Long distance road trip in a Kona EV | 1,342 Miles charging with Electrify America 

Thanks man! Iv really learned a lot by watching your videos! Next time your in western Colorado drop us a line we could have lunch and grab a star bucks 😉

Sounds great!

Andrew Le hey thanks, I was happy to show the different charger speeds as well by doing it that way. It really help you get an idea of the charging profile of the Kona. Check out my blog post here to see the graph. wattsandprovisions.com/2019/10/27/ev-1342-mile-road-trip/

Tam Vu awesome, what EV did you get?

Lance Harris it seems like with the Kona anyway that if we keep it between 6-65% roughly so charge up to 65% when we get to 6% it’s faster. That is because the rate of charge on the Kona between 6-65% is about 80kWh where as 65-75% it steps back to 40kWh then from 75-100% it steps back again down to 23kWh which is super slow when considering DC fast charging. That is why I’m the video I charged more often. There is a fellow RU-vidr Kyle with out of spec motoring whom I learned this technique from. He broke the record from LA to New York in a model 3 using this method so I think as much as it seems slower it’s actually faster since you are only at a charger for 15 min or so rather then 45-60min

Lance Harris also let me know how you like the eNiro! That’s very exciting.

It definitely doesn’t honk, I think that’s a Chevy (GM) thing. I’m trying to remember. I think it just indicates on the dash the key is no longer in the car. I no longer have the Kona EV but it was a great car while we had it. Hyundai is a great company too. They treat their customers very well.

eltzrothm1 Probably a little of both. The chargers do make a bit of noise. I’m sold it’s their cooling system the is cycling coolant through the high voltage DC charging cable while charging. The AC to DC rectifiers are typically behind the fence 10ft away and they seem to operate silently. In addition to the charging noise the Kona has an onboard cooling system that cools that battery during DC charging it’s pretty quite but you can hear the fans running sometimes.

We took our Kona to Dallas last thanksgiving, I should have done a road trip video on that trip. I think the Kia eniro is a good sister car to the Kona. The app is pretty accurate is abetterrouteplanner.com apps.apple.com/us/app/a-better-routeplanner-abrp/id1490860521

Dakota Cole thank you! I appreciate it

Christian Richard Let me know if you get a Kia, I’ll be curious to see how it compares.

It used to be... the /minute charging model sucked. EA had to change to a $/Kw model and it’s much cheaper now.

Herbert Sax I do have an RFID card now, I didn’t use it in this video. I wish we where charged /kWh here!

@@Dakcole Great video, thanks for posting. Just got a Kia Niro and I’m interested about your RFID card, is that for EA? I’m east coast, EA is here, but a bit limited near me. Charge Point and EVGo are more plentiful here. I did get a RFID a for EVGo, not sure if Charge Point has a card. I understand Kia Europe has a RFID card which is recognized by many electric providers, it would be great if Kia can offer that here.

@@plaiddog4202 congratulations on the e-niro! Each app allows you to setup the rfid in your apple wallet if you have an iPhone, I’m sure android has a similar feature. I know you can get a physical rfid card for charge point and EV go but I think EA is just through the phone wallet. I will say maybe EA has gotten better but just initiating the charge through the app was way more consistent for me.

@@Dakcole thanks for the info, Cheers!

I use the enelx 40amp although the Kona will only pull 30amps. I also have it wired to a 50amp breaker. My thought was my next EV may have a better charging ability so that why I over engineered it a little.

@@Dakcole great thabks

Much better, the charging infrastructure has greatly improved. I can take direct paths now vs 2019 had to drive 2hrs out of the way.

Anthony Carroll We went on another road trip for thanksgiving 2621 miles and we never had an issue with a charger. I also only used the app swipe start method and avoided the card readers all together. So I think it is getting better. Iv got my figured crossed they go to billing by kWh and not by minute. I hear California passed a law banning time based billing for charging, that goes into effect Jan 1 2020.

@@Dakcole That's great to hear the experience was better last month. Hopefully you post another road trip video soon.

Round trip

⁠Do you recommend Kona Electric for long road trips after more experience? Thanks.

because fastest speed is from 0%-70-80%% than is throttles down from ~75kWh to 25kWh. As example, it takes 5% to 80% around 50 minutes to charge and than from 80% to 100% another 50 minutes. So it`s not worth when you on the road to fastcharge to 100% as you pay / minute, so it becomes expensive.

EA is relatively expensive, the chart was an estimate from abetterrouteplanner.com the actual cost for 424 miles was $57.93

And yes charging at home is awesome! We have a 4.8kW solar array on our roof grid tie, so technically we charge at home for free 😁

Yeah sorry my phone mic was bad and the music was too loud.

Electrify America has changed their pricing structure and it’s no longer that way. I was a big advocate for the pricing changes. As you can tell the 2019 charge by the minute pricing didn’t make sense.

We just did another road trip to Phoenix and we paid $24 in charging for the entire trip both ways. Several DC fast chargers are free it just depends on what entity is operating them.

@@Dakcole I really want an EV, but I just moved to Kansas, near Kansas City, and west Kansas seems to have no superchargers. I think I'd run out of power before I reached Colorado. Its such a no man's land.

@@meowzic yeah, Kansas is super isolated. We drove back from Dallas and went north to hit I-70 for our thanksgiving trip of 2019 and the chargers are few and far between. The best thing you could do is call your local power company and ask them to install a DC fast charger in your town. Many charging networks work with local authorities to install the infrastructure. A lot of times they think it’s the chicken or the egg. But it’s not, EVs are here and chargers need to be installed. www.chargepoint.com/products/residential-chargers

@@Dakcole There are many DC chargers where I live which would be cool for the local commute. I hope one day there will be a DC charger within the proximity of 100 miles of any location. I kind of wonder why there isn't that level of infrastructure yet. Id like to be able to travel to southern Colorado and New Mexico, but it wouldn't be possible trying to get through western Kansas.

Yeah, it must be fans/cooling pumps for the cables(they are liquid cooled)

All electric cars charge slowly at the top of their pack. Teslas of course charge faster in general. Also unfortunately the Kona and the ENiro Fall into a terrible place on electrify America's pricing tiers. It's up to 75 kW. Is $0.15 per minute if you have the plus membership plan. Unfortunately 75 kilowatts to 150 kW is a higher amount. Although I think the amount that he paid still seemed high to me so I don't think he has the membership plan. That saves you the $1 connect fee, and gets you about $0.06 off per minute. I've heard the electrify America ultimately is going to be going to a kilowatts delivered setup. But there are regulations in some states that prohibit that from being the case currently.

Doesn't really need to be that much of a production. Electrify America had some issues with the credit card readers on their stations. The easiest way to activate one is to have the electrify America app on your phone. You click a couple of buttons select which charger you're at and you can do it right from your phone. That seems to be the most reliable way to start the charge. That may not have been available at the time that this video was made.