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I recently took a road trip in my new car with 
Robert of Aging Wheels.

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In February I took delivery of a Hyundai Ioniq 5,

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and I wanted to see how a road trip in my very-fast charging

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but also not-a-Tesla electric car would go.

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So did he, so I brought him along.

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It was perfect because we’ve both always
wanted to go to Gatorland!

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Anyway, he made a video on how the road trip
went which I highly suggest checking out,

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and I’m here to make a video on how it was possible.

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Wait I’ve already made it.

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It’s this one.

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This video will c… eugh!

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This video will cover the charging tech
which powers long-distance, electric driving.

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I’ll be discussing the chargers, 
how they deliver energy to the car,

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and the theoretical speed with which they can do that.

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In a later video, I’ll be talking about
the realities of electric car charging in 2022.

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I’d like that video to serve as a sort of glossary to EV charging,

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and in it I’ll cover current battery tech,

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some of the logistical and technical quirks of today,

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and some of the infrastructure challenges we have ahead of us for tomorrow.

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So stay tuned for that one.

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But I hope that by the end of this video you’ll
see that the charging tech side of things—

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that is, the standardized charging connector and its maximum power delivery

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— is actually already solved and pretty future-proof.

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We need wayyyyy more chargers than exist right now,

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but with the charging tech that is on the ground today,

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the 1,185 mile (or 1,907 kilometer) trip we just took

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- which takes about 18 hours of driving! -

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could theoretically be accomplished with just one hour of total charging time.

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Potentially less with a more efficient vehicle.

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We’re not quite there yet with today’s
battery tech, but we’re surprisingly close.

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Before I move on I want to stress a very important point.

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Electric cars offer an entirely new paradigm of refueling,

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which I’ve found is really quite hard to communicate.

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In an ideal world, the fast chargers we’re
looking at in this video are seldom used.

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Yes, we will need them — and many more of them —
 for enabling long-distance travel in electric vehicles,

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but a much, much, MUCH easier and better way to manage charging personal vehicles

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is by doing it slowly at home.

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As a matter of fact, at-home charging has meant that this road trip was the first time I’ve EVER put thought into how I will charge my car,

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and I’ve been driving fully-electric cars since late 2017.

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Simply plugging in at home and charging while
I sleep means the day starts with a fully-charged car,

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and I’ve spent zero time waiting for
my car to charge until this trip.

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So while, yes, we spent more time on the road
trip than we would have in my old Volt burning gasoline,

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I also never spend time at gas stations
for my day-to-day driving needs.

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And that’s pretty nice.

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Solving at-home charging access for areas
where this is currently difficult,

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for example apartment complexes or neighborhoods with
on-street parking only,

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is something that I think we should be focusing our attention on first.

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We should probably also work to reduce dependence
on cars for mobility but that’s not in the scope of this video.

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Yes, in theory fast charging could meet the
needs of those who can’t charge at home and who rely on a car.

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But fast chargers are orders of magnitude
more complicated and expensive to install,

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whereas a basic Level 2 AC charger can be had for
a few hundred bucks

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and may only require the installation of something like a dryer outlet.

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There’s also the issue of battery wear - fast
charging is more stressful to a battery pack,

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so relying on exclusively it may reduce the pack's useful life.

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And, setting all that aside, it’s simply
far more convenient to charge at home.

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Once you get a taste of it, going to a place
to buy fuel starts to feel kinda silly.

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With all that in mind, first let’s talk
about what separates these fast chargers from the rest.

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A while back I made a video on 
electric vehicle supply equipment, or EVSE.

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That is in fact the proper term for this thing
as its primary job

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is to provide AC line voltage to the car.

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It does have the very important task of telling
the car the capacity of its electrical supply,

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and it also does a few other safety-related things

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but the actual thing with charging circuitry in it —

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circuitry which takes AC power and turns it to DC for charging up the battery cells

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— is a module onboard the car.

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Different cars have different battery pack
voltages, chemistries, and sizes,

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so having the car handle charging itself is generally easier.

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And also makes the infrastructure much much cheaper to build out since this is really just a beefy extension cord

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with a bit of smarts inside.

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And that's why this thing isn’t technically a charger.

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However, calling it “an equipment” is
pretty clunky so most of us still call it a charger.

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Here in North America, the *standard* AC charging connector

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is generally known by the very easy to remember 
SAE J1772 Type 1 connector.

