April 19, 2022, my first EV road trip of the year. This time I wanted
to cover the US-23 North/South corridor in Michigan. This route took me
to 6 double EVSE stops from as far north as Saginaw, to as far south as
Dundee. This trip was supported by
various independently owned and operated ChargePoint locations.
A little history and an explanation on how ChargePoint works as a
company and network operator.
ChargePoint has been around since 2007, and their footprint of managed
stations has grown steady over the last 5 years from about 36,000 spots in 2017
to around 174,000 spots in March of 2022.
ChargePoint designs their own
EVSE with a full product range from models designed for home use to public
Level 2 and DC Fast Charge units to higher power EVSE intended for commercial
use.
The ChargePoint CPE250 (https://www.chargepoint.com/products/commercial/cpe250/)
has become a very popular, and I would assume cost effective DC Fast Charge
unit. These units have a great power
sharing feature and are designed for a quick robust install. I have used this model many times and have
run into a few issues over the past year and a half. However, note how I mentioned above that ChargePoint manages these
stations, they do not own them.
In this model ChargePoint sells the hardware to site owners and
sells their network and support as a service.
This is different from the EVgo and Electrify America models. These network operators own the equipment and
operate the sites. For ChargePoint it’s up to each site owner
to work with ChargePoint to maintain their equipment, and thus uptime
will be dependent on how active each site host remains with the charging they
offer. Also, in contrast to my EVgo review trip where the sites were
all 5-6 years old, all these sites are new, with most having gone online in the
last year, all of them less than 2 years old.
None of my network reviews are complete without some talk about pricing
structure. With ChargePoint this is very tricky, because each site owner is free to
set the pricing that they want. On this
trip, I encountered many different pricing structures. I went to one site that was free, some sites
charged by time, some sites charged by energy.
Most sites had fixed prices, but one site had prices that varied by the
time of day. I feel the flexibility is
good, as it allows operators to find what works best for their location. However, I really hope to see the time-based
charging get dropped and was happy to see many of the sites on this trip had
already changed to energy-based price structures.
I set off on a Thursday morning to travel the north/south US-23
corridor. In what was forecast to be a
nice sunny day, my entire drive north was done in a light, but steady
rain. I took the Saginaw exit from US-23/I-75 and
headed west. I knew this stop was a short
drive off the highway, but having to drive 4 miles to reach a downtown area was
a bit much. In happier news, I wasn’t
aware this stop was free. I plugged in,
started the app on my watch and tapped to the station to start charging. Simple, easy and trouble free.
While charging, I was following Elektra’s battery temperature as well to
ensure I would be able to get maximum speed throughout the trip, and decided to
use a longer first charging session to help warm up the battery. Most of these ChargePoint installations are configured as a pair and when only
one station is in use, they can share power to charge a single vehicle at a
higher speed, however this site was not configured properly and so charging
speeds are limited to the maximum supported by a single unit. For new EV owners that might not be as aware,
you might expect this site to provide the same power that other dual ChargePoint sites can and will be
disappointed at the slower speeds.
I left Saginaw and was off to find the charger located in the Flint
Bishop Airport parking lot. Taking
the exit off of US-23/I-75 for the airport, I headed west and followed the
signage for airport parking. As I
approached the entrance to the airport parking there were clearly marked
overhead signs indicating to be in the right entrance lane to access the EV
Charging. Once past the gates, the EVSEs
are easy to find.
I plugged in and quickly started my charging session and watched as the
batteries smoothly warmed up so I was finally able to hit peak charging
speeds. While this site would be convenient
for say, an Uber or Lyft driver to charge up at the end of an
airport drop off, I am not sure how useful this site would be otherwise. There was another Kia Niro parked in
the space next to the EVSE, likely primed to complete charging at the beginning
or end of their trip.
This is the first site that I have used that has dynamic pricing by the
kWh. $0.35 per kWh on peak afternoon
times and cheaper at other times. Having
completed the charge, I then paid my $2 for parking. So, I have to pay to charge and pay to park? Yikes... All of these factors are reasons I don’t plan
to use this site in the future.
Next up was Brighton, MI. While it’s technically not on US-23, it is only one exit west, and is
another new ChargePoint site in the
area. This site sticks with the old per
minute cost structure, and thus even at peak charging rates, this was the most
expensive stop of the trip on a per kWh basis.
The advantages of this site are it’s really close to the highway and could potential support pull
through charging if you had a trailer.
The Whitmore Lake Citgo was my next stop. This isolated little stop does not offer much
in the surrounding area to keep one busy while charging, but at least the cost
is reasonable, for now. Since these
sites are new and the price is completely set by the operator, they can change
at any time. I was expecting another fast stop but was surprised when the
charge rate stopped in the mid-50 kW range.
This made me check and confirm the current limit was at the single unit
mode. I had to double check the EVSE and
the app to confirm that, yes, in fact these units are also not linked, and thus
not capable of the higher speeds.
I even called ChargePoint to follow up and was greeted by some of the most
uniformed and unhelpful customer “service” representatives. The first person at ChargePoint I talked to ensured me that none of their products
shared power, I quickly gave up on this person and moved to the next support
agent. This person was helpful to the
point that they could see that there was a configuration issue preventing the
units from sharing power. However, this rep
could not take a ticket for this and stated that I had to contact the site
owner, who would then have to call ChargePoint
themselves to correct the issue. He
couldn’t tell me how to contact the
site owner though…how
confusing/frustrating.
A BP station on the east side of Ann Arbor
would be my next stop. What I don’t like
for a road trip charging stop is for it to be a long way off the highway. If that location is down a busy road, I like
it even less. This site has both those
issues. Then, there is the position of
the EVSE units. They seem tucked away on
the north side of the gas station building out of site from the main
intersection. For all the negatives of
this site, there are many options for food or shopping nearby, so this could
easily support a longer charging stop.
One thing to note is that this site sits in between the Ann Arbor EVgo site and the Ypsilanti Electrify America site, so there is some
local competition for charging dollars.
This site at $0.25 per kWh definitely has a price advantage.
The sixth and
final stop of this trip was at the Citgo
gas station in Dundee, MI. This
southernmost site on the US-23 corridor is an excellent road trip stop. It is directly off the highway, provides
enough local options and provides enough speed.
Anyone headed south into Ohio or coming north from Ohio will appreciate
this site, as there is not much charging infrastructure in northwest Ohio. This was another uneventful stop in a day of
stops that went by without any issues.
Overall, this trip showed how the EV Charging infrastructure continues to
be building out at a rapid pace. These
new sites support a major travel corridor and give drivers plenty of
options. With no issues starting a
charging session, this trip also shows how the charging networks continue to
improve the user experience. Obviously I
could have made this whole trip in one charging stop, but I made all these
stops to provide reviews on each site. I
do have concerns with the planning around this support. The way I see this progressing, fast charging
will come to be a road trip focused item.
From a support and electrical grid build out perspective it may make
more sense to build up fewer locations that have more total EVSE units. Take a look at how Tesla has configured the Supercharger network
Overall Trip Totals:
Total Distance
(From first site to last): 125 miles
Total Cost: $18.05
Total kWh: 66.29
Total Charging
Time: 1 hour 4 minutes
Average Cost
per kWh: $0.24
