Thomas and I just got home from covering our first Detroit North American International Auto Show. I think I can say that we both had fun, even if the show was weirdly short on cars and automakers. But perhaps the most interesting thing that we discovered at the show is how much money it cost us just to get there. I drove to the show behind the wheel of a broken 2010 Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen diesel while Thomas rode in with a new Genesis GV60 Performance electric crossover. He went about 500 miles total while I went 760 miles. Guess which one of us had to pay more to get to the show and back?
On Tuesday morning, I departed my apartment in my 2010 Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen TDI. This little black wagon has been my preferred road trip car since I got it. While my 2006 Smart Fortwo CDI gets far better fuel economy, the Volkswagen has more creature comforts, better seats, better suspension, and oh, working air-conditioning. Plus, it has an engaging manual transmission, which is why I bought it in the first place. That’s not to say that the Volkswagen guzzles diesel: I can get it to average about 42 mpg at and sometimes above 70 mph.
Detroit is about 350 miles from my home, well within range of my Jetta’s 16-gallon tank. I set off with 30 miles on my trip odometer from a full fill that I got three, maybe four weeks ago.
An Easy Drive
The trip in the Jetta was fun and somewhat uneventful. The 2.0-liter four under the hood provided 140 HP and 236 lb-ft torque when new. It now has about 230,000 miles, so who knows how many stallions are still in the stable. Still, the torquey diesel provided plenty of clickety clacky noises and bursts of power when I put the pedal down.
The car let me down just twice. Somewhere in western Michigan my car’s limp mode triggered twice in a span of about 5 minutes. The codes were for too little boost. Like most of my cars, this wagon isn’t perfect. It recently cracked its diesel particulate filter (DPF), which is supposed to clean up some of the vehicle’s emissions. That broken DPF is sending soot into my exhaust gas recirculation system, which in-turn is getting dirty.
My car also has a turbo actuator. This device actuates the turbo’s vanes, which allow the turbo to provide varying levels of pressure. The computer requests an amount of boost and if for whatever reason it can’t get that boost, limp mode is triggered. I’ve thus far found no vacuum leaks and no obvious leaks in my boost hoses. It could be that the actuator may be getting stuck or the vanes getting stuck. One issue is the actuator can rust, which tracks, given that my car has lived most of its life in Michigan. One thing I’ve noticed is that if I drive it frequently, the issue never happens. It only crops up after the car has sat for a month or longer.
Either way, when the limp mode triggers it can easily be reset by restarting the car. I did that and have since driven 500 miles without issue.
By The Numbers
As for fuel economy, it held at around 42 mpg with speeds between 70 mph and 85 mph until I arrived in Detroit. Fuel economy took a huge hit in the city as a lot of my driving around town involved low speed, stop and go, and brief periods of heavy traffic. Because of my car’s efficiency, I made the 350-mile drive to Detroit and drove about 60 miles around the city, and still had about a quarter tank left. On the way home I tapped out at 515 miles when the fuel light popped on.
When all was said and done my average dropped to 38 mpg and I drove a total of 760 miles. I noticed that the price for diesel is higher on the highway than say, in a rural area. I paid $5.50 a gallon to put 13.31 gallons into my 16-gallon tank and paid $73.25 for the privilege. According to my calculations, the car ran at about 14.2 cents per mile on that first tank of fuel. At 38 mpg, if I paid for every mile of fuel used, it would have cost me about $110 to do the whole trip.
So, how does this compare to a brand new electric luxury crossover? I’ll hand Thomas the megaphone.
Can An 800-Volt Architecture Stack The Deck?
At the time of writing this, I’m eating my first proper meal in three days. Detroit was one hell of a trip, and I figured I’d do it in an EV. Genesis Canada kindly lent me the GV60 Performance, a jaw-dropping ideal of what the E-GMP platform can be. It packs a respectable range of 235 miles and an 800-volt architecture that should allow for compatibility with blazing quick 350 kW charging stations. While not the perfect tool for the job, the GV60 Performance seemed quite apt for the task. Would infrastructure be able to keep up?
The Way There
Every EV road trip starts with a fundamentally solid plan. A plan for route, time, speed, and energy conservation. For the route, the plan was a straight shot down the 401, over the Ambassador Bridge, and to the hotel in Dearborn. The goal was to arrive well before the reveal of the Chrysler 300C, and keeping things slow while sticking to eco mode was critical for that. The faster you travel in a car, the more drag you’re up against, and it’s easier to save time by charging less than by driving like you’ve discovered the fiery aftermath of lunch. After a fairly uneventful drive to London, I arrived at my first charging station, fully hoping to make good use of the Genesis GV60 Performance’s 800-volt architecture.
After making the 196-kilometer (121.8-mile) drive, strike one: the 350 kW Electrify Canada charging station in London was somewhat broken. The point-of-sale terminal was inoperable, so the unit was for members only. Instead, I had to use a 150 kW station. Not optimal but not bad, right? Well, just because a charging station can spit out 150 kW doesn’t mean it will spit out anywhere near to 150 kW consistently. For the duration of my first charging session, I averaged 41 kW of current, translating to well over an hour to 80 percent charge.
So what’s there to do when you’re stuck at a charging station for more than an hour? Well, you file emails, check in on your friends to make sure they’re doing okay, admire a particularly strange record shop sign, wonder if said record shop has a CD copy of Turn On The Bright Lights, then remember that the car you’re driving doesn’t have a CD player because it isn’t from the past. You also get a great chance to stretch your legs and back because the seats in the Genesis GV60 are unfit for human use. Total cost of this charging stop? $43.27.
