San Diego - Need more than 82 mile range?

[sv650john]

Hey all,

I just picked up a 2015 Spark EV however the 82 mile range means I can't make my weekly trip to LA/OC/IE and back in a day.
It's possible to charge up halfway, but it really isn't convenient to stop somewhere and wait 7 hours.

I've decided to keep my old Prius for road trip duty.
I don't think I'm alone in this predicament, so I'm offering up my car for any Spark EV owners facing the same problem.

I put the Prius up on RelayRides so if anyone's interested in renting it you can find it at this link:
https://relayrides.com/car-rental/san-diego/toyota-prius-c/64872

It's parked at my office in Liberty Station and always available for use 24/7 (unless someone else has rented it). The keys are in a lockbox.
There's also two Blink stations (with 10+ available L2 chargers) next to where the Prius is parked.
I usually leave my Spark at the charger for the day, take the Prius to LA, and come back to a full charge.

Hope this will help someone out!

 

[xylhim]

I did this trip when I was in So. Cal, with DC fast charging it's no problem at all. Check out www.plugshare.com and under the options, check the SAE combo connector. You can make it up to Mission Viejo for a quick charge coming up, and there are plenty of quick charge stations throughout the LA area now. On the way back down, Carlsbad would be a great stop to make. In about 30 mins, you'll be fully charged and ready to go!

 

[SteveC5088]

sv650john, you'll have to report back how the RelayRides works out.

If you have the FastCharge option, it sounds like xylhim may have the solution for your drive north.

 

[sv650john]

I've thought long and hard about the economics of the Fast Charge option.

My weekly work trip usually involves the following stops:
Start in San Diego in the morning
Drive to San Clemente for a meeting (65 miles)
Drive to Hollywood & Pasadena to meet vendors (80 miles)
Drive back to San Diego (130 miles)

I'm aware there are fast charge stations along the way.
I'd be looking at minimum 4 FC stops to make my trip = 2 hours spent charging which is time wasted when I have meetings to get to during the day, and a wife to get home to at night.
On top of that, the eVgo DC rates are $4.95/charge + $0.2 per min. So a 30 min charge = about $10.
x4 FC's in one day = $40.

By comparison, the Prius gets 400 miles out of an 8 gallon tank that takes all of 5 mins to fill.
To make my trip I'd burn 5 gallons of gas, about $20 worth at today's prices.

Don't get me wrong, I love the Spark and I think it's excellent for what it is.
I also think fast charging is the future, except for eVgo's silly pricing model. For more people to adopt EV's we need to have fast charging everywhere, available 24/7 and free (ie. Tesla supercharger).
You know when you pull into a gas pump that 99.9% of the time you'll be able to gas up and be on your way (arguably the same for Tesla stations). I'm just not that confident of the eVgo network. I'd hate to make the call to my wife one night to tell her that the DCFC is down, ICE'd, or any other situation which would leave me stranded 100 miles from home and spending the night in the Spark lol.

My conclusion for now - any trip over 80 miles, it simply makes more $ sense to drive with a gas car.

 

[sv650john]

sv650john, you'll have to report back how the RelayRides works out.

My 2 cents on Relayrides - I've had the Prius on there for a few months now.

Relayrides takes 25% off the top to cover insurance, admin costs. So at $29/day really means I pocket $21/day, $130/week.
I've been seeing 2-3 rentals a month, for simplicity lets say 2 weekends and a weekly rental... which nets out to about $200-$250 a month in income.
The car's costing me about $320/mo payment, plus my own insurance, maintenance, tires, car washes. So let's say $400 in expenses.

It's definitely not a money making enterprise. But since my Prius sits 90% of the time it's nice to have someone else cover half the expenses.
Also the warm fuzzy feeling inside that you're "helping the environment" by reducing the need for more cars to be on the road, helping out the community etc...
And in relation to my above post, if I needed to rent a car every week for my trip, I'd end up spending a couple hundred bucks a month on that. So the costs would be similar either way.

