My 16th Lightning Road Trip of More Than 1500 Miles

[On the Road with Ralph]

I recently completed a 2000+ mile journey from NW Arkansas to Southern California via Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada. As my thread title suggests, these trips are pretty routine for me, but I thought I'd share a few parts of the experience.

First, with the exception of a day spent exploring three national parks - Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon, Zion - in Utah, I don't think I was ever more than 40 miles from a DCFC charging site. Honestly, you have to be a complete moron to get in trouble with your EV on 95% of all long distance trips in America (side note: I have charged in 18 different states in 2025 alone, from Florida to California). Moreover, the choice of charging networks and their overall reliability has dramatically improved in the last couple years. For me, access to the Tesla Superchargers has been a game changer (my most recent trip was made without a single stop at a pathetic EA station), but the emergence of other players, including Ionna and Rivian, has really helped, too.

An Ionna station in Abilene, Kansas, was easy to use with a credit card and had decent pricing (I think 37¢). I appreciated the canopy, trash cans and windshield washing tools. However, there were no restrooms nearby.

This Rivian station in eastern Colorado was 150 feet away from an EA site in the same parking lot. While expensive (59¢), it was cheaper than the non-membership cost at EA. It worked flawlessly and came multiple colors .

I stopped at two different Sonic fast food locations where it was possible to order with the app and have it delivered to your vehicle while it charged. Some companies are finally realizing that they can make money off of EV drivers by offering convenience.

I spent a long day in Utah, crossing from NE to SW, through three spectacular national parks. This required a bit of planning, including a night's stay in Torrey at a hotel with L2 charging (side note: my Lightning is an SR). But I never went below 20% SOC. This trip was made possible by a new Tesla Supercharger site at Bryce Canyon. Actually, the most tense part of the day came at the end, in Zion, where I needed to carefully navigate a very long and VERY narrow tunnel that clearly was not constructed with a full-size pickup in mind. However, when I exited the tunnel, this was my view:

I had an interesting encounter at the Tesla station in Green River, Utah. While I was charging a couple drove up in a new Kia EV6 (with native NACS port!). They seemed befuddled and when the wife came over to ask for help, I learned why: This was their first charging stop ever - they had picked up the car earlier in the day - and the dealer had given them NO instruction on the charging procedure. Fortunately, I was not pressed for time and walked them through the process of downloading the Tesla app, authorizing a credit card, and plugging in to use the charger. It is clear to me that one of the principal obstacles to EV adoption is the dealer experience; they absolutely suck at even the basics.

Summary: I am 71 years old and have owned many different vehicles (including five BMWs), all of which were road-tripped. I wouldn't trade my Lightning for any of them - it is the best long-distance car or truck I've ever had (tho' I really want a Lucid Gravity).

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[SpaceEVDriver]

Great report!

I put together these maps using the Alternative Fuels Data Center. The data are about a year old, but it’s still pretty clear that charging solutions exist across the nation. As you say, it would difficult to mess up badly enough that you can’t find a charger. And this is from data that are already out-of-date.

DCFC charger locations (size of the circle indicates number of plugs):

Locations within the US that are 50 miles or less (straight-line) from a DCFC:

Locations within the US that are 200 miles or less (straight line) from a DCFC:

 

[On the Road with Ralph]

The data are about a year old, but it’s still pretty clear that charging solutions exist across the nation. As you say, it would difficult to mess up badly enough that you can’t find a charger. And this is from data that are already out-of-date.

As you say, this data is a year old and there has been a flood of new sites since then, including entirely new players like Ionna, and Rivian that has opened some of its sites to other brands. Also, Tesla has continued to add locations and move to the V4 dispensers with their longer cords and, in some cases, Magic Dock adapters. Even EA has improved a little, but it continues to install too few dispensers at each site and you can still bet big money that one or more of them will not be working or will be throttled to trickle-charge levels.

Overall, long distance EV travel in the US is now pretty painless, tho' not cheap.

On occasion, I've had people point out the scarcity of chargers in Montana and Wyoming, and they generalize that to the entire country. I think that is comically absurd. Those two states together represent less than 1% of all highway travel in the US. I am not going to make a decision about owning an EV based on a factor that is barely a rounding error.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

As you say, this data is a year old and there has been a flood of new sites since then, including entirely new players like Ionna, and Rivian that has opened some of its sites to other brands. Also, Tesla has continued to add locations and move to the V4 dispensers with their longer cords and, in some cases, Magic Dock adapters. Even EA has improved a little, but it continues to install too few dispensers at each site and you can still bet big money that one or more of them will not be working or will be throttled to trickle-charge levels.

Overall, long distance EV travel in the US is now pretty painless, tho' not cheap.

On occasion, I've had people point out the scarcity of chargers in Montana and Wyoming, and they generalize that to the entire country. I think that is comically absurd. Those two states together represent less than 1% of all highway travel in the US. I am not going to make a decision about owning an EV based on a factor that is barely a rounding error.

I’ll find time someday to update these maps.

I have >75,000 miles in EVs, around 40,000 of them on road trips of more than 500 miles one-way, dozens of >1000 mile road trips, hundreds of DCFC charging sessions.