Right, back on the road. While Canadians have a reputation for being kind and welcoming, that’s at odds with the nature of the land. Even if you live in a flyover state, it’s hard to picture how vast and empty much of the Great White North is. While the stretch of Highway 401 from London to Tilbury is far from threatening, it’s still unbelievably tedious. In America’s flyover country, monotony is punctuated by crops, cows, and amusing billboards for Jesus and hardcore pornography. On this 129-kilometer (80.1-mile) jaunt in southwestern Ontario, there isn’t much contrast. Just stretches of monotonous fields occasionally punctuated by quaint postwar overpasses. It’s a blend of surreal and reassuring, the seemingly oversaturated greenery blurring past like a Monet piece, the blocky concrete overpasses reminders that although the world we were raised to survive in no longer exists, we can still romanticize the remnants.
After about an hour of driving, I arrived at the Electrify Canada station in Tilbury, located in the parking lot of a charmingly small Canadian Tire. While this nationwide chain of stores does sell tires, it also sells so much more. Picture a place where you can pick up valve cover gaskets, a new reciprocating saw, a stand mixer, and a gazebo. I should really write an article on this Canadian oddity. Anyway, the 350 kW charger in Tilbury was working, so I plugged in, tapped my Apple Pay, and watched the current shoot up into the mid-200s. Very good.
Unfortunately, that lasted for all of about three minutes, with charging current stabilizing around 67 kW. The Toronto Maple Leafs last won the Stanley Cup in 1967. There’s no connection between those statements, but as a Torontonian, it’s my duty to force one. Thankfully, this stop was much quicker, getting to 80 percent state of charge 17 minutes and one second for the very reasonable cost of $10.87. Add in the time it took to get off the highway, get plugged in, and get back on the highway, and I ended up with a total detour time of around half an hour. Still, this would be enough to confidently get to the hotel and back to the charging station provided I didn’t need to drive anywhere else.
[Mercedes’ Note: Thomas informed me that he originally left home with about an 80 percent charge. Those delays meant that he wasn’t able to attend the Chrysler 300C unveiling. We took my wagon to and from the show because the GV60 seemingly had only just enough range to run back to Canada.]
The morning after the first media day, I was looking to hedge my bets with a quick splash-and-dash. The problem is that easily-accessible charging in Dearborn isn’t really a huge thing. My best bet was a Level 2 charger. After locating the nearest Level 2 charging station, I was able to add enough range to pad margins should my GPS try to send me through the tunnel rather than over the Ambassador Bridge. It turns out, I really needed that. Total cost? Free, surprisingly. I really can’t be mad at that.
The Way Back
Getting back from Detroit was much easier than getting to Detroit. Getting back from Detroit took forever. Let me explain why these aren’t conflicting statements. After arriving at the border roughly half an hour late, I met a surprisingly chill guard who shared some great tips on sushi restaurants right near my apartment. If you’re that guard, you’re awesome. The jaunt from Windsor to Tilbury is almost entirely on concrete road surfaces. If you ever meet me in person, don’t talk to me about concrete road surfaces because I’ll talk your ear off about how dreadful they are from an NVH perspective. Anyway, I kept the climate control completely off for the return trip to conserve range. One episode of The Basement Yard later, and I was back at the 350 kW charging station in Tilbury.
This time, things were a lot slower. The station peaked at 71 kW and took 36:36 to replenish the GV60 Performance to an 80 percent state of charge. Figure a total cost of $23.52. Upon plugging in, I checked my DMs to find a message from Susan, one of my Journalism school professors. We chatted for a bit on the phone about EV charging and the Detroit show. She shared an anecdote about wanting to cry while covering NAIAS as a reporter back in its glory days. I wanted to cry over the Detroit show too, but for very different reasons. Think less scramble and more funeral.
Not long before reaching London, I caught up to an industry colleague in a BMW i4 traveling very slowly behind a transport truck. The overtake went something like this. Funnily enough, we both pulled off in London but for different reasons. I needed a splash-and-dash (jolt-and-bolt? Charge-and-retreat?), he wanted to check out a vintage videogame shop. Despite a peak charging rate of just 45 kW and an average of around 41 kW, the GV60 was ready to go in 35 minutes and four seconds at a cost of $22.57. Well, that and the cost of completely missing the game store because it had closed. Apparently it had a copy of Driver: San Francisco for Xbox 360 that I was looking for. Fuck.
The final stretch back to Toronto was marred by single-lane bottlenecks and heavy traffic. Good for range as I could lean on regenerative braking, but bad for time. I didn’t get back to my flat until nearly midnight. Truthfully, I would’ve arrived in Toronto a bit sooner if I hadn’t made a quick detour to try out a hard launch in the GV60 Performance with my childhood best friend. With roads glistening in evening dew and the frustration of a customer service rep, I tapped to boost button and ripped off a four-tire salute to everything this past week had brought.