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Later on I’ll talk about the elephant in
the room that is... Tesla, but aside from their cars

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literally every - and I cannot stress that enough, EVERY -

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plug-in vehicle sold in North America since 2010,

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regardless of who built it, has this exact plug.

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From the original Chevy Volt and the Nissan Leaf,

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to the Rivian R1T and the Porsche Taycan,

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all of 'em have this connector for AC charging!

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If I sound weirdly riled up here,

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it’s because there’s persistent confusion surrounding this, probably because That Company does things differently,

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but we’ll get to that later.

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This connector can supply up to 80 amps of single-phase current,

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and at 240 volts that’s 19.2 kW.

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That’s a pretty uncommon power level, though,
with the 6 to 10 kW range being far more widespread.

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This Amazon special, a portable EVSE
with a NEMA 14-50 plug on the other end,

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will supply up to 30 amps, which is 7.2 kW at 240 volts.

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For what it’s worth, I think this is the
most power just about anyone might need -

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so long as they have regular access to a charger at home.

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Some other markets use a fancier version of
this connector which goes by all these names and has more pins.

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This enables the use of three-phase supplies
which are fairly common in those markets.

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But here in North America three-phase power
is essentially non-existent in the residential space

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so the Type 1 connector doesn’t support it.

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There’s just no real-world use case for three-phase support in personal vehicles over here.

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In any case, we’re still talking in the realm of AC.

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So far we’ve been using this to connect the vehicle to the grid

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and letting it handle turning the flippy floppy zippy zappy into the plus and minus kind.

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You may have noticed, though, that right below
the charge port on this car

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is a little thing that says “pull.”

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I always listen to instructions, so let’s pull that out.

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Aha… what have we here?

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Suddenly, two more pins have appeared below the connector.

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And these ones are… thicc.

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Our J1772 connector is in fact a CCS1 combo coupler.

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CCS stands for Combined Charging System, and the 1 means…

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well, simply that this is the combined charging system 
for the type 1 connector.

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CCS2, used in markets with the Type 2 AC plug,
also sports these new beefy pins.

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These pins are simply an augmentation of the
original AC connectors,

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which maintains compatibility with existing AC equipment.

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And their purpose is to provide a direct connection to the vehicle's battery pack.

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If you’re wondering why we might want that,

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well remember that the car’s onboard charger has to fit somewhere in the car.

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Size and weight limitations mean that it can only be so powerful.

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But even if that weren’t a problem,

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a typical home’s electrical supply can only provide so much power.

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The 80 amp limit of the North American AC
connector is almost half of a large home’s electrical supply,

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so there’s another reason few cars support charging at that speed.

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But suppose you could take the battery pack
out of the car and bring it to a specialized machine

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which could handle many kilowatts of power.

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If you could do that, well it wouldn’t matter how big and bulky
that theoretical machine is

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because it doesn’t need to fit in the car.

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And, you could power that machine with a much
larger electrical supply than that which you find in a home.

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Now, removing the battery pack is a really involved affair

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(much to the chagrin of folks who admire the idea of battery swaps)

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so rather than do that, we bring the car to one of these special machines

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and hook its battery up to it through here.

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We call this idea DC fast charging, 
and this connector can handle up to 350 kW of power.

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Which is bonkers.

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And actually it can handle a bit more than
that but 350 kW is the maximum speed you’ll find in the wild today.

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The CCS combo coupler’s DC pins
are rated to carry up to 500 amps of current continuously.

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And the chargers they are hooked up to can
provide DC power anywhere from 200 to 1000 volts.

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Today’s stations that are marked “up to 350 kW” 
are generally able to provide 350 amps at 1000 volts,

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though they might also be able to do 500 amps at 700 volts.

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Yeah, there’s some nuance when it comes
to amp limitations and how that relates to your car’s battery pack voltage

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which we’ll get to in the next video,

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but the basic concept here is that a tremendous amount of energy can be shoved through this connector

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and directly into your car’s battery pack very quickly.

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On that note, at most stations the thing which you interact with and which holds the cable for plugging into your car

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isn’t actually doing any of the power conversion.

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These things are called dispensers, and they
are really just a place to put the cable,

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maybe a screen and card reader, and of course some graphics.

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Concealed cables run underground from these
dispensers to the actual charging equipment.

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Generally the equipment consists of a large
pad-mount transformer to tap into the grid, and a series of cabinets.

