Is an EV Road Trip Easy? | My Honest Experience

Welcome to our electrifying adventure! Join us on an unforgettable journey as we attempt our first long-haul drive in an electric vehicle. In today’s video, Charlotte shares her experience in driving the EV9 from Brantford, ON to Lynchburg, VA. Along the way, we'll showcase the remarkable capabilities of the Kia EV9, demonstrating its long-range efficiency, rapid charging capabilities, and cutting-edge features.

Important Notes:
We did this road trip during the spring with optimal external temperatures, meaning the battery temperature was suitable for fast charging without pre-conditioning. Although the rated range of this vehicle is 435 km - we consistently got over this with the use of climate control as well.

What I’m Driving: 2024 Kia EV9 Land AWD W/ GT-Line Package
Battery: 99.8 kWh lithium ion polymer
Motor: Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor
Horsepower: 379
Torque: 516 lb-ft.
All wheel drive (AWD)
Rated Range: 435 km
Watch our Full EV9 Land AWD W/ GT-Line Review Here:

Apps I Used:
A Better Route Planner
PlugShare
Tesla

Thank you for watching! We appreciate your support - Gabi and Charlotte

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[BrantfordKia]

Now that the EV9 is going to have an NACS port...should I try this again (I'll leave the toddler at home this time too)?

[simonainsworth]

I had a similar experience on my first EV road trip. I could happily do one with my wife, but young kids are a totally different challenge. My number one lesson was to always make sure you have level 2 charging wherever you spend the night. It makes such a difference to know you will wake up with full range.

[timothyveenstra]

6 year EV veteran here. Research is key if you are a non-Tesla owner (I do not own a Tesla.) There are reviews on charging stations you can use. We have learned to depend on these to choose our route.

[oldebill]

Hi Gaby, I've road tripped my Kia Niro EV 2023 from Toronto to Cape Cod (1, 000km one way) and Toronto to Houston, TX and back (6, 000km). A Better Route Planner and PlugShare were incredibly important from a planning perspective and for confirming availability and quality of the charging stops. I'd also say that having the Electrify Canada/Electrify America, EVgo, FLO, ChargePoint, and Ivy apps on your phone are also essential. Hoping that a charger will accept payment cards or smartphones is still dodgy and apps normally work when the former don't.

For my road trips, the only time I got close to desperate was on the way home at midnight, in the rain, in London when I couldn't get any of the Electrify Canada chargers to work. Thankfully, there was a FLO charger nearby and I got enough juice to make it the rest of the way home.

While I have had success, I understand why you would want to defer another EV road trip with your daughter until she's older. At least until public fast charging infrastructure gets more robust and reliable. Thanks for sharing.

[va-et-vient]

I drove around the US, visiting bucket places & friends & family, from 9/15 to 10/15, logging 10, 654 miles in the month. My 2019 Bolt (with wifi) was wonderful, and while I was jealous of the folks who could fast-charge in 20 minutes, I found the right pattern of driving 2+ hours, then charging for 1 hour. Wonderful seeing things like national parks in a vehicle that wasn't harming them. I'm 66, and did 3/4 of the trip solo. Highly recommend!

[martalli]

Honestly, I have done similar road trips in my MYLR without any difficulty, It is not just the Tesla chargers, it is the infotainment system that works so smoothly and can adjust the plan moment to moment based on battery usage.

[blaird]

This video is a Godsend! I wanted to see what a "real" EV road trip looked like for an actual family. Learned quite a bit!

[sabrowenie]

Range anxiety was the theme for our first road trip from Central PA to NH in our New Ionic 5 Limited. Our first charge stop at a Charge Point DCFC had the same issue you had. We had the app but tap n pay, Apple Pay, or using a RFID CC didn’t work. Used the CP app which had our CC info to geolocate the charger, entered the charger name to start the charge. EA fast chargers on the next stop at a busy Sheetz outside of Scranton had people were parking their ICE in the spots to grab their MTO’s or sleeping/having breakfast in their EV. Wasn’t too bad after that. PA seemed to be the worst.

[elyse]

Long haul road trips are much better at night with little ones (tougher on mum and dad though!)
Evie’s little wave at the camera in the park was so sweet! 🥹

[tolson]

Evie is so cute. I loved how she waved to the camera and said hi!

[rider]

Zero issues changing with Tesla!! Have driven multiple times in an area from Austin to UP Michigan, to North Carolina coast to Cape Canaveral.

[charlesblum]

Great video. I'm guessing on your trip, whoever wasn't driving took responsibility for finding the next charing station using their phone. It would be nice to see a video where the driver had to handle all that without someone to help them.

[Masreborn]

Well done! I appreciate the effort you put into this video.

[britonwesterhaus]

I grew up very nearby, and just for your reference, DuBois, PA is pronounced like "Dew-boys". Love the video!

