Not when you're trying to span between Wytheville VA and Cambridge OH having to go through West Virginia. 95-100% in Wytheville every time; which is fine for me because the family loves Sheetz and that's where the charger is.
Just did this last night in San Antonio. Needed the extra to ensure we’d make it to Corpus Christi bucking the wind. We stopped charging at 86%. First road trip in the truck. Didn’t want to take any chances. Glad no one was in line waiting to charge.
I had to leave the truck behind for Charlotte to Cambridge. My other car is an Ioniq 5 and it made more sense to take it given it's efficiency. Sucks because family wanted to see the frunk, lol.
There's ELEVEN fast chargers on that route. Over half are Tesla superchargers, but there's a fast charger in each of the major towns you go through, including Parkersburg and Charleston.
CCS charging infrastructure kinda sucks, I get that, but there's SEVEN superchargers on that route, most with 8+ stations.
I personally can understand that in rural areas where there aren't chargers spaced properly.
In South Florida on the turnpike they have chargers every 30-50 miles at the rest stops.
I have taken more of an educational standpoint. I talk to the people sometimes. A lot of them are people with rental cars and don't know how anything works. Some are new owners and don't know how it's best to keep batteries between 20-80%.
Others are just ignorant and don't care about others. Some don't have the ability to charge at home as they live in an apartment/condo complex. Some just lack the reasoning skills to realize there are other people waiting on them to finish their very slow charge.
Man, hearing about the CCS charging infrastructure is amazing and depressing.
The superchargers are EXTREMELY well spaced and are ALWAYS within 50/60 miles, except a bare handful of locations (central Wyoming, Southeast Kansas, Northern Montana, Death Valley, etc).
Having this split charging infrastructure is balls for non-Tesla drivers right now.
I don't worry about what people are doing. I leave at 90% but if that last bit was going to let me complete a trip without an additional stop while maintaining a buffer I would do it too.
Man, that’s brutal. I’d never recommend an EV for people who can’t charge at home. That may be tough to hear, but there’s no cost advantage in it either. What’s the point?
There’s no cost advantage *for you*. I drive an EV; have for years. I have the ability to charge at home. I do not. I exclusively retail charge because it’s cheaper *for me*. I am an early solar adopter. My energy is on NM1. If I use more than I generate (which I would if I charged my car…we just closed our year out having to pay for 8 kWh) the rate is DOUBLE what I would pay for energy at a fast charging station. It’s even less if I use a L2. No switching to time of use won’t fix that, I’d just be paying more for the energy to run my home. Yes, there’s a program that now allows people to add 1kW (or 10%) to your solar without losing your NM agreement but the math on that has a 5-6 year ROI. For now, for me, retail charging is cheapest.
I charge to 100% once a week and that’s all the charging I do all week.
Chargers are more often than not placed at places where there is a restaurant or other business you could go into while your car is charging. It wouldn't be out of the ordinary for you and your family to plug in, go sit down for a meal, and your car be done before you were finished.
I do realize that there is a good chance that most of the people letting the car charge passed 80% aren't in that camp, and are just used to the "fill it up" behavior of ICE cars.
Transition takes time, people will learn, and you will get less and less of this.
I drive from WI to KY pretty regularly in my Lightning. I will pass 80% when at an Electrify America spot--so long as no one else is waiting. The chargers along 65 between Chicago and Louisville are not abundant, so every percent counts. Especially in winter. But I try to be situationally aware.
Get a supercharger adapter. I drive that route all the time in a Tesla and there's chargers reliably every 50-60 miles in the REALLY rural areas and every 10-30 miles in the more populated areas along major routes.
Someone in this thread said they have to charge to 100% to go between two locations in VA and OH so I checked the route and that very same route has SEVEN superchargers. big lol
Crazy, increased EV options, availability and sales equals more people charging...
I get it and I've been there too but ultimately, as someone that drives between 200 to 400+ miles a day, I'm charging as much as I can when needed.