I haven't had any real problems with people abusing my car. That said, as with anything that gets used it suffers from more "wear and tear" and it isn't in pristine condition. Wheels get curb scratches, scuffs, small door dings etc are to be expected.
I've also received a couple parking tickets / toll tickets in the mail that Relayrides paid for immediately (and charged the renter's credit card).

Any more questions, let me know!

 

[Jedi2155]

I've thought long and hard about the economics of the Fast Charge option.
I'm aware there are fast charge stations along the way.
I'd be looking at minimum 4 FC stops to make my trip = 2 hours spent charging which is time wasted when I have meetings to get to during the day, and a wife to get home to at night.
On top of that, the eVgo DC rates are $4.95/charge + $0.2 per min. So a 30 min charge = about $10.
x4 FC's in one day = $40.

If you make regular fast charges then they offer a different rate for you. Their "On-the-Go Total" seems pretty reasonable for regular users.

Its' $14.95/month (12 month contract though), but there's no $4.95 access fee and its $0.10/minute. That makes your 4x30 minute charge only $12 each day much more reasonable. You only need to do this twice a month to make it break even with the Prius cost
+$12 for 120 minutes
+$14.95/2 = $7.48
= $19.48 for each drive.

http://www.nrgevgo.com/los-angeles-basin/

I think their rates are reasonable compared to the crazy $2/hr charging for some L2 charging stations. I only wish I had a fast charger on my vehicle but I didn't want to pay the extra $3-4k for a 2015 model that had the option.

 

[xylhim]

I've thought long and hard about the economics of the Fast Charge option.

My weekly work trip usually involves the following stops:
Start in San Diego in the morning
Drive to San Clemente for a meeting (65 miles)
Drive to Hollywood & Pasadena to meet vendors (80 miles)
Drive back to San Diego (130 miles)

I'm aware there are fast charge stations along the way.
I'd be looking at minimum 4 FC stops to make my trip = 2 hours spent charging which is time wasted when I have meetings to get to during the day, and a wife to get home to at night.
On top of that, the eVgo DC rates are $4.95/charge + $0.2 per min. So a 30 min charge = about $10.
x4 FC's in one day = $40.

By comparison, the Prius gets 400 miles out of an 8 gallon tank that takes all of 5 mins to fill.
To make my trip I'd burn 5 gallons of gas, about $20 worth at today's prices.

Don't get me wrong, I love the Spark and I think it's excellent for what it is.
I also think fast charging is the future, except for eVgo's silly pricing model. For more people to adopt EV's we need to have fast charging everywhere, available 24/7 and free (ie. Tesla supercharger).
You know when you pull into a gas pump that 99.9% of the time you'll be able to gas up and be on your way (arguably the same for Tesla stations). I'm just not that confident of the eVgo network. I'd hate to make the call to my wife one night to tell her that the DCFC is down, ICE'd, or any other situation which would leave me stranded 100 miles from home and spending the night in the Spark lol.

My conclusion for now - any trip over 80 miles, it simply makes more $ sense to drive with a gas car.

I think you can make it three stops: https://www.google.ca/maps/dir/San+Diego,+CA,+United+States/33.5567728,-117.6694834/34.0922416,-118.3629892/Pasadena/34.0744113,-118.0713604/33.127075,-117.3214903/@33.4358227,-118.3527067,9z/am=t/data=!3m1!4b1!4m18!4m17!1m5!1m1!1s0x80d9530fad921e4b:0xd3a21fdfd15df79!2m2!1d-117.1610838!2d32.715738!1m0!1m0!1m5!1m1!1s0x80c2c2dc38330b51:0x52b41161ad18f4a!2m2!1d-118.1445155!2d34.1477849!1m0!1m0!3e0

Stops:
The Shops at Mission Viejo
Fresh and Easy in Rosemead
Carlsbad Premium outlets

If you also do some Level 2 charging while your having meetings it would make things quicker as well.

I'm not saying this is the most practical thing, but I think you're overestimating the trip a tad.

 

[sv650john]

I'm not saying this is the most practical thing, but I think you're overestimating the trip a tad.

