It’s not great that the existence of electric cars has become increasingly politicized, because we end up with situations like the one we had this week, where a somewhat impromptu and poorly planned trip in a rented Tesla Model Y from Fox Business News reporter Jeff Flock ends up in an exaggerated and misleading series of reports that feed the EV outrage machine. We don’t stand for that around these parts, especially since I did this same trip in a Lucid EV in just two stops this summer. Sure, the Lucid has more range especially when it’s warm, but still — it was a non-issue.
First off, here’s the rather hard-to-watch news segment that got us started down this path. It’s about a very straightforward and well-traveled route from Chicago to New York, something that Tesla drivers have been navigating for years.
The segment features ignorant talk about battery mining, and Ted Nugent shows up for some reason — seriously, this is bizarre:
The reporter who participated in the road trip, Flock, is a self-proclaimed EV fan and mostly keeps politics out of his report, thankfully. But if you read the main article about this (not written by Flock), it’s dripping with an agenda:
Fox Business’ Jeff Flock put Biden’s electric vehicle hype to the test, embarking on an 800-mile trip in a Tesla on Tuesday from Chicago to New York, documenting each charge along the way.
His expedition comes as the White House and more than a dozen Democrat-run states push to accelerate America’s clean transportation future. However, the initiative has sparked concerns for long-distance drivers.
This underlined bit is, I think, a reference to the Inflation Reduction Act and the California Air Resource Board’s EV mandate, which has been copied by other states, though not all of those states have Democratic governors so I’m not entirely sure how accurate that statement is. The graphic they use for the first TV hit of this trip is more telling:
As the reporter admits in his own written piece, the amount of money he spent relative to gasoline was a wash, so I’m not sure how he’s “losing green” exactly, and Consumer Reports and others have estimated the fuel cost savings for an EV to be about 60% compared to a gas-powered, but public charging is more expensive than private charging and gas in Ohio, along the route, is particularly cheap at the moment (I was just there doing a drive a couple of weeks ago), so it’s possible that an EV could cost the same (or even more) to road trip, depending on a bunch of factors.
As Flock admits himself, this trip could have been better planned. It probably didn’t help that he apparently wasn’t very familiar with the vehicle, spending 15 minutes trying to figure out how to start it (the car was already on), and even calling it a “Model W.”
This Probably Wasn’t The Best Way To Do This
Flock’s report doesn’t include a lot of details, but based on the dual motor badge on the back of the Model Y in photos it means that he probably rented either a Long Range or Performance trim, which means 285-310 miles of likely range. My best guess is that it’s a Model Y Long Range.
He does say he used the Tesla map to determine where to start after setting off from Chicago in the EV he rented. In an ideal world, you’d want to charge the vehicle before you left on the trip, but maybe Flock was in a hurry and drove it from O’Hare, where he picked it up, to his family.
As you can see above, I mapped the trip using a 2020 Model Y Long Range and only Tesla Superchargers, and it ended up being about 16 hours and five stops, including an almost immediate 15-minute stop to top the car off. This route seems to keep you pretty much always on or near the Interstate, which is why I thought this sentence was weird:
Tesla’s software does a great job of routing you to superchargers, which are the fastest way to charge but may not be the fastest way to get where you’re going.
This is generally true, but for his trip, it shouldn’t be an issue, and it gets me with my biggest gripe with this kind of reporting. He says he stopped in Elyria, Ohio with just 38 miles of range and then went to a Supercharger in Sheffield, Ohio.
When we finished our first day and parked at our hotel in Elyria, Ohio, the vehicle said we had 38 miles of range remaining. When we started up the next morning, we had just 15 miles. The software routed us to the nearest supercharger in Sheffield, Ohio, and when we got there we had just 3% battery left. Whew.
As far as I can tell, Flock and his producer/camera operator started at 219 miles of charge and made it pretty easily to Elkhart (stop #1) and then drove 215 miles or so to Elyria, Ohio. It’s possible they waited to charge the car all the way up to the top. They also could have picked a hotel with a charger or charged during dinner (there are local chargers in Elyria), but instead the choice was made to park the car nearly empty and then they forced themselves to drive out of the way a bit to charge in Sheffield.
