My Drama-Free EV Road Trip Through New York’s Wild North

On a Monday in June, I got my first electric vehicle. Two days later, I took it on my first EV road trip: A 6-hour, 370-mile drive that took me, my wife, and son from my home in New York's Hudson Valley to a transportation conference (the Transatlantic Transportation Decarbonization Summit) outside of Montreal, Canada.

Some might call this jumping into the deep end. I had only driven an EV three times before. The first was when my neighbors let me borrow their car to satisfy some electric-car curiosity; the second and third were half-hour test drives from auto dealerships. Now I was taking my family through some of the most undeveloped land in the Eastern United States-New York's Adirondack Park, which has been "forever wild" by state decree since the 1800s.

But the trip was drama-free, in large part because of recent investments in electric vehicle charging infrastructure made possible by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. It was a reminder of how the EV user experience continues to improve, seemingly every month.

Charging near a stand of kayaks

Nearly all of my pre-trip planning focused on where we might need to charge the car along the way. The Plugscore app (think "Yelp for EV charging") was an essential download. I also downloaded a bunch of apps that are commonly used to pay for charging-Electrify America, Chargepoint, EV Connect, and more.
But as it turned out, charging took up less of my headspace than I thought it would. With a range of about 300 miles on our car (a Hyundai Ioniq 5), we only needed to charge once on the way to our destination. I chose a station that, according to the car's range estimator, we should have gotten to with about 50 miles to spare.

The drive north on I-87 passes key sites in New York's colonial history: Kingston, the state's first capital; Lake George, site of a famous battle in the French and Indian War. From the car, the view was largely hills, forests, and waterways. This was especially true once the road transitions to the "Adirondack Northway"-a sign that we had entered the Adirondack Park. Signs warned that services would be limited, with stretches of up to seventy miles without a place to buy food or fuel.

I am the kind of driver who used to think about refueling as soon as my gas gauge hit 20%, so in the last hour before our planned stop, I began to pay close attention to the car's range. As we climbed the Adirondacks' hills, the car started using energy more quickly, eating into my range "cushion." On downhills, the vehicle's regenerative braking would recharge the battery, getting some of those miles back.

This part of the drive had more ups than downs-but the car still had 30 miles of range as we pulled into a bank of direct current (DC) fast chargers in a parking lot off of the highway in North Hudson (population: 200). Across the asphalt was an A-frame wooden building with a carved bear and stacks of kayaks out front. This was Frontier Town Gateway-an event hall, camping supply store, and restaurant serving pizza, deli sandwiches, and Pakistani food. In other words, quintessential New York.

In the 28 minutes it took to get the car's battery past 80%, my family hit the bathrooms; I ordered and ate a chicken paratha roll; my son inspected half a dozen toys for sale before falling in love with a friction-powered ATV that sailed across the floor when pushed.

Charge complete, the rest of our trip proved uneventful, taking us another 180 miles through the rest of the Adirondacks, the prairies of rural Quebec, and finally to the conference hotel, north of Montreal. I recharged the car to full (using a charger at the hotel) over the course of our stay.

What made the trip so easy? The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

The key to the trip was that charging station in rural upstate New York, which had opened just a few months ago. It is the third station built in New York using the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Program, a key program in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law designed to ensure there is EV charging at regular intervals along major highways.

Electric vehicle chargers have been proliferating in New York for years. But NEVI-which grew out of legislative proposals that UCS championed years ago-is critical because the stations it funds have to meet certain standards. To name a few, stations must have at least four fast chargers, each charging port can be out for maintenance no more than three percent of the time, and payment machines have to accept credit cards, not just phone apps. This adds a needed level of predictability to the driving experience.

By the way, UCS's "How Clean is Your EV" tool tells me that, in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, using that charging station was like filling up a (hypothetical) gas car that gets 234 miles to the gallon.

The charging experience is improving, literally every day

EV charging infrastructure needs to improve before some people will feel comfortable going electric for their next vehicle. A 2022 survey from Consumer Reports, EVNoire, GreenLatinos, and UCS identified "charging logistics" as the top concern among US residents.

The good news is that the network of chargers is growing rapidly. If my road trip had taken place just six months earlier, it might have been a dicier experience, with fewer fast chargers to choose from in the wilderness. Instead, it was a breeze-and the experience is only getting better. Since January of 2021, the number of publicly available EV charging ports has nearly doubled, according to the Department of Energy.

As my colleague Sam Houston wrote in January, key pieces of the federal EV charging vision are coming together. The NEVI program is now in full flower, with new stations opening all the time, in places like Arches National Park in Utah and Maine's Mid-Coast region. Beyond NEVI, other Bipartisan Infrastructure Law grant programs are supporting EV infrastructure at community institutions like transit stations, libraries, and rec centers. And perhaps most importantly, businesses, homeowners, and landlords can claim Inflation Reduction Act tax credits that defray the cost of adding chargers at businesses, houses, and apartment complexes.

Transportation connects us to all sorts of things, including thrilling destinations like state parks and international cities. But most of the time, the trip itself should be unremarkable-that is, dependable and predictable. At the conference's opening reception, I didn't have any "adventure stories" to share about our trip up. Instead, I caught up with colleagues who I hadn't seen in years. My wife looked into hotel amenities. My son sent his miniature ATV across the hotel ballroom carpet again and again. It was just an ordinary drive-exactly as it should have been.

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