So, today was my first road trip with my car (after over 10,000 miles of local driving!). It should have been really easy. My plan was good. But it's not going very well so far in this charging desert (eastern North Carolina has an extremely weak public charging infrastructure--you Californians don't know how great you have it!)
I'm on a business trip in Kinston, NC (left Smithfield, VA this afternoon--157 miles away).
My plan was to drive to Kinston, check into my hotel, then drive to the Neuseway RV Park (less than a mile away) to plug into a NEMA 14-50 circuit to charge overnight (after walking back to the hotel). I had called the RV park a few weeks ago and asked about charging there. They told me to talk to them when I arrived regarding leaving my car there overnight.
My backup plan, while extremely inconvenient, was to drive to Hookerton, NC (about 14 miles north of here by road) to plug into a free 240V 30A J1772 (Chargepoint) charger.
The drive down here was perfect. I averaged 282 Wh/mi for the 157 mile trip, beating rated range and arriving with a little more than 90 miles left (I didn't quite do a full range charge). I checked into the hotel, then drove up to the RV park. To my surprise, there were police barricades across the entrance. Whuh? So I look around, and finally I see why: The Neuse River, which is adjacent to some of the RV sites, has experienced heavy flooding. The RV sites are still dry, but the campground is flooded enough that they've closed the place down. Crap. I tried calling. No answer. They're closed for the evening.
At first I thought about driving up to Hookerton--but Hookerton is an odd place. There's a free Chargepoint J1772 at the town hall (for some reason), but get this: there are NO hotels in the town. There is only ONE restaurant in the town--and it's only open on Saturday! Given that this is a weekday, I would have to kill over an hour twiddling my thumbs just to make up for the 28 mile round trip north to get to the charger--much less find a way to kill many more hours to top up my battery! Note to anyone installing slow-ass 30A charging stations: they're virtually useless without a hotel or restaurants nearby (unless you are the mayor, drive a plug-in Prius, and had a charging station installed right outside your town hall aka office...)
So I decided against driving to Hookerton and parked back at the hotel with 90 miles of charge remaining. I then did a walk around my hotel to look for 120V outlets, although I acknowledge that charging at 2 MPH is painful. I found a few, but they would require me to park up on the sidewalk. Not a great proposition. So I asked the front desk clerk if there was an outlet outdoor where I could plug in. She looked at me strangely--like I was from another planet. She conferred with someone standing nearby (seemed to be a maintenance person), and they said sorry--there was nowhere I could plug in.
Oh great. This is getting worse.
I'm teaching a class at the local community college for the next few days. I walked over there, and on the way found a 120V outlet at the base of a strip mall sign. If I plugged in there, it would be without permission. I'd only do that in an emergency, and this is not an emergency (yet). I got to the community college, looked around, and found about 10 parking spaces way out in the boonies that have NEMA 14-30 and 120V outlets (perhaps for charging golf carts?!?). Since it was getting late in the evening, I couldn't find anyone to get permission to plug in. So I won't plug in there yet.
So here's my plan:
1. Leave the car parked in the hotel lot, unplugged, overnight. It should be fine with vampire losses given 90 miles range remaining...even if I have to drive a bit tomorrow before plugging in.
2. Drive to the community college in the morning, and try to get permission to plug my car in there during the day (assuming those outlets are even active). Those 8 or 9 hours times 3 days at 120V will help at least. (I don't have the 14-30 adapter. Poop.)
3. Call the campground tomorrow morning to see if I can arrange to get special permission to charge even though they're closed due to flooding (my fingers are crossed for this!)
4. Failing 3, there's another RV park about 17 miles away with 50 A service. I can call them to see if I can charge there. Since it's so far away, again I'll have to twiddle my thumbs while I wait for the charge. I wouldn't be able to plug in until tomorrow evening--so I should still be good with my current state of charge.
5. The next closest 50A service is 30 miles away, so failing 2, 3, and 4, the only other thing I can think of is to drive up to Hookerton, plug in, and kill a LOT of time. Like 8 or 9 hours...and trust me, there's NOTHING to do in Hookerton. What an awful place to put a charging station.
So I learned a lesson here: When you're in a charging desert, call the RV park immediately before you leave to make sure they're still open. This is a complete freak of nature random thing that the campground is closed in the middle of summer due to river flooding--and it's unfortunate that it happened on my first road trip--but it's better to expect these sorts of things.
