44 minutes, 31kWh and $11.16 later, I was on the road. I charged to 86% which I thought would give me enough range to make it to Kodak, TN for my next charge. But bladder and dropping temps had me detour to the Local Market of Waynesboro, NC for a quick charge, bathroom break, and snacks (mainly caffeine as it was dark now and I had the twisties to contend with ahead). 13 minutes, 6.17kWh, and $2.16 later - I was back on the road. Driving at night through the mountains is either alright or hell, and tonight it was alright. Not a lot of traffic, no broken down cars, no deer, no bears, no rock slides. I pulled into Kodak with 18% state of charge and plugged in for 49 minutes to get 46kWh for a cost of $7.97 -- I do love pay by time locations when you've got a car that charges relatively quickly. I charged enough to reach my hotel in Mt. Juliet - 180ish miles away - but I decided to stop in Cookeville and add a little more range to the car in the off chance that the ChargePoint Level 2 at the hotel wasn't accessible or broken. The Cookeville stop was for all of 13 minutes, adding 12kWh for a cost of $2.17 (compare this with the ChargePoint charge in Waynesville -- you'll see why I like time based charging a little more with this car).
I arrived at the hotel in Mt. Juliet around 1am local (central) time. The charger was not blocked and fully operational. I plugged in and went upstairs to sleep. 6-hours later, the car was at about 70% state of charge and I was refreshed and ready to make it to my client site in Memphis. I drove from Mt. Juliet to Jackson, TN and this is where I met my first "problem" charger. I was pulling up to it and tapped the start button in the Electrify America app on my Android Auto screen when the screen went from the screen saver to the "plug in first" screen and I saw the blue complimentary session banner. But then it switched to Plug in Here and proceeded to charge me 15-cents a minute. I decided that was fine, and went inside to use the bathroom. When I returned the car was still only pulling 17kW, so I disconnected and moved to one of the other stations -- only to see if I'd used the station next to where I'd parked (I would have needed to back up the car into the space behind where I'd parked) that station was also in complimentary mode. But I ended up paying $7.16 for 44kWh in 44 minutes, I also attended a work call while at this charging stop.
Charged up with range to spare I headed to the client site where I proceeded to work magic and get the charging system into a state of semi-functionality. I was going to be waiting on a backend software tweak before I could test the station, so I called it a night at 5pm and proceeded to head over to a Pho and Sushi place to meet a retired teacher friend I've known since childhood for dinner. She had a celebration of life event (aka a funeral service) to attend, and said she'd be there at 6. As I hopped on I-40 I pressed the Voice Assistant button on the Hyundai steering wheel and told Google I needed a charging station. The first option it came up with was Jim Kerras Nissan, and it listed CCS as a charging option. I had a solid 45 minutes to kill, so I set the navigation to the Nissan dealer to charge up. Much to my surprise, as all the Nissan dealer in NC with CCS require payment, this station was FREE! I charged for a little over 40 minutes and made it to the restaurant at 5:58pm -- only to then see the text that my friend will be at least 15 minutes late because "this is rolling on with lots of stories from the speakers." Not a problem for me - I wanted sushi but also wanted to try the broth this place makes, so I ordered a dumpling soup appetizer and settled in.
Dinner with my friends was delightful, and the sushi was superb. She told me about a recent shooting that her best friend witnessed at the local mall (the one across the street from the only Electrify America in Memphis). She also told me all about the Murdaugh trial in South Carolina. Then we pivoted to my cousin who is getting married next year in New Orleans. Truly a wonderful evening and a great way to end a long day. After dinner I followed her back to her home and unloaded a small piece of furniture from her car into her house. I hugged her goodnight and then headed over to Midtown Memphis to catch some shut eye at a middle school friend's house. He and his girlfriend had just gotten back from dinner with another mutual couple we know moments before I pulled into their driveway. I unloaded the car and proceeded to the bathroom for my eventual rituals. Afterward we sat at the kitchen table and drank wine while talking about the mall shooting, gun culture, what I was working on for the transit authority in town, and the upcoming Orville Peck show. Around 11 we were all exhausted -- well me and the girlfriend, my first works nights and it was his "day" off so he pulled out the iPad and started playing games -- so we retired for the night.