[junic]

I use ABRP (A Better Route Planner) also. But usually charge to 80% or more depending on the next leg (if going into EV charging dessert) regardless of what the planner says. I’m there anyway, might as well have another donut.

[elvispanda]

You folks are heroes for doing this. Why doesn't some chain like McDonald's take the opportunity to install fast chargers at every single location and just make it common knowledge that you can stop at any McDonald's to charge? It seems like it'd be a huge selling point and most customers would buy snacks anyhow.

[kenquinty]

Thanks for sharing. You guys are real troopers. However, the only way to take a road trip right now is in a Tesla. I have taken about 15 road trips over a six year period and I had fewer issues in total than you had in this one trip. This will improve but that's where we are right now.

[JohnRoss]

Thank you Charlotte and family for sharing your experiences. A well done video too! When I heard your introduction on the ambitious trip plan with a baby I thought oh no! 😂but you survived 😂. Good on you., ❤❤ sadly it still takes quite abit of trip planning before and during the drive when we drive long distances.

[timholland]

Great video and thanks for sharing! My wife and I were in the market last year and I was pushing for an EV. She is not super tech savvy and was nervous about going full EV, so we landed on the RAV4 plug-in hybrid. This has been great as her around town mileage is amazing. We plug in every night into a level 1 charger and each morning we have 40 to 50 miles of EV range. When we road trip, we just gas up as needed.

[volcalstone]

9:59 so cute!

Congrats on your first EV trip. Mine was a few months ago for 5 1/2 hour trip non stop in an ICE car. I usually stop once or twice for 5-10 mins each time. So it's closer to 5 3/4 hours total. During my first trip it took a lot longer than I excepted cause everything was all new to me and there were things that were out of my control as well. I have an EV6 GT and it ended up taking me around 7 1/2 hours with 3 charging session. One really quick as there was no way for me to charge at my destination. This is with all EA charging by the way. Getting food at one of my stop took an extra 30 mins or so. I wouldn't really count that against the EV experience so I would say it's more fair to make it 7 hours total. If I didn't have to quick charge prior to destination then it would've been 6 3/4 hours. This is with all DCFC and no level 2 charging. Mind you that some 350kW chargers were not doing max speeds and I was forced to use a 150kW as the 350kW was down at another location. This was with battery preconditioning with mild temperatures. So at the end it took around 1 hour more than an ICE car.

Now on the way back was a different story. I did 3 charging session with one of them being really quick. Looking back at it now I should've stayed there longer to avoid my next charger which ended up being the longest charge so far due to there was a line so I had to wait around 30 mins or so. This was a pain as some chargers were down at this popular location which only had around 10 stalls. Most EA locations only have 4 stalls. On my last charging stop I had to wait a little bit as some chargers were down and I only wanted to use the 350kW as it was a long day already. At the end it ended up being an 8 hour trip! So in total what should've been an 11-11 1/2 hour ICE road trip turned into a 15 hour EV semi nightmare.

It wasn't perfect that's for sure and honestly I was sort of having some doubts on my EV purchase. I knew thing that range is very important and it will be on my next purchase. You want to avoid DCFC stations as much as possible and charge at home and your destination only if possible. I don't road trip this particular route a lot in a year so that's why I went with the GT trim as I'd rather get a nice and fast car to enjoy locally. I was sent on the Ioniq 5 Limited AWD but started to like the EV6 GT more. If I was taking a lot of road trips then I probably would've lean towards the Ioniq 5 instead. I still don't regret my purchase at this time though. I love everything about my GT.

Now I just got back from making the same trip again recently. I was able to just charge only once! I got it down to 2% though 😊 I got to my destination in 6 hours! So the charging only added around 15 mins. This time I didn't spend any extra time getting food during my trip. Charging did take around 25-28 mins so longer than I expected but I needed to reach 80% to get to my destination which later on I found out that I had 10% left. This time around I got a portable charger so I was able to charge at my destination which was at a house. On the way back it was also 1 charging session. I wasn't getting full speeds at both 350kW chargers but they were both around the same amount of time. On the way back it took a little longer at 6 1/4 hours. So in total for the whole trip it was 12 1/4 hour of driving. Only 30-45 mins more due to charging vs an ICE car. This was a lot better than my first time around. I went from 6 charging sessions to just 2.

I just had to make some adjustments like getting a portable charger and driving slower. I was going 70 mph vs 75-80 mph. Efficiency is the game when it comes to driving an EV on the freeway. I did go beyond this for passing cars of course but I just put on HDA2 and let it do it's thing vs trying to get down there as fast as possible using faster speed. I now know that I need to drive an EV differently which I don't mind. I'm not that much of a speedster anymore vs my younger days. Things will get better once more location and stalls are available. At this time it's just barely enough. I would travel on days and times when it won't be so popular. This will avoid a lot of headaches at this time. I'm making the same trip again later this month. I thought I wasn't going on these trips that often but I guess for this year I am. 😊