Preparing For Future All-Electric Journeys

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On our last long trip, we went over 4200 miles. Along the way, we visited two national parks (Hot Springs and Great Smoky Mountains), traveled along about half of the Blue Ridge Parkway, and attended an important EV event in North Carolina. It was a great trip, and something I’d do again given the time and the chance.

But, we played in hard mode on that trip. Most people wouldn’t consider an EV at all for towing because even the best electric tow vehicles still have to spend a lot more time charging while getting half of the EPA range or less. Of those who would consider an EV, most want something with a big battery and great charging speeds, like a Cybertruck, Rivian, or Silverado EV. We took our trip in a Bolt EUV and pulled a small trailer to carry glamping supplies.

This was especially painful because the Bolt EUV would only get around 120 miles of range when towing a 1700-pound trailer (loaded), When we did hit a fast charger, we’d only get 55 kilowatts. This made for long, long days trying to make any kind of time crossing the continent. As you can probably imagine, we were thoroughly sick of traveling this way after 4200 miles.

Since then, we’ve been working on improving our setup, which is something that requires a lot more money than we felt right about asking readers to donate. So, we had to round up the money ourselves, which took months. But, instead of signing up for a bigger car payment and going into RV debt up to our eyeballs, we’re instead going to do something even cooler.

Step 1: Take Our New (To Us) Travel Trailer All-Electric

Instead of trying to keep tent glamping, we decided to go with a travel trailer we could sleep inside of. So, we bought a used 24-foot travel trailer. It’s not the most luxurious of campers, and it needs some work. It was also designed in a time when RV manufacturers assumed that everyone would use propane for almost everything (something we aren’t going to do).

So far, we’ve picked up a far more efficient compressor fridge, some small space heaters, a power station with 8 kWh of storage that we can upgrade to 12 kWh later, and a composting toilet to eliminate the need for dumping a black tank or relying on sewer systems that harm both the environment and human health. Once we have all of this put in, we’ll need to upgrade to a heat pump, get an electric water heater, and put in an electric stove to eliminate propane from the rig entirely. We may ask fans and followers to help with these last few things in a few weeks.

We also got 1200 watts of folding solar panels we can set up during longer camping stops, and we’re setting the power station up to charge from the tow vehicle as needed.

Step 2: Build An Electric Chevy Suburban

As you can probably guess, the Bolt EUV is not going to be able to tow a 24-foot trailer loaded with batteries and solar. Fully loaded with water and supplies, it’s going to be about 3500 pounds too heavy. Even if we somehow solved that issue, the Bolt’s battery pack would probably provide 50 miles of range towing such a big load on level ground.

It’s not within our budget to go out and buy a Silverado EV, F-150 Lightning with large pack, or a large pack Rivian R1S. Plus, we’re not the biggest fans of most new EVs. Call us old fogeys if you must, but we really like trucks and SUVs from 20+ years ago a lot more. But, they didn’t make EV trucks in those days.

To get exactly what we want, we’re about to start converting an early 2000s Chevy Suburban to electric power. This may sound expensive and like it would provide a bad EV experience, but we are already part of a family EV conversion business. This will allow us to build our tow vehicle without breaking the bank, even if it’s going to take a while to accomplish.

When we’re all done, the Suburban will have:

  • 150+ kWh of batteries from wrecked Teslas
  • One or two Tesla drive units (we haven’t decided whether to power the front wheels yet)
  • An android head unit that can control most EV functions, provide backup cameras, etc
  • An otherwise stock interior and exterior that doesn’t stand out much

While We Build The Truck

Getting our Suburban built will take around a year, and we don’t want to stop all camping and traveling during that time. It would drive us crazy, and we think it’s still important to show the advantages of an all-electric camper, even if we aren’t towing it with an EV yet. So, we’re going to temporarily pull it around with an ICE 2001 Suburban we recently picked up.

During this time, posts at this website will focus on both building the Electroburban and taking the all-electric camping trailer on trips in the Southwest. When we camp, we’ll explore how well our mostly solar-powered setup works, come up with ideas to improve it, and hopefully help other people do similar in the future.