Personally, I've learned which chargers are the most popular and i check on plugshare to see charger availability. Then I'll see what other options I might have before heading for that one.
I do it when I need every bit of charge to get to my next stop or final destination. I live in a rural part of the country and the next DC fast charger could be 250+ miles away.
I find the worst offenders to be those that got free unlimited charging with their vehicle purchase. I am glad EA is starting to enforce the 30 min max of free charging for them and they cannot just plug back in to start a new session.
Companies didn’t know there’d be this much congestion with people taking advantage of it by committing to slower charging practices. I personally think it’s ok that they changed their minds and are adjusting.
Which is never a good use of resources.
Free charging of all kinds MUST go. It wrecks chargers and makes them unusable for everyone. That includes free L2 chargers.
Unlimited with a 30min max is Unlimited with a 30min max. This is good for everyone and an excellent move in the right direction.
The final goal would be for companies to stop offering free charging entirely, because current infrastructure can't handle people that are uninformed and charge to 100% just because it's free.
Right. And plenty of people did not have a limit. Ford was unlimited time and a kWh budget for example. If it cut me off using my credits and didn't cut someone off that was paying I'd stay in the spot till it worked again just to prove a point.
Free charging for some… some need the range…Here’s what happened to me yesterday that may shed some light on things. I was driving from middle ga to south fl yesterday and my last stop was in Tampa at the Ea station. 2 were being repaired and all other stalls were taken. The Tesla chargers were full and there was a line of different makes including Tesla at the ea chargers. Sure I could just charge what the app wants me to and arrive at my destination with a 10-15 percent left in the battery or I could go to 90 percent with around 50 percent left in the battery arriving at my destination. There are no fast chargers within 20 miles of my destination only 6kw chargers way up the road or 120v charging where we stay. A nice amenity for any place providing a vacation rental would be atleast a 50 amp outlet. We have more and more electric vehicles hitting the road every month and fast chargers are packed during vacation and holiday times especially. If you need the charge you need the charge. Without knowing what the chargers up the road a little further are looking like, when it’s finally your turn to charge after waiting what will you do? Charge just what you need to get buy or charge for a buffer? That’s my take.
I've never run into a line at the superchargers, that's interesting to hear.
I've only used about 80 different ones. Only line I've ever seen in the three years I've had the car was the day of the eclipse this spring, right in the path.
I’ve had my lightning for going on 2 years. Used fast chargers less than 10 times and I run into a line 4 times so far. All in bigger places and at EA stations. I was hoping the superchargers would be a save in Tampa, but not the case Monday mid day.
Really?
I used to see lineups at the supercharger stations in Chino Hills when we would go meet family there, back in 2020 - 2021. We had a Bolt back then, And would park a block away to charge at the one level 2 ChargePoint there that was reasonably priced.
I have seen lineups here at the Coachella Valley superchargers, and at the EA stations.
But, the EVGo DCFC stations never have a line. Probably because they are so expensive. But, that might soon change with all the Lyriqs with free, unlimited charging.
Those names sound like. Southern California? That makes sense.
I hear LA is the worst for that stuff but an aggressive buildout of chargers has mostly caught up with it.
In 2019 there were sometimes lines in the Central Valley chargers between LA and SF. Now a couple of those locations have 80+ chargers per spot.
Sometimes Im going camping for 5 days 100 miles from a charger so every bit counts when Im going to need 30% to get there 30% to get back and will need some while camping for cooking etc..
The few times I have done this are when I was driving cross country and needed the extra juice to make it to the next charger. You never know when a headwind is going to screw you.
My idea that was completely destroyed because of people who’s only answer to anything is “just charge at home” and “if you don’t have a home you don’t deserve to drive an ev”.
Simply adding some express chargers. That can deliver level 3 charging for 15 min. This will add at least 100 miles on most modern Evs and keep the line moving.
