We recently completed a 1,200 mile round trip in a Chevy Bolt EV. We drove from Bakersfield, California to Grants Pass, Oregon, following a series of planned charging stops without a lot of fuss. It was mostly a piece of cake. We’ve come a long way since we first started driving electric a decade ago.
We hadn’t been on a long road trip in the Bolt—our only car—since 2022. Much has changed since then. Many more fast chargers have been installed in California and Oregon; Tesla has opened up the Supercharger network to non-Tesla EVs like the Bolt; and there are new charging networks promising higher reliability than in the past. There’s a lot of choice now where to charge. As a result, we can be picky about the networks and the stations we choose to stop at—and we were.
ABRP
We’ve been driving Chevy Bolts since 2017. The Bolt is a low-cost, mass-market EV. It doesn’t have navigation. Instead, users like me project Android Auto or Apple Car Play on the big center screen. This gives us Google navigation or in our case, A Better RoutePlanner. As the name implies, ABRP not only provides navigation but also plans charging stops. ABRP gives the Bolt the utility of more expensive cars, such as a Tesla, for a fraction of the cost.
Unlike previous trips, I didn’t labor over the route and where we would charge and for how long. It just isn’t necessary any more. I let ABRP do most of the work with a tweak here or there to make my preferences known. This was the next step in the evolution of road tripping in an EV.
In the spring of 2024, we took a short trip to Salinas. We were well into the trip when I realized that I hadn’t extensively planned the trip as I had done in the past. (See 400 Mile EV Road Trip–without a Spreadsheet!) I wrote then that “What is personally noteworthy is that I didn’t prepare a spreadsheet of our stops before hand. Yeah I know I am a nerd.”
Non-Tesla EVs are now at the stage where you can let the navigation app, like ABRP, plan your charging stops. You still need to pay attention to your State of Charge (SOC), just as you do in a fossil burner when you glance at the gas gauge, but the app directs you to your next charge stop and tells you how long you need to charge before you’re on your way again.
We drive with a dongle plugged into the car’s OBD port. Once set up with ABRP and your cell phone, the dongle relays the cars SOC to ABRP which projects it on the navigation map. ABRP projects your actual SOC and also the estimated SOC when you reach your current destination.
If your destination is a charge stop, ABRP will then tell you how long you need to charge and what percentage SOC you should reach before you leave for your next destination.
When planning a route on your desktop, ABRP presents a table of your charge stops, charge time required, arrival SOC, and departure SOC recommended. While I didn’t prepare a spreadsheet on this trip, I did print out ABRP’s table. I used it to confirm what the app was telling me when I reached a charge stop.
ABRP Settings
To get the most out of ABRP, take the time to change the settings to suit your preferences. I set the “Charger Stops” for quickest arrival. When selected ABRP may suggest leaving the charger when your SOC reaches only 60%. This may seem counterintuitive, but it uses the charging curve of the Bolt to best advantage. Above 60% SOC, the Bolt’s charge rate drops off dramatically. It’s better to get back on the road than to spend more time at the charger.
Select your preferred charging networks under “Chargers & Networks.” My preferences are Pilot Flying J, IONNA, and EVgo because they incorporate Autocharge, allowing the Bolt to connect to the network automatically. In a second tier, I chose Rivian and Electrify America. I chose to avoid EV Connect because of their poor reliability.
Then set your “Battery” requirements. Our Bolt has 50,000 miles and nearly 10% battery degradation from new. Because I don’t like surprises, I set both our destination and charger arrival SOC at 19%. This gives us a lot of room on the bottom end to account for unexpected head winds and the like. For regional travel I set it at 15%, but more for a long road trip where I am not familiar with the charge stations.
On this road trip, ABRP’s plan was quite accurate with some minor variation due to weather. And it did take us into one Rivian station in urban Sacramento that I would have avoided if I had to do it again.
