Road diary of our first EV trip to Florida — a retired couple steps outside their comfort zone

The late American sociologist and communications theorist Everett Rogers put forward a categorization of consumer product innovation in the ‘60s, coining the term “early adopters”. He recognized a pattern that has been applied by electric vehicle manufacturers today: Innovators are the earliest consumers of these cars, and make up about 2.5 percent of the market; Early Adopters come next, and represent 13.5 percent of buyers; then it’s the Early Majority at 34 percent; the Late Majority, another 34 percent; and trailing at the end are the Laggards, who will represent the last 16 percent of electric vehicles in the market.

Elaine and Randy Moore fit into the key Early Majority segment of the market. Here is their story.  

In October, my husband and I took a leap of faith and ventured into the EV market with a fully electric mid-size SUV. We were excited about our decision; while at the same time questioning whether we should really wait until some of the kinks in the industry and issues around the infrastructure were resolved. 

Like all of our major purchases we wanted to make sure we did our homework and understood, to the degree possible, what we were signing up for.

My husband, by all accounts, is known as a “car guy”; he keeps up on all the latest and greatest of what’s happening in the industry – the good, the bad, and the ugly, and can handle himself under the hood. So when he said let’s go for it, I felt pretty confident moving forward.

Elaine Moore is happy with the decision to buy an EV but says for longer trips in places where infrastructure is lacking, knowledge and preparation are the key.

(Randy Moore)

He was right, we love the vehicle, we love the features, we love the savings both in gas and maintenance, we love the level of customer service and attention we have received from the dealership, and we love the fact that we might not be ahead of the curve, but we are definitely at the start of it.

But our love affair with owning an EV, however, had not truly been put to the test, and once the honeymoon phase was over, it was time to find out if the marriage was one that was meant to be. Like all love affairs, we would find out if it was real or a let down from the initial high.

We packed up our pre-heated EV to head to Florida for a mid-winter getaway.

We knew it wasn’t going to be a simple matter of putting our destination into the GPS and hitting the road – we knew that we had to ”build our trip” from one fast charger to the next, leaving Brampton toward the I75 across the Ambassador Bridge to Detroit then along the major north-south interstate highway to our destination near Orlando.

(Elaine Moore)

The first thing EV owners become obsessive about is the location of all charging stations in the neighbourhood and anywhere they plan to be, in particular fast-charger locations. Nobody, and I mean nobody, wants to be down to their last 50 kilometres with no idea where to go. And NOBODY wants to sit around for hours after finally finding a charger, waiting in line for one to free up. 

The luxury of extended charges when you don’t need your vehicle, at home or your place of work, are not part of life on the road. Fast-charging stations, referred to as Level 3, are the only thing drivers are interested in. 

Depending on how low your battery level is, fast chargers, from our experience (and this will likely be different in colder weather) should be able to get you back on the road between 15 and 30 minutes, with about 450 kilometres of charge.

The second thing EV owners become obsessive about is downloading onto their cell the App for every charging provider because unlike tapping your credit or debit card at a gas station, your charge-up is activated through an App. While it is efficient, once you have registered your name and credit card information, there is not one particular App that is used to activate every charger at every station.

Of all the Apps Elaine Moore used this is the one that eventually helped most in the U.S.; she wishes she had discovered it much sooner.

(Screenshot Elaine Moore)

By the time we returned home from our seven-week stay in Florida I had downloaded 21 Apps. That’s 21 Apps with my personal and credit card information, some of which require you to preload funds before you can use the charger. These Apps are on top of the common ones many people already use like Waze, IExit etc.

So, feeling fairly confident that I had triumphed over the biggest worries about our long trip, and armed with a very comprehensive spreadsheet identifying what I believed to be every fast charger along the route of our journey, on January 25th, at 5:30 a.m. with an outside temperature of 2 degrees C, our EV charged to a full 100 percent, and a projected range of 430 kilometres, we hit the road.

Rather than cranking up the heat in the car, we used our heated seats to keep us warm to help preserve battery and maximize our range.

Our first planned stop was at the ONroute along the 401 westbound at West Lorne just past London. Our plan was to charge back up to 100 percent so we could do a quick top-up in Windsor prior to crossing the border.

We knew before we arrived that there were four fast chargers; one was specific to Tesla; one was specific to CHAdeMo (a charging ecosystem that uses a nine-pin connector); and two were for our vehicle which uses the more popular CCS (Combined Charging System) with seven pins for its connector. 

Every EV has its own capacity for charging speeds; just like each charger. The time it takes to charge is based on which capacity is lower, the car’s or the charger’s (a car with a capacity of 50 kW can’t charge any faster than that at a 350 kW station and a car with a 350 kW power level can’t charge any faster than 50 kW at a station with that capacity).

Our vehicle has a capacity of 150 kW. One of the chargers just past London was a 50 kW and the other was 100 kW. Obviously we wanted to use the 100 kW charger, but it was out of service so we ended up at this ONroute for over an hour on the 50 kW charger and left with only an 82 percent charge (we arrived there roughly two hours from our Brampton home with a 40 percent charge left) so it took just over an hour to get a 42 percent charge. The reason was twofold – first we could only use the 50 kW charger; and second was because 50 kW does not mean 50 kW; it means “up to” 50 kW. We were only getting about 32 kW from this charger.