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The stuff in those cabinets is what actually
converts the AC power from the grid into DC for charging a car.

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Those are the actual chargers, and since we
don’t have the space or cooling limitations of an onboard charger,

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and since these are hooked to megawatt-plus electrical supplies,

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these things can handle immense amounts of power.

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That’s the key to DC fast charging.

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With AC charging, it’s pretty hands-off and fairly limited.

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Basically, the EVSE tells the car 
“hey, you can take up to 30 amps”

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and the car will say “great I’d like power now”

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and the EVSE goes *clack* and now the car will have 
AC line voltage at its charge port,

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and it’s up to the car to handle the rest.

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But DC fast charging is much more hands-on
in pretty much every way.

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In the case of the CCS connector, the control
pilot pin becomes used for high-level communications.

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When you plug a car into one of these chargers,

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a handshake occurs and a number of things start getting communicated in both directions.

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See, now that we’re offloading the task
of charging from the car’s own electronics,

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the car has to be able to control the charger
on the other end of the cable.

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Of course the charger also needs to tell the car what it's capable of,

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and a sort of game plan is agreed to during the initial handshake.

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Once the car and the charger agree that charging
can proceed,

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the connector becomes locked to the car

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(which by the way happens on the
car-side, so you won’t be trapped there if the charger should die for whatever reason)

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and then the car closes a contactor in its battery pack which connects the DC pins of the combo connector

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straight to the pack.

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At that point, the car and charger are in
constant communication,

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and the car tells the charger the voltage and current it wants
based on its battery pack’s capabilities,

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characteristics, conditions, and state-of-charge.

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If anything seems to be going wrong on either side,

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charging will immediately stop.

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Earlier I said these chargers can output anything
from 200 to 1000 volts DC.

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Why such a big range?

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Well, let’s talk about battery pack voltage.

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Every EV out there was designed with its battery
pack configured in a certain way.

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The actual battery cells are wired in series-parallel
groups to attain a certain nominal pack voltage.

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Many cars, including Teslas, have what we call 400V architectures,

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but that’s really more of a class 
than it is an exact pack voltage spec.

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Since the actual pack voltage varies from car to car,

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the voltage the charger needs to provide will vary as well.

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And as a battery takes on charge, the voltage
required to keep charging it gradually goes up.

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So the charger needs to have a range of voltage
output even when charging a single car.

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Now, a 400V car will never need 1000V pumped into it.

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That would be, in fact, bad.

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But many manufacturers are moving to higher pack voltages.

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My Hyundai, along with its Kia and Genesis
siblings on the E-GMP platform,

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has an 800V architecture.

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The advantage of a higher pack voltage is
that every conductor involved in making the car go

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(so bus bars between cells in the
pack, the cables from the pack to the motor inverters,

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and most importantly for this discussion
the cables coming from the charging connector)

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can carry more power with the same current.

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There are some extra considerations that need
to be made when you cross into higher voltages,

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particularly with insulation and certification
of power-handling components.

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But the upside of a higher pack voltage is
that it requires less material for conductors throughout the system,

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and also gives you much more overhead before you start running into problems where those conductors heat up

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and cooling is required.

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Speaking of cooling, people who know their
way around electricity

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might be surprised by how relatively thin the cables are on these chargers.

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A conductor which can carry 500 amps is generally
quite thick, and this doesn’t look thick enough for that.

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In fact it's not - but that’s on purpose.

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These cables are actually liquid-cooled, with a pump circulating coolant along the cable’s length and through a radiator inside the dispenser.

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This allows it to use smaller conductors to
carry the current, making the cable easier to handle.

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I would say it’s a tiny bit more difficult
than handling a gas pump nozzle and its hose,

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but that mainly comes from the cable’s stiffness.

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The actual weight is pretty comparable, 
and I could easily plug in one handed.

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Liquid-cooling does come at the expense of
a little charging efficiency, though,

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as some energy is lost as heat in the cable.

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But the same cable without active cooling
can only handle 200 amps,

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so I’d say it’s definitely a worthwhile trade-off.

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Oh, and that’s yet another reason why higher
pack voltages are likely the future.

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200 amps at 750 volts is 150 kW - and that’s still a pretty fast charging rate.

213
00:15:51,899 --> 00:15:58,749
But a 400V pack when limited to 200 amps will
only see 80 kilowatts at best.

