Charge It!

Filling our PHEV battery at a public facility requires three things to charge it: the charging station, a “smart” phone, and a credit card. For the past week I’ve attempted to find several public charging stations to learn the process: some EV stations were broken, some cost more than gasoline, and some locations are free! The difference depends upon the location owner who purchases and maintains the charging station.

The first charging station we discovered, located in front of our apartment office and the largest across the United States and Europe, is made by ChargePoint Holdings, Inc:. -chargepoin+. I downloaded the app on my iPhone which provides map locations and used my credit card to maintain a balance of $10. They make and distribute hardware and software but did not claim responsibility for setting up and operating the station when I called their customer service to seek help. They said our apartment location was not listed on their network and had not been properly installed. Strike one.

They sent me to the nearby Whole Foods that claims to offers a free charge but it was also not working. When I called again to ChargePoint customer service, a different agent told me it’s been broken for many days. Turns out the plug-in charger locking mechanism had been broken on both outlets and has not been repaired in at least a week. Maybe sabotage? Strike two on public charging!

The next day on Saturday searching for another free charging location the ChargePoint app directed me five miles away to an empty office parking lot at the MetLife building located at 1000 Weston Parkway in Cary, NC. Using my iPhone to unlock the cable charger for the first time it worked - A single! We took a family walk around Lake CrabTree reservoir on a chilly day so we only stayed about 30 minutes and added 1.62 kwh, an estimated four miles to the battery. Then we found the West Regional Library provides a free charge manufactured by EATON that recharged faster than the last place with a full charge taking 4.5 hours.

The first EV charging station requiring us to pay money was in downtown Raleigh in front of the Museum of Natural Sciences which is free to visit. However, street parking costs $2 for a maximum of two hours. For the ChargePoint charger I paid $1.75 to get an estimated 14 miles of charge which works out to $0.125 per mile which is more than the cost of gasoline that costs about $0.08 per mile.

The next day I returned to our apartment and asked the manager about operating the charger. She said some people have been able to use it but they did not know how it worked. After a few attempts I discovered that by repeating the process to unlock the charger three times with my iPhone finally opened up the power cable and since it is not installed to the ChargePoint network there is no cost for using the charger. A home run!

We also just began to rent a one-car garage that has an electrical outlet so we can use the 110v cable to get a full charge in about 12 hours. This process of looking for charging stations has made me feel like a e-vampire searching for a free energy connection!

Does charging the lithium-ion battery affect it’s lifetime? According to driving electric:

“1. Don’t overcharge it: constantly topping up your electric car to keep it fully charged can actually damage it. Laptops, for example, lose battery capacity if they're plugged in all the time. It's better to let the capacity run down to 10 or 20%, then recharge to around 80%.

2. While electric-car batteries have a built-in thermal management system to keep them cool, it’s still worth seeking out a shady spot on a hot day, or even a garage or car port if you plan to charge at home.

3. It’s also advisable to avoid immediately charging your electric car following a particularly spirited drive. Give the batteries a chance to cool down first . Limit your use of rapid chargers. Obviously, there are times when you need a top up in a hurry, and the fact they can give you a quick boost of up to 80% in a short space of time will be invaluable to higher-mileage drivers. But don’t rely solely on rapids to keep your car topped up, as they’re not good for the batteries in the long run. Slow charge whenever you can and especially if it's cold outside.

5. Don't park your car uncovered for long periods of time in very hot conditions.”

Combining my experience with these recommendations indicates that EVs are most suitable for people who can charge their cars in their home garage overnight.

Driving Across the USA in our PHEV

This year we purchased and enjoyed driving across the United States, from Los Angeles to North Carolina, in our plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. Our experiences are teaching us about making the energy-efficient transition from gas to electric motors and this blog is not a plug for any particular brand.

Almost six years ago I described our positive experience purchasing a 2016 Toyota Rav4 hybrid. We sold that car after five years to travel to Thailand one year ago. Over there we attended the 42nd Bangkok International Motor Show entitled “Shaping the Next Chapter” to compare several PHEVs. All the major brands were represented including new models by Audi, BMW, Ford, Hyundai, Kia, MG, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru, Toyota, and Volvo allowing us to sit inside many cars all in one location. We also watched many videos of people test driving the new vehicles. In the end, we chose our most familiar brand hoping to make the sixth purchase of a Toyota vehicle. The challenge was being able to find the new Rav4 Prime with only about 3,600 vehicles projected to be made during the pandemic due to supply-chain battery and chip shortages. In July 2021, we found several dealers in Los Angeles had one or two Primes available per week with more customers than cars. Our dealer in Grand Junction, Western Slope Toyota, said they only had one Prime for the entire year and sold it quickly! We found out later that it was a friend of ours who bought that vehicle.