Maybe I am, although I think it's hard to disagree that driving with an EV is something that requires a bit of planning ahead of time - just not the same as driving a gas car.
Also finding that my driving style doesn't quite get the claimed 82-mile range. With the AC running and on the freeway I'd estimate closer to 65-70 miles max. You just can't convince me to drive 55 or 65mph on the freeway lol.

I get the feeling that most Spark EV owners aren't relying on it as their only car. Most of us here probably have 2, if not 3 cars in the household that we can take for a road trip. That's a lot of idle cars just sitting in driveways.
I'm personally planning on keeping the Prius as long as I need it, not to mention my Spark is on a 10K mile lease, not exactly ideal for road trips.

So with that said, I believe there could be a use case for what I'm proposing here.
Maybe someone who owns an EV and is in my local area might sell their gas car(s), pocket that money, and only spend a little bit to rent mine as needed.
Or perhaps someone that's on the fence about buying an EV as a local commuter might be able to without worrying about what to do when taking a longer trip.

 

[sv650john]

Here's why fast charging doesn't work: I tried making my trip in the Spark. Got to Carlsbad Outlets at 9pm last night on reduced power. This is the sign that greeted me.

3 hours of 3.3kw L2 charging later - made it down to the DCFC near Qualcomm Stadium.

It's now midnight. At least I can get a charge right? NOPE. Denied.
Plug car in - error. Says car's done charging. It's not, there's 6 miles of indicated range left.
Get on the phone with NRG for 30+ mins. Reset charger, tried plugging, unplugging, everything. Can't get the car to charge.
NRG guy says they are showing that it's charging, but I'm getting nothing.

Ok, I still gotta get home. Find an L2 and plug in for a couple hours.

By the time I get home it's 2am, I've been messing around with getting a charge in the rain and I'm soaked. Only to get a royal ass-chewing from the wife for being home so late.

What should've taken a hour, maybe an hour and a half to drive ended up taking me close to 6 hours. Most of it sitting in a cold car in the rain (don't want to turn the heater on while charging on L2, I'd rather have the power go to the battery instead of heat)

Thanks NRG for the great infrastructure (not!) Thankfully I don't have the monthly subscription, what's the point of paying for something I can't use?


FWIW, I'm optimistic on the future of DCFC. It sounds great in theory, and if there were as many DCFC's as there are L2's or even CHAdemos it might be tolerable.
The reality is, at the present time, DCFC is simply not a reliable way to make a trip >80 miles.

 

[Jedi2155]

That's very unfortunate to hear. While I was upset that my vehicle doesn't have DCFC, part of the reasoning that led to me being okay with it was that its still a very new technology while ChaDemo has been in standards form for probably over 20 years, but wasn't deployed until 2008. The Spark EV was the very first EV equipped with CCS in 2013 add to the fact that NRG/evGO was publicly forced to deploy fast chargers means that there are bound to be issues. A first model EV, with a new unproven charging standard, and a utility that was forced to deploy fast chargers than actually really believing in the technology. All these things were going against it.

On the flip side of all of that, when it works....its awesome to charge superquickly. I think we'll just have to wait another year or 2 before the growing pains really stop.

 

[TonyWilliams]

Trying to do real traveling with an 80-ish mile range car and a third tier fast charging standard, even in SoCal, is tough.

It's been almost three years since I had two Nissan LEAFs in San Diego, and I absolutley do not miss the 80 mile range. Thankfully, in that time, charging stations have really popped up, particularly for Tesla Supercharger equipped cars and CHAdeMO ones.

I've been driving a loaner BMW i3 for three months (also an 80-ish mile car like LEAF and Spark EV). The owner called yesterday and wanted to know if I'd like to keep it longer. "Nope", I said, "my days of 80 mile cars are over. Come and get it."

Recently, I was able to drive my Toyota RAV4 EV (140 mile range at 65mph) from San Diego to Santa Rosa, and return in a weekend. This car was equipped with our company's JdeMO accessory that allows access to the 1,000 CHAdeMO chargers in the USA.