Flock sort of admits this:
And in fairness to Tesla, we departed from their route to get dinner the first night, which took our charge down lower than they would recommend.
Ok, fine, it then took them four more stops to get home. That seems high but, if you’re worried about running out of range, it makes a little sense, though because he only wants to stop at Tesla chargers he confusingly admits in one video that he only goes 87 miles at one point in between charges (from Sheffield, Ohio, to Girard, Ohio). It’s also winter and the reporter talks about losing range, which is definitely an issue when driving when it’s cold outside, but if he did lose 46 miles of range, I can’t imagine a scenario where he couldn’t have just driven another 40 or so miles to the Supercharger in Grove City, PA or, even, the closer one in Hermitage, PA.
However, there’s a better way to do this. If you stop at the very convenient Electrify America station in West Unity, Ohio (we realize that EA stations aren’t always the best), this trip can probably be done in just four stops, which is how I think many experienced EV roadtrippers would do it. You need an adapter, and it’s not clear if the rental had one, but anyone who owned one of these cars would likely own an adapter. Is this drive possible in the winter? I think so, but as the reporter experienced, cold weather can negatively impact range.
After all this, here’s how Flock sums it up:
My biggest takeaway: if you stick to their route you’re good. If you prefer a more spontaneous excursion involving exploration off the route, you had better be good at planning.
The good news is that being better at planning than Flock seems to be a low bar to clear.
Fox Business News And Fox News Seem To Add Two Charging Stops That Didn’t Happen
Here’s the weirdest thing, Flock says that he made six stops. If you read the report written by the network, or if you unfortunately watched the wacky Ted Nugent segment at the top of this article, it was suddenly eight stops? From the report:
Throughout the trip, he made eight stops to charge the car and watched the efficiency drop after each stop.
And here’s a screenshot from that segment, The BIG Weekend show, with an anchor and random panelists talking about how bad they think EVs are:
The reality is, yes, of course, renting a Tesla from Hertz for a long-distance road trip is going to take longer. We didn’t need a segment to prove that. It’s possible to make this trip slower than it should be if you really have no idea what you’re doing, take random excursions, and don’t plan at all. The eight stops thing, though, appears to be a mistake from the Fox Business News reporter that was then repeated on Fox News for some reason.
Anyway, it’s all dumb.
The title of this article could have been shortened to “Fox News is Just Dumb” and it would have been equally justified. They are not a news organization, they are there for entertainment purposes..and that’s using the term very loosely. They are really in the business of outrage for views.
For a “report” the video clip was very light on data and heavy on opinions.
I think the part about having to route your trip around the stations regardless of whether it is a the shortest route or not is probably the most disturbing thing thus far. I suppose at some point the charging stations will at least mimic the number of ICE fuel stations in quantity and it will be a moot point, but I really don’t want to have to drive farther(possibly use more resources) stay at charger equipped hotels only and Learn the rental car completely just to get somewhere in the future, that seems regressive.
Progressive would be to have corridors of powered rails or wireless charging lanes where the power for the most inefficient mode(aka Long distance Highway driving at freeway speeds) of BEV travel is supplied as you go. Hell I imaging if the Freeways ended up with say a system that allowed one to get on in the Central grassy area now, set an exit point, and get off at said point with nothing more than engaging a button or something that would be something many could see as a solution to range anxiety.
FYI the 8 stop trip was in the Bolt, not the Tesla
It’s interesting that Fox did this trip, as it’s one that I don’t think a lot of people would do? ORD to NYC is probably one of the cheapest airline tickets you can get these days, add to that the public transport options in both cities, a need for a car is a bit low.