214
00:15:58,749 --> 00:16:04,484
A lower pack voltage will always require much
more current to deliver the same power,

215
00:16:04,484 --> 00:16:08,700
and while there isn’t anything necessarily wrong
with that, it is a limitation

216
00:16:08,700 --> 00:16:16,251
and is one of the main reasons many manufacturers are eyeing
800V - or even 900V - battery architectures.

217
00:16:16,251 --> 00:16:18,304
But not everyone is.

218
00:16:18,304 --> 00:16:20,166
At least, not yet.

219
00:16:20,166 --> 00:16:23,650
Now I think it’s a good time to address the elephant in the room.

220
00:16:23,650 --> 00:16:28,428
So far, I’ve been talking exclusively about CCS chargers.

221
00:16:28,428 --> 00:16:31,029
I’ve done that on purpose because, you see,

222
00:16:31,029 --> 00:16:36,117
CCS is the established standard DC fast charging connector,

223
00:16:36,117 --> 00:16:42,690
and every automaker selling cars for the US market is either already using it or, in the case of Nissan,

224
00:16:42,690 --> 00:16:45,563
has pledged to use it going forward.

225
00:16:45,563 --> 00:16:49,304
Except… oh right, except for…

226
00:16:49,304 --> 00:16:50,779
them.

227
00:16:50,779 --> 00:16:54,179
You might be familiar with Tesla’s Superchargers.

228
00:16:54,179 --> 00:16:58,472
Tesla calls their DC fast charging network
the Supercharger network,

229
00:16:58,472 --> 00:17:01,548
and the tech is fundamentally the same as CCS.

230
00:17:01,548 --> 00:17:07,600
In fact in many markets it IS CCS - just with their slick brand.

231
00:17:07,600 --> 00:17:10,583
However, here in the North American market,

232
00:17:10,583 --> 00:17:16,061
Tesla decided to make their own connector for their cars which they use to this day.

233
00:17:16,061 --> 00:17:19,995
Now, I have to tell you 
(because if I didn’t I’d never hear the end of it)

234
00:17:19,995 --> 00:17:23,056
that they initially did this with good reason.

235
00:17:23,056 --> 00:17:25,624
When they released the Model S in 2012,

236
00:17:25,624 --> 00:17:28,819
the CCS standard had not yet been finalized.

237
00:17:28,819 --> 00:17:33,190
They didn’t want to wait around for that
to happen, and so made their own standard.

238
00:17:33,190 --> 00:17:36,599
And to their credit, they were pretty clever with the design.

239
00:17:36,599 --> 00:17:42,140
Tesla’s proprietary connector doesn’t
use separate pins for DC and AC charging.

240
00:17:42,140 --> 00:17:46,701
Instead, it uses two very large pins that serve both purposes.

241
00:17:46,701 --> 00:17:51,683
When AC charging these are Line 1 and 2, and
feed the car’s onboard charger.

242
00:17:51,683 --> 00:17:55,578
But, when Supercharging, they connect directly
to the battery pack

243
00:17:55,578 --> 00:17:58,374
and the offboard charger takes care of things.

244
00:17:58,374 --> 00:18:03,766
Now I will freely admit the Tesla connector
is much more elegant than this…

245
00:18:03,766 --> 00:18:05,332
stormtrooper thing.

246
00:18:05,332 --> 00:18:09,157
However, a closed ecosystem has costs.

247
00:18:09,157 --> 00:18:13,276
There are some great benefits, too - undoubtedly
why it’s still the way it is.

248
00:18:13,276 --> 00:18:18,755
But I have serious concerns about Tesla’s
continued use of their proprietary connector.

249
00:18:18,755 --> 00:18:21,846
OK, I have to interject with some news.

250
00:18:21,846 --> 00:18:24,690
Literally the day after I shot this video,

251
00:18:24,690 --> 00:18:27,147
because of course that’s how my luck would go,

252
00:18:27,147 --> 00:18:34,344
Elon Musk confirmed that Tesla plans to
start fitting CCS cables to their Superchargers here in the US

253
00:18:34,344 --> 00:18:37,748
and will open up their network to serve other vehicles.

254
00:18:37,748 --> 00:18:44,988
This is genuinely great to hear, and while we don’t have any specifics yet on how this will go or when it will happen

255
00:18:44,988 --> 00:18:50,195
(and given Tesla’s track record on promises and timelines 
I’m definitely reserving judgment for now),

256
00:18:50,195 --> 00:18:58,280
I’m glad to see Tesla honoring their commitment to accelerate electrification
and not just the sale of their own cars.

