EV Road Tripping In A Kia EV6: Better, But Still A Lot Of Planning

The week before Memorial Day is one of my favorite drive events of the year: the Midwest Automotive Media Association Spring Rally. This year I made the 400-mile trek from my Michigan home to Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin in the Kia EV6, both to try out the newest Korean electric vehicle and evaluate the current state of road trip charging in the region. 

Until more recently, making this trip to Wisconsin wouldn’t have been practical in an EV unless you had a Tesla with access to its Supercharger stations. But now, other charging networks (namely Electrify America), are aggressively expanding availability of DC fast charging. EA was founded as part of Volkswagen’s settlement with U.S. and California regulators after it was caught cheating on diesel emissions.

The Kia EV6 is one of a trio of new EVs from the Hyundai Motor Group, along with the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Genesis GV60. All use HMG’s new electric-Global Modular Platform, which features an 800V electrical system and silicon carbide power electronics. The high voltage lets these cars charge at over 230 kW, which can take the battery from 10% to 80% in about 18 minutes. 

Driving straight to my destination was an estimated 6.5 hours, according to Google Maps. But with a nominal range of 274 miles in combined city and highway driving, I knew I couldn’t make it to Wisconsin in a single shot. Part of the planning process for an EV road trip is figuring out where the chargers are relative to your destination and how fast they charge. 

Day 0: Planning

While there are now more than 48,000 charging locations with more than 120,000 charging ports around the U.S., they are not all equal.

The dual-motor EV6 I drove has an EPA efficiency rating of 3.125 miles/kWh. Charging from a 120V household outlet is generally limited to about 1.8 kW, which will add around 5.6 miles of range per hour. There’s a reason it’s called Level 1. 

I have a 240V outlet in my garage, which is typically used for appliances like dryers. I can add about 30 miles in an hour on this Level 2 charger.

On the road, unless you are taking a particularly leisurely pace, you’ll want to find DC fast charging. Sometimes called Level 3, Electrify America and Tesla’s Superchargers are the main public fast charging locations.  The Tesla-only Superchargers reach up to 250 kW. Most EA locations consist of 150 kW chargers along with some 350 kW units.

To my chagrin, I found that some stations only have slower 150 kW units. Among the older charging networks, including EVgo, ChargePoint and others, most chargers are limited to 50 kW, although upgrades are on the way. 

At 50 kW, the EV6 will add 156 miles of range in an hour, while 150 kW chargers will add 469 miles per hour. The Kia and its siblings will max out at about 240 kW under ideal conditions. That’s fast enough to theoretically add 750 miles of range per hour. As the battery gets full (around 80%), EVs have to dramatically slow the charging rate to prevent overheating and damaging the battery. 

Even More Planning

I could have theoretically done this with a single charge stop, but I’d have to divert to either South Bend, Indiana or push it to make it to the first fast-charging station near Chicago. Diverting to South Bend would’ve added at least 30 minutes of driving time and get me to Elkhart Lake with almost no charge. A two-stop fast-charging run made the most sense. 

I tried out several apps and websites for EV trip planning, but none had particularly good user interfaces and many are targeted at Tesla owners. Surprisingly, one of the best places to find information on charging station locations is the U.S. Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuels Data Center. The station locator can be used to find chargers, hydrogen stations and even natural gas stations. 

ChargePoint’s app lets you click on a charger and will provide information on charging speed, pricing and notes about exactly where to find the chargers. This last point is important because unlike gas stations that have signs 40 feet in the air, chargers are often located in the middle of a parking lot and are hard to spot.

Unfortunately, the EV6’s navigation system was unable to reliably find stations along my route. For example, with Elkhart Lake as my destination, it only showed a fast-charging station 30 miles behind my home. I’ve brought this up with Kia and they are aware of the issue and working to improve the system. 

EA was my only option for 150 kW charging, so I downloaded the EA app. It shows the speed and status of individual chargers and whether they are in use. Both the ChargePoint and EA apps are compatible with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

Travel Day 1: Heading West With Two Charging Stops

The journey began from my driveway with a full charge thanks to my 240V outlet and Level 2 Lectron charge cord. My first stop would be in Portage, Michigan just over 100 miles from my starting point despite the EV6 showing an estimated range of 267 miles. While this seems like an early place to charge, there was logic to my madness. 