The Aftermath
So what did I learn from this EV road trip? Well, almost every number attached to an EV is bullshit in the context of a road trip. Total range doesn’t matter nearly as much as range from 80 percent state of charge. Theoretical peak charging speeds don’t matter as much as actual sustained averages and properly-maintained infrastructure. Efficiency matters more than pure range. I wanted this road trip to be easy, relatively cheap, and fun. Instead, it was a little bit of a nightmare. I like electric cars, but it genuinely feels like they aren’t ready for prime time just yet. Electrify Canada is a Northern counterpart to Electrify America, which is a preferred network for Genesis. Stops at those stations should’ve worked well, but they didn’t. Oh, and my childhood best friend I made a detour to see? His dad owns a Hyundai Ioniq 5. After several months of running, it’s getting sold for a combustion-powered vehicle because charging is so much of a faff. Keep in mind, we’re talking about a homeowner with a proper Level 2 charging station installed in his garage. The current crop of EVs are almost all brilliant, but public charging infrastructure just doesn’t measure up.
Jetta SportWagen TDI Road Trip Stats
Total spend: $73.25 at $5.50 a gallon for diesel.
Distance driven before filling up: 515 miles
Total distance: 760 miles
Cost-per-mile (cost / fill at 515 miles): 14.2 cents per mile
Cost-per-mile (cost / total distance): 9 cents per mile
GV60 Performance Road Trip Stats
Total spend: $100.23 ($75.51 USD)
Total distance: 825.2 km (512.8 mi)
Cost-per-mile (cost / total distance): 12.14 cents per km (14.73 US cents per mile)
[Note: Due to charging methods we weren’t able to accurately calculate cost per mile between chargers.]
Our Conclusions
The Genesis proved to be the more reliable steed, but getting it to and from Detroit was far more of a hassle than it should have been. For a similar cost, the Volkswagen was able to sprint the whole way from my home near Wisconsin to Detroit without stopping. Then it drove around Detroit and went some of the way home before finally needing fuel.
And since I was working with expensive diesel (which was more than a dollar more expensive than 87 octane gasoline), it seems that a regular fuel efficient car or hybrid would have widened the gulf.
Now, what are we trying to say here, exactly? We’re not trying to say that the EV is bad. Indeed, it made the trip silently, without emissions, and without breaking. Really, Thomas’ gripe is that the combination of the Genesis and the charging network made for a worse experience than a broken diesel. Hopefully, as infrastructure and the cars get better, situations like this will be a thing of the past.
Overall I don’t really get they hype for this Genesis. Their gas powered vehicles are much better looking. This is fish-faced. The Tesla Model 3 ‘performace package’ is cheaper, faster, longer range, and has Supercharger access.
I commute in a Chevy Bolt with the same range as this Genesis, and it’s already saved me about $2700 in fuel costs vs. the gas-powered alternative I was cross-shopping (the GTI). The Bolt also cost less than half of the price of this Genesis, and I’ve got my wife’s gas-powered car if we want to drive >190 miles round trip.
Because Elon, buttons, & that crystal sphere. /s
“The Beat Goes On” is a great local chain of second-hand record stores. They also carry movies. Great place to look if you’re looking for something out-of-print.
I completely forgot they carried movies! I want to say that I got my first Alexisonfire album from their location in Guelph.
Perhaps I could interest you in a road sign?
Limping to Detroit sounds like a perfect name for a Stooges song.
If you are going to let your pen anywhere near a Canadian Tire story, you will have to cover Canadian Tire money. Just sayin’
Yes! I’m sure my phat rack of Canadian Tire money is hiding in my closet somewhere. When I say “phat rack” I mean like $20 of the stuff, but still. It was always fun to carry around as a kid
PEOPLE IT WAS A 12 YEAR OLD POORLY MAINTAINED DIESEL BOUGHT FOR UNDER $2,500 IF I REMEMBER CORRECTLY. So Apple EV comparison figure the cost of a $60,000 EV to a $2,500 diesel. I don’t know what crack you’re smoking but since the EV costs more to run and costs $57,500 more to buy YOU ARE NOT GOING TO GET YOUR MONEY BACK!
You can compare literally any ‘junker’ vehicle that will complete a 1000 mile trip to any new car and make the same conclusion. In fact, one of the primary rules of vehicle ownership is, as you say, “YOU ARE NOT GOING TO GET YOUR MONEY BACK!”
Thomas: Admittedly I haven’t gone for a road trip through a US flyover state recently, but what are these amusing billboards for Jesus and hardcore pornography of which you speak? Is this a thing? Are there billboards for Jesus and others for hardcore pornography? Or do they advertise a combination of topics. You do realize that sign man and CNN founder Ted Turner popularized infomercials on his SuperStation when LadyBird, president (LBJ) Johnson’s wife, launched a beautify America program and threatened to remove road signs. Taking this a step further, might we soon see an explosion of infomercials for Jesus and hardcore pornography?
Mercedes: Your turbo encabulator is obviously on the fritz.
Some signs for Jesus, others for porn. Apparently it’s the same market for both. I like the idea of combining the signs, but that may need to wait for the introduction of the Strip Club Tabernacle.
There are 4 million miles of paved roads in the US today. When the Model T came out there were 18 thousand. It’ll be bumpy, none of it will be exactly what everyone wants. And it will work itself out.
This whole Model T thing is a trendy, half baked idea, propagated by stupid Henry Ford fanbois.
You really think people are going to put their families in a fast moving carriage with a giant petroleum bomb attached to it? Worse, when you inevitably run out of petroleum, you will have to pray that there is a filling station near by, and you’ll get another chance to break your wrist when you have to restart the engine.