257
00:18:58,280 --> 00:19:03,050
I’ve decided to leave in the rather angsty
section you’re about to see because,

258
00:19:03,050 --> 00:19:07,152
while it’s great that Tesla is making moves to
help out other EVs

259
00:19:07,152 --> 00:19:11,522
(and I mean frankly why wouldn’t they, 
their supercharger network is a revenue center for them,

260
00:19:11,522 --> 00:19:15,138
though I do have some serious reservations about the precedent that sets)

261
00:19:15,138 --> 00:19:20,254
they are still building their own cars with their own proprietary connector.

262
00:19:20,254 --> 00:19:22,886
I’m pretty confident that they’ll eventually
give it up

263
00:19:22,886 --> 00:19:28,272
but until they do they are putting themselves and their drivers in a bit of a pickle.

264
00:19:28,272 --> 00:19:29,272
Why?

265
00:19:29,272 --> 00:19:30,272
Well…

266
00:19:30,609 --> 00:19:33,247
By not adopting CCS natively,

267
00:19:33,247 --> 00:19:38,402
which by the way they could have done half a decade ago and are only making the switch harder by continuing to not do it,

268
00:19:38,402 --> 00:19:47,305
Tesla is setting themselves up to be their customer’s sole (or at least primary) provider of fuel for long-distance travel in the US.

269
00:19:47,305 --> 00:19:51,350
And that’s a bad precedent. And it's bad for both parties!

270
00:19:51,350 --> 00:19:56,078
In the case of Tesla drivers, they are at
least partially beholden to Tesla

271
00:19:56,078 --> 00:20:00,775
when they want to go long distances 
(or just need a quick top-up in-town).

272
00:20:00,775 --> 00:20:06,903
A CCS adapter is on the way, but not all Tesla
vehicles are able to support it

273
00:20:06,903 --> 00:20:08,877
without a hardware upgrade.

274
00:20:08,877 --> 00:20:14,592
Many can, but even in that case everybody
knows the dongle life is not fun.

275
00:20:14,592 --> 00:20:20,317
And Tesla is now essentially forced to keep
expanding the Supercharger network on their own

276
00:20:20,317 --> 00:20:22,388
as they sell more cars.

277
00:20:22,388 --> 00:20:29,456
They’re kinda stuck catering only to Teslas unless they start fitting CCS connectors to their chargers and open their network.

278
00:20:29,456 --> 00:20:32,540
Which they keep hinting they’re gonna do, in fairness.

279
00:20:32,540 --> 00:20:33,119
*ahem*

280
00:20:33,119 --> 00:20:38,540
Of course Tesla deserves loads of credit for
jumpstarting the switch to electrification,

281
00:20:38,540 --> 00:20:40,820
and I’ll never push back against that.

282
00:20:40,820 --> 00:20:44,193
They have done a lot to prove the merits of
EVs,

283
00:20:44,193 --> 00:20:49,300
and undoubtedly we would not have so many options to choose from today 
were it not for them.

284
00:20:49,721 --> 00:20:50,300
See?

285
00:20:50,300 --> 00:20:51,930
I say nice things about them.

286
00:20:51,930 --> 00:20:58,511
But at this point, every automaker who isn’t
Tesla has signed on to the CCS standard.

287
00:20:58,511 --> 00:21:05,034
And the reason this is such a thorn in my
side is that I run across countless folks online who say things like

288
00:21:05,034 --> 00:21:09,301
“I won’t consider an EV until they settle on a dang charge port”

289
00:21:09,301 --> 00:21:13,425
and this irritates me so much because they have!

290
00:21:13,425 --> 00:21:17,150
Except… well except for Tesla.

291
00:21:17,150 --> 00:21:19,624
And the fact that Superchargers are only for Teslas

292
00:21:19,624 --> 00:21:20,408
*ahem*

293
00:21:20,408 --> 00:21:27,517
is deep enough in the public consciousness that many people wrongly assume
the rest of the industry must be copying that model.

294
00:21:27,517 --> 00:21:30,247
They aren’t, and thank goodness.

295
00:21:30,247 --> 00:21:32,453
As much as Tesla led the way,

296
00:21:32,453 --> 00:21:36,863
they’re now the only company who builds cars for sale in North America

297
00:21:36,863 --> 00:21:39,691
with a connector that isn’t this one.

