (my focus was a death trap; it had massive blind spots)
• The price (this is a budget EV)

PART 3.  Frequently Asked Questions...

I always get these questions:

• How far does it go on one charge?

EPA says 259 miles on one "full" charge.  I have no clue what that means.  I never drove a gas car to empty except when I had that old buick where the gas gage was broken.  My own experience is that I can get between 270 and 300 miles on one charge if I drive only in the subdivision or on city streets.  On the highways in Houston, I might get 250 miles.  On 80 MPH Texas highways, I'm looking at about 210-230.  If I run the heat, drop that number down to about 200.  The A/C doesn't seem to mess with the range much.

• How long does it take to charge?

I use a Level 1 (120V) charger.  If I went from 0 to 100%, it would take days.  But I don't normally drive 300 miles in a day.  I only usually travel maybe 20-25, sometimes maybe 70-ish if I go into town, so I always have a full battery every morning, or I might only charge every 2-3 days.  If I go into downtown Houston, I come home and plug in the car, and by morning have a battery that is full - all on my slow, Level 1 charger.  A Level 2 (240V) charger will fully charge from zero to full after about 9 hours - overnight.  A level 3 charger (more than 240V with a lot of amperage of direct current) can charge to 80% from zero to 80% in a little over an hour.

• How do you stand the long wait?

Again, I don't drive nonstop.  I plug it in when I get home and leave the car plugged in while I sleep.  I never visit a DC fast charger (level 3) unless I'm on a road trip, and have never really felt range anxiety.

• What do you do when road tripping and have to charge?

I have lots of fun information about this.  I recently drove to New Mexico to visit Ruidoso and Cloudcroft.  Keep reading.

• How long will your battery last?

I have a brand new battery that had been replaced 2 months before I bought the car (June, 2024).  It's a Lithium-Ion battery with 66 kilowatt-hours of capacity.  It has an 8 year, 100,000 mile warranty.  My OBD scan tool says it has no degredation.  I've been told (but have no personal experience about this) that these batteries should last about 20 years and are then recycled into batteries for other, smaller things. 

1. Change the cabin filter, check the tires, add winshield washer fluid.  That's it.  Maybe buy some new windshield wipers.

That's all I had to do.  There is no oil to change.  There is brake fluid, power steering fluid and coolant, but those don't get changed very often.

2. I can charge in my garage and - this is important - with an electrical circuit that is mostly unused at night.

This was important for me because I knew I didn't want to spend the money to install a new 240V charger in my garage, which would require running an expensive set of wires from the back of the house to the front.  However, I did wire a plug with a GFCI on my side of the garage.  I also use a hose hanger to hang my cable when I'm not home.

3. I almost never charge outside of my garage unless I'm going out of town.

Last month I spent about $54 in charging for the car, minus a nighttime credit of $7.  In my old Ford Focus, I had to use high-test gas, so when I filled up every week, it generally cost me about $45.  My power company provides reduced EV Charging rates at night - about $7 off that $54 last month (so a total of $47 for a month).  Most of the time, I come home, plug in my car, and forget about it.

4. I bought a few things to make out-of-town trips easier.

As a GM car, the Chevy Bolt can access the Tesla supercharging network.  This makes it really easy to plan road trips.  I bought an A2Z NACS to CCS adapter. The other ones of high quality were the backordered GM adapter and Lectron.  I also bought a cup-holder phone mount.

5 An OBD scanner really helps on long road trips

One of the apps, A Better Route Planner, uses an OBD2 scanner to monitor route progress and makes suggestions about charging stops.  It will constantly adjust, too, based on the current state of charge.  It's not perfect, but it works extremely well for road trips.

Part 5. How did I road trip? (and would I again)

In January, 2025, I took a road trip to Ruidoso, New Mexico. Since this was my first "real" road trip, I planned meticulously, but I didn't need to.

My public charging experiences

I learned a lot from watching YouTube videos about the Bolt, reading about EV charging and going to the chevybolt.org forum.  I started with Google Maps, then used ABRP and PlugShare. These are wonderful apps to figure out if the trip is doable.  I worried about finding enough chargers to use, especially after watching videos, but my experience was there were plenty of chargers available, even in West Texas and Southeastern New Mexico.  I had heard there were no chargers aside from interstates, but that was not my experience.  Most of my journey didn't involve interstates at all, and it was winter.  On my trip across Texas, there were plenty of chargers available with the exception of the supercharger in Hamilton, TX, a small town on highway 36, between Temple and Abilene.  On that route, there are few other options for charging.  When I arrived, all of the other stalls were full, and I had to creatively reach the spot.

Creative Parking

As I said, sometimes I had to park creatively, inching up close to the charger until I was certain the cable would reach.  (Chevy dealer in LaMesa, TX, another angle of the supercharger in Hamilton, TX, Electrify America in Eastland, TX.

Other times the cables reached with no problem. (EVGo in Tye, TX - the only covered charger, Francis Energy in Artesia, NM, Francis Energy at Hotel Ruidoso in Ruidoso, NM)

On one occasion, there were even waffles. (Roasted Rooster Coffee & Waffles, Las Cruces, NM) and at several places there were Dennys.

Good and bad charging

One helpful item at these public chargers were RFID cards.  Though there are lots of networks, many of them have RFID readers that make the initiation process faster and easier.  Francis Energy, Chargepoint, EV Connect, and Shell all have RFID cards, as do other networks.  EVGo has a plug-n-charge feature, which is also helpful.  Others are in-app only.

The chargers that worked most consistently so far were Chargepoint, Tesla, EVGo and Francis.  The only one I had problems with on this trip was an Electrify America in Eastland, TX, where I had to change stands.  Though I didn't have any stops at Shell Recharge in this trip, I have consistently had trouble with their app and starting a charge with them, but they are redesigning the app right now.  Every time I've been at Shell Recharge I've had to use a credit card so far.

Yes it is a lot of apps, and that stinks.  Most do have credit card readers, but I'm just as happy to use the app.  One other thing: despite what some of the chargers' screens instruct, in every case I took out the cable, plugged it into my car, and then began the process to initiate the charge.  The cable is large and unwieldy, but I've found (especially at night) to start at the bottom of the plug and it fits beautifully. 

Conclusion.

Refueling is not as fast as a gas car, and so it's not the fastest road trip car.  But I *rarely* road trip.  Yes, public charging does take longer.  

The price - both for the car and the fuel - was right.  Charging was much cheaper than gas, and if I'm not in a hurry, I'd do it again.  But I have to stress, most days I never ever take my car to a Level 3 fast charger.  I go to work every day with a fully charged car come home, plug my car in, and leave it alone until I go out again.

Would I do another EV road trip?

Absolutely!  I love to travel, and if I can fly somewhere, rent an EV and drive (looking at you, Monument Valley) then I'm doing it.  Of course it was an adjustment, but it was a lot of fun.