I’ll stick to my horse, thank you. A generation from now, they will still be the smartest and most common mode of transportation.
If you had started out each day with 100% SOC you could have got away with only 1 charge stop on the 401. I assume you don’t have L2 charging at home in Toronto nor did the hotel have L2 for an overnight charge. Also, there are other DCFC options at the London – Wellington Rd stop you made, if the EC wasn’t working, there’s also Shell, IVY and FLO all located in the same area.
You’d be correct to assume that I don’t have L2 at home and that the hotel didn’t have L2 either.
I’d have loved to try the Shell charging station, but it was packed when I went through. Judging by Electrify Canada, there’s likely a good reason for that.
As for Flo and Ivy, the whole process there is just a bit ridiculous for someone who doesn’t own an EV. All my charging in Toronto is L1, so any money preloaded on an account will just sit around for months.
That’s true, all DCFC need to have credit card readers and no need for an account with that network. Still early days unfortunately. Road tripping with an EV still requires planning, they can’t be treated like an ICE and expect to charge anywhere/anytime. I have a 42kw i3s, way less range than the GV60, requires lots of planning but it can be done.
Aw man, I really wish I’d bought an i3 before prices went nutty. What a brilliant little car from the carbon construction to the wonderfully airy interior. How has it been treating you so far?
It’s been wonderful… had a 2015 REx lease years ago and then swapped it for the i3s BEV in 2019 when the big battery arrived. I love being fully electric even tho its range is small compared to what’s on the market now, but nothing can touch its size and fun2drive hot hatch abilities!
Good write-up – less lab-controlled, and more real-world. I would have never guessed charging up would cost anywhere near fueling up a diesel. Going on a modest road trip is still such an event in EVs, and there are still unknowns, even with some planning. I am hopeful we get to a point where we can look back and chuckle at articles like this in the future. We have a heck of a hill to climb, though!
Hey carry a gas powered electric generator. Charge the EVs batteries while driving (keep the windows open). Extended range and refuel and charge at the cheapest stations. Of course that may make these Hybrids?
PHEV is probably the greenest option out there if you size the battery to cover all of the average daily needs. Two tons of CO2 versus Ten tons of CO2 battery production emissions, all of the CO2 savings of an EV for the 80% use case, and far less infrastructure overhaul required. A smaller battery pack means that rather than have to build DC fast charging stations at a 10-1 ratio for gas pump, we can install 220V public outlets off of our current infrastructure for charging overnight.
In any case, without access to a charger, the vehicles continue to operate just fine and long term battery degradation is less of a critical issue as overall range is far less effected.
Good choice for your road trip car, Mercedes. I ran a 2011 Jetta TDI manual for several years when I lived in Chicago, and was routinely making trips back to my hometown outside of St. Louis. It is one of the most boring stretches of interstate! That little car devoured miles, and I got 700+ miles to the tank on several occasions, getting 50+ mpg on the hwy. The only thing I had to worry about was finding stations in Chicagoland that had regular old #2 diesel, as many only dispensed B20 which was supposedly a no-go. I still miss that car a little, but that buyout from VW was too good to pass up!
OK, I’ll ask the question: Thomas, why did you consistently limit yourself to 80% max. charge, even when you know you’d be back on the road and discharging the battery immediately? Is the (presumed) reduction in charge rate from 80% – 100% that significant? Especially when you had to make two extra “splash-and-dash / jolt-and-bolt” stops.
You hit the nail on the head, charging from 80 percent to 100 percent in just about every EV takes absolute ages. While a 100 percent state of charge would’ve been nice, limiting charging to 80 percent was the cheaper and quicker option.
Fair enough. But doesn’t some extra time to get to, say, ~85% when you’ve already found a (working) charger and are plugged in balance out a splash-and-dash that requires another round of what I’ll call “search-and-pray”?
Time. EV’s charge pretty quickly (generally) up to 80%, then they start to slow down to protect the battery. So you might be able to charge from 10% to 80% in like say 20 min, but going from 80% to 100% might take you an additional 30 min (just an example).
So while you can charge up to 100% to start the trip, you’re better off just going to 80-90% and stopping more frequently.
Good comparison, it really shows the sorry state of the Charging infrastructure. Sounds like there is little to no maintenance effort, they just set them up and walk away. I guess the government is forcing VW to build the stations, after that it’s somebody else’s problem.
Hopefully the irony of a VW diesel besting an EV using charging stations VW had to install after getting caught cheating with their diesels is not lost on the competitors 🙂
Yeah force VW to build charging stations. I’m sure they didn’t go the cheapest route. Also no warranty or maintenance contracts? Government at work.
Something was wrong with the vehicle or the charging stations. Driving my Polestar 2 from Detroit to Chicago cost me $0 thanks to the deal with Electrify America (2 years included). According to the summary of the sessions, they went like this:
Departed from Metro Detroit with 100%
1) First stop: Electrify America $12.70
2) Second stop: Electrify America $18
3) Third stop: Charge Point level 2 for free in Chicago (At the hotel, arrived with 20% left)
Each session of EA was around 25-30 min on average. I saw 150KW peak from 20% to 50% and then slowly dropping. If you enter the destination of EA in the GPS, the car will precondition the battery to be ready for it.
280 miles, cost per mile: $0.10, something similar to Mercedes (Same driving style, 75-80 mph)
EV are the perfect scenario for home charging and driving around town. There is room for improvement for road trips
Yeah you left out the cost of the car to get free charging.