I go camping a lot and charge to 100% so I can use my projector, ps5, stove, crockpot, and fridge while im camping. I'm out in Idaho so im sure im not causing you any problems. OP these chargers aren't used just by people like you.
Lack of planning or just driving across Texas. We are getting more chargers and the opening of the Supercharger network is a huge bonus to stop at 80% if the adapters ever comes.
80% is when you leave a fast charger if anyone is waiting. As noted in many comments its faster to stop again. I was between 2 cars that charged to 100% with multiple vehicles waiting and it struck me as incredibly dickheaded behavior
Free charging plans need to be banned, a complimentary allotment of kWh is OK I think. I'm a believer that we need congestion charging that increases the cost per kWh once you charge above a threshold such as 80 or 90%, ideally only when the station is full. This requires high quality monitoring of the status of chargers which EA hasn't been so great at in the past however.
It could look something like:
0 to 85%: $0.40/kWh
85 to 95%: $1.60/kWh
95 to 100%: $3.20/kWh
Idle Fee after 5m grace period, first 0-5m: $2/min
Idle Fee after 5m grace period, next 5-10m: $4/min
Idle Fee after 5m grace period, 10m+: $6/min
When I am going home to Northern New Mexico from Central Texas there is a segment on the trip. (Amarillo to Raton Pass) that previously required me to charge to nearly 100%. Even with 100% charge I had to stop once at an RV park to add a bit of juice to prevent being stuck on the side of the road due to unforeseen wind conditions. Under any other scenario I only DCFC to 80% but there are occasions where folks need a bit more power to make the leg. Lucky for me and others Tesla added charges in Clayton, NM and I now have an A2Z adapter so I won’t be this guy again in the future.
Nobody teaches new EV buyers what the "etiquette" is at public chargers.
Also, it's rare for a dealer to educate a buyer that charging past 80-90% on a regular basis is a recipe for accelerated battery degradation. On the other hand, some people don't care about their battery - they are leasing or plan on trading in 4-5 years max where it's not "their problem" to deal with. I was looking at buying a used Model S before I got my Lightning, and decided against it because I'm too OCD about how I treat my battery and vehicle, and I know most people aren't.
Truth. That's why Ford recommends charging to 90%, because it's really 82.4% of the actual battery capacity. They were quite conservative in building in a buffer, they know a certain demographic is going to charge their trucks to 100% every day "just because" - and they don't want those batteries to fail before the 8/100 warranty. With the 90% cap on charge, it's almost impossible these batteries are going to be below the 70% SoH at that point.
Particularly charging past 90% on DCFC.
Charging to 100% at home on level 2 is a different matter.
I would avoid any routing that required a full battery at a DC station.
Because they got free charging when they bought or leased their vehicles. They don’t care.
The solution is to price charging based on SOC. 0-80% price A (free tier) and 80-100% 3X the standard price.
Maybe they're going on a long trip and need the extra charge?
would be more time efficient to leave and recharge later when you’re battery is depleted lower than 80%
Not when you're trying to span between Wytheville VA and Cambridge OH having to go through West Virginia. 95-100% in Wytheville every time; which is fine for me because the family loves Sheetz and that's where the charger is.
Just did this last night in San Antonio. Needed the extra to ensure we’d make it to Corpus Christi bucking the wind. We stopped charging at 86%. First road trip in the truck. Didn’t want to take any chances. Glad no one was in line waiting to charge.
I had to leave the truck behind for Charlotte to Cambridge. My other car is an Ioniq 5 and it made more sense to take it given it's efficiency. Sucks because family wanted to see the frunk, lol.
There's a 150kw supercharger exactly halfway, off i-37
I had to doublecheck to make sure this wasn't my alt. I feel your pain.
There's ELEVEN fast chargers on that route. Over half are Tesla superchargers, but there's a fast charger in each of the major towns you go through, including Parkersburg and Charleston. CCS charging infrastructure kinda sucks, I get that, but there's SEVEN superchargers on that route, most with 8+ stations.