I was able to drive the first 600 miles there in one day, being the first person to do so using only CHAdeMO charging. In June 2012, I was also the first person to cross both Oregon and Washington in one day each using only CHAdeMO chargers on the then newly opened West Coast Electric Highway.

A robust AND dependable infrastructure AND cars that have 150-200 mile range is really what will allow "typical" inter-metro area California driving.

Until, that day arrives, guys like the OP will Just-Drive-The-Prius(TM).

 

[sv650john]

Until, that day arrives, guys like the OP will Just-Drive-The-Prius(TM).

DCFC infrastructure is expensive. I'm guessing $50-$100K each unit?
To cover SD to LA via the I-5, probably be looking at a minimum of setting up maybe 3-5 sites. Each with 4-5 charger units to combat ICEing, dead chargers, etc. Cost of land, cost of charging units, installation, maintenance... easily runs into the millions. And double that to cover SD to Riverside via I-15. So say we spend $20 million (minimum) to achieve the goal of driving from SD to LA.
It's no wonder NRG stations cost so much to use.

Oh, and that's before adding the cost of developing and building 150-200 mile EV's, the cost of buying those cars and the environmental impact of building 40-50kwh packs that realistically won't see more than 20-40 miles of daily use.


The alternative?
Setup a station at the SD side, setup a station at LA side.
Each station has a row of 110v plugs, and a row of 10 Prius' available 24/7. Total cost? Maybe $500K for renting the parking lots, buying the Prius', installing a row of 110v plugs is negligible cost. Even the cost of gas for the Prius' is relatively cheap (electricity costs money too), and most of the variable costs such as gas can be paid by the user.
Leave your 80 mile EV at the station plugged in to 110v (bring your oem charge cord), and it'll be charged by the time you get back.

If the goal is to achieve 100% gas-free driving then this is not the answer.
If the goal is to get from point A to point B in the cheapest, most efficient and effective manner - then this is it. There's no denying that a gas engine with 6-speeds or a CVT is far more efficient than a single-speed electric motor at freeway speed over long distances.

Zipcar could do this. Any Enterprise location could do this easily as well.
A couple of Chevy dealers (one in LA and one in SD) could setup a few 110v plugs in an unused part of their lot and keep a couple of gas Sparks on hand to rent. It might even make the dealership a few bucks.
If I owned a dealership and I had trouble convincing people to buy EV's due to range anxiety, that would be my solution for them. Buy the 80 mile EV from me, and any time you want to take a road trip just come by and switch cars, leave your EV and charge for free. Range anxiety gone!

Unfortunately, I think there are not enough EV owners to make it feasible. But who knows, things always change in the future.

 

[sv650john]

Another thing to think about regarding the concept of an 80-mile EV.

I think that we're never going to see more range than the Model S (~300 miles). There's just no use case for it.

I'm sure we *could* build a 500+ mile EV that can drive LA to SF on one charge.
But who actually wants to drive 8 hours LA to SF, when you can fly Southwest for $69 and get there in an hour? Or spend $200 to upgrade Business class and fly in comfort.

How often do people actually make these trips? At what point does the consumer say "I'd rather drive than fly"?
I make this trip maybe 3-4 times a year and I don't want to drive, even tho I could (and I have in the past).


On a regional level. How often are people driving SD to LA?
I believe GM's been gathering data on Volt drivers for a while, and they've determined that the average commuter does not drive more than 40 miles in a day. Hence the Volt's 40 mile range.
Also as a side note - without making any upgrades to household wiring, every 110v outlet can charge ~5 miles per hour. If the car sits 8 hours a night = 40 miles recharged for the next morning.

If we can collect data on commute patterns, I think we'd see GM's 40-mile number to be quite accurate, and an 80-mile EV is more than capable of handling most peoples' daily commute, and then some.
For those longer-range trips (inter-city, inter-state) there are other, more efficient methods - ie. renting a car for a road trip, flying, even Amtrak?