Here's the lesson for the world in general: given how cheap chargers are, they should be freakin' everywhere. So please--put them everywhere.
I'm on a business trip in Kinston, NC (left Smithfield, VA this afternoon--157 miles away).
My plan was to drive to Kinston, check into my hotel, then drive to the Neuseway RV Park (less than a mile away) to plug into a NEMA 14-50 circuit to charge overnight (after walking back to the hotel). I had called the RV park a few weeks ago and asked about charging there. They told me to talk to them when I arrived regarding leaving my car there overnight.
My backup plan, while extremely inconvenient, was to drive to Hookerton, NC (about 14 miles north of here by road) to plug into a free 240V 30A J1772 (Chargepoint) charger.
The drive down here was perfect. I averaged 282 Wh/mi for the 157 mile trip, beating rated range and arriving with a little more than 90 miles left (I didn't quite do a full range charge). I checked into the hotel, then drove up to the RV park. To my surprise, there were police barricades across the entrance. Whuh? So I look around, and finally I see why: The Neuse River, which is adjacent to some of the RV sites, has experienced heavy flooding. The RV sites are still dry, but the campground is flooded enough that they've closed the place down. Crap. I tried calling. No answer. They're closed for the evening.
At first I thought about driving up to Hookerton--but Hookerton is an odd place. There's a free Chargepoint J1772 at the town hall (for some reason), but get this: there are NO hotels in the town. There is only ONE restaurant in the town--and it's only open on Saturday! Given that this is a weekday, I would have to kill over an hour twiddling my thumbs just to make up for the 28 mile round trip north to get to the charger--much less find a way to kill many more hours to top up my battery! Note to anyone installing slow-ass 30A charging stations: they're virtually useless without a hotel or restaurants nearby (unless you are the mayor, drive a plug-in Prius, and had a charging station installed right outside your town hall aka office...)
So I decided against driving to Hookerton and parked back at the hotel with 90 miles of charge remaining. I then did a walk around my hotel to look for 120V outlets, although I acknowledge that charging at 2 MPH is painful. I found a few, but they would require me to park up on the sidewalk. Not a great proposition. So I asked the front desk clerk if there was an outlet outdoor where I could plug in. She looked at me strangely--like I was from another planet. She conferred with someone standing nearby (seemed to be a maintenance person), and they said sorry--there was nowhere I could plug in.
Oh great. This is getting worse.
I'm teaching a class at the local community college for the next few days. I walked over there, and on the way found a 120V outlet at the base of a strip mall sign. If I plugged in there, it would be without permission. I'd only do that in an emergency, and this is not an emergency (yet). I got to the community college, looked around, and found about 10 parking spaces way out in the boonies that have NEMA 14-30 and 120V outlets (perhaps for charging golf carts?!?). Since it was getting late in the evening, I couldn't find anyone to get permission to plug in. So I won't plug in there yet.
So here's my plan:
1. Leave the car parked in the hotel lot, unplugged, overnight. It should be fine with vampire losses given 90 miles range remaining...even if I have to drive a bit tomorrow before plugging in.
2. Drive to the community college in the morning, and try to get permission to plug my car in there during the day (assuming those outlets are even active). Those 8 or 9 hours times 3 days at 120V will help at least. (I don't have the 14-30 adapter. Poop.)
3. Call the campground tomorrow morning to see if I can arrange to get special permission to charge even though they're closed due to flooding (my fingers are crossed for this!)
4. Failing 3, there's another RV park about 17 miles away with 50 A service. I can call them to see if I can charge there. Since it's so far away, again I'll have to twiddle my thumbs while I wait for the charge. I wouldn't be able to plug in until tomorrow evening--so I should still be good with my current state of charge.
5. The next closest 50A service is 30 miles away, so failing 2, 3, and 4, the only other thing I can think of is to drive up to Hookerton, plug in, and kill a LOT of time. Like 8 or 9 hours...and trust me, there's NOTHING to do in Hookerton. What an awful place to put a charging station.
So I learned a lesson here: When you're in a charging desert, call the RV park immediately before you leave to make sure they're still open. This is a complete freak of nature random thing that the campground is closed in the middle of summer due to river flooding--and it's unfortunate that it happened on my first road trip--but it's better to expect these sorts of things.
Here's the lesson for the world in general: given how cheap chargers are, they should be freakin' everywhere. So please--put them everywhere.