Are all of the superchargers open for ford (if you have the adapter)? Seems like about 50% aren’t. Even so that would leave a good number of options.
I personally can understand that in rural areas where there aren't chargers spaced properly. In South Florida on the turnpike they have chargers every 30-50 miles at the rest stops. I have taken more of an educational standpoint. I talk to the people sometimes. A lot of them are people with rental cars and don't know how anything works. Some are new owners and don't know how it's best to keep batteries between 20-80%. Others are just ignorant and don't care about others. Some don't have the ability to charge at home as they live in an apartment/condo complex. Some just lack the reasoning skills to realize there are other people waiting on them to finish their very slow charge.
Man, hearing about the CCS charging infrastructure is amazing and depressing. The superchargers are EXTREMELY well spaced and are ALWAYS within 50/60 miles, except a bare handful of locations (central Wyoming, Southeast Kansas, Northern Montana, Death Valley, etc). Having this split charging infrastructure is balls for non-Tesla drivers right now.
I don't worry about what people are doing. I leave at 90% but if that last bit was going to let me complete a trip without an additional stop while maintaining a buffer I would do it too.
Isn’t the math technically faster to make more stops in exchange for faster speeds? Curve falls off a cliff at 80 percent.
If I'm going on a long drive the sure thing is always the best approach.
Fair. I do tend to charge more than what’s estimated, but rarely past 80%, especially if there’s a line.
Yes… if there’s another charger on your route.
Depends on how far I've got to the next charger.
Some people dont have access to home charging, so they rely on public charging to those high percentages. I've known quite a few people who do that.
Man, that’s brutal. I’d never recommend an EV for people who can’t charge at home. That may be tough to hear, but there’s no cost advantage in it either. What’s the point?
There’s no cost advantage *for you*. I drive an EV; have for years. I have the ability to charge at home. I do not. I exclusively retail charge because it’s cheaper *for me*. I am an early solar adopter. My energy is on NM1. If I use more than I generate (which I would if I charged my car…we just closed our year out having to pay for 8 kWh) the rate is DOUBLE what I would pay for energy at a fast charging station. It’s even less if I use a L2. No switching to time of use won’t fix that, I’d just be paying more for the energy to run my home. Yes, there’s a program that now allows people to add 1kW (or 10%) to your solar without losing your NM agreement but the math on that has a 5-6 year ROI. For now, for me, retail charging is cheapest. I charge to 100% once a week and that’s all the charging I do all week.
You are in what I call a special circumstance where obviously my recommendation would be different. There are not many of you.
Chargers are more often than not placed at places where there is a restaurant or other business you could go into while your car is charging. It wouldn't be out of the ordinary for you and your family to plug in, go sit down for a meal, and your car be done before you were finished. I do realize that there is a good chance that most of the people letting the car charge passed 80% aren't in that camp, and are just used to the "fill it up" behavior of ICE cars. Transition takes time, people will learn, and you will get less and less of this.
I drive from WI to KY pretty regularly in my Lightning. I will pass 80% when at an Electrify America spot--so long as no one else is waiting. The chargers along 65 between Chicago and Louisville are not abundant, so every percent counts. Especially in winter. But I try to be situationally aware.
This is the best answer and approach. Thank you!
Get a supercharger adapter. I drive that route all the time in a Tesla and there's chargers reliably every 50-60 miles in the REALLY rural areas and every 10-30 miles in the more populated areas along major routes. Someone in this thread said they have to charge to 100% to go between two locations in VA and OH so I checked the route and that very same route has SEVEN superchargers. big lol
Crazy, increased EV options, availability and sales equals more people charging... I get it and I've been there too but ultimately, as someone that drives between 200 to 400+ miles a day, I'm charging as much as I can when needed. Personally, I've learned which chargers are the most popular and i check on plugshare to see charger availability. Then I'll see what other options I might have before heading for that one.