I was up a little after 7am, showered, and texted my friend and his girlfriend that I was headed out the back door and would update them on my plans as the day progressed. At the time I had no idea if I'd be heading home today or staying the weekend. I drove to Bryant's Breakfast for a Philly Cheesesteak and Egg biscuit with a side of hash browns, then drove to Bartlett to pick up some labels that my company mailed to our contractor. From here it was back to the client's site to apply the labels and see if the back end database had been updated so the station would activate. I handled all my daily calls on site, including the end of week team call. It was determined that I should head back to Raleigh as all the hardware was in working order, so I let the customer know what the status was and that I'd be in contact with them before the end of the day most likely to tell them it was OK to charge their bus.
I drove straight to Jackson, TN to charge. On the way there I had an engineer hit me up about doing some live troubleshooting on a different station when I got stopped, and I handled a couple work calls on the drive. I arrived to find a Polestar 2 using the other complimentary charger, the slow one I used had been marked unavailable, and a Kona attempting to charge on the only other 150kW. I pulled in and plugged up to the 350kW and my charge started fine, the Kona owner and a guy in a high-viz work jacket were talking and I could tell the Kona owner was having issues. I asked what was up and he said that he's at 3% power and that he thinks it's too low for the charger to charge it. I told him while being undervoltage could be a thing, it's really unlikely with that car. He then realizes I own the exact same identical vehicle. I told him I've run it to 3% before and charged it an EVgo without any issues. He seemed quite frustrated (which I totally understand) and not open for more help (to which I wanted to say, you should drive it over to the Nissan dealer half a mile away and plug into their Level 2 charger and see if you can unplug it from the car after locking the doors -- if so the charging lock has broken and that's why you can't DC fast charge). I jumped in the car and pulled out my work laptop.
This charge was an hour and 20 minutes long, adding 48kWh and costing $13.24. I worked the entire time I was plugged in. I got Memphis successfully charging, we confirmed what I suspected about a hardware failure for a FL customer, and I found out that Chapel Hill was going to activate their new hardware on Tuesday (so a good thing I was headed back to Raleigh today). As I was working, a tow truck showed up and hauled away the Kona that was parked next to me. I felt really bad for the owner, because I've been in that situation. I hope his car gets fixed and he never experiences anything like that again. After finishing up some paperwork to order parts and schedule contractors, I closed the work laptop and signing off for the day, unplugged my car and proceeded to Cookeville for my next to last charge of the day.
I got nervous when I came close to Cookeville. About 40m out I decided, based on what happened in Jackson, that I might want to check the status of the site. Well, 2 machines showed unavailable and 2 showed in use. I figured that was OK as one of the two in use should be done by the time I get there. Nope, a Bolt and a Ford F150 Lightning were still parked at the chargers when I arrived. However, one of the two machines that said were offline had the green lights on so I pulled over to it and sure enough it was in complimentary mode! I reversed into the parking space and plugged in, the charger came to life and gave me the full 75kW my car can take. Who doesn't love a free charge?! While it was charging, I opened my hatch to get a business card from a bus representative I met at the client site. I wanted to let him know we got the client charging successfully today. While I was rummaging around, the Ford owner gets out of his truck to unplug. I asked him how he liked the truck, and the take away from out 10 minute chat was that he's owned Ford trucks for 17 years and this is the best truck he's ever owned from them. He said the front trunk was always a conversation starter at the parking lot of the grocery store. I do really love this early onset of mainstream adopters, the folks you meet at charging stations tend to be really nice (tho I've totally been cussed out by Audi owners before). He headed off to the college to get his son and I jumped in the car as it was getting rather cold and starting to rain. I charged for ... well I don't remember how long since I don't have the receipt! I left Cookeville and made it to Kodak TN where I plugged in at 26% and headed over to The Chop House for a nice dinner. An hour and one full belly later, I unplugged the car and drove across the parking lot to the Fairfield Inn where I'd stay for the night. This hotel had a Blink Level 2 charger that actually wasn't blocked, so I plugged in and charged my car to 100% overnight (it only took an hour and cost me the outrageous price of $6.34 -- not all chargers bill equally).
