The NY Times has a big article about the improvement in fast charging stations along U.S. highways with excellent interactive maps. (Paywall-less version is here)
Most of the highways in the Northeast are packed with chargers (although it gets sketchy going up to Presque Isle, Maine!) but the one route through New Hampshire you can see shows that we’re behind, as the screenshot above shows. We have gotten better but are still behind our neighbors.
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Eh, that route isn’t bad; I travel it several times per year and my Ford e-Transit only has about 100/120 miles of range (summer/winter.) I’d love to see a charging station in Sunapee or New London, and I think they’d do well, but definitely still doable without.
Ever since Tesla opened up their charging network to everyone else, and the manufacturers got caught up with the CCS-to-NACS adapter production, I can travel anywhere in NH now without issue. Even when a charger is down, there’s usually either another spot open or another station within my remaining range.
I think the only EV owners still having range issues traversing NH are the ones who haven’t purchased a NACS adapter, or the ones who are waiting until the low-battery light is on before thinking about where to charge – and I’ve indeed met a few people while charging that were towed to the charger for that reason. But these days it takes two seconds to plan a route with appropriate charging pit stops on any phone or the vehicle nav systems.
That NYT article seems hypothetical, i.e., based on maps. How often in real world driving does someone get to a charging station and find a couple of cars queued up waiting to charge?
Seen it a number of times I have to queue up to a charging station, mostly at hotels/motels where there is only one charging station and folks would leave for hours, even after full charge. The I-93 rest stops in Hooksett, especially the southbound, I’ve seen lines on holiday weekends.