I believe the 80 mile EV has a place, and is capable of fulfilling 90% of our urban/suburban commute needs.
To spend the $$$ to chase that last 10% and solve it by using EV's seems a bit foolish IMO. Especially when alternatives currently exist that are operating at maximum efficiency / lowest cost.

Of course all this is just theoretical - actually changing consumer needs, demands, and perceptions is quite difficult.

I could easily make the same case that the Spark is my daily driver, and when I feel like going to the racetrack and driving 200mph that's when I'm going to rent a Corvette for the day. Therefore; there's no need for anyone to buy a Corvette because we're all driving the speed limit anyway, and many Corvettes end up being a garage queen and only taken out on the weekends which seems a waste... But the Corvette sales numbers will disagree.

 

[KingUltra]

Besides the range issue, who in their right mind wants to drive 200 miles in any of these cheap EV's? The seats are uncomfortable, blind spots are bad, ride is bumpy...

 

[nozferatu]

I've leased my car for over a year and a month now and already have almost 18,500 miles on it. I get over 100 miles a charge...so no 80 mile charges for me.

It's plenty. Would I like more? Sure. But don't need it and most others don't either. Lived in LA for over 30 years and I can count on one finger how many people I know who drive over 80 miles a day.

 

[SparkevBlogspot]

It's no wonder NRG stations cost so much to use.

Why do you say NRG costs so much to use? DCFC at $0.1/min and 0.01kWh per second (about 36 kW), that works out to $0.16/kWh. SDGE base rate is $0.17/kWh, so eVgo fast charge is cheaper than charging at home (up to about 82%).

http://sparkev.blogspot.com/2015/05/vs-nissan-leaf-quick-charge.html

If you add $15/mo fee, how cheap you can get depends on how many times you use DCFC per month. If I only use DCFC (no home charge) with lease miles, I get $0.26/kWh. This is much cheaper than SDGE's $0.37/kWh tier 3 rate. If you use DCFC 3 times a day all the time, your cost could get below $0.20/kWh, less than SDGE's tier 2 rate. In fact, if you factor in DCFC efficiency, and you're below $0.21/kWh, it's cheaper to use DCFC than home charge even at SDGE's base rate.

http://sparkev.blogspot.com/2015/05/public-chargers-in-socal.html

Now if you want high cost, look at Blink with their $0.49/kWh (or $0.59/kWh DCFC) or $5 per DCFC session at some shopping malls!

 

[cwerdna]

DCFC infrastructure is expensive. I'm guessing $50-$100K each unit?

Per http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=329641&sid=d4d43d802ef1c404496149e5c71d2dc5#p329641 "At the Plugin 2013 conference, it was mentioned that the average cost for hardware and installation of a DC FC specifically at a Nissan dealer is $49K and change..."

Almost all Nissan dealers installing a CHAdeMO DC FC back then were installing the $15.5K https://web.archive.org/web/20140105235456/http://www.nissanqc.com/.

So, yeah... and there are numerous DC FCs that are more costly than the above.

 

[Geri M.]

Hey all,

I just picked up a 2015 Spark EV however the 82 mile range means I can't make my weekly trip to LA/OC/IE and back in a day.
It's possible to charge up halfway, but it really isn't convenient to stop somewhere and wait 7 hours.

I've decided to keep my old Prius for road trip duty.
I don't think I'm alone in this predicament, so I'm offering up my car for any Spark EV owners facing the same problem.

I put the Prius up on RelayRides so if anyone's interested in renting it you can find it at this link:
https://relayrides.com/car-rental/san-diego/toyota-prius-c/64872

It's parked at my office in Liberty Station and always available for use 24/7 (unless someone else has rented it). The keys are in a lockbox.
There's also two Blink stations (with 10+ available L2 chargers) next to where the Prius is parked.
I usually leave my Spark at the charger for the day, take the Prius to LA, and come back to a full charge.

Hope this will help someone out!

Is this still available. Because I need to be in Los Angeles on Oct. 8, 2024. Please let me know the details. I own a Chevy Spark EV