You couldn’t pay me to go back to a gassy vehicle, even with increased DCFC prices.

 

[EV Engineer]

I am very happy you enjoy long road trips in your F150 Lightning. I also commend you for doing such large (1k+) trips.

In my opinion though the data you present just tells me we are even further than I would've hoped for mass adoption.

No Bathrooms at the Ionna!!! Wow! That is supposed to be the state of the art stops by today's standards. We need bathrooms!

I know its true. But I can't believe fast chargers are >50c / kHW in some parts of country. That is vastly more expensive than gas in the southeast. That's 12 miles for $3 at highway efficiency!

Also a bit discouraged by that map representing % of country that is 50 miles away from a fast charger. Looks like most of the geographical country is 50 miles away from a DCFC. No wonder range anxiety exists. If you're thinking about refueling and it's a 50 miles to the nearest DCFC that's a bit unnerving. Would be interested to see if you bumped that up to 60 or 75 miles what it looks like. Hopefully better.


I love my standard range truck. 320 miles (1 stop and charge) is about the limit for me. Otherwise we are ICING.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Also a bit discouraged by that map representing % of country that is 50 miles away from a fast charger. Looks like most of the geographical country is 50 miles away from a DCFC. No wonder range anxiety exists. If you're thinking about refueling and it's a 50 miles to the nearest DCFC that's a bit unnerving. Would be interested to see if you bumped that up to 60 or 75 miles what it looks like. Hopefully better.

I have a bad color scheme. Most of the continental US is easily within 50 miles of a DCFC. It’s just somewhat badly colored—the light pink of the background map is too close in color to the light pink of a few DCFCs within 50 miles. I’ll try to remember to fix that when I update the maps.

 

[On the Road with Ralph]

In my opinion though the data you present just tells me we are even further than I would've hoped for mass adoption.

No Bathrooms at the Ionna!!! Wow! That is supposed to be the state of the art stops by today's standards. We need bathrooms!

I know its true. But I can't believe fast chargers are >50c / kHW in some parts of country. That is vastly more expensive than gas in the southeast. That's 12 miles for $3 at highway efficiency!

Also a bit discouraged by that map representing % of country that is 50 miles away from a fast charger. Looks like most of the geographical country is 50 miles away from a DCFC. No wonder range anxiety exists.

I had a similar exchange recently with somebody who posted a PlugShare map as "proof" that a specific geography lacked chargers and could not be navigated by EVs. <sigh> But when I post here, I am recounting my personal real-world experience that includes 16 EV road trips of 1500+ miles each, and charging in 18 different states in 2025 alone. My DCFC charging sessions number in the many hundreds.

As a practical matter, virtually every long distance route (interstate) in the US now has DCFC charging every 50 miles or less (and please do not cite Montana or Wyoming where less than 1% of all American highway travel takes place). In fact, many locations have multiple EV charging options - heck, I was recently in a parking lot in Albuquerque where Tesla, EA and Rivian all had chargers. There is NOWHERE in the continental US where I have wanted to go in my SR Pro and not found DCFC charging within my vehicle's range.

I often get asked what the range of my truck is. I always reply that my driving distance is not determined by the capacity of my battery, but my bladder. Even if DCFC charging stations were 10 miles or 100 miles apart, it would make NO DIFFERENCE. Again, as a practical matter, I can go anywhere I want to go in my Lightning.

As for the Ionna station in Abilene, it is next door to a burger joint that is expected to open in the future. If I invested in that part of the country, I might put money into that site - it is right off I-70 and is closer to the freeway than the Tesla Supercharger that can also be reached from the same exit.

Finally, on average, I pay between 33 to 37 cents per kW when on the road; and sometimes as little as 21¢ (that was the cost in Denver at a Tesla site just two weeks ago). A cost of 15¢ a mile is about the same as I'd pay in the ICE version of the F-150 4x4 at the national average gas cost. The offset? When I am charging at my home in the Ozarks, I am paying 5.5¢ a kW, or less than 3¢ a mile. I'm good with that deal.

 

[PJnc284]

I often get asked what the range of my truck is. I always reply that my driving distance is not determined by the capacity of my battery, but my bladder. Even if DCFC charging stations were 10 miles or 100 miles apart, it would make NO DIFFERENCE.

That was my realization after an ~800 mile trip to Florida back in May. Took the Ram instead of Lightning. At 20mpg @70mph, I could've made it over 400 miles on a tank but my bladder gave that a big nope. Can't imagine almost 6 hours of being stationary is the best thing either. We stopped about halfway and stayed overnight on the way down but I drove it back in one day. I was finding reasons just to stop every couple hours for a stretch and bathroom break.

 

[FloridaMan655321]

How is there not any bathrooms at the Ionna location? I kind of require this while charging

 

[On the Road with Ralph]

How is there not any bathrooms at the Ionna location? I kind of require this while charging

As I noted in another comment, there is a burger place next door which appears to be readied for operation. I suspect that Ionna was counting on this when they chose this location. It is worth noting this EV station opened VERY recently.

I'll also note that later in my trip I stopped at an Ionna station that was co-located with a travel center with restrooms and mini-mart.

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