HEY EVERYBODY ON THIS SITE NOTHING IS FREE. IF YOU SAY FREE YOU SHOW YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT. IF THE GOVERNMENT IS PAYING OR RUNNING IT THE TAX PAYERS ARE PAYING FOR IT. Well I feel much better.
I’m definitely going to place the blame on the charging stations in this case. I just unplugged from a local 75 kW station about ten minutes ago and the GV60 rocketed up to full 75 kW draw and stayed there with zero preconditioning.
Glad to hear the EA stations you used were a lot better than the stations I used, infrastructure really seems to be inconsistent from place to place.
The article left out one of the more interesting, and to some of us important, details: How much time on your trip did you spend on recharging / refilling? As someone who regularly does near 1000 mile jaunts in a day, the amount of time spent off the road taking care of those necessities directly translates into overall longer travel times. And that, to me, is the big flaw in EVs for distance travel. I can add 300 miles of range to a ICE powered vehicle in 15-20 minutes, counting from highway exit to highway return. EVs simply can’t match that, at least not yet.
EVs are great for trips within their usable range, but once you start having to add in time spent finding and using charging stations their competitiveness drops. I’m all for EVs as urban / commuter / short to mid range trip vehicles, but for distance I need the efficiency of fast range refills.
He literally put the charging times in the article.
Charging times yes, but not total time leaving highway and finding (working) charger, charging and returning to the highway.
Five minutes…and all of them spent dropping my mouth at the escalating dollar amount. lol
It seems to me, as a non-expert talking out of his ass, that a lot of the places doing chargers are plopping them down wherever without really maintaining them or working on making them all that reliable. The vast majority of “EV road trip” stories I read have “The Electrify [Country] charger was broken when we got there.”
I mean, I’ve been to a lot of places with broken gas pumps too, but I’ve never scrambled for a better pump.
Yes and as an added example Amazon has disconnected their rooftop solar panels because IT WAS SETTING THE BUILDINGS ON FIRE. Most stories I have read are blaming Amazon, like they should let their buildings burn down. I am sure EVs and solar panels that burst into flames will not be compared to napalm. Actually Napalm only Burts into flames when it was supposed too. So Agent Orange safer than Solar or EVs.
“Late last year, while CEA was still conducting its inspections, it informed Amazon of one critical and 259 major findings across Amazon’s rooftop solar portfolio. Problems included mismatched module-to-module connectors, improper installation of connectors, poor wire management and evidence of water intrusion in the inverters, internal documents said. ”
I’m guessing that Amazon bought the support hardware for all the solar panels *from* Amazon, ended up with counterfeit crap and then it all started burning down! (lol)
Obviously they had some cheap-ass installation and design work since solar installations are pretty well understood these days.
Do you really believe that or are you just trying to piss on Amazon? Were you aware that Walmart had seven solar roof fires resulting in a them filing a lawsuit against Tesla?
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/08/after-seven-roof-fires-walmart-sues-tesla-over-solar-panel-flaws/
Shouldn’t the Jetta’s cost per mile reflect the total fuel used, not the fuel from one fillup? It goes up to $0.14/mile then. Plus, the Jetta against the bigger, faster, taller Genesis is also an imperfect comparison – I sort of arbitrarily picked a Q5 TDI as closer (similar size, still slower) – assuming the EPA’s 30mpg highway would track real world (given that Mercedes’ 38 for the Jetta was pretty close to EPA’s 39), you get up to $0.18/mile. And, as noted, EV cost for most people wouldn’t assume public charging rates on every trip.
On the other hand, I’m still surprised that all the En Routes along the 401 aren’t fully electrified at this point.
Reading is Fundamental. The diesel trip was over 200 miles longer. So comparing 500 miles to 500 miles is really not falsified testing.
In addition the diesel cost considered city driving it’s worst area because the EV didn’t have enough range. Comparing road trip 500 miles would have really embarrassed the EV.
I mentioned it in the “By The Numbers” section:
“When all was said and done my average dropped to 38 mpg and I drove a total of 760 miles. I noticed that the price for diesel is higher on the highway than say, in a rural area. I paid $5.50 a gallon to put 13.31 gallons into my 16-gallon tank and paid $73.25 for the privilege. According to my calculations, the car ran at about 14.2 cents per mile on that first tank of fuel. At 38 mpg, if I paid for every mile of fuel used, it would have cost me about $110 to do the whole trip.”
The 14.2-cent figure was originally at the bottom alongside the 9-cent figure. However, it didn’t make it to publishing as it was thought that readers would be confused since the Genesis didn’t have a similar calculation. I added it back with context that such data was not able to be calculated for the Genesis.
At the end of the trip they both need to top up back to their original fuel level.
“In America’s flyover country, monotony is punctuated by crops, cows, and amusing billboards for Jesus and hardcore pornography.”
Dayum. My homeland has never before been so succinctly distilled into one devastatingly accurate sentence.
Wisconsin checking in. I LOL’d at that line. So true, especially driving from Milwaukee to Wausau on I-41. the billboards alternate between Jeebus & Porn.
Jeebus, Porn, Jeebus, Porn, Jeebus, Porn…
Indiana does throw in a few curveballs. Jeebus, fireworks, BIG TRUCK LAWYER, Jeebus, KRAZY KAPLANS FIREWORKS, Jeebus, CALL THE HAMMER. lol
Which state had that one RV dealer with the really unfortunate name?