We ruminated over taking the risk to fly to LA and look to buy our dream car compared to going home to Colorado first. We took the gamble and within a few days in LA found that Carson Toyota provided the best deal in LA. Our credit union website facilitated our search and selection by making online offers for vehicles in advance of arriving at the dealer. However, the dealers charged an extra premium for the low inventory and for the first time we paid above the manufacturers suggested retail price MSRP.

Another decision we needed to make was choosing between two trim levels: SE and XSE. We chose the better package mostly for the SofTex® instead of fabric seating. According to Toyota, “SofTex® is a synthetic leather seat material designed for wear, easy cleaning and resisting spills. Soft to the touch, SofTex weighs about half as much as genuine leather. The way it's made generates around 85% fewer CO2 emissions and 99% fewer Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) than conventional synthetic leather.”

The Toyota Rav4 Prime mid-sized SUV features a 2.5 liter, 4 cylinder gasoline engine rated at 40 mpg in the city and 36 mpg on the highway. The better fuel efficiency around town is a function of the hybrid battery capturing energy from the braking system. The 2021 hybrid improves efficiency over the 2016 Rav4 Hybrid which got 34 mpg city and 31 mpg on the highway.

Front and rear electric traction motors are linked to the powertrain hybrid system providing 42 miles of range from its 18.1-kwh lithium ion battery pack. The electric fuel efficiency is rated at 94 MPGe which is quantified by EPA in kilowatt-hours (kWH) per 100 miles. This is unit of volume per unit of distance, which is exactly the opposite of MPG. Basically, with kWh/100mi, lower numbers are better; with MPG, higher numbers are better. According to the EPA, burning one gallon of gas produces 115,000 BTUs (British thermal units). To generate the same amount of heat by way of electricity, it takes 33.7 kWh. Kilowatt-hours is the standard energy unit for electricity. In simplified terms, if an electric vehicle can travel 100 miles on 33.7 kWh of electricity, the EPA rates it at 100 MPGe. As you can see, this would be a very efficient vehicle, because a gas car would have to travel 100 miles per gallon to be equivalent.

Driving our new Prime off the lot in Carson, CA we caught the interstate and noticed the electric charge running out quickly in EV mode so we switched to HV gas mode. The EV is more efficient to use in town and the HV mode on the highway. Our trip along I10 to I15 took us from a morning of coastal rain into the rain shadow Mohave Desert with July temperatures rapidly increasing from 60 degrees at the coast to over 100 degrees F by the time we reached Barstow. We spent overnight at Lake Las Vegas meeting my brother and his wife for an enjoyable dinner. However, we did not find a charging station at the hotel and continued the next day running mostly on gasoline.

Employing the full-speed range dynamic radar cruise control (DRCC) became the biggest surprise of the trip. Before setting the cruise control I noticed a slight grab by the steering wheel to stay in my lane and when changing lanes only by using my turn signal would the steering wheel release the tension. When setting the cruise control on the interstate, the steering wheel takes over using the radar system to by guided by the traffic lines. This worked okay on straight roads but I did not trust the car to let go of the steering wheel and it seemed to weave left and right as if I was intoxicated. I also noticed cross winds made going straight more challenging. The DRCC slows the car down when getting close to a vehicle in front and I needed to anticipate sooner then normal to go around slower vehicles. Guess I still like to feel in control of the driving and using technology to supplement but not automate my driving experience.

We stayed in Grand Junction from July until November running primarily on EV mode. We could plug-in to the 110v outlet in our garage and full recharge took about 12 hours. We ran the gas engine once per week to keep the fluids moving and after four months only consumed about a half a tank or 5.5 gallons of gasoline. It seemed amazing that we could drive all around town and very rarely need to go more than 42 miles on one change. Luckily, the battery range improved over time and we noticed an improvement up to about 50 miles on one charge.

We got our first free service check at four months. We only put on about 2,500 miles and service is recommended before 4,000 miles or at four months. I asked about gasoline degrading after time and they suggested a BP fuel additive to clean the engine every 10,000 miles. I asked about the ability to recharge the electric battery using the gas engine but the mechanic was not aware of this feature.

Driving on our move from Grand Junction to the east coast, my wife discovered that by holding down the EV/HV button for five seconds allows the gas engine to recharge the electric battery up to about 80% or 32 miles. Using the extra energy stored in the battery helped when getting off the freeways and avoid idling at traffic lights. We still averaged 36 mpg for our trip so perhaps recharging the battery with the gasoline engine does not improve fuel efficiency overall. I still have more to learn and in the next blog will share our experience now that we are staying in an apartment with commercial plug-in charging stations.

In preparing this blog, I learned that Toyota in the second half of this year greatly accelerated supply for the Rav4 Prime and delivered about 20,000 vehicles to the marketplace overall this year. That should help reduce costs at the dealer and offer consumers more choices.