Submitted by rvajamesriviera t3_11putis in rva
I'm thinking about buying an electric car, but curious how other folks find it? I mostly drive a triangle between work/home/kid's school (i.e. Stonypoint area, Downtown, Northside). How easy is it to find charging stations around town?
Oh cool I didn't know that! Thanks
I drive a lot (a lot) and love mine. I do have a charger on my garage and use it most nights. Around Richmond (and the counties): 10/10, without hesitation.
My only problem comes on long road trips, especially in cold weather. Everything just takes longer. I believe the infrastructure and technology will come to remedy this, but as of today add an hour or two on your trip when planning.
Yeah I go to DC for the weekend maybe...4 or 5 times/year and down to NC a couple times over the summer. I suppose it soudns like that part is trickier than the driving around RVA part. Can I ask which EV you have?
I have a Tesla model 3 SR and drive to nova and back once a week , charge to 100% and can make the full 200 mile trip even in winter but it’s really close if it’s super cold or I drive doing 80-85 instead of 70 I sometimes have to stop at a supercharger for a few minutes to add 5-10% but then I get home and plug in.
If I bought again I’d probably get a long range for more flexibility as 230miles is juuuussst enough in the winter a LR woulda meant I never had to stop on the trip
Ok thanks that's very helpful to know, yeah it seems like maybe Teslas have to most options for charging while on longer distance drives?
Ya the supercharger network is the most reliable and easy to use that’s pretty much fact at this point the others are ok but don’t really compete against the supercharger network.
Gotcha, I'm looking at some lower priced EVs but sounds like Tesla is opening up some (?) of their network to other cars so maybe it'd work!
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Take any comfort Uber that drives a Tesla they won’t shut up about it even when you never asked
This isn't fair at all man. That's all Tesla drivers.
Tesla drivers are the new CrossFit goers
Did you know I can do crossfit in my Tesla while it's on autopilot? I livestream my workouts, link incoming.
We’re a two EV house. Love it and will never go back to ICE vehicles. We charge at home but there’s plenty of chargers around town if you need them. Honestly, we’re always charged up in the mornings so we never have to use them around town but they’re out there.
Thanks! That's helpful to know. How often do you charge at home?
Every night, just plug in and let them charge. We only top off, so it’s not like we’re fully charging 10-100% every night. It’s more like 65% to 80-85% each night.
Ooohh okay I see now, I was wondering why people were saying they charge it every night. Not because they need to just because it's convenient to top off at the end of the day.
Question, if I just run a normal extension cord from an outlet will that charge an electric vehicle? Will it just be super slow? Or just normal charging speed?
I live in the city and I don’t mind running an extension cord but I don’t want it to be out there overnight every night and it to be a permanent nuisance for people walking by.
Not a normal extension cord. You’ll need a beefy one with the correct AWG size to match how many amps you’re pulling, otherwise you risk a fire. But there are specially made cords for that purpose.
It works for us! We charge with a level 1 at home and get 60-80 miles of charge overnight. I find the charging infrastructure in Richmond to be quite poor, actually. But you can definitely manage if you can charge at home. Best case scenario is if your workplace has a charger in your parking lot, but I find that rare.
Wow that would be nice, but the guy that owns my office building is definitely not going to be doing that anytime soon 😂 Can I ask which type of EV you have?
Subaru Solterra! Not many out there - we have problems charging outside of home because there is only one compatible charger in RVA
I had put a deposit down originally but with the whole extra waiting and such, I canceled mine. How do ypu like it so far?
We really like it - super nice inside too. We weren’t on the wait list, we just bought it off the lot, so I can’t say we did a ton of research beforehand. It does have less range than other EVs but it’s still plenty for our purposes. I think the number is 230? I would recommend it
Why the Subaru and not the Toyota?
I don’t have a good answer, honestly! We already had another Subaru so we just ended up there first. The solterra is built off the Toyota base
We got one a couple of years ago and it's been a joy! Happy to answer any questions.
Thanks! Can I ask which one you have?
2019 Kona EV. Got ours used 2 years ago with 36k miles for 26500. Has 258 miles of range, which is fine for road trips but when we're home it's NEVER an issue. We sold our second car, had a nema 14-50 electrical outlet installed behind our house (think washer/dryer outlet) and got a level 2 charger for like $600. It charges fully overnight from 0 to 100% - which we only need to do maybe twice a week at most. Charging at home costs us like $9 a month.
Once in a blue moon we'll forget to charge when it's close to empty - in that case we pay for fast charging at Carytown Publix, by the Panera at Libbie, or the Wawa at Chamberlayne in Northside. Usually takes 30-40 minutes to get to 80% and costs like $10. But again, extremely rare that's even necessary.
This is so helpful, thanks for all that info 🙏🙏
Got a clarity plugin hybrid and I charge it at home and leave a quarter tank of gas. Had that gas since new years!