Here’s the thing interstates are built using the cheapest land so Emminent Domain farmland. You get off that interstate great people and great food and experiences to be found. Sure if you don’t consider time getting to the airport, waiting time, delays, security, cancelations, time between layoffs, waiting for baggage, waiting for a rental or cab, time returning the with refueling it sure is quicker if your destination is near the airport. Now how about real apple to apples comparison on enjoyed trip?
You don’t have to tell me, I’m from flyover country, and have actually never lived outside of Illinois. And I’m totally with you on the flying experience. But you have to admit, the experience of driving the interstates through middle America is EXACTLY that sentence.
Great, now I am envisioning Jesus doing a woman doggy style while she screams out “Jesus, yes, Jesus!”*
*I feel like I may burn in hell for this…
I forget which season of Preacher, but …. You can watch that and worse leavened with punch fu and shootemups.
At the end of the trip they both need to top up back to their original fuel level.
Another owner of a black JSW TDI here…..have to agree that these things are absolutely fantastic road trip cars! (mine even still works 🙂 Will likely have an EV soonish, but can’t imagine giving up the 600-mile range and buttery diesel oomphness quite yet. Great taste as always, Mercedes!
I had an old VW diesel- anytime the gas tank outlasts my bladder it has great range, issue can be finding diesel sometimes
January 1, 2035 is coming. And no one seems to be willing to say the emperor’s clothes look pretty transparent.
This was as close to a “best case” scenario for the EV as could be imagined (busy corridor, modern EV with supposed fast charge capabilities, relatively short round trip all things considered). And yet….
Yeah, not true. Tesla is best case scenario as there are abundant chargers that are reliable Canada still trails compared to the US for EV infrastructure.
So your solution is everyone must buy a Tesla then?
If no other network can be counted on, why do other companies sell EVs?
The 401 is the busiest highway in Canada, and it didn’t sound like the issue was finding chargers, just getting them to work as advertised.
Perhaps the other manufacturers can hire Tesla to build the charging networks; they appear to know what they’re doing. I’ve had zero issues road tripping in mine.
IIRC the 401 is the busiest highway in North America.
There is a lot of electric hype in Canada and irrational dispersion of charging stations including tax funded “free ones”.
I doubt the 2035 deadline is anything other than a political “me too” with nobody actually trying to figure out how and at some time there will be a panic.
I may at some point buy an electric car, if it is cheap and cheerful, however I predict a retention of a majority of ICE vehicles in this household for well beyond 2035.
“why do other companies sell EVs?” I guess part of that is the chicken and egg problem, but by selling more EVs, there should be more demand for charging stations, so hopefully the number of charging stations increases.
Tesla’s Supercharger network is really its secret sauce. Hopefully as the legacy automakers start to get serious about selling electric vehicles additional RELIABLE fast charging options will become more plentiful. I’ve owned a used Tesla and a used Nissan Leaf. Tesla is serious about allowing users to drive long distances without issue. The Leaf depended on other people’s charging infrastructure that was often poorly maintained and unreliable. I did a 3000+ mile trip this summer along with numerous 500-1000 mile trips in the Tesla and had 0 issues with the charging network. All the other EV makers need to do is copy Tesla’s charger network.
Got it. Public charging is expensive – especially in Canada.
Homeowner charging is dependent on personal rates which you can rarely control. But it’s still a lot less than public charging.
It’s a bit of a chicken and egg problem, too. Part of why public charging is expensive is that they have to recoup the costs of building it out on top of paying for the electricity. And being that most daily commutes and regular usage is on the home plug, the number of people using the public chargers would be fewer than the number of people who use gas stations, per unit of car on the road, which means fewer users to spread the infrastructure costs amongst.
Also gas stations are staffed whereas EV charging stations aren’t. Almost sounds like there should be “meter maids” that go out and check it daily. But that then adds to the cost of running the charging station, which then increases the per kWh bill, which incentivizes more people to charge at home….
Don’t forget that their demand is also generally during the peakier demand hours of the day, vs home charging generally at night or can be time adjusted for cheaper rates.
Probably also extra charges for the obscene power draws that then go down to close to nothing in between charges – that system usage stress shock means extra costs to handle draw fluctuations (wouldn’t want 7-11’s lights to flicker when the parking lot charger turns on, just like your home AC unit shouldn’t cause neighbor lights to flicker when it turns on)
These are fair points and I often forget that many regions have peak power rates that are different.
My utility is completely backwards and if I make it over 2,000kW they start charging me LESS.
Why do charging stations charge at a much slower rate than they advertise? Is it something wrong with the charging station itself? Is the maximum rate dependent on battery temperature or environmental conditions? I don’t fast charge a lot since my EVs are strictly used for in town driving, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a charging station deliver the advertised charging rate.
Also, I’m a bit surprised the EV cost more per mile given how expensive diesel is (also, $5.50 is super high; I think I paid $4.70 when I filled my truck up last week). I know fast charging is expensive, but I figured the high cost of diesel would favor the EV.
Charging stations do put out that amount of electricity when the car can handle it. The EGMP platform does a terrible job at battery conditioning for charging. The stars have to align for that car to charge at its max rate. Its why Tesla still has the superior drivetrain.
