Via California - March/April 2020 - 30

"In the next year or two,
you'll have access to fast
charging every 100 miles or
so almost anywhere in the
country." - s a m a b u e ls a m i d
A home setup like this may not be possible for
everyone. "If you live in a house with a garage,
it's straightforward to get a 240-volt charger
installed," says Abuelsamid. "But if you have to
park on the street, or you live in an apartment
building, it's a different story."
The morning of our departure, we pack up the
E-Tron, unplug it, and zoom away. After silently
gliding through the rolling hills of rural Marin
County, we hit the coast and head north. Our first
day's destination: the cute oceanside village of
Mendocino, 165 miles from home.
Along the way, we stop for a break in the little
town of Point Arena. While the day's drive is well
30

V I A | M A R C H +A P R I L 2 0 2 0

clockwise from top left: The Russian Gulch Bridge just
south of Mendocino, Calif.; giraffes at B. Bryan Preserve coolly
appraising an EV; the Chandelier Tree, a road-trip classic in
Leggett, Calif.; plugging in for the night at the Sea Rock Inn; an
I-5 charging station in Mt. Shasta, Calif.

within our E-Tron's fully charged range, we still
take the opportunity to add a few miles when we
can. Using the PlugShare mobile app to locate the
nearest charging station, we find a 240-volt public
charger in a Point Arena parking lot. We plug in
and head for lunch across the street at the delightful Franny's Cup & Saucer bakery.
After a savory bread pudding and a stroll
through town, we get back to the car. We make
a brief stop at the 110-acre B. Bryan Preserve,
where we get a guided tour of its zebras, antelope, and giraffes, then drive the final 35 miles to
Mendocino. Cabin 6 at the Sea Rock Inn offers a
charging station as a free amenity. So we plug in
again and settle on the cabin's porch to catch a
glorious Pacific sunset.
That easy overnight full charge sets us up for
the next day, the most ambitious leg of our trip:
a 300-mile jaunt to Grants Pass, Ore. Given
the distance we need to travel, and the relative
remoteness of the area, I'm careful to map out our
route and our stops before we leave. The plan is to
cruise through majestic redwood groves and past
desolate Lost Coast landscapes-and use the highspeed chargers we can find along the way.
The first of those chargers is just 76 miles from
Mendocino, at the Benbow Historic Inn near
Garberville. We dawdle at the Chandelier DriveThru Tree in Leggett, Calif., then steer north.
The station at the Benbow has a 50-kilowatt
charger, the first of its kind we've seen on the trip.
The higher a charger's kilowatt rating, the faster
it'll charge-in this case, about eight times faster
than our home charger and the public station in
Point Arena. At this rate, we could add about 90
to 100 miles of range in 30 minutes. Different EVs
can accommodate different charging speeds.
Later in the trip, we'll encounter some nextgeneration stations that can take advantage of the
Audi E-Tron's 150-kilowatt capability-enough to
add about 165 miles in a half hour. Such ultrafast
charging stations are now being deployed across

CREDIT HERE

day, so the average EV has plenty of range to spare.
Long-distance road trips are another thing
altogether. Driving a gas-powered vehicle, you
can expect to go 300 miles or more on a full tank,
and when you run low you can rely on a network
of roughly 168,000 gas stations nationwide.
Depending on where you live, you can currently
expect to pay about $2.50 to $3.50 a gallon. A long
drive in an EV requires more planning, because
the network of public charging stations still has
gaps, and the rates you pay can be confusing to
first-time EV drivers.
The night before we leave, I plug the E-Tron
into the home charger that I've been using for the
past decade. Nearly every day, I plug in my Bolt
before I go to bed, and in the morning it has way
more range than I'll use that day.
Most EVs come with a basic backup charger
that plugs into a standard 120-volt home outlet,
which is too slow to make sense. But it's easy to
install a 240-volt EV charging station in your
home. Many new EVs come with the necessary
charging hardware, and you can buy a third-party
charging station for about $300. Once installed,
such a charger allows you to add about 25 miles of
range for each hour your EV is plugged in.

Via California - March/April 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Via California - March/April 2020