We’ll also be telling other people’s EV travel stories during this time. The goal will be to fill up our map with links to social media posts describing trips to national and state parks, and when there’s a cool story, share a post here. As I said before, we want this to be a community effort and not just us telling our travel stories. It makes sense to minimize our impacts to nature when we’re out enjoying it!

If you’re interested in following this story over the next year, be sure to follow us on social media or subscribe to e-mail updates. Links to X/Twitter, Bluesky, Facebook, Threads, and Instagram are all at the top of the page. You can also follow us on Mastodon and the Fediverse (jennifer@chargetotheparks.com), and provide your e-mail address when prompted by popups.

Featured image: a picture from an old Chevrolet Suburban advertisement (fair use).

Follow Me On Mastodon & The Fediverse!

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Thanks to some really cool plugins, I’ve added Fediverse support directly to this website. Whether you’re on Mastodon or on some other app, you can look me up at the following address:

jennifer@chargetotheparks.com

Threads supposedly supports Fediverse, but I haven’t been able to successfully connect to any accounts there yet. But, if you’re on threads, don’t worry. My account there is charge.to.the.parks .

I’m also on X/Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Bluesky. Links to those accounts are available at the top of the website.

National Parks EV News Roundup: Thanksgiving Edition

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I know the Charge to the Parks website hasn’t been very busy lately, and that’s something that’s going to change soon. I’ve been working very hard behind the scenes to get ready for some really cool trips in the near future! Be sure to visit often or follow me on one of the social media sites (links at top of page) to see a really cool announcement in the near future.

In the meantime, I have been doing a lot of work sharing news about EVs in national parks at CleanTechnica. Here are a few of the best articles from the last few weeks!

Thanks for following and supporting Charge to the Parks!

 

Bluesky & Other Social Links Added To Site

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With all of the people leaving X/Twitter recently, I’ve decided to set up a presence on BlueSky and share links to other places. The BlueSky account now is just a simple bridge (using Bridgy Fed) to publish articles from here onto BlueSky, but hopefully more features are added soon, like following back and comment integration.

In the coming days, I’ll see what other things I can do to automate posting to other social media networks so that more people can follow and participate in this project without having to use X/Twitter.

The Next Stage Of The Charge to the Parks Journey

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Since taking a long trip in May and June, I’ve had to focus on some household things. This has been sad for me because I was haven’t been able to keep up the pace of travel I had hoped for, and I haven’t been able to keep working on the EV travel guides or much of anything else. So, I’ve been thinking about how to make this project a success while life keeps happening!

Giving up on this project is not an option. Not only is it something I want to do, but it’s also something that the world needs. Those of us with EVs know that they’re up to the task, but the rest of the industry and automotive buyers in North America seem to be dragging their feet. We need to be sharing stories of visiting places like national parks, state parks, and more as much as we can.

So, to make sure I’m contributing to a better world with this project, I’m going to make some changes.

First off, I’m going to be replacing travel guides with collections of stories of real people traveling to the parks. Some of these stories will be mine, but many will be from other people as I find them. This will be better because the information can’t go out of date. As for the navigational value of the guides, I’m going to be improving a general travel guide that helps people get the latest information before their own trips.

The other thing I’m going to do is spend less time worrying about taking trips and more time finding useful news and information about the parks. This will involve following the rollout of EV charging networks, gathering up other people’s stories, and reviewing products that we’d all find useful on our EV journeys.

Finally, I’m going to make my trips more meaningful. I plan to still do frequent regional trips, but I’ll probably only do 2-3 long trips every year. On each of these visits, I’m going to try to spend a lot more time at each park to get better information, better photos, and just better quality. Doing it this way will take years longer, but it will mean doing a better job.

The other thing about staying longer and doing more repeat visits will mean better opportunities for videos, scenic photography (prints will be available), and much more interesting content both here and on social media.

More posts will be coming soon!

What It’s Like Driving Over 4,000 Miles In A Budget EV…While Towing!

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I’m not afraid to admit that the Chevrolet Bolt and Bolt EUV aren’t known for being great road trip cars. For me, it was what I could afford when I needed to switch vehicles, and it’s head-and-shoulders better than the overheating Nissan LEAF I had before. Sure, it only charges at 55 kW, but it does it consistently. It also has plenty of range to make it to the next charger in most cases.