This is what happens when people don’t have any idea of the cost of electricity. It’s expensive and supply and demand makes it higher and less reliable. Environmentalists forcing out coal, gas, natural gas, nuclear, etc just makes it even more expensive and 100% EVs we will be paying triple for electricity by then. But I’ve never seen a Democrat or Environmentalist that could do math so there you go. I see it clearly and politicians and democrats will be surprised when it happens 10 years down the line.
This is what a lot of people miss about EV charging costs. Somewhere along the line a lot of EV early adopters just started figuring that public charging should be free, as if there was no expense to the charging station or the lease on the land it’s on, not to mention the cost of the electricity itself. A lot of people also seem to think the government should be shouldering the expense of building all these charging stations and giving the electricity away. Maybe this is why the private sector has been so slow to respond, because they need to know they’ll be able to sell it profitably vs. whatever competition is out there, in order to make a business case for the charging station.
In any case, as more and more EVs hit the road, the cost of electricity will go up, because it has to by the laws of supply and demand. As fewer gasoline cars are out there, the price of gas will go down, because it has to for the same reasons. We’re probably not too far from a highly efficient ICE car being a value proposition over an EV because of the cost of fueling the thing. It will be interesting to see what happens then.
Power=Voltage*Current
Stations have a voltage and current limit. If your car taps out at 400V and the station can only provide 500A, you aren’t going to see more than 200kW (400V*500A=200,000W=200kW). If the car is 800V like the Ioniq 5 / EV6, it doesn’t necessarily mean it is designed for the full current capability of the station. An 800V car that can only handle 250A would also tap out at 200kW (800V*250A=200kW).
Also, worth noting lithium ion batteries cannot handle the peak power for the whole duration of a charge. They can charge faster when they’re closer to empty, but they also have lower voltage when closer to empty. I recommend googling EV Charging curves to see how different models perform. The most comprehensive data source is on a Dutch EV Charging Network’s website, fastned.nl
Do you think something was wrong with the Genesis? I’ve owned several EVs (Teslas, Porsche, Ford) and have never seen DC charging that slow. Like not even a single time.
The Genesis and its brothers/sisters do a poor job at battery preconditioning for charging. The Porsche is near the top because it can jam a ton of power in. The Tesla is second and the Fords are getting better and do precondition ok.
That’s an excellent question. I doubt anything was wrong with the car as I did see peak charging speeds north of 230 kW for several minutes during the second charging session, while average charging speeds seem fairly typical for rural Ontario based on prior experiences.
See, to me this suggests that something is actually wrong (or inferior, I can’t really say) about the car. Those few minutes of high-power charging suggest the current delivery is there, but something else in the charging sequence is overwhelmed. If, from my armchair, I had to guess, I would guess the thermal management of the battery (cooling in this case, as it gets hot during rapid charging). When the cars I’ve had are charging flat-out, they make a lot of noise, which is the cooling system shedding that heat. When my cooling system was briefly broken on my Model X, the DC charging was hobbled due to this. This is also how I learned that an AC refrigerant leak in (at least some) EVs is basically as bad as puncturing your gas tank or toasting your alternator in an ICE car.
I bought my Bolt EV in Florida and drove it back home in Illinois. Paid $99.63 in charging fees for the 1200 mile trip, which equates to 8.3 cents/mi. My trade-in cost $150 in gas to get down there.
I’m just curious – how much total time did you spend charging the Bolt? Was it hard to find charging stations?
The Bolt only supports a 50 kW max charge rate, so each stop was about an hour, every 200 miles or so. I was transporting my dogs, though, and I’ve clocked previous trips’ stops at around the same length. The GM app has a really nice trip planner, with many networks’ charging stations listed so I had no problem finding chargers, and only one Electrify America station had problems, but I was able to use a different charger at the same location (which I think was just absurd amounts of luck on my part).
I feel like this is sort of cherry-picking. EVs aren’t great for road trips, and public charging is expensive. I’d like to see a apples/apples comparison of costs over 2-3 months of normal use (daily commute with home charging, maybe a handful of longer trips) that would be more of a fair comparison.
I don’t think it’s cherry picking at all. You say EVs aren’t great for road trips, but the thing is, if they are supposed to be REPLACING all ICE vehicles in 10 years, they are going to HAVE to be capable enough for road trips….so finding out they still aren’t yet is pretty key and important when new ICE vehicles will be here in 10 years. Here’s hoping they improve by then because, at least up here in Canada, the charging infrastructure has barely improved in several years (excepting maybe in very large urban areas) – outside of major cities like Toronto, Montreal, etc, there’s almost nothing.
I was going to say this. If EVs ever want to be able to replace ICE vehicles, then they need to be able to be on par with ICE performance across all normal use cases for the average car owner.
With all of the upcoming laws/mandates/deadlines ushering in the age of the EV, I think now is the time to stop giving them a pass on these use cases. Saying “EVs aren’t for road trips and public charging is expensive” aren’t caveats anymore. It’s pointing out two significant flaws that can and will hinder adoption if they aren’t corrected, albiet with infrastructure more than the vehicles themselves.
This is a fine post showing that EVs still aren’t there yet. I’m all for them at this point, but until they are ready to actually replace ICE vehicles, charging infrastructure and all, everyone needs to point out their shortcomings a something serious.
Quit clouding the issue with facts. Just pass a law if things screw up blame Trump.
