Anyway, my class reunion was in Atlantic City and I decided to take the Ioniq 5. I was really interested in what a road trip using fast DC charging would look like. I had ridden with my sister in her Tesla Y from South Jersey to Buffalo and back and had gotten a good taste of Tesla Superchargers. But, for the CCS world (most all non-Teslae), would it be as easy?
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| Sheetz in Stephens City, VA |
Short answer - yes.
Here's the long answer.
The trip is 780 miles total. I split it into two days, roughly 500 miles on the first day and 230 on the second. Actual dwell is from my Google Maps data. Charging time is from charger data that is kept on the charger app on my phone.
I only used Electrify America chargers because the Hyundai comes with two years of free EA juice.
Here's the data on the trip up.
So, that's 8 stops for a total of 2:44 dwell. Comparing it to a trip in 2021 in our old Audi Q5, we had six stops for a total of 1:08. The EV "cost" about 1:30 over the ICE car in this case. Note that this is LESS than the 1:56 "plugged in" time because a good chunk of that was unattended - getting food, restroom, etc.
Also, charging at the hotel avoided a trip to "fill up" as the battery charged while the car was parked.
The trip back.
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| Sheetz in Wytheville, VA |
That's 7 stops for a total of 1:38. Comparing it to an Audi Q5 trip in 2021 with 5 stops for 1:07, the EV "cost" about 30 minutes. Being familiar with the whole charging routine and never having to wait for a charger helped a lot. The reason the return trip had fewer KWhrs at fast DC chargers is that I arrived in NJ with about 80% battery, but arrived back home with only 20%. Having a charger at home makes things easy.
The Hyundai route planner is actually pretty good. Just pick you destination in the Navigate screen, allow it to include EV chargers, and it'll pick a route and plan the charging stops.
Done? Not quite. Those stops might not be at the charger brand you prefer - i.e. "free" Electrify America - and they might not be soon enough for a "bio-break".
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| EA charger at Walmart in Cordele, GA currently has 4 of 4 chargers available |
No problem. First, filter on the charger type you want from the EV screen settings prior to having the navigation system plan the route. Then, you can see the first charging stop. Pressing "more" brings up a list. By selecting "route", the list will populate with all the chargers in route order.
You can choose one and add it to your route. The route will replan from there. I used this feature in lieu of the Rest Stop tab on the maps screen to plan my next stop.
It worked very well.
Some other features. You can see in real time, the number of chargers at the location and how many are available. This seemed to be very accurate and it did not show "broken" chargers as available. It doesn't do any en-route prediction like Tesla, because it has no idea how many non-Hyundais might have the charger in their route. You can get a good idea of how popular your next charger is by watching the available charger number and planning around it with an earlier or later stop.
Other notes.
I would only charge beyond 80% under two conditions. Nobody waiting and it would be tactically helpful to my driving. It's generally not worth it as the charging speed tapers off rapidly after 80%. At 90% the rate is down to 40-50 KWs.
With free charging, I saved over $200 in fuel on this trip. But, if I'd have had to pay the going EA rate of 56 cents per KWhr, it would have cost me about $200. EA is on the expensive side, and some of the other networks are much cheaper - something to explore when my two years of free EA is up.
My driving was very much off-peak, yet I had to wait for a charger a couple of times. Hyundai isn't the only car company giving two years free at EA. I imagine this will get easier as the "free" EA plans expire and the Tesla Supercharger network opens up. (First quarter 2025 for Hyundai.) There is a lot of chatter about "broken" chargers. I found that about half of the locations had one charger down or some part of it not working exactly right. This is better than I expected - you often see gas stations with some number of pumps down...
The Hyundai and Kia claim is "10 to 80% in 18 minutes" (or 3.9% /minute) ... I came close once at 3.75%/minute. Generally, I managed about 2.7%/min on 350 KW chargers. How much did that matter? Not a bit. I generally plugged in, went to the rest room, came back and was done or only had a few minutes to go. Hardly enough time to check my text messages! I really didn't much care if I plugged into a 150 or 350KW charger.
There is a charging time trade off. If you trip requires X minutes of charging, It really doesn't matter much if you do it infrequently at long intervals or more frequently at shorter intervals. Twice for 10 minutes is the same as once for 20 minutes. The difference is the time it takes to exit the highway and get to the charger. Fortunately, all the chargers I visited were almost immediately off a highway exit - no more than half a mile. The winning solution is to time your meal and bio-stops with charging stops.
The need for speed.
There is a lot of chatter about not driving as fast with an EV because it clobbers the range. Two facts. One, speed clobbers ICE car mileage just as badly. Aerodynamic drag is the cause and the air doesn't care what's driving the car. The reason is seems so bad in an EV is the EV's regen braking makes non-highway driving so much more efficient. I typically get about 3.5 miles per KWhr in suburban driving. I got 2.8 miles per HWhr at 77 mph on the highway. I'm not slowing down. My need for breaks exceeds the car's range.
What's next? Eventually, I'll have to investigate actual, paid fast DC charging, but for now, I'm totally satisfied with Electrify America.
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