We were not terribly concerned about leaving there with only 82 percent because we had planned on stopping in Windsor so we could cross the border with a full 100 percent charge.

The information we had was that Windsor had two fast charging locations so we stopped at the ones on the way, close to the Ambassador Bridge. Someone should explain why they do not have charging stations at Duty Free locations, but that’s a whole other story.

Our plans of topping up to 100 percent at this location were dashed when virtually none of the chargers there were fast ones. We would have been stopped for four hours minimum.

We headed off to the second location with fingers crossed that they were both operational and fast chargers. Well, we were only half disappointed. They were thankfully fast ones, but one was out of service; and it was super expensive, costing us double what the rest of the chargers cost us (an average price for a full charge at a fast outlet is about $25 Canadian, but at this Shell station it was $53 for a full charge). It was a 180 kW charger and while our vehicle can only accept a maximum of 150 kW, it worked and worked quickly, although once again didn’t reach more than 105 kW of power at its peak during the charge. We were there for 21 minutes, charging.

With a full 100 percent of range, we crossed the border and hit the I75 in Michigan, optimistic that our bumpy Canadian experience that morning was the exception rather than the rule.

But alas, by the time we made it to Ohio, major problems once again threw our plans off schedule. The station we mapped out to stop at using our App turned out to be exclusively for Teslas (this was not indicated on the App). 

(Elaine Moore)

Again, we weren’t too concerned because we had a plan B which was less desirable because it was off the highway at a car dealership but we made our way there to charge with our car sitting at 30 percent. They had two chargers; one was out of service. I had to download the special App for the charger and preload it with my personal and financial information before we could use the charger which took time obviously but at least the charger worked and the folks at the dealership were really friendly, letting us use their lounge and washrooms.

Shortly after, we left with a 75 percent charge because it appeared there were several fast-charge options available to us before we got to Cincinnati, most notably on the list were Pilot Travel Centres, which turned out not to be the case. 

Even as we were sitting in the vehicle, at the Pilot Centre, CarPlay on my phone (integrated with the car’s media system) was telling me there were chargers there. I went inside to ask where on the site the chargers were located and the clerks confirmed that “we don’t got no chargers here”.

With 27 percent charge left, we continued south, all the while I was surfing from one App to the next looking for a fast charger so we could at least get south of Cincinnati on the first night. In previous years we always got south of Lexington Kentucky on the first day. That wasn’t going to be the case in our new EV; we got to just north of Cincinnati with our battery level on a steady decline and navigating to a bank of chargers which turned out once again to be exclusively for Teslas.

(Elaine Moore)

It was getting late and we were down to about 13 percent charge so while sitting in front of chargers that were of no use to us, I started hunting for hotels that advertised they had EV stations, even calling them to confirm they actually had them.

Off we headed to the hotel that confirmed they had EV chargers with plans of getting the car to 100 percent overnight while we got a good sleep after a stressful day. 

It’s a good thing we didn’t relax our shoulders too much; there were four chargers at the hotel but they were exclusively for Teslas. At lightning speed the battery indicator had moved through the yellow zone and was now firmly in the red zone with only 7 miles left on our charge by this point. We had given up trying to find a Level 3 fast charger and were prepared to sleep overnight in our car at any charger we could get to.

When I started searching for Level 2 chargers, it turned out there was a car dealership right beside another hotel in the same commercial complex that had a Level 2 EV charger and they were happy to let us leave our vehicle there to charge overnight while we walked across the parking lot to our hotel for the night. Big sigh of relief. The salesman at this dealership in Ohio said they had only sold two electric vehicles in two years; and said the EV infrastructure was a major shortcoming in the state, crippling sales.

(Elaine Moore)

Back at the hotel, with a better understanding of what to beware of, I knew I needed to abandon what I thought was a reliable list of fast chargers and start all over again. I discovered a new App for a provider who had a minimum of four fast chargers at almost every Walmart along the I75, in Tennessee, Kentucky and Georgia. I had to download yet another App and input my information so we could use it for the rest of the journey.

On day two from Cincinnati to Valdosta Georgia, the trip was fairly smooth and uneventful. We affectionately referred to it as the Walmart route. We often had to try more than one charger until it was eventually connected to the car due to the computer interface between our vehicle and the charger’s technology (the sort of typical glitches one encounters with most devices). We used the washrooms, picked up some lunch or fresh fruit and were back on the road. Most of these Walmarts were 24-hour stores which didn’t necessarily matter to us, but if we ever decided, or had to  travel overnight, it was good to know.

The App for these locations was a major stress reducer. I could check well ahead of time how many chargers were at the location; how many were available and whether or not any of them were out of service or under maintenance. About half of them were 150 kW and half were 350 kW; most of them worked but again we only averaged between 35-75 kW of power per charge and never exceeded 107 kW, so when we planned to spend 15-18 minutes, it often took 22-35 minutes and averaged about $25-$28 Canadian.