However, it’s a great representation of how one does need to plan a little bit to travel with an EV still. Tesla offers the best option for cross country travel, but even with all their Supercharger stations, you’d be hard pressed to deviate to see something interesting or off the beaten path. The software only accounts from stop to stop, so you either need to overcharge from the computer’s estimation (taking more time and money), plan those “spontaneous” stops ahead of time, or plan to use other forms of chargers that have reliability issues (leading to range anxiety).
This is why other EV’s are a hard buy right now if you travel a lot by car. EA and other fast DC chargers are so hit and miss. Tesla will open their nextwork soon, but even that won’t be a guarantee as those stations can not accommodate certain EV’s due to the short charging cords. Who knows what effect these other EV’s will have on Tesla’s reliability as well, at least going forward.
I still want an EV as my next vehicle. I love my Volt right now because I get the best of both worlds. Commute to work and back on battery, gasoline for work and vacation trips, it just works.
Fox News lied about something?? [shocked Pikachu face]
In this area, the only thing that draws more ire than the existence of electric vehicles is the increasing use of roundabouts in new road construction. I don’t get either one — I think electric vehicles are cool (even though I’m not in the market for one), and roundabouts have elminanted some dangerous intersections around here.
My issue with roundabouts is that, at least around here, they keep putting them in stupid places that don’t need them. When they replace a stoplight or four way stop with a roundabout I cheer, but they keep putting them on major roads without significant cross traffic. I assume they’re planning for future expansion in those areas, but some are literally miles from the edge of town and won’t see major traffic until they’re so old they need to redo the whole intersection anyway.
The roundabouts here are kind of a microcosm of the whole road system though. They keep coming up with weird new intersections that just confuse and annoy people. I’m sure in theory they’re great, but in practice they don’t work that well and nobody likes them.
the two lane roundabouts near me seem to really cause problems as nobody seems to know about getting out of the center safely. it seems like the old pig an a poke Chevy Chase trope about getting stuck in the round about from Euro Vacations sometimes.
My home town is terrible at urban planning. Why do we have two way bike lanes on one way streets?
So people on bikes can go in both directions I would imagine. I bet they even let pedestrians walk in both directions. Why is that a problem?
So that’s all terrible, BUT, whoever this is for, this is probably helpful. My daily driver is an EV, it’s perfect, almost no maintenance, it just eats up my daily commute, it is the perfect appliance machine. Wish I’d gotten a more comfortable one but it’s what I could afford at the time and it’s great.
But I’m fairly tech savvy, I added my own outlet and charger for it at home, I did my research. If I were the type that was inclined to watch this station, and buy what they were selling, I doubt I’d be at all interested in getting an EV, and having to figure out getting a charger at home, and remembering to plug in at night, and then if going on a long trip figuring out how to find a charger, all that.
This kind of reporting can actually save face a little for EVs as it turns off those not ready for prime time people from purchasing one, running out of charge, complaining to consumer reports about it, and driving down EV ratings.
You bring up an interesting point I hadn’t really thought of before. On some level you might be right, but I think from Fox’s POV the purpose is more confirmation-bias for the audience they’ve trained to hate all things remotely environmentally positive. As well, I think propagandaish reports like this also serve to backup the politicians who are going to do everything they can to obstruct EV expansion. So while I think you’re right about keeping away the customers who probably shouldn’t be customers yet, I still would prefer just honest straight-forward reporting instead of more drivel.
Most importantly I don’t look forward to the next time I end up in a bar convo and this exact report gets brought up.
Ugh. I got pulled into one of these last week (the guy next to me literally said “Ben agrees with me, right?”) and I was reminded of why I don’t talk politics there. It was an exercise in futility and stupidity. There are a scary number of otherwise-intelligent people out there who cannot fathom the idea that Fox News may have lied to them.
I get what you’re saying but when the first sentence is “Is the left’s electric vehicle hype real”, you have laid the foundation for “no” to be the conclusion. While there is lots of positive bias from EV fans, this kind of negative reporting doesn’t balance it out. If I were in the market for a Porsche for example, I wouldn’t put all my eggs in the feedback from a Porsche forum, or a Ferrari forum, I’d go to a neutral party (as much as it exists) and see what R&T or C&D have to say. This “report” from Fox isn’t meant to say “Hey, Teslas are great, but be aware that road trips require planning” it’s meant to say “Keep your Suburban/Expedition/F250 because EVs are a leftist scam!”
