no thanks! I'll continue to drive my ICE (internal combustion engine) instead of being faced with this shit... and I don't use plastic straws so I am saving the planet....

Keeping EV road trips on track and saving money

• The Globe and Mail (Ontario Edition)
• 24 Jun 2023
• KRYSTYNA LAGOWSKI

STEPHEN FUNG

Stephen Fung’s children are seen with the family’s 2020 Kia Niro EV, which was used for a nine-day road trip last summer from Coquitlam, B.C., to Calgary. The family spent $129.68 round trip on charging, which is about $100 less had they driven a similarly sized gas-powered crossover.

These two families used apps such as A Better Route Planner and PlugShare to map out their long-haul journeys based on stops needed for charging

When you’re behind the wheel of an EV, summer road-tripping with the family takes a little extra planning. While you can still count on paying for food, souvenirs and a place to sleep, you’ll be saving money on fuel. But an EV road trip comes with the trade-off of needing more frequent, longer breaks to top up the battery – if you can find a functional charger. That means planning stops, meals and sleep around charging.

Still, as public EV infrastructure grows across Canada – networks grew 30 per cent in 2022 – it’s getting easier to hit the open road on long-haul trips.

For Stephen Fung, a television producer, all it takes is a little foresight and route planning.

That’s why he turned to the A Better Route Planner app for his family’s road trip from Coquitlam, B.C., to Calgary and back last summer.

Before he, his wife and their three children – the ages of 7, 9 and 11 – piled into their 2020 Kia Niro EV, Mr. Fung plotted out the 2,000-kilometre journey using the free Swedish-made app. He calculated they’d have to stop six times to charge, or about once every three driving hours.

“I mainly used Electrify Canada charging stations, and they were all near a mall or a restaurant,” he said.

The kids were happy to get a break from the car while Mr. Fung fast-charged the Niro for about 45 minutes at each stop. “They’re all the same level of immature, so they can stretch their legs or play-fight in the parking lot,” he said.

As the kids played, his Electrify Canada membership, which costs $4 a month, saved him six cents per minute (21 cents per minute at the Niro’s 77-kilowatt capability, rather than the non-member price of 27 cents).

There were some bumps along the way, though.

Normally, Mr. Fung sets a buffer of about 20 per cent to ensure he always has enough charge on the Niro’s battery to make it to the next stop. Calgary, though, had fewer chargers, he said. “There were some Flo stations, but they were slow, so I had to change the buffer to 40 per cent.” That meant more frequent stops driving around the city to keep the battery as full as possible until they got back into charger territory in B.C.

And when they stopped to rest overnight in Revelstoke, B.C., their hotel didn’t have a charger on site. Luckily, a sister property down the road did, allowing Mr. Fung to get a full charge.

Over the nine-day trip to Calgary and back, the Fung family spent $129.68 round trip on charging – about $100 less than if they’d driven a similarly sized gas-powered crossover.

“Using the app helped me find the Electrify Canada chargers that saved me money,” Mr. Fung said.

Since buying his 2018 Chevy Bolt five years ago, Paul LaFlamme has been taking his wife and daughter on regular road trips across Canada and the United States. “As the infrastructure improves, we’re able to go farther and have more fun on the road,” Mr. LaFlamme said.

Two years ago, they drove from Scarborough, Ont., through the Prairies, to Whistler, B.C. The Bolt has a 64-kilowatt-hour battery rated to travel 416 kilometres on a single charge, so Mr. LaFlamme usually starts with a full charge and drives 300 kilometres to his first stop.

The 9,900-kilometre round trip to Whistler took 41⁄ days each way and cost $190 in electricity. Mr. LaFlamme estimates the same trip would cost $900 total with a comparable gas-powered car.

Mr. LaFlamme, a retired industrial electrician, strategizes to save money and plan his stops. First, he uses the PlugShare app to schedule the route. “I like to pick my stations based on what restaurants are nearby and how well [the chargers] work,” he said. “With PlugShare, you can actually see ratings of how good the station is, whether it’s reliable, with recent reports of people charging there.”

Mr. LaFlamme also took advantage of a program by Petro-Canada and the Royal Bank of Canada to get $400 worth of charging for free. As a Petro-Canada spokesperson explained in an e-mail to The Globe and Mail, the partnership gives drivers “100 per cent off their EV charges, up to a maximum of $100, when they charge at any participating Petro-Canada EV station and pay with an RBC debit or credit card linked to Petro-Points.”

Mr. LaFlamme usually relies on roadside fast chargers, unless the family stays at hotels with charging on site. Although the Banff hotel did not have charging this time, the PlugShare app helped him find free charging at nearby parking lots.

Mr. LaFlamme always checks the app to see if anyone reports a problem before he stops to charge, but that’s not an infallible solution. He said sometimes chargers are down by the time he gets there, so he plans to ensure the Bolt’s battery never dips below 20 per cent: “Usually, I fill it up to 55 or 60 per cent, as the charging slows down quite a bit after that.”

If he’s stopping for a meal, he lets it charge a bit longer.

“When I’m with my wife and daughter, it’s hard to get them going in less than an hour,” he said. “If there’s any kind of shopping nearby, they’re at it.”