Americans love road trips. But can you use an electric vehicle for a long highway drive? Snowbirds heading south for winter? A thousand miles with the family to Disney? Or does recharging the battery add a prohibitive amount of time to your trip?
Those are threshold questions for many people to consider EVs, so I just drove from Detroit to Nashville, Tennessee, and back in a 2023 Mercedes-Benz EQE luxury sedan. The EQE has the latest features for route planning and charging.
About 1,100 miles round trip, my drive relied on major interstate highways countless people use every day.
It worked. Not flawlessly, but the issues I encountered are fixable — related to charging stations, not the vehicle.
I know this route well. I use it frequently for long-range vehicle tests, often continuing to the New Orleans Jazz Festival. This time, my destination was the Ryman Theatre in Nashville, one of the sacred sites of American music, and the venue Jan. 4 for a memorial concert for singer-songwriter Justin Townes Earle.
The EQE is just hitting the market and has the best combination of hardware and software to enable a long drive, with efficiently timed charging stops. It performed flawlessly.
The charging network was another matter, but despite some shortcomings that must be addressed I was able to complete my drive in only slightly more time than it takes in gasoline vehicles.
None of my impressions apply to Tesla, which has the best, fastest, most reliable and extensive network of chargers. Tesla created the model for convenient, reliable charging. The rest of the auto industry is playing catch-up.
Mercedes is investing about $1 billion in a network of North American DC fast chargers. It plans to have more than 400 by 2027. They’ll be open to all EVs, but Mercedes owners can reserve a charger in advance and get a reduced rate.
That, a similar plan by General Motors and government infrastructure support should increase the number of DC fast chargers markedly.
It can’t happen fast enough, as my drive proved.
What I learned
- Yes, you can use an electric vehicle for long highway trips.
- Charging is more frequent than gasoline fill-ups, but it added less time than I expected — probably less than an hour over more than 570 miles in my one-day return home.
- Many more DC fast chargers are needed.
- New chargers should be located in busy, well-lighted places, with security and amenities.
- Charger reliability is unacceptable.
- I frequently saw several vehicles waiting because of inoperable chargers, but I never saw anyone stranded.
- Chargers should have roofs to protect users from the elements.
- Setting the Mercedes’ adaptive cruise control to 73 mph, the speed of prevailing traffic, consistently increased my range beyond the route planner’s projection.
- Don’t trust third-party websites that promise your hotel has a charging station.
- EV owners are happy to share their experiences and compare notes.
Driving the Mercedes EQE 350
I drove a 2023 Mercedes-Benz EQE 350 4Matic sedan. One of the newest and most advanced EVs, it just went on sale and has several features that made it ideal to see just how good an EV could be on a long highway drive, including:
- 90.6 kWh battery
- 400-volt fast-charging electric architecture
- All-wheel drive
- 260-mile range
- 288 horsepower, 564 pound-feet of torque
The EQE has what Mercedes calls Navigation with Electric Intelligence, a system that lets the battery talk to the navigation system, motors, traffic reports and charging stations along the route. A rear-drive EQE should get 305 miles on a charge. I was told to expect around 260 in the more powerful AWD model I drove.
Over my whole trip — mostly highway, but including surface streets and some stop-and-go traffic on the way to chargers — I got about 3 miles per kilowatt hour, good efficiency for a comfortable, lavishly equipped vehicle.
By the end of my week with the EQE, the projected range on a full charge had increased to around 270 mph.
I used Mercedes’ “intelligent recuperation” setting to maximize the energy recovered and sent back to the battery when slowing down. Mercedes says intelligent recuperation combines allowing the car to free-wheel at times with precisely controlled braking to recover more power than the popular “one-pedal” driving settings many EVs offer.
It takes some getting used to, because it brakes later and with more force than the adaptive cruise control I’m used to, but it seemed safe and effective.
The EQE was easy to drive, full of advanced features but not demanding extra attention. I particularly appreciated its rear-wheel steering, which reduced its turning radius and improved stability and maneuverability on the highway.
Combined with the bigger EQS I recently tested, it’s clear Mercedes has gone from lagging the industry in electric vehicles to a leader.
More: Mercedes regains its magic with the EQS electric sedan
More: Everything to know about charging an electric car – cost, time, stations
A car that thinks ahead
A good EV route planner is like a chess player, or a racer trying to set an opponent up for a pass on the next lap: It thinks several steps ahead.
That’s why when I left home with a fully charged battery, a popup in the 12.6-inch nav screen told me my first charging stop would be in just 38 miles, before I even got to the Ohio line. I studied the route information and saw that stop would be for just 12 minutes, to goose the battery from 82% to around 99% charge.
Why? Because I’d need that extra juice to reach the next the next recommended DC fast charger on my route, in Mason, Ohio, where I’d charge briefly again to get enough power to reach a fast-charging 350kW kiosk in Cincinnati.
I grimaced, set the adaptive cruise control for 73 mph, the prevailing speed on I-75 southbound and resigned myself to what seemed like a ridiculously short first leg. The point of this trip was to test the route planner, not second-guess it before the first stop.
But, lo and behold, the readout for the car’s predicted state of charge at that stop began rising, a percentage point at a time. Before I was halfway to the first predicted stop, it had increased enough the nav system determined that stop was no longer necessary. My first stop was now in Lima, Ohio, followed by a longer stop in Cincinnati. The number of projected stops for the 567-mile drive had decreased from four to three.