I do it when I need every bit of charge to get to my next stop or final destination. I live in a rural part of the country and the next DC fast charger could be 250+ miles away.
I find the worst offenders to be those that got free unlimited charging with their vehicle purchase. I am glad EA is starting to enforce the 30 min max of free charging for them and they cannot just plug back in to start a new session.
I'm not ok with companies changing the conditions you bought something under. Unlimited is unlimited.
Companies didn’t know there’d be this much congestion with people taking advantage of it by committing to slower charging practices. I personally think it’s ok that they changed their minds and are adjusting.
You don't get to change your mind about something you sold post sale.
They didn’t sell charging etiquette.
No they sold unlimited charging.
Which is never a good use of resources. Free charging of all kinds MUST go. It wrecks chargers and makes them unusable for everyone. That includes free L2 chargers.
Then don't buy from anyone that offers it to you.
Unlimited with a 30min max is Unlimited with a 30min max. This is good for everyone and an excellent move in the right direction. The final goal would be for companies to stop offering free charging entirely, because current infrastructure can't handle people that are uninformed and charge to 100% just because it's free.
But 30 minutes max was not a condition at time of sale.
I believe that was always part of the terms and conditions. They are just now starting to enforce it.
It varied based on the plan.
Right. And plenty of people did not have a limit. Ford was unlimited time and a kWh budget for example. If it cut me off using my credits and didn't cut someone off that was paying I'd stay in the spot till it worked again just to prove a point.
Free charging for some… some need the range…Here’s what happened to me yesterday that may shed some light on things. I was driving from middle ga to south fl yesterday and my last stop was in Tampa at the Ea station. 2 were being repaired and all other stalls were taken. The Tesla chargers were full and there was a line of different makes including Tesla at the ea chargers. Sure I could just charge what the app wants me to and arrive at my destination with a 10-15 percent left in the battery or I could go to 90 percent with around 50 percent left in the battery arriving at my destination. There are no fast chargers within 20 miles of my destination only 6kw chargers way up the road or 120v charging where we stay. A nice amenity for any place providing a vacation rental would be atleast a 50 amp outlet. We have more and more electric vehicles hitting the road every month and fast chargers are packed during vacation and holiday times especially. If you need the charge you need the charge. Without knowing what the chargers up the road a little further are looking like, when it’s finally your turn to charge after waiting what will you do? Charge just what you need to get buy or charge for a buffer? That’s my take.
I've never run into a line at the superchargers, that's interesting to hear. I've only used about 80 different ones. Only line I've ever seen in the three years I've had the car was the day of the eclipse this spring, right in the path.
I’ve had my lightning for going on 2 years. Used fast chargers less than 10 times and I run into a line 4 times so far. All in bigger places and at EA stations. I was hoping the superchargers would be a save in Tampa, but not the case Monday mid day.
Really? I used to see lineups at the supercharger stations in Chino Hills when we would go meet family there, back in 2020 - 2021. We had a Bolt back then, And would park a block away to charge at the one level 2 ChargePoint there that was reasonably priced. I have seen lineups here at the Coachella Valley superchargers, and at the EA stations. But, the EVGo DCFC stations never have a line. Probably because they are so expensive. But, that might soon change with all the Lyriqs with free, unlimited charging.
Those names sound like. Southern California? That makes sense. I hear LA is the worst for that stuff but an aggressive buildout of chargers has mostly caught up with it. In 2019 there were sometimes lines in the Central Valley chargers between LA and SF. Now a couple of those locations have 80+ chargers per spot.
Sometimes Im going camping for 5 days 100 miles from a charger so every bit counts when Im going to need 30% to get there 30% to get back and will need some while camping for cooking etc..
The few times I have done this are when I was driving cross country and needed the extra juice to make it to the next charger. You never know when a headwind is going to screw you.