Oh definitely, it’s all terrible, just trying to find the silver lining.
If you’re trying to find a silver lining to Fox, I’d like you to meet a guy:
What’s ironic about their implication that only lefties support EVs, this might not even be a conversation if not for Elon – and I don’t think you can classify him as a left winger. Whatever anyone’s personal feelings about him, Tesla did more to normalize EVs than any other manufacturer.
I was literally saying something similar this morning; while it’s hard to determine exactly how much “musk” is in the early Model S introduction, the fact it was fast, and the investment in infrastructure was exactly what the industry needed. I say he shaved years, if not a decade off the “revolution”.
If I’m the kind of person who spends Tesla money on a car, I’m most likely the kind of person who would fly (or take a business class train) when faced with an 800 mile trip.
But…But, the Bartender Bureaucrat from New York says flying is very bad for the environment.
EVs aren’t bad. They aren’t good. They are an item that is being developed rapidly that does have its flaws as well as its upsides. I take the Rich Rebuilds YouTube channel view. Are EVs cool yes, are they ready to replace ICE full time, not even close, is there a happy medium in there, definitely.
There is a lot to unpack as far as social economical, global warming, and the average person just trying to stay afloat in life without the government forcing an overly expensive product even with the tax credits. EVs at this point are a novelty for those that can afford it. Maybe in 10 years when these full bans on ICE vehicle purchase go into effect it may be more realistic, or another alternative comes in.
“Not even close”? I think that’s hyperbolic. I also completely disagree they are a “novelty”.
Average price of a new car is $47k, average price of an EV is $53.5K that’s not a huge difference, so if you can afford a new car, you can likely afford an EV. Most pollution comes from commuting and city driving, the average commute is 41 miles, any EV’s range should cover that. EVs perform better in traffic than on highways anyway. 51% of households have 2 or more vehicles, 22% having more than 3.
I stand by the not even close. If you honestly believe that the average American can afford a car payment over $600 (not even considering interest) for 86 months, you need to get out more.
Buying a used EV sounds great until say battery problems start creeping in to the tune of any where form $7-20k. It is a novelty until it is readily available and obtainable to more than those making over 100K annually.
anecdotal evidence.. Google it yourself, the average price is $47k, you might also google the definition of “novelty” every major car company has an EV in addition there are 260 hybrid & EV manufacturing businesses in the US. You’re sounding like a buggy whip salesman..
No arguing average price, just the reality that the average person can’t afford even a fraction of that. There are countless observations on this site alone that support the fact that EVs are something for those in higher tax brackets. EVs make up less than 1% of vehicles on the road way. I think that fits the definition of novelty (Oxford Dictionary: the quality of being new, original, or unusual) (Webster: Something new or unusual)
It’s cute that you think I am against EVs or Hybrids by the way.
So let’s get this straight. They…
Rented a vehicle with an empty battery.Ignored the car’s navigation because it was too “circuitous.”Added detours without adjusting navigation and complained when this added time.Noted that the navigation placed stops at less than the full range of the battery, as if this was a failure.Stayed at the Courtyard by Marriott where they coulsn’t recharge, when the Hampton Inn 500 feet away has multiple outdoor plugs for customers.Apparently added 2 charging stops in post to make it look worse.Joked that Biden was going to give EVs to migrant caravans.
Watching Fox deliberately do everything wrong made me feel like I was watching the black-and-white portion of an infomercial.
Fuck FOX News.
A dbag network.
And a bunch of mouth breathers because they have their noses full of shit from being up Trump’s+ MAGA’S ass since 2016.
Screw these assholes. YMMV
I am not a big news person but anyone who takes those morons seriously needs to get their heads checked. They lie all day, every day.
But Ted Nugent!