The EA chargers were located in a corner of a Sam’s Club parking lot just off the interstate. After the usual cruise around the parking lot trying to find the chargers, I plugged into a 350 kW charger with 61% left in the battery and 163 miles of range. 

After just 18 minutes, the charger added 26.88 kWh, bringing the battery to 90% charge. The charging rate peaked at 130 kW since I was already at a relatively high state of charge, but even between 80 and 90% it was still cranking along at about 40 kW. This was a far more efficient use of time than stopping at a 50 kW station. 

The journey continued southwest around the bottom of Lake Michigan with the adaptive cruise control set at 75 mph. About 3 hours and a fast-food lunch stop later, I pulled into the parking garage of an outlet mall near Chicago O’Hare airport. Again, finding the precise location of the chargers was a pain. 

I first entered the garage’s second floor. After cruising around for a few minutes, I pulled up the EA app and found a note that the chargers were on the first floor. I plugged in with 30% charge remaining having covered 167 miles since the last charge. This station only had 150 kW chargers, but that was enough to deliver 49 kWh in just 26 minutes. I left at 91% full. The charger peaked at 148 kW and averaged 112 kW for the full session, which gave me 241 miles of range. 

I arrived at Elkhart Lake just over 8 hours after leaving home with 99 miles of range left. 

Travel Day 2: Heading Home After Three Fill-Ups (and Traffic)

My return trip two days later began with a 52-mile run to Milwaukee to fill up. The EA station was like many: located in the parking lot of a Walmart. 

I plugged the Kia into a 350 kW charger with 10% left and 24 miles of range, having covered 206 miles since my last charging session in Chicago. Two Volkswagen ID.4s were also charging before the first Lucid Air I’ve seen in the wild arrived. Chatting with the owner, I learned he’d picked up his car at the Arizona factory six weeks earlier and had already put on 7,000 miles. 

After 31 minutes, the Kia’s battery was 94% charged and had consumed 68 kWh of energy. The range estimate was 250 miles, almost exactly the distance back to Portage. But with little in the way of charging options on the route and no desire to call a flatbed truck with a dead battery on the side of I-94, I decided to make an extra stop.  

Heading south, I stopped back at the same charger near O’Hare that I had used two days earlier. Only 8 minutes plugged in added 14 kWh, taking me from 65% to 81%  and more than enough range to get back to Portage with plenty of buffer. 

Unfortunately, I hit 3 p.m. Chicago rush hour, which made for a very slow trek for the next few hours. However, the lower speeds boosted my efficiency from 3.4 to 3.7 miles/kWh. It could have been even higher, but the 80-degree temperature meant I was using the air conditioner. 

My final stop in Portage began with 18% charge and 40 miles of range left. The 350 kW charger added 51 kWh in just 16 minutes, boosting the range 217 miles, double what I’d need to get home. I arrived a little after 9 p.m., so I had the charging location to myself.

Back Home, 800 Miles Later

I finally got home about 9 hours after leaving Wisconsin, with 107 miles of range still available. I had used up 245 kWh for 834 miles of driving. That breaks down to an average of 3.4 miles/kWh. The official EPA energy consumption rating is 3.12 miles/kWh. Despite mostly highway driving with little opportunity for regenerative braking, I had beat the official estimate by almost 9%. 

If I had been willing to run the battery to full depletion, I probably could have gone nearly 300 miles on a charge. That would have gotten me to Chicago without the stops in Portage. But given the need for occasional bio breaks and stretching and the fast charging capability of Kia’s 800V electrical architecture, the extra stops didn’t end up adding that much time to the trip. The charging stops ended up having less impact than Chicago traffic. 

If I had made the trip in a similarly sized 2023 Kia Sportage AWD that gets 25 mpg combined, gas would have cost over $150. The DC fast charging totaled $51.45. The same amount of electricity on home charging would have been about half that. 

At none of my five charging stops did I find inoperable chargers. Even for non-Tesla EV drivers, road trips are becoming a more realistic proposition in many parts of the U.S. It still requires significant planning and research, but as the charging networks continue to expand and EVs with longer range and faster charging capabilities continue to arrive, it’s more than doable.