By PacketDriver·3 replies
I've put about 15,000 miles on road trips in my Model Y over the past two years — Portland to Los Angeles, Denver to Chicago, a loop through the Mountain West, and a dozen shorter weekend trips. Here's what I've learned about making long EV trips work well.
Plan with A Better Route Planner (ABRP), not the in-car nav
The in-car navigation in Teslas is actually excellent and integrates with the Supercharger network natively. But for non-Tesla EVs, or for any car when you want to be deliberate, ABRP is the best trip planner on the market. It models your specific car's consumption curve, accounts for wind and elevation, shows real-time charger status, and lets you set a "minimum arrival SoC" buffer. Set that buffer to 15–20% and it plans the trip so you're never white-knuckling it.
The right mindset for charging stops
The mental model that helps most: think of charging stops as mandatory breaks you'd want to take anyway. I stopped every 2.5–3 hours on my Denver-to-Chicago run. Each stop was 20–30 minutes — enough to use the restroom, get coffee or food, and walk around. My drive times were not meaningfully longer than the same trip in a gas car (where you'd still stop every 3 hours). The difference is you're stationary during the "refuel" rather than standing at a pump for 3 minutes. I actually prefer it — I arrive less tired.
The math on "lost time" at chargers
I've seen people claim EVs add 2–3 hours to a cross-country trip. This doesn't match my experience. The calculation assumes you'd drive straight through in a gas car. Real humans who drive highway at 75 mph also stop to eat, rest, and use restrooms. When I overlay my EV stop times against the stops I'd make in a gas car, the delta is usually 30–45 minutes on a 12-hour drive. Not zero, but not the hour-per-charge horror story you see in comment sections.
The scenarios where EV road trips are genuinely harder
Mountain West with a non-Tesla: Electrify America has good coverage on major interstates but the Mountain West gaps are real. I drove a Bolt from Denver to Missoula once (borrowing a friend's car) and there was a 110-mile gap on a secondary route where I was genuinely nervous. The answer is: stick to major interstates and do your homework on off-interstate routes before committing.
Towing: a truck or SUV that gets 300 miles normally might get 150–180 miles while towing. This dramatically changes your charging stop cadence. EV trucks for towing are doable but require more careful planning and longer overall trip times.
What I bring on every road trip
NACS adapter (if you have a CCS car and might need Superchargers), J1772 and NACS adapters for emergency Level 2 at hotels, and the PlugShare app as a backup to find any charger in an emergency. I've used emergency hotel L2 twice — once when a DC fast charger was down, once by choice to avoid paying peak Supercharger rates. Level 2 overnight at a hotel adds 100+ miles of range without any planning.
What's the longest trip you've done and what was the biggest challenge?
Denver to Yellowstone and back last summer. 900 miles each way. The Superchargers through Wyoming and Montana are well-spaced on I-90 but get sparse when you head north on secondary highways. I used ABRP religiously and it got me through without issue, but there was one stretch where I arrived at a charger with 14% remaining. Not a problem, but more tension than I wanted.
Biggest tip: pre-condition your battery before arriving at a charger (most EVs let you set a "charging destination" on navigation which starts battery conditioning). Arriving with a warm battery on a fast charger makes a real difference to your peak charge rate.
↩ replying to @KilowattKarl
14% buffer on arrival is fine on a Model Y. On my 2012 Leaf with 52 miles real range that's 7.3 miles. I plan road trips in 40-mile maximum segments, never push past 20% remaining, and have genuinely never had range anxiety because I'm not trying to maximize distance. Low ambition, zero stress.
The towing math is brutal and I want to give real numbers. My neighbor has an F-150 Lightning with the extended range pack (131kWh). He towed a 6,500 lb camping trailer from Phoenix to Flagstaff (145 miles, significant elevation gain). He arrived with 8% remaining and had expected 25%. That's a 17% buffer evaporation over a trip he'd done multiple times.
For EV trucks towing anything substantial: your real-world range is roughly 60% of non-towing EPA range on flat terrain, and as low as 40–50% with grade. Do not leave for a towing trip without planning charger stops at the intervals appropriate for that reduced range.
↩ replying to @EVengineer
Ioniq 6 towing a small trailer: 53–55% of non-towing range on flat terrain. The grade effect you described is accurate — a 3% sustained grade costs more than the additional wind resistance of the trailer. I now route to avoid mountain passes when towing. Flat interstate adds maybe 20 minutes to the trip; the mountain pass alternative adds 60+ in charging stops.
The hotel Level 2 strategy is underrated. I almost always book hotels with EV charging now, even if it's just a 32A outlet on the side of the building. 8 hours overnight at 7.7kW = 60+ miles. On a typical road trip day where I've driven 250–300 miles, that's meaningful range for the next morning. It doesn't replace DC fast charging but it eliminates the first stop of the next day.
↩ replying to @SolarSarah
One gap in the overnight hotel strategy: at -20°F, Level 2 charging runs much slower because the battery thermal system is working against you. My 7.7kW EVSE delivers closer to 4.5–5kW effective at the pack in extreme cold because so much energy goes to heating the cells. Plan for fewer miles recovered per hour overnight in Minnesota January.