298
00:21:39,691 --> 00:21:42,523
On our trip we saw cars from many brands;

299
00:21:42,523 --> 00:21:47,506
Ford, Chevy, Polestar, Hyundai, BMW, Kia, Volkswagen, and Porsche

300
00:21:47,506 --> 00:21:51,189
all connecting directly to the same chargers we were using,

301
00:21:51,189 --> 00:21:54,736
almost like it’s some sort of standard or something!

302
00:21:54,736 --> 00:21:57,094
The Supercharger network is great,

303
00:21:57,094 --> 00:22:02,360
and when it comes to usability and reliability it’s currently the one to beat.

304
00:22:02,360 --> 00:22:08,938
But frankly I really don’t like the idea
of automakers being in the business of selling fuel to their customers,

305
00:22:08,938 --> 00:22:11,957
especially when they sell a proprietary one.

306
00:22:11,957 --> 00:22:16,306
And that’s why I’m genuinely worried on
behalf of Tesla'a drivers.

307
00:22:16,306 --> 00:22:20,114
This isn’t just me being sad about not having Supercharger
access.

308
00:22:20,114 --> 00:22:21,230
*ahem*

309
00:22:21,230 --> 00:22:28,399
Soon, the competition that already
exists in the 3rd party charging networks will drastically heat up.

310
00:22:28,399 --> 00:22:33,386
Really compelling EVs are being sold by just
about every automaker at this point,

311
00:22:33,386 --> 00:22:35,714
and that’s accelerating quickly.

312
00:22:35,714 --> 00:22:42,253
I’m personally glad to have an EV that,
while it’s currently more difficult to road-trip than a Tesla,

313
00:22:42,253 --> 00:22:50,547
is catered to by ChargePoint, EVGo, Electrify America, Shell ReCharge, and more without the need for adapters

314
00:22:50,547 --> 00:22:54,842
(it can also charge faster than any Tesla
but l won’t rub it in too much).

315
00:22:54,842 --> 00:23:00,792
To everyone who thinks automakers should copy
Tesla and build out their own charging networks,

316
00:23:00,792 --> 00:23:09,503
I’d ask that you consider what a future
might look like where Ford is allowed to sell Ford Brand Electrons only to Fords.

317
00:23:09,503 --> 00:23:15,170
Unfortunately it sounds like Rivian might
be headed down that path with their Adventure Network.

318
00:23:15,170 --> 00:23:17,764
Ugh, this timeline…

319
00:23:17,764 --> 00:23:20,228
Anyway, with my Tesla angst out of the way,

320
00:23:20,228 --> 00:23:21,700
here’s what we’re left with;

321
00:23:21,700 --> 00:23:28,639
We have the technology to deliver 350 kW of
power straight into the battery pack of a car.

322
00:23:28,639 --> 00:23:34,131
Earlier I said that would enable an 18 hour
drive to happen with an hour of charging.

323
00:23:34,131 --> 00:23:36,120
Well, here’s how.

324
00:23:36,120 --> 00:23:41,520
It took my Ioniq 5 328 kilowatt-hours of energy
to make that journey.

325
00:23:41,520 --> 00:23:44,544
And… that’s a bit less than 350,

326
00:23:44,544 --> 00:23:51,349
so if it had a battery which could take on all that power 
(which, it doesn’t but we’re playing with theory now not reality)

327
00:23:51,349 --> 00:23:55,525
not quite an hour of charging time would be needed in total.

328
00:23:55,525 --> 00:24:02,140
In a future car that might happen in four 15 minutes stops, 
or maybe six 10 minute stops if that's more your bag.

329
00:24:02,140 --> 00:24:05,682
Also, the Ioniq 5 isn’t the most efficient highway cruiser,

330
00:24:05,682 --> 00:24:11,905
so something like a Tesla Model 3 might be able to drop the total charging time down to only 45 minutes,

331
00:24:11,905 --> 00:24:13,980
once battery tech catches up.

332
00:24:13,980 --> 00:24:20,551
Now, what was the real-world charge time with
my real-world car in the real-world conditions of the real world?

333
00:24:20,551 --> 00:24:23,029
Surprisingly close, actually.

334
00:24:23,029 --> 00:24:25,764
Had we stuck to what our route planner suggested,

335
00:24:25,764 --> 00:24:32,764
which involved stopping the charge at a suggested percentage to reach the next charger with about 10% state-of-charge remaining,

336
00:24:32,764 --> 00:24:39,295
we would have spent only 1 hour and 52 minutes
charging at six different charging stops.

