>by time you pop in somewhere to use the bathroom and grab a coffee or snacks you're pretty much good to go.
I really think these comments are just EV driver rationalization. You really spend 30-45 minutes at a rest stop on road trips? When we take road trips we spend almost no time stopped. Even if we're eating, it's in the car. I can't even imagine stopping multiple times for 30-45 minutes to recharge, that is not the same as "going to the bathroom and grabbing a snack". That takes like 5 mins tops, the rest is just wasting time you could be on the road.
45 minutes is only if you are trying to charge over 80% which you don’t actually want to do. Unlike gas tanks that have a consistent fill rate, batteries are like a sponge where near empty the charge/fill rate is much much faster than when it’s nearly full. 20% to 80% is about 10 /15 minutes depending on how new the super charger station is. This gives you about another 3 hours of normal highway driving or so depending on conditions like temperature, 70mph+ and how hilly/windy the drive is. However, if you time the stop around meal times then you can take 45 minutes to charge to fill while you are eating at a restaurant.
Sadly, it is true most non Tesla chargers are terrible and require you make an account/give up personal information first and are not maintained well. Tesla does as well but the stations are maintained and the account signup happens when you buy the car so you just plug it in and charge.
There needs to be a just a pay and fill chargers like gas pumps but that doesn’t fly with todays VC vultures.
Electrify America was built by Volkswagen as punishment for the diesel scandal. They have zero interest in maintaining them.
> 45 minutes is only if you are trying to charge over 80% which you don’t actually want to do. Unlike gas tanks that have a consistent fill rate, batteries are like a sponge where near empty the charge/fill rate is much much faster than when it’s nearly full. 20% to 80% is about 10 /15 minutes depending on how new the super charger station is. This gives you about another 3 hours of normal highway driving or so depending on conditions like temperature, 70mph+ and how hilly/windy the drive is. However, if you time the stop around meal times then you can take 45 minutes to charge to fill while you are eating at a restaurant.
Great so instead of just filling to 100% and using that until it runs out now I have to think and plan the next few hundred miles and charge accordingly.
So you're stopping every 3 hours for 15 minutes? So a 10 hour road trip includes 45 minute waiting for your vehicle to charge? And that assumes the chargers are immediately free. That sounds horrible to me.
I think the point is that one group of people is imagining a change and saying, “That change will be intolerable!” And then another group is actually experiencing the change and saying, “Hey, it’s actually pretty good.” You won’t know how you really feel about it until you try it yourself, and speculating about the second group won’t net you any benefit.
20 minutes every 6 hours is absolutely minimum for me, if not more often. That’s to stretch, relax, walk around. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t do that. But this is in Europe where distances are smaller.
The mental gymnastics these people do to make themselves feel good about waiting longer to fuel up their EVs to go shorter distances vs filling up ICEs is impressive.
I'm not ready to drink the Kool-aid. Give me an 800 mile range EV. Then and only then will I not care if it takes an hour to charge to 100% because I'm unlikely to be able to drive farther than that in a day. I've had to drive nearly that distance once and it was miserable and I'll never do it again without breaking it up into overnight stays at a hotel.
Seriously? If I take a shit, it's more than 5 minutes itself. Waiting in line to buy coffee or a donut, let alone eat (I guess if you are in a real hurry eat in your car, but don't you want a break???). Just doing a lap of the parking lot to stretch my legs. Even if that's just 25 minutes, that's still quite a bit of charge. That said I'll still choose a bus or train over a car trip any day I can, but yeah..
I really think these comments are just EV driver rationalization. You really spend 30-45 minutes at a rest stop on road trips? When we take road trips we spend almost no time stopped. Even if we're eating, it's in the car. I can't even imagine stopping multiple times for 30-45 minutes to recharge, that is not the same as "going to the bathroom and grabbing a snack". That takes like 5 mins tops, the rest is just wasting time you could be on the road.