I usually stop for gasoline and to stretch my legs twice driving from Detroit to Nashville.
At each stop in the EQE, my remaining charge was slightly more than the route planner had predicted. That, in turn, reduced the time I spent at each station. It was the definition of what engineers call “a virtuous cycle,” in which one act improves what follows.
In addition to the sophisticated route-planner, Mercedes EVs come with software and an RFID tag that speeds up the process to start charging, which — frustratingly — differs from one charging network to another. Imagine if you had to remember a different way to pump gas at every brand of gas station.
Temperatures during my drive ranged from the 30s to 60s Fahrenheit, spending most of the time in the 40s. That will reduce range somewhat.
When possible I preconditioned the car while it was plugged in, reducing the cold’s impact.
2023 Mercedes EQE 350 at a glance
Base price: $74,900 (excluding $1,150 destination charge)
Five-passenger, rear- or all-wheel drive luxury sedan
Primary competition:
Audi E-tron GT
BMW i4
Lucid Air
Porsche Taycan
Tesla S
Specifications
Electric motors on front/rear axles depending on drive configuration
RWD: 288 horsepower, 391 pound-feet of torque
AWD: 288 horsepower, 564 pound-feet of torque
Single-speed transmission
Acceleration: RWD goes 0-60 mph in 6.2 seconds; AWD does it in 6 seconds.
Top speed: 130 mph
90.6 kWh lithium-ion battery
Estimated range on a charge: RWD is 305 miles; AWD is 260 miles.
Charging time
240v, 10%-90%: 9.5 hours
170 kW, 10%-80%: 32 minutes
Wheelbase: 122.8 inches
Length: 196.6 inches
Width: 82.8 inches (with mirrors)
Height: 59.5 inches
Curb weight: 5,200.7 pounds (RWD), 5,434.4 pounds (AWD)
Source: Mercedes
Relaxed pace, nice people
While my charging stops were more frequent than driving a gasoline vehicle, DC chargers, particularly the increasingly common 150-350kW ones, charge faster than most people think, and unlike a gas pump, you can leave for a cup of coffee, restroom or stroll while you charge.
I normally rush when I’m pumping gas on a long trip. Knowing I’d be charging for 15-20 minutes let me relax, and didn’t add that much time, since I pump first, then move my car from the pump and get a Coke, stretch my legs, etc. when I stop at a gas station.
In fact, after driving past it literally dozens of times, on this trip I finally entered the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky, while I charged at a 350kW Electrify America kiosk in its parking lot.
I enjoyed an outstanding hamburger and crinkly fries in the Stingray Grill, and saw new Corvette owners take delivery of their cars in the museum lobby.
I also learned that EV owners tend to be nice folks, happy to compare notes on charging stations, eager to learn about other vehicles. And some of them have amazingly well-trained dogs.
It’s a bit like a Saturday morning cars ’n’ coffee gathering … except there’s no coffee, donuts, restroom, or any other amenity at far too many charging stations. The Stingray Grill is a marvelous exception, but it’s only open when the museum is.
Charging stations on major highways should be in places with 24-hour amenities, Wi-Fi, restrooms and more. When they offer that, more drivers may look forward to charging breaks, as I came to.
Who thought this was a good idea?
There’s also frequently no shelter from the elements, and stunningly poor reliability compared with gas stations. Time and again, one or more chargers at a stop didn’t work.
I watched a Chevrolet Bolt EUV owner huddle under his umbrella as he plugged into a 350kW charger in front of the Corvette Museum. The kiosk’s small roof of solar panels provided no shelter from the driving rain.
But even that was an improvement over most chargers, which offer no shelter at all. Electrify America, which runs America’s largest charging network, has installed the small panels at about 100 stations, and has 10 more with bigger roofs that provide gas-station levels of shelter.
Adding insult to injury, only one of four stations at the frequently used Corvette Museum station was operating the week of Jan. 1. I know, because I was the lucky one who plugged in first without waiting when I stopped there both Monday and Friday. I watched other cars stack up behind me as I spent 20-30 minutes charging each day.
Finally, let me direct your attention to Abduction Junction, as I call the 50kW ChargePoint kiosk in the Apollo Career Center parking lot, just south of Lima, Ohio.
Sitting in a deserted parking lot when I arrived at 10 p.m. on a Friday night, it looked like the opening scene of a slasher movie, and the last place any woman — or smart man — would choose to stop in a vehicle that didn’t have the juice to flee.
I was there for nearly an hour, because while 50kW was state of the art when these chargers were new a decade ago, it’s glacial for the bigger batteries in today’s leading EVs.
None of this should be taken as criticism of folks at the learning center, including the nursing students who directed me to the men’s room when the center was surprisingly open at 4 p.m. Monday, Jan. 2, the federal holiday for the new year this year.
They were great, and the charger is in a fine location for faculty and students. But the career center’s parking lot — several miles from I-75, in the midst of fields and scattered houses and apocalyptically empty late at night — illustrates how desperately the multibillion-dollar charging industry needs to improve and expand its network.
I had to drive several miles from the highway for every charging stop. I also learned that third-party websites — in this case, Reservations.com — shouldn’t be believed when they say a hotel has EV charging. Call the front desk to be sure.
Contact Mark Phelan: 313-222-6731 or mmphelan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @mark_phelan. Read more on autos and sign up for our autos newsletter. Become a subscriber.