337
00:24:39,295 --> 00:24:45,560
Just 52 minutes on top of the theoretical
best-possible charging speed ain’t bad.

338
00:24:45,560 --> 00:24:50,339
Now, we did hang around the chargers for a
little while longer than suggested

339
00:24:50,339 --> 00:24:56,800
because we were facing a nasty headwind when we started
out - and by nasty I mean like a sustained

340
00:24:56,800 --> 00:24:59,410
15 to 20 mile-an-hour headwind.

341
00:24:59,410 --> 00:25:04,169
So in actuality we spent a total of 2 hours and 20 minutes charging.

342
00:25:04,365 --> 00:25:07,535
It was my first time driving the car long distance,

343
00:25:07,535 --> 00:25:09,855
and I wanted some buffer just in case.

344
00:25:09,855 --> 00:25:15,592
It turned out, though, that the route planner
was being quite conservative as even in those conditions,

345
00:25:15,592 --> 00:25:20,121
the predicted state-of-charge
loss between stops was spot on.

346
00:25:20,121 --> 00:25:23,886
So, had we stuck to its plan, we would have been fine.

347
00:25:23,886 --> 00:25:27,474
And as we moved South the headwind started to diminish,

348
00:25:27,474 --> 00:25:33,787
and so we started arriving at the next stops with more and more buffer over the predicted arrival range.

349
00:25:33,787 --> 00:25:37,332
Which, actually, would have shortened the
charging time slightly

350
00:25:37,332 --> 00:25:42,366
since those later charging sessions all started out
at a higher-than-predicted state of charge,

351
00:25:42,366 --> 00:25:45,106
shaving off a few minutes at each stop.

352
00:25:45,106 --> 00:25:51,790
Ah, that last section sure makes it sound
like trying to road trip an EV takes a lot of planning, doesn’t it?

353
00:25:51,790 --> 00:25:53,290
Well, kind of.

354
00:25:53,290 --> 00:25:55,230
But not too much, really.

355
00:25:55,230 --> 00:25:59,342
There are some pretty great apps and websites out there
which will help you manage this,

356
00:25:59,342 --> 00:26:01,104
like A Better Routeplanner,

357
00:26:01,104 --> 00:26:09,253
and several cars are emulating Tesla’s navigation-with-charging-stops system but around the available third-party networks.

358
00:26:09,253 --> 00:26:13,716
As time goes on, though, there will certainly
be more chargers in more places,

359
00:26:13,716 --> 00:26:17,847
and hopefully this whole route planning business becomes obsolete.

360
00:26:17,847 --> 00:26:21,872
It’s still early days for EVs and they’re not for everyone,

361
00:26:21,872 --> 00:26:29,077
but I hope you can see that the tech to make them work is here, 
it’s robust, and it’s fast.

362
00:26:29,077 --> 00:26:33,683
And I want to say that, having done this same
road trip several times before,

363
00:26:33,683 --> 00:26:39,345
the forced 15 to 20 minute breaks every two or three
hours were fantastic,

364
00:26:39,345 --> 00:26:44,118
and this genuinely felt like the fastest trip to Florida I’ve ever done.

365
00:26:44,118 --> 00:26:46,060
In both directions.

366
00:26:46,060 --> 00:26:48,678
Oh, and here’s a preview for the next video,

367
00:26:48,678 --> 00:26:54,172
if you’re worried about what all these mega fast chargers are gonna do to the power grid -

368
00:26:54,172 --> 00:26:56,556
well, don’t be.

369
00:26:56,556 --> 00:27:03,328
Yeah, even just four cars sucking down 350
kW sounds like a gargantuan feat…

370
00:27:03,328 --> 00:27:05,941
but that’s only 1.4 megawatts.

371
00:27:05,941 --> 00:27:09,689
I know, you’re thinking “only?” but seriously.

372
00:27:09,689 --> 00:27:12,470
Ya know what makes 1.4 megawatts?

373
00:27:12,470 --> 00:27:14,011
One of those.

374
00:27:14,011 --> 00:27:15,876
Just one.

375
00:27:15,876 --> 00:27:18,479
Yeah, I know, sometimes the wind doesn’t blow,

376
00:27:18,479 --> 00:27:19,515
ya got me!