I slept until 6am, when the hotel alarm clock went off on its own. I'd wanted to sleep till 8 or so, but I knew once I was up... I was up. I showered, packed, loaded up the car, unplugged, and headed back towards Statesville. I had some grapes I'd picked up at an earlier stop that I munched on to keep my blood sugar up. When I got to Statesville the app said all stations available, but a Mach-E had pulled into one of the 350kW stalls and the owner hopped out of the car right as I pulled in the parking lot. I parked next to them and took the other 350kW -- since the 350kW's share two 175kW cabinets and the Mach-E only needs 150kW max and I only need 74kW max this was the most efficient use of the machines available at the time. As I got out and stretched after a 3 hour drive to get here, some folks in a truck parked near the chargers asked me how long it'd take. I said about 30 minutes, that'll give me enough to get home to Raleigh. The guy driving the truck said that's not bad, and you've got a McDonalds next door too. We then chatted a bit about the Italian restaurant -- he too had a negative experience with them recently. Sad. I may start charging in Greensboro and skipping Statesville now. I wandered over to the McDonalds and ordered a sausage, egg, and cheese McGriddle and settled in for about a half hour.
As I finished easting, I saw a Porsche Taycan Grand Tourismo (the station wagaon) pull up and park at the 150kW charger that has the Nissan CHAdeMO plug. "Oh boy, we are going to get chewed out" I thought to myself as I downed the last of my tea and decided that I'd use the bathroom before walking over to my car. After using the bathroom, I walked over and walked in front of the Porsche and Ford, and unlocked my car to check my estimated range (it was more than enough to get me home). As I'm peering in my door to read the dash, I hear "Hey sir, excuse me, sir?" and I turn around to find a thin, long blonde hair, lady with a rather worried look on her face. She asked me if I could help her, she can't get her car to charge. She tells me she's only had the car a few days, that she's coming from Lake Norman and headed to Greensboro to pick up a friend and that she lives in Durham and doens't know this area at all. She said that her partner installed the Electrify America app on her phone but never told her how to use it. She said I've only ever charged a Tesla, and I don't understand the on-screen instructions of this charger. Now I picked up on the gender neutral language and general body language and figure this gal is LGBTQ+ family, but even if she wans't I was going to help her out. So I asked if it was OK to unplug her car, and she said yes. I unplugged it and said ok now pull out your phone and open the app. She did and I showed her how to navigate to the site, then the station, and then swipe to start. Once she did that the machine switched to "Please Plug in Now" and I said "When it switches to this screen, then you plug in the car." She did and it started charging. As we high-fived to celebrate getting the charge going, the Mach-E family returned and said she can use their 350kW since it'll be faster. So we stopped the charge on the 150kW and plugged into the 350kW. She was able to do it all on her own this time. The Mach-E left and I stopped my charge and went to get into my car and leave when I heard a knocking on my window. It's the Porsche lady again, she says I'm so sorry but the car say it can't charge. I glance at it the station has faulted (probably because the second shared power cabinet became available and their back end software doesn't handle ramp-up requests correctly), and the car has a red ring around the charger release button. I put my car in park and turn it off and say let's try this again. We unplug, we wait for the machine to say Plug in First. We swipe, we get the Please Plug in, we plug in, and it's happy. This time I stand there and wait to see it move up a % on the State of Charge (she was at 4%) before I jump in my car to head home.