(Elaine Moore)

We stopped in Valdosta for the second night at a hotel that advertised they had EV chargers, but once again they were exclusively for Tesla. Needless to say we couldn’t charge at the hotel overnight as planned, but there was a Walmart at the next exit so we got up early the next morning and charged to 100 percent with the vehicle projecting 267 miles of range (430 kilometres;  we had switched the vehicle to miles for the trip) which would get us as far as possible into Florida, close to our destination.

A final top up in Gainesville got us to our destination where there were free chargers eliminating the need for us to worry about using private charging stations for a fee during the duration of our seven-week stay.

We arrived about four-and-a-half-hours later than planned due to the time we had to spend travelling off the road and charging our vehicle at various unplanned locations.

On the way back, our journey home through Florida, Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee using the Walmart route and the App I wish had been discovered earlier (I had no idea the ones initially used would be so inaccurate, without realtime information on service outages, wait times and availability) helped keep everything according to plan, with very few little glitches that any road trip is bound to present. 

If we had a fast charger that wasn’t producing kW/h at a high rate, we could limit our charge time to 30 minutes because we knew there were reliable and available chargers within 75 miles, so our maximum range of 267 miles gave us lots of wiggle room.

In Marietta Georgia, there were 8 chargers – and we were having difficulty having any of them connect to our car. We moved from one charger to the next trying to get one to recognize the vehicle and connect. It was here we met Vincent, and we learned so much from him that would have helped us with some of the chargers with bad attitudes that we had encountered. He owned two fully electric vehicles and was a regular at this particular bank of chargers. He had us move our car to the charger he had just vacated since he had just charged his car and knew it was working. But when we hooked up our car, the charger wouldn’t respond. Vincent advised us to call the number on the charger and have them turn on the charger remotely. Who knew? (I sure wish we had for the trip down!)

I had not thought of calling the number because I had assumed I would sit on hold for who knows how long; and I had no idea they could activate the charge remotely. Vincent explained to us that the chargers work off the internet/cell. He also explained that if you don’t have at a minimum three bars of service on your cell phone, you will have trouble connecting.

This was the best information ever! We had to call the number on the charger three more times before we reached the border. All three times the chargers were remotely connected and activated, saving us a lot of time moving the car from one charger to the next which we almost inevitably had to do for every charge on the way down, including at the Walmart locations.

Anyone who has travelled down the I75 through Atlanta knows you will hit bumper-to-bumper traffic. There simply isn’t any way to avoid it except go through in the wee hours of the morning like we did on the way down to Florida. The only question is how long is it going to take you to get through the city. For us on our way home it was just over ninety minutes.

When traffic started grinding to a snail’s pace with frequent periods of completely stopping, we had 167 miles left on our charge. Ninety minutes later, when we finally emerged from the gridlock, we had 171 miles left due to the regenerative braking feature which puts power back into the battery. This is precisely why it is said that EVs are ideal for city driving.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to get to the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit without going through Ohio and Michigan; and we knew from the southbound trip and the subsequent homework we had done to try and avoid a repeat, that there was no way to reduce the stress of driving through Ohio and the short stint through Michigan. 

(Elaine Moore)

We charged up in Lexington Kentucky prior to crossing state lines into Ohio, at a Walmart of course. There was no way this charge would get us through the state, into Michigan and to the border, so we stopped in Dayton and topped up the charge. We found a hotel halfway between Dayton and Toledo that had chargers and we called ahead to make sure they were compatible with our car: two different providers and I had the App for both.

But it proved too good to be true – one was out of service for maintenance; and the other wouldn’t connect to the car. I called the number as Vicent had advised; and after fifteen minutes I finally hung up due to no response. We left the hotel early in the morning to head to a fast charger at a car dealership about five miles from the interstate.

Our final charge was in Michigan just before we crossed the border: brand new charger at a convenience store. A new App was installed, with personal and financial information completed but it would not connect to the car. I immediately called the number on the charger and shortly after it was activated remotely saving us time and reducing the stress.

Our ONroute charge in Ontario in Woodstock went really smoothly and got us home to our own bed after three days and two nights on the road. Normally it would have been two days and one night, so money saved on gas was spent on an extra night of accommodation.

What I haven’t mentioned is that our good friends travelled to Florida and back in their own vehicle. They stopped with us everytime we had to stop for a charge; and bought gas at the same time when they needed it.

We kept telling them to go ahead so we didn’t hold them up, but they insisted they wanted to be “part of the experience”. I don’t think they’ll be rushing out to buy an EV any time soon – at least not until fast charger public infrastructure catches up in availability and reliability. 

If you can charge at home or the office and not have to rely on public charging stations, then EVs are the way to go. We love ours for local use, even throughout the summer when we are constantly back and forth between home and the cottage. No problems at all.

But for so many retired people like us who use their vehicle for longer trips, there are still challenges in many parts of North America.

Experts are saying there are two major complaints – the range of EVs (which is getting longer and longer); and the public infrastructure. I would argue that if you aggressively address the latter, the former becomes a non-issue.

And now that I have learned the ins and outs of a road trip with our EV, and how to navigate all the changing variables, next time I am confident things will be much smoother.

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