Autocharge
We prefer stations that use Autocharge. This makes charging easy-peasy. We just plug in and walk away. No credit card, no app, no RFID cards. Just plug in and go. On this trip we used Autocharge with Pilot Flying J, and EVgo. We used Plug & Charge on an IONNA station and it also worked without the need for fussing with credit cards or my smart phone.
Rivian
We’ve charged at Rivian’s Adventure Network in Pismo Beach, California so we knew what to expect. On this trip, the Rivian dispensers worked flawlessly. You just tap your credit card and the authorizing sequence begins immediately. For some reason they only gave us 43 kW when we expected 53 kW, but they worked every time. I’ll probably move Rivian’s network up to one of our most preferred networks because they have proven so reliable.
Electrify America
Not so Electrify America. The first station we stopped at the dispenser wouldn’t recognize my phone’s NFC. It then rejected my credit card. I had to go into the app, navigate to my account and manually top up my “wallet.” Geesh. It was cold with a light rain. I was not a happy camper. While we can’t avoid using EA at all because they have the most extensive non-Tesla network, competition is coming and EA must up its game.
Our second EA stop was uneventful, once we found it in an enormous Wal-Mart lot.
EVgo
The EVgo stations and the EVgo dispensers at Pilot Flying J worked as intended. No fuss, no muss. They were 100% reliable on this trip.
IONNA
There was only one IONNA station in operation on our route. I checked before hand and IONNA assured me that their dispensers would work automatically with Chevy’s Bolt. And they did. We just plugged in and they started charging outside Ashland, Oregon. Both IONNA and EVgo dispensers gave us a full 53 kW unlike the Rivian dispensers.
I can’t wait for them to install more stations in California.
Destination Charging
We used destination charging four times on this trip. Three were problematic, but not the first. There are two ClipperCreek Level 2s at Granzella’s in Williams, California. They’ve always been reliable and they worked for us again on this trip. One has a broken latch but still worked. We charged overnight for free and left the next day with a full charge.
We spent a night at the Ashland Springs Hotel in Ashland, Oregon. It too has destination charging, using the Blink network. PlugShare was full of complaints about Blink and sure enough we had trouble too. The credit card reader wouldn’t work. Blink’s app wouldn’t work either. So I called support. The Philippino was helpful and started the charge remotely. I got about 20 kWh then disconnected before I went to bed as they had a $6 charge if you don’t move your car after the charge stops!
On the way back to Bakersfield we stopped at a Fairfield Inn & Suites near Stockton, California. Same story, different network. Again there was a lot of chatter on PlugShare. I hoped for better results with EV Connect. They use Autocharge with the Bolt. I plugged in, it recognized the car, started charging, and then stopped. I tried my EV Connect RFID card, same result. Again called support and again the Philippino agent was helpful and started the charge remotely. Again the dispenser turned off. She said the car was still charging, though it didn’t look like it to me. I gave up. Locked the car and went to bed. The next day the car was fully charged. Who knew.
The lesson in both cases? Persistence pays. Stick with it and if all else fails call support. It beats not getting a full charge while you sleep.
Where we stayed in Grants Pass once had a hot tub. Our friend said they had a 240 volt outlet for it—or so he thought. I’d brought along my Jesla mobile charge cable for just this opportunity. The hot tub outlet wasn’t visible. It was buried under a mountain of collected junk. After 15-20 minutes of moving stuff out of the way, I finally got to the outlet. It looked good, having been inside a waterproof outlet cover. Unfortunately it was a NEMA 15-20, not a 240 volt outlet after all. I started with an 8 amp charge. After a day without any obvious faults, I upped it to 12 amps and within a few days the car was topped off.
Best of All
Best of all for us was a leisurely long-distance road trip to visit friends without a lot of hassles. We stopped often, enjoyed a cup of coffee or a snack, got our charge, and we were never wore out at the end of the day.
It’s not like the old days when stations were few and far between. And many didn’t work when you got there. Fortunately, those days are gone. Road tripping in an EV has come a long ways baby!