That sounds awesome! I wish they still made those, I love Hondas
You can still get one used! Consider the fact that there are only two trims for it so you won't get raked over the coals to get good features. It's basically an Acura interior and comes standard with heated seats, adaptive cruise and lane keeping, and car play/android auto
Good point, I'm actually mostly looking at used cars. Is it fairly easy to find a compatible public charger (I still don't fully understand how it all works) for longer drives? I.e. up and down 95 give or take 2-3 hours?
On long trips I just use it as a hybrid. You still benefit from 40+mpg and the gas tank is only 7 gallons so you fill up very quickly and only spend like 20 bucks each time. You also get regenerative braking which saves you a ton of money on brake pads. The clarity is a FANTASTIC highway cruiser and my passengers have also said it's quite comfortable. Up to NOVA and back can be done on half a tank on a full battery and I usually charge back up on arrival off any available wall outlet
Wow, amazing! I'm going to keep an eye out for that one and some of the other plug-in hybrids
What is your recommendation on gas that’s not used? Should you try to use it monthly at least so it doesn’t sludge up?
I've never had a problem like that. I just leave it
I have owned my VW ID.4 for almost two years and love it. Charge mostly at home at 5 miles per hour on a 110 volt /20 amp outlet. That’s plenty for our daily driving. Download the PlugShare app to find local chargers. We subsidize our home charging with one of many DC high speed chargers scattered around. We have found them to be generally reliable. You can also use A Better Route Planner app and website to plot out road trips. We have been on several without issue - 1,200 and 2,500 miles. Happy to answer any questions you have.
If you can’t charge at home and/or work, I wouldn’t recommend it. Sitting at a charger for 30+ minutes every week just seems like a big inconvenience.
I don’t know. Honestly sitting in my car for 30 minutes on Reddit or reading the news seems kind of fine with me.
As someone with kids does actually sounds very pleasant - if I’m alone 🤣🤣
EV chargers especially with the government now giving credits for it, are a genius way for businesses to attract people for 30 minutes at a time. Places like Willow on Libbie mill carytown downtown parks, restaurants etc. all could really stand to benefit from this investment.
I know plenty of people that do it. Some people have chargers at work, there are chargers at a few walmarts and grocery stores too. You can charge at a lot of cool places too like Cary Town and the bottom. If your car has a 250 mile range and your commute isn't bad you don't need to charge often and can even trickle charge in your driveway.
I know there's an EV charging station at the Publix garage in Carytown
I just got back from a trip down south in my Kia EV, going from NoVa to Roanoke, to Greenville SC and then to Charleston SC (and then home). I found the route planning the toughest part of the trip. Was using the PlugShare app but am going to switch to A Better Route Planner (ABRPj for future trips. In my mind good route planning is key for a good experience since the charging infrastructure is pretty fragmented.
Prior to that trip we pretty much just used the car locally and since we have a charger in the garage it’s no problem. If you are staying in a small area most of the time you can probably use the navigation on your vehicle, as it will probably be able to show you local charging stations. If you can charge at home you’ll be golden.
Thanks! That's helpful to know. How to you like the Kia-EV? I've been considering the Kia Niro
Performance is great, of course, but I feel like their software is a step behind Tesla, and may be a few others. And since it’s a “1.0“ product I suspect there will be gradual improvements in the years to come.
We have had a ‘19 Nissan Leaf (only 150 miles of range) for 4 years and never had a problem around town doing errands, commuting, etc. I have a L2 charger in the garage and charge it to full every couple of days. It’s been great.
With the limited range and needing to find a CHADEMO charger for fast charging, I have never driven it outside of RVA. But for 95% of our driving it works great. We have an ICE vehicle we take on vacation and trips up to DC, etc.
Thank you for replying, that is exactly the car I'm looking at, even specifically 2018 or newer used Nissan Leafs. Glad to hear it works well for around town, but don't fully understand which type of chargers work for which type of EV and how accessible they are, so that's helpful to know.
I think the Leaf is the only one that uses the CHADEMO charger for fast charging. I would not recommend if you’re going to use it for road trips on a regular basis as the times I’ve thought about trying to drive to DC and back, there aren’t as many compatible chargers and the range just really isn’t great for longer trips (especially because on the highway you get worse efficiency in an EV and will run through the battery faster than stop and go around town due to regenerative braking).
If you have a spot at home where you can charge, I think it’s a great around-RVA commuter car. Bonus is you can set the AC or heat to pre-condition, so you get in to a warm or cool car in the morning. There’s an app you can use to pre-condition as well, it’s a little spotty but works most of the time. Really nice in the summer when we’re out for a hike with kids to come back to a cooled car.
mitsubishi i-miev has one
Ok good to know, need to look into the charger issue and that is cool about the pre-condition. Last question, do you have carseats? Wondering how multiple fit in the back. Suppose it's no different than any smaller car.
Yep, have 2 front facing car seats (had one rear facing until about 6 months ago). I don’t think 3 across would work if you need that. We aren’t tall people so enough room up front even when we had a rear facing, but if you’re tall and have a rear facing child seat it may be cramped.