377
00:27:19,515 --> 00:27:27,911
But there’s already a few thousand of these
things just in my state so… they could charge 10,000 cars at the same time,

378
00:27:27,911 --> 00:27:31,787
all on these ultra-fast chargers (at least when the wind is blowing).

379
00:27:31,787 --> 00:27:35,118
Actually 18,000 if Wikipedia’s up-to-date.

380
00:27:35,118 --> 00:27:43,617
And wouldn’t ya know it, here in Illinois
we’ve got 11.8 gigawatts of nuclear capacity just sittin’ around doing fission and stuff.

381
00:27:43,617 --> 00:27:47,449
How many of these chargers would that support simultaneously?

382
00:27:47,449 --> 00:27:56,316
33,831, and for some context Illinois only
has about 4 thousand gas stations serving the entire state.

383
00:27:56,316 --> 00:28:05,529
So, every gas station that exists now could
have 8 ultra fast chargers using only the capacity of our six nuclear power plants -

384
00:28:05,529 --> 00:28:11,090
and once we get at-home charging sorted,
we won’t need nearly that many fast chargers.

385
00:28:11,090 --> 00:28:16,590
Yes, the grid will need to grow and change
to support a whole bunch of EVs,

386
00:28:16,590 --> 00:28:19,444
but it’s a lot less scary than it sounds.

387
00:28:19,444 --> 00:28:24,013
People a heckuva lot smarter than I am have done much
better math,

388
00:28:24,013 --> 00:28:25,595
and they’re not that worried.

389
00:28:25,595 --> 00:28:31,416
Plus, I always like to point out that the grid went
from nobody having air conditioning

390
00:28:31,416 --> 00:28:39,180
to just about everybody having air conditioning in
just a few short decades, yet it managed that just fine.

391
00:28:39,489 --> 00:28:40,790
We’re humans.

392
00:28:40,790 --> 00:28:44,750
And when we want things to happen, we always find a way.

393
00:28:44,750 --> 00:28:50,475
We’ve got some challenges ahead, for sure,
but I’m confident that we’ve got this.

394
00:28:51,234 --> 00:28:53,935
♫ standardizedly smooth jazz ♫

395
00:28:55,034 --> 00:28:56,782
This video will c... eugh!

396
00:28:56,782 --> 00:28:58,361
[repeat]
This video will c... eugh!

397
00:28:58,361 --> 00:29:00,118
[one more time]
This video will c... eugh!

398
00:29:00,118 --> 00:29:02,602
OK... one of those has to be good.

399
00:29:02,602 --> 00:29:03,823
So stay tuned for that one.

400
00:29:03,823 --> 00:29:06,093
Yeah, again I changed the words...

401
00:29:06,711 --> 00:29:10,539
No, that's what happened, I... I made an adjustment 
on the fly the last time I read it

402
00:29:10,539 --> 00:29:13,473
and I didn't make the same adjustment, 
I made a different one.

403
00:29:13,473 --> 00:29:14,903
I'm really good at this!

404
00:29:14,903 --> 00:29:18,582
Our J1772 [falls apart]

405
00:29:19,593 --> 00:29:22,125
It sounds like I'm say RJ, like RJ45.

406
00:29:22,125 --> 00:29:24,850
There's another reason few cars sporting char...

407
00:29:26,395 --> 00:29:27,141
[deep breath]

408
00:29:30,541 --> 00:29:31,250
Bad!

409
00:29:31,250 --> 00:29:34,118
So, the charger... yeah no, I... why did you do that?

410
00:29:34,764 --> 00:29:36,751
That was clarified in the next sentence.

411
00:29:36,751 --> 00:29:39,477
You've proofread this many times, you dingo.

412
00:29:40,629 --> 00:29:44,951
OK, so I gotta admit, something that's really pushing my buttons is the shade Tesla stans throw at CCS for being ugly and/or bulky.

413
00:29:44,951 --> 00:29:48,997
I mean, the thing is handling the equivalent of SEVEN maxed out, large US homes and somehow it's still *that* small.

414
00:29:48,997 --> 00:29:51,272
I mean, that's an achievement!

415
00:29:51,272 --> 00:29:53,508
And the standard reference people have is a gas pump.

416
00:29:53,508 --> 00:29:55,729
Those ain't elegant, in case you hadn't noticed.

417
00:29:55,729 --> 00:29:57,170
It's just a plug, you guys.