I want to clarify that this is not us trying to put down electric cars, but more of us being fascinated that this was even possible. I fully expect to get hosed paying for diesel fuel, but I didn’t expect that Thomas’ costs would come anywhere close to mine.
It seems that a perfect storm of vehicle choice and public chargers made for a bad time for Thomas.
That said, I’m not so sure about the home charging thing. Many people in North America don’t have a place to charge an EV at home. So for them, how long it takes and how much it costs to charge is going to be their reality.
That’s fair. I think you presented the data in a straightforward manner. Ultimately, it’s up to the individual how they choose to interpret that data, which may be painted by their opinions and biases. I certainly know mine is!
From what I’ve read/seen from various journalists across many sites is that it’s not necessarily the EV’s themselves, it’s the charging infrastructure Electrify America/Canada needs to get their shit together, because they always seem to be at the root of the frustrations.
EVs are not for everyone as of now. If you can’t charge at home then it’s a tough way to go. But, as I can charge at home and at work, I bought an EV. I travel to see my son who lives 400 miles away and I take the Tesla and there has never been an issue. I can’t stand Elon and his band of followers, but the charging system is better by a LOT.
This is a perfect example of every story is not the only story, but the more stories we have the more we can see one that relate to our use case. It all ends up being helpful.
It’s hard to beat diesel in terms of cost per mile, we eke out around 48 mpg on open road in our Golf TDi. The charging stations really take advantage of EV drivers, seemingly deliberately priced to match the cost per mile of gas vehicles at 44 cents per kWh.
You hit the nail on the head when you mentioned that the 80% range is the critical figure, when that’s all you can practically charge to on a road trip, and manufacturers recommend against regularly charging to a higher percentage for battery longevity, not to mention real world charging rates vs factorial buzz on a brochure.
I wish we could be honest about what EVs are and are not well suited for, rather than push them as a one size fits all solution. They make perfect sense as a commuter, but real world, they’re shit for long trips, towing, motorcycles, or airplanes (any constant high load operation).
Speaking of which, how are flying lessons going? Did you pass your PPL checkride yet?
You’re right it isn’t an apples to apples. It’s a brand new EV vs an old poorly maintained diesel. Compare it to a brand new Toyota hybrid. Since the EV lost before even getting there and wasn’t even driven in the city it clearly is far worse than advertised.
If you are intending to do long-term cost comparisons you must also include acquisition costs, maintenance costs, and depreciation at resale. It is my understanding that an EV has a higher purchase cost than its gasoline equivalent, a lower maintenance cost, and a ? ? depreciation compared to a gasoline powered vehicle. So far Tesla is enough of a fashion statement to hold high resale values, but is that true for a Volt/Bolt, Genesis, or Mustang, after 4 or 5 years?
I also wonder what the current escalation on electricity costs will do to ownership costs.
From eia.gov:
“The highest forecast wholesale prices are at more than $100/MWh in ISO New England (up 96% from 2021) and New York ISO (up 124% from 2021).
https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/electricity.php
I am not anti-electric vehicle; I am more or less indifferent, frankly. For people for whom they work, great, more power to them (heh!) at market proces.
I am however very curious, so I’d like to hear more real world experience articles like this one please.
Diesel: 13.31 gallons of diesel * 37.95 kWh/gal = 505.1145 kWh. For 760 miles, that’s 0.6646 kWh/mile or 1.504 miles / kWh
EV: 512.8 miles. Unknown kWh charging. To beat the Diesel you’d need to use no more than 340.8kWh. GV60 is supposedly rated at 3 miles/kWh if driven carefully, so likely not highway speeds.
@ Thomas, can you provide your kWh numbers?
What point are you actually trying to make here? That the ICE car likely used more energy in total? Sure. But you know what that means? It means that existing battery technology absolutely SUCKS when it comes to energy density compared to dead dino juice. It also means that energy coming from hydrocarbon fuel can still be cheaper per kWh than electric energy… and in many cases, that electric energy also comes from fossil fuels anyway. Not to mention the cost of added time.
I love EVs as much as the next guy, but we’re still far from the point where they can replace ICE cars in every scenario, let alone be strictly better. Admitting that is not FUD; it’s what will drive further progress.
it’s a mix of things I was hoping to find out, but really most of what I was interested in here was whether the highway efficiency hit on an EV balances with the highway efficiency of usage of a Diesel.
People are generally used to ICE vehicles getting better highway mileage than city, but with EVs, it’s the other way around and much sharper cutoff.
I also like to convert Diesel to kWh to compare because it’s different energy density than gasoline so easiest to have common units.
It’d be really interesting to see the charger rate relative to usable kWh – at a certain high charge rate, a portion of that energy is going to waste heat – it’s akin to vapor losses from your tank when you fill – except more lossy.
I’ve also played around with Ford’s Pro Power Onboard, and depending on what you’re powering with it, when gas was ~$2/gal then it was about the same cost as the per kWh electricity rate. Of course you had to buy the truck, but basically after all the distribution fees and everything else, the net electric efficiency of power plants vs PPO got lost – at least when it comes to the wallet. numbers are fun.
kWh numbers are likely quite high compared to expected. The first leg, 120 miles, starting at 80% and charging back to 80% at well over an hour at 41 kW average makes me think ~50kW for that first short leg, or 2.4 miles/kWh. This is full size ev truck type of efficiency, with fast charging speeds from 2017, pretty pathetic if true.