Not too tall so that should work well. Thanks for answering my questions!
Why wouldn’t you just charge at home?
Just thinking of scenarios where I'm running around town and realize I'll need to charge while out and about
This feeling goes away. How often do you randomly ran out of gas? if the answer is never, you probably have the planning skills to own an electric car.
Thank you for simplifying this. I live in a row house downtown and I can’t imagine anyone having more trouble charging than me (that has a home). So this gives me a good peace of mind … I really want a EV and my neighbor runs their extension cord to the street no problem
I'm also in a row home. It sounds like you might not have rear parking, but if you do just install a charger there. Lots of them installed like this in the fan / museum etc
I don’t have your parking but I can make we are parking parking. I’m debating building a garage with a second story. My biggest thing is we love gardening and we love the small yard so I think I’d rather just do street charging.
Gah garage with ADU would be dope but so expensive
I wonder how much it would cost… any ideas?
Gosh. In todays market you might be better off buying another house. My neighbor priced out a garage + 800sqft ADU for something like 300k. That was a couple years ago. Wild
Dear lord they build amazing homes with triple the sqft for that price!
True! There is the odd morning every once in awhile that I realize "oh shit, I'm almost on empty" and then have to rush to get gas before work, which would not work with an EV in a time crunch I guess. But generally I'm a fairly organized person
You don’t 230+ miles is a lot for driving around when your cars always gonna be plugged in at home and sitting at 80-90% always befor you leave you’d be hard pressed to drive 200+ miles in town before ever getting home to plug-in ll
If you're charging at home, very unlikely. How many miles per day / week are you currently driving?
Not OP, but some people just wouldn't have this opetion. Some people rent, some people own condos with shared parking they can't just add a charger to, etc.
I rented for a year at 8th and main the parking lot has plugs, just plugged in nightly with 110v was always charged by morning… a good bit of apartments are ok with you using the 110v outlets
We just became an EV-only household. BMW i3 which we have had for over 5 years and also a Tesla MYLR we’ve had for less than a year. Would definitely recommend an L2 charger at your home but charging while out hasn’t been an issue if planned for.
Would never go back to ICE.
THanks, good to know. Can I ask how much the L2 charger costs to install?
We have a ChargePoint charger but i’m handy and installed myself at our old house and had our new construction house pre-wired for it. So I can’t help with installation costs, sorry!
On the charger costs, my Leaf came with a L2 charger and I just paid an electrician about $400 to install a dryer outlet in the garage with the appropriate amps/voltage.
I have a model y long range and just did the drive to Disney. Took about 12 hours. I a
Generally public chargers are a mess of different plugs, rates, apps and the like especially using a third party tool like Google maps. Most cars have a built in I need to get a charge. That lists local compatible chargers you can use. I do a similar commute and it was a fairly easy choice to install an actual level 2 charger at my house.
You can do pretty easy planning with something like https://abetterrouteplanner.com/
Thanks! I'll def play around with that site to see what it would be like
We have an ICE car but are considering trading it in for either full EV or PHEV. Unfortunately we don't have a driveway or garage, just first-come/first-served street parking curbside outside our rowhouse here in Church Hill. I'm curious whether anybody in this sub has looked into/actually gone through with the process of installing a Level 2 charger outside at the front edge of their property where it meets the sidewalk so that they can charge their EV when they're able to park on the street directly in front of their house? Or other creative ways to get around this problem? From what I've read on this thread and in other research, being able to charge at home is a huge plus given the current state of the charging network in this area, so I'm trying to figure out the most feasible way to do that in my current living situation.
In Church Hill I would anticipate passers-by unplugging it in the middle of the night for lols, judging by the frequency with which teenagers check for unlocked car doors in the neighborhood. I'm not sure if there's a lockable charging cable of some kind.
Yeah I could definitely see that happening. I'm envisioning trying to restrict my charging to like, daylight hours when I'm home (I work from home most of the time), which I think would cut down on that sort of interruption, but I definitely agree that's a factor to consider.
Do you know whether there's any ordinance/restriction on the sort of installation/infrastructure I'm describing? I'd obviously expect to pay for it out of pocket, but I'm fairly new to the city and not sure whether that sort of thing would run afoul of aesthetic restrictions or anything.
I searched the history of this group before I made this post and someone posted this exact question about Chuch Hill, just so you know!
OK, thanks for the heads up! Any chance you still have the link handy? I tried searching for info along these lines on this sub, but didn't turn up anything that looked promising. Sorry for missing it!
For anyone interested, I found the thread u/rvajamesriviera was talking about (I think): https://www.reddit.com/r/rva/comments/yleh8r/car_chargers/
Not much in the way of useful advice though. Basically just "run a cord out the window/door," which seems doable, but not ideal. There's gotta be another way!
-B001- t1_jbzx55y wrote
If you open Google Maps and get directions, there is a button for showing where there are EV charging stations.
It's at the top of the screen in my desktop browser -- I'm assuming would be the same on a phone also, but haven't tried there.