But, what happens when you cut the range of the Bolt EUV by about 30%? That’s not as great, but I still managed to have a great trip!

My Camping/Cargo Trailer Setup

Before I tell everyone about the trip, I want to briefly go over the trailer I built for this purpose. You can get a lot more detail from my article over at CleanTechnica if you want to see how I built it, etc.

In short, it’s a wooden cargo box built on top of a Harbor Freight 4×8 trailer. On my first trip, things didn’t go very well, so I had to add safe places to keep things like my Jackery 3000 Pro, EcoFlow Glacier freezer/fridge, oven, and microwave. I built a custom slide-out kitchen to hold everything but the Jackery, which I placed in a sloping box on the tongue.

All of this is powered by a 2000w inverter that draws from the Bolt EUV’s 12v battery, which gets recharged by the vehicle’s 65 kWh main battery pack. This means that I have the power to make for a very comfortable glamping setup, including air conditioned Shiftpod shelters.

The First Part Of The Trip Was Challenging

The first several days of the trip was hard. I drove across Texas in two and a half days, and found out that I had no idea what the setup’s energy efficiency was really going to be. Based on previous data collected close to home, I thought it would get about 2.5 miles/kWh, but I ended up getting closer to 2. This meant that instead of a 15% drop from my car’s unloaded efficiency (3.01 miles/kWh, with truck tires), I ended up losing about 30% range.

This meant having to completely re-plan everything mid-trip. I was originally going to drive to both North Carolina and Michigan for two press events, but it wasn’t going to be possible to get to both in time with the extra charging stops and time.

I also found out that it wasn’t great at keeping water out, wasn’t good at staying closed while going down the road, and that the Harbor Freight tires would wear out in only 1600 miles when going 65 MPH. This made for some tough days, temporary fixes with paracord, and replacing the tires in a national park! I also nearly ran out of charge the first night and ran the vehicle dead about 3/4 of a mile shy of a charger in Sweetwater, Texas.

I did see some great things along the way, though. We visited Hot Springs National Park, and got to see an innovative small business in Arkansas that provides EV charging. We also went through the Great Smoky Mountains and saw many other great sights along the way.

Upgrades and The Trip Home

While staying with family in North Carolina, I managed to fix up several of the problems.

First off, I fixed up the water leak issue. Adding a bunch of screws to tighten the boards to the side of the trailer, caulking all joints, and upgrading the doors made the problem of flapping doors and rain getting on pillows go away.

Charging up in Boone, North Carolina before getting on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

On the way back, I took about half of the Blue Ridge Parkway. I started out in Boone, North Carolina and then spent the next three days taking it easy along the route. Along the way, we visited Grandfather Mountain, Asheville, and ended up at Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

This part of the trip went very well. The mountainous terrain of the Blue Ridge Parkway generally means less range, but the slow speeds and the regenerative braking both when approaching turns and going down slopes made for great range. I only had to charge in Asheville to get enough juice to make it all the way to the end of the road in Cherokee, NC (just outside Great Smoky Mountains).

The Last Couple Days Sucked, But The Trailer’s Stronger Than Ever

I had to head home via Oklahoma instead of Texas, largely because there’s just not enough EV charging between Dallas and El Paso yet. On flat ground, the Bolt would have been fine, but there’s a climb as you leave Hill Country and the Permian Basin and go to the high deserts near El Paso.

The trip through Arkansas and Oklahoma went pretty well, as there were reasonably good cheap hotels (it was too hot to set up camp) and lots of EV charging. Along this stretch, I saw what a benefit EV charging stations spaced close together can be, as even with the trailer, I was able to charge from 10-60% on many stretches and spent a lot less time at chargers.

But, once I got back into New Mexico at Clovis, all hell broke loose. I forgot to turn the inverter off when I went to bed, and the vehicle’s 12v battery got depleted. It was easily jumped, but the vehicle wouldn’t start even with enough juice. After struggling to arrange to take the Bolt to a dealer for an hour, I tried disconnecting the 12v battery to reset the computer, and things worked again.

Then, I saw that the trailer’s coupler was peeling off of the tongue. Two poorly-done Chinese welds were to blame. Had it come completely apart, both the coupler and the safety chains would have detached from the tongue, leaving the trailer free to do whatever the laws of physics dictated. So, we had to spend several hours finding a welding shop that could fix it up and reinforce it a bit to prevent it from happening again.

