Help with LA to Sacramento, CA, en route to Seattle?

Chevy Bolt EV Forum

Help Support Chevy Bolt EV Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

DaveHanson

Member
Joined
Jun 28, 2017
Messages
8
I'm a forum newbie, posting for a friend who is a longtime Leaf driver but brand new Bolt owner.

He's planning on driving his new Bolt from Los Angeles, CA to Seattle, WA beginning late morning Thursday, June 28. Apologies for the last minute notice...this just became possible mere hours ago.

After studying plugshare, it looks like compatible fast chargers are absent--at least on their map--between 23649 W. Valencia Blvd., Santa Clarita, CA, 91355 , and 7101 Elk Grove Blvd., Elk Grove, CA 95758 . That's a brutal 340+ mile stretch.

Another poster indicated that the Bakersfield Walmart had compatible fast charging. That would cut the stretch to some 280 miles. If there were one more fast charger in between, I'd think he'd be good to go...?

Once he gets north of Sacramento, there appear to be plentiful options off of I5 all the way to SEA...

Would welcome any and all advice on this. And sincere apologies if I missed a pertinent resource! Happy to do any homework myself...I could just use pointers in the right direction... :) TIA.
 
Thanks for the super-quick reply, SparkE!

I was thinking CA-99 from WM Bakersfield to Elk Grove, as Google says it's the best route irrespective of charging stations.

But I don't see any stations on plugshare for CA-99 between these two places...is there a recourse you (or others) would direct me to that might fill that gap?
 
It's north of Sacramento that the drive gets slow due to lack of CCS sites with 50kW capability. These are all CCS stations:
9ZAraig.jpg
 
Thank you Zoomit,

My plugshare map looked much sparser than yours south of Sacramento. So I tried closing the "trip planner" dialogue box. Once I did that, the chargers you noted popped up. Strange...I wonder if it's a bug in the PS mapping rendering?

Anyway, I see your point now. Even so, it doesn't look like the fast chargers are more than 100-150 miles apart at any point north of Sacramento. Which suggests that as long as my friend doesn't push the accelerator too heavily, he should be able to make it nearly all the way through with 80% top offs via fast charging.

Does that seem right?

Either way I appreciate your posting the picture that made me recheck my data.
 
Your friend is about to learn that not all DC Fast Chargers are created equal. Most North of Sacramento are 24kW and charge at half the rate of the more mainstream 50 kW variety. This is what the slow ones look like:
%D0%A1%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BC%D0%BE%D0%BA.jpg
 
Thank you Zoomit, I hear that.

Is there any way to tell from easily from plugshare--or perhaps the mychevy phone app or something else--which are the 50k chargers?
 
There's currently no good way to tell DCFC power, other than looking at the pictures of the site on PlugShare, seeing the actual charger type, and knowing what it's capable of (hence my previous picture).
 
Hi Dave, are you a Bolt owner now? Drop me a line sometime. Last time I saw you was ages ago in Las Vegas.

I got a Bolt when my Spark lease was up.
 
Zoomit said:
There's currently no good way to tell DCFC power, other than looking at the pictures of the site on PlugShare, seeing the actual charger type, and knowing what it's capable of (hence my previous picture).
...or reading the comments and hoping that someone has mentioned the charging rate.

The lack of standardized power information for DC fast chargers is currently my biggest gripe with an otherwise terrific app. IMHO the charger capacity should be a discrete data item and you should be able to filter which chargers are displayed according to a minimum power level just as you can filter them by plug type.
 
Hi Sparkyps, sorry, I don't recognize the handle...? No, I don't own a bolt, but I would love to be able to rationalize getting one. :)

Friend is now closing in on Modesto, CA area, having had a good day. I'm directing him to the Humboldt Ave Willows, CA station in a few minutes.

Would be nice to have a good overnight option, but AFAIK the hotels with electric chargers aren't CCS...not sure what I will advise for the night, I'm eying the Willows, CA area as a good place for him to call it for the evening.
 
Indeed, the PlugShare app is overdue for charge rate information. Charge & Drive (no North America coverage) does it much better, listing both voltage and amperage.

92scQBY.jpg
 
DaveHanson said:
Hi Sparkyps, sorry, I don't recognize the handle...? No, I don't own a bolt, but I would love to be able to rationalize getting one. :)

Friend is now closing in on Modesto, CA area, having had a good day. I'm directing him to the Humboldt Ave Willows, CA station in a few minutes.

Would be nice to have a good overnight option, but AFAIK the hotels with electric chargers aren't CCS...not sure what I will advise for the night, I'm eying the Willows, CA area as a good place for him to call it for the evening.
Typically hotels don't have DCFC, they have AC Level 2. How about he stop at Granzella's Inn instead and charge overnight? I found that location via the EV plug filter selection on PlugShare.
 
Zoomit said:
Typically hotels don't have DCFC, they have AC Level 2. How about he stop at Granzella's Inn instead and charge overnight? I found that location via the EV plug filter selection on PlugShare.

Right, and now I'm betraying my ignorance. :) I wasn't sure that the EV plug filter would turn up only compatible level 2 charging options. I take it that any EV plug level 2 station works fine with the bolt?

Edit: https://www.chevyevlife.com/bolt-ev-charging-locator only shows the FC Carl's Junior spot as compatible within 30 miles of Williams. That's one indicator that made me uncertain?
 
Yes, any J1772 plug works in the Bolt. The chevy app and website are not a good source of charging location details. PlugShare is the best in the US as it's crowd-sourced and independent of auto maker or charging network.
 
DaveHanson said:
Would be nice to have a good overnight option, but AFAIK the hotels with electric chargers aren't CCS...not sure what I will advise for the night, I'm eying the Willows, CA area as a good place for him to call it for the evening.
For an overnight stay you don't really need a CCS fast charger - a Level 2 charger with a capacity of at least 32A will fully charge the car in less than 10 hours, which is pretty typical time to be at a hotel.

DaveHanson said:
Right, and now I'm betraying my ignorance. :) I wasn't sure that the EV plug filter would turn up only compatible level 2 charging options. I take it that any EV plug level 2 station works fine with the bolt?
NO - Level 2 stations include both J1772 and CHAdeMo plugs, the latter of which is incompatible with the Bolt. Be sure to set the PlugShare filters to show only J1772 or CCS plugs to find chargers that the Bolt can use.
 
I think you posted before your coffee Sean. There's no such thing as a CHAdeMO Level 2 plug. CHAdeMO is DCFC only of course and is completely different than a J1772 plug.
 
Zoomit said:
I think you posted before your coffee Sean. There's no such thing as a CHAdeMO Level 2 plug. CHAdeMO is DCFC only of course and is completely different than a J1772 plug.
L2 DC is 250-400V and up to 200A (90kW) (L1 DC is up to 80A)
Virtually ALL CHAdeMO currently installed is indeed Level 2

SAE-EV-Charging-Levels.jpg


Common usage is that all DCFC is "L3 charging" . That is no more correct than calling your EVSE a "charger".

Trying to change people's perception of those terms at this point is fighting a losing battle, but both have specific definitions that are contrary to popular usage.
 
Gary,

I've very well aware of the SAE standard. I've used the same graphic many times for similar reasons. It applies to J1772 and CCS. That standard does not apply to CHAdeMO. The CHAdeMO standard is not DC Level 2, but we're fighting semantics. The reality is the world calls it Level 3 (which I disagree with).
 
Back
Top