Maybe you don’t know what their needs are?
Maybe their fordpass app screwed up the charge level?
My idea that was completely destroyed because of people who’s only answer to anything is “just charge at home” and “if you don’t have a home you don’t deserve to drive an ev”. Simply adding some express chargers. That can deliver level 3 charging for 15 min. This will add at least 100 miles on most modern Evs and keep the line moving.
I go camping a lot and charge to 100% so I can use my projector, ps5, stove, crockpot, and fridge while im camping. I'm out in Idaho so im sure im not causing you any problems. OP these chargers aren't used just by people like you.
Just use a supercharger
Lack of planning or just driving across Texas. We are getting more chargers and the opening of the Supercharger network is a huge bonus to stop at 80% if the adapters ever comes.
80% is when you leave a fast charger if anyone is waiting. As noted in many comments its faster to stop again. I was between 2 cars that charged to 100% with multiple vehicles waiting and it struck me as incredibly dickheaded behavior
Free charging plans need to be banned, a complimentary allotment of kWh is OK I think. I'm a believer that we need congestion charging that increases the cost per kWh once you charge above a threshold such as 80 or 90%, ideally only when the station is full. This requires high quality monitoring of the status of chargers which EA hasn't been so great at in the past however. It could look something like: 0 to 85%: $0.40/kWh 85 to 95%: $1.60/kWh 95 to 100%: $3.20/kWh Idle Fee after 5m grace period, first 0-5m: $2/min Idle Fee after 5m grace period, next 5-10m: $4/min Idle Fee after 5m grace period, 10m+: $6/min
I’ve had to do it a few times, it’s rare but it’s for gaps and some for margin.
When I am going home to Northern New Mexico from Central Texas there is a segment on the trip. (Amarillo to Raton Pass) that previously required me to charge to nearly 100%. Even with 100% charge I had to stop once at an RV park to add a bit of juice to prevent being stuck on the side of the road due to unforeseen wind conditions. Under any other scenario I only DCFC to 80% but there are occasions where folks need a bit more power to make the leg. Lucky for me and others Tesla added charges in Clayton, NM and I now have an A2Z adapter so I won’t be this guy again in the future.
Nobody teaches new EV buyers what the "etiquette" is at public chargers. Also, it's rare for a dealer to educate a buyer that charging past 80-90% on a regular basis is a recipe for accelerated battery degradation. On the other hand, some people don't care about their battery - they are leasing or plan on trading in 4-5 years max where it's not "their problem" to deal with. I was looking at buying a used Model S before I got my Lightning, and decided against it because I'm too OCD about how I treat my battery and vehicle, and I know most people aren't.
100% on a lightning is 90%
Truth. That's why Ford recommends charging to 90%, because it's really 82.4% of the actual battery capacity. They were quite conservative in building in a buffer, they know a certain demographic is going to charge their trucks to 100% every day "just because" - and they don't want those batteries to fail before the 8/100 warranty. With the 90% cap on charge, it's almost impossible these batteries are going to be below the 70% SoH at that point.
Accelerated degradation is our friend, undercharging your battery so it doesn't qualify for replacement inside the warranty period is bad planning.
😂 exactly my thoughts. I'm at 53,530 miles in a year and 4 months. They need to fail under warranty, not after it
Particularly charging past 90% on DCFC. Charging to 100% at home on level 2 is a different matter. I would avoid any routing that required a full battery at a DC station.
when people are waiting I make sure to charge to 100%
Because they got free charging when they bought or leased their vehicles. They don’t care. The solution is to price charging based on SOC. 0-80% price A (free tier) and 80-100% 3X the standard price.
$1.80 a kWh? No. Absolutely not. I'm not paying a DOLLAR PER MILE to end up not stranded on the side of the road.
How would you get stranded at 80% charge?
240 miles of range vs 280 could make or break a trip in charging desserts
no....