Blissful Anniversary Bolt EV Road Trip? Or Fast Lane Back to the Bachelor Life? This past weekend I embarked on a spontaneous 470 mile roundtrip drive to go to an Ed Sheeran concert in Pittsburgh to celebrate 11 years of marriage to my wife. I initially had suggested a trip to Florida in November as a delayed anniversary gift, but the wife said “Hey, there’s a concert in Pittsburgh today…let’s just go to that! ” As I did not want to disappoint the wife, we were soon on the road in our Bolt EV! I was hoping this anniversary trip would not lead to a divorce filing! CCS fast charging stations (or any charging stations the Bolt could use, for that matter). Not exactly the most road trip friendly setup. While the drive to Pittsburgh was around 230 miles, theoretically within the Bolt’s official 238 mile range, there was a significant elevation gain during the drive from near sea level to 2,500 feet.
To make matters worse, this elevation gain was smack dab in the middle of the route, so it needed to be traversed regardless of direction of travel. Evgo station in Hagerstown, MD. After putting in about 5 kWh of charge into the battery, the GOM told me I had 205 miles of estimated range to cover 177 miles. I figured that was enough of a buffer. Despite the conservative speeds, I watched my range buffer slowly shrink as the elevation slowly gained. Finally, the elevation stopped climbing and the rate which I was losing estimated miles slowed down too. The nearly non-existent range buffer I had when I had reached the summit of the drive ended up growing to nearly 40 miles by the time we entered Pittsburgh. After finding the parking garage with the only CCS fast charging stations within 20 miles and plugging in (both stations open. I observed my Bolt had 13% charge and 38 miles of range remaining.
The parking garage was nestled right between Heinz Field and PNC Park, which were pretty cool to finally see in person. 25 kW fast charging? I’ll skip details of the actual concert itself, but the wife had a good time, so that’s all that really matters I guess. Pittsburgh skyline at night. Reflecting back on the charging station setup, I determined that it was one of the dumber charging arrangements I’ve seen. ’t allow you to return to the facility once you leave, so after 1 hour, you were for all intents and purposes done charging till you returned to your car. After we finally escaped Pittsburgh after being stuck in horrific traffic for what seemed like forever, we headed towards an EVgo station about 20 miles east of Pittsburgh which was on the route home. It was a single EVgo station located in a strip mall that was next to an Applebee’s in Monroesville, PA.
I was able to plug in and rest for about 30 minutes while my Bolt charged up. The next charging station was over 170 miles away in Hagerstown, MD, and I knew a significant elevation gain was ahead, so I made sure to give myself at least a 25 mile buffer. Turns out that was barely enough. During the lonely drive to Hagerstown, I slowly watched the elevation climb in my TorquePro app while my range meter dropped faster than the miles I was covering. To make matters worse, it was very humid and chilly outside, which was the perfect recipe for my windshield fogging up, requiring me to turn on the defroster from time to time. Each time I turned on the defroster, precious electrons were zapped from my battery. About halfway into my 177 mile leg, the Bolt’s GOM spit out a number that was 8 miles less than the miles I still needed to drive. I knew that soon I would start a descent down from my current 2,500 elevation, but seeing a range number less than the miles-to-go number is always unnerving. Fortunately, I was soon back several miles to the good and made it to the fast charger at the Hagerstown Premium Outlets with my Bolt’s GOM merely blinking “LOW”. As I pulled up to the lone CCS charging station, I saw that a Leaf was plugged in! And he was plugged into the combo CCS/CHAdeMO station, and not the standalone CHAdeMO station just a few feet away! The nightmare scenario! Who the heck was charging at an Outlet mall at 4AM in the morning on a Sunday??? Besides me, that is. Living on the edge! So aside from telling a tale of a not completely stress-free trip to Pittsburgh and back in my Bolt in a single day, what is the point of this story? BEV like the Bolt (it's not Tesla or bust for EV roadtrips), the infrastructure still isn’t quite there yet for worry free travel.
