From Campsites to Trails: The Struggle of Taking EVs Off the Beaten Path

Opinion

Any EV owner can tell a horror story or two about the current state of EV charging. With chargers being down for maintenance to long lines, it is not the best look when trying to convince people that EV's are great. Now imagine you like to go camping, or fishing, or any number of outdoor activities. This is no problem for an EV, as long as you have a charger within range of intended destination. I cannot speak for everyone, but for me, I usually want to go as far from civilization as possible. Places like the Moab, Rubicon Trail, Death Valley, Enchanted Rockies Trail, Outer Banks, and much more, are common destinations. These are not necessarily a destination an EV is meant to go by design. What if you have a Rivian, or F-150 Lightning, which play on the off-road ability of the vehicles?

The challenge is getting out to these locations, getting through it, and back to the charging station. With all the issues surrounding the reliability of charging stations it is already a bit of a gamble to head to an area that is sparse with charging stations to begin with. Add to this the fact that 90% of charging stations are along commonly traveled interstates and not in these niche destinations, and you would be hard pressed to take a trip in your EV. Let me clarify and categorize a bit here, there are those who head to these destination with their EV to camp and enjoy the sights. Then there are those that want to take their EV out on the trails and camp. The latter being much more of a challenge. Another concern if you are heading off the beaten path is energy consumption. Much like an ICE vehicle, an EV will use more energy when off road than on road. This adds to the challenge of taking an EV off road whether to find a rugged campsite or to enjoy some trails and sights. 

Comparison: EV versus ICE. When driving an ICE vehicle, we see fueling stations so often that we do not even think twice about whether we need to fill up before the next station. In these camping and off-road destinations there is no lack of gas stations. In fact, while researching this subject I found an average ratio of 10:1 fuel to charging stations. The fuel stations were also more closely positioned to trail heads. An EV can be more efficient than an ICE vehicle of equal size and shape. Let's say they are both equal in consumption for the same distance on or off road traveled. The ICE vehicle has far more options to refuel than the EV, and in almost all cases the ICE vehicle has options closer to it than the EV. This is one of the biggest challenges for EV's. See figures 1 and 2 for comparison. 

Figure 1 - Fuel Stations

Figure 2 - EV Stations

Let's take a dive into some of these destinations. If we look at Moab, Utah for our first example, we can see that this area has recently installed charging stations relatively near the trails Fig.3. Here we have seen Rivian's and others get out to the trails and back on some of the less technical and shorter trails. This does not mean that you cannot get out to the best trails, it only means you have to pay more attention to your energy usage. You cannot take a few extra cans of electrons with you. 

Figure 3

Now lets take a look at the Rubicon Trail in California. Here we see a very different landscape when it comes to EV chargers. Do not assume there is none in Lake Tahoe because there is, but not close enough to fully enjoy the trail Fig. 4. In this area you would be hard pressed to take the trail and make it the nearest charger. When I wrote this, Plug Share, Charge Point, and A Better Route Planner all showed the closest fast chargers, 4 of them, at 70 miles from the trailhead and they were listed as "not in service". This means the next closest charging stations are over 100 miles away. That does not give many EV's a lot of room for fun miles. 

Figure 4

Death Valley, California is another well-traveled destination for off road driving, camping, and exploration (hard to do in summer). This is a great example of charging stations being out of service. As you can see in Figure 5, there are two charging station locations with two chargers each. However, the units in Amorosa Valley are out of service. This leaves the charging stations at Pahrump, NV, over 70 miles away as the closest. If you plan well, you can use the stations off of highway 395, but those are close either and suffer from outages during summer. For an EV this is going to be a bit of a challenge, not the most difficult across the country, but certainly up there on the list. At the time I wrote this there was some chargers being installed in the Death Valley National Park visitors center, but I could not find an in-service date for these. If you were planning on taking a trip in the many trails of the park, you had better plan well as there is no chargers and even less services. With that said, it is well worth it for the views and hidden gems. 

Figure 5

How can we make these destinations more accessible for EV drivers? In my opinion we have a few options. We can petition the local and state governments and businesses to install more chargers. We can outfit our vehicles with enough solar panels to make it a moot point, admittedly this is not really an option. We can support companies that are using solar panels and battery storage systems for off grid charging stations. Being an outdoor, off road, camping, exploring, enthusiast and Rivian owner, I have planned trips to many locations with the idea that I am limited in refueling options and time. This does make it more difficult but by no means impossible, so far. When I travel with groups that are primarily ICE vehicles, it does make trips less than optimal. I have to find charging stations along the route and plan longer or more often stops than most of the ICE vehicles. 

Options for off grid charging stations seem to be the best way to meet the needs of EV's in remote areas at the moment. When I see companies like Box Power, Flo, Paired Power, and Envision Solar, deploying battery storage solar powered charging stations, it gives me hope for extended play time. The promise of 35,000 EV chargers in "camp destinations" by the Department of Energy is being rolled out at a dismal rate. This, in no small part, has led to a slowdown in EV adoption. Not just for those who expect their vehicles to do everything, but also those who just want to get from point A to point B. I have read on some publications, Electrek, MotorTrend, that Flo and others are currently testing some of these off grid solar powered charging stations in areas like Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming and more. There is hope that EV owners will have better access to more of the country than before, we may have to wait a bit for it. In the meantime, plan accordingly and enjoy.