Finally, the tires were about bald by this time (again), and we had to replace them. Normal tire shops didn’t have that size or anything else to fit the trailer in stock, so we had to go to Harbor Freight again and buy the crappy tires a third time to get home.

While all this was going on, we didn’t know that an unusually hot and dry part of the forest between us and home had been set ablaze by some poor people who knew they’d get a job putting out the fire. Because it was drier and hotter than previous years (climate change), this created a wild blaze that burnt right into a town, prompting the evacuation of thousands of people. These people, in turn, took up all of the hotels in the region.

We were fortunate to find a hotel about an hour in the wrong direction, and even then it was a terrible place to sleep (it was a “vintage” motel in poor repair). But, as they say, “Any port in a storm.”

Final Thoughts

All in all, the Bolt EUV did a great job being pressed into service doing a job it wasn’t intended for. The vehicle had no problems at all towing an 1800 lb trailer (including cargo) for all of that distance. The only issue we encountered at all was that the Bolt cuts back on cooling when it gets below 25%. This never was an issue until we drove up some hills in 103F heat on the last day as we approached our next charging station. Even then, it only charged slowly for a couple minutes until the cooling kicked back in, and then charged normally. It never derated motor power at any point in the trip or failed us in any way.

The trailer, being a budget build, needed a good shakedown cruise to reveal all of its issues. And, with the exception of the tires, we’ve managed to roll with all of those punches and come away with a better trailer than we started with.

I’d really like to get a vehicle that’s better for towing, but that’s going to have to wait a 2-3 years. Until then, I think the Bolt EUV and the trailer we’re improving will continue to do a great job!

National Park EV News Roundup

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Over at CleanTechnica, I recently wrote several interesting articles about national parks and EVs.

First off, there’s a new EV charging station just outside of Arches National Park. Electrify America has partnered with Rocky Mountain Power to open an 8-stall station, including one dedicated pull-through stall. Plus, several others could work well for people pulling trailers with some creativity. This brings the full number of EV charging stalls in Moab, Utah to 16 for non-Tesla vehicles and 20 for Teslas.

Another interesting thing is just how many EVs I saw on the Blue Ridge Parkway and in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Compared to the other western parks I typically visit, there was just a crazy number of EVs. In the article, I explore why this might be.

While I was out that way, I got a chance to test out my Bolt-powered campsite. I use a power inverter to pull power from the Bolt’s battery, and use it to charge a Jackery 3000 Pro. This in turn powers a slide-out kitchen in my trailer, heat or AC for Shiftpod tents, and anything else I’d like. When there’s good sun, I also have 1200 watts of solar power available.

Sadly, I’ve had to make a number of repairs and upgrades to the trailer (you can learn more about that struggle here). I still need to make some serious improvements to get the trailer ready for its next journey out to explore the EV charging situation. If you’re interested in supporting Charge to the Parks on these journeys, please consider donating here or sharing the fundraiser with friends and family!

New and Updated Guides for Blue Ridge Parkway and Great Smoky Mountains

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While the site didn’t change much in May and June, that’s only because we were busy traveling to several parks in an EV! While traveling to attend an important EV event in North Carolina, we stopped at Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Since visiting, I’ve updated the page for the Great Smoky Mountains, and I created a new page for the Blue Ridge Parkway. A new page for Hot Springs National Park is coming soon.

Along the way, we towed a custom camping cargo trailer about 4,000 miles, which really tested the limits of our Bolt EUV. This is obviously not an ideal travel setup, but it does show that EVs, even budget ones that charge slower than others, are up to the task and people can have a good time.

Our Chevy Bolt EUV and custom trailer charging at a Circle K in Boone, NC near the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Bottom Ten Parks Now Covered

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With the addition of the Great Basin National Park’s EV Travel Guide, we’ve now covered both the top ten most and least visited national parks! Sadly, a number of the parks in the bottom ten are in remote areas of Alaska and are simply not reachable by car, so they all got put together in one placeholder guide. But, there are guides for the rest.

The next step will be to make sure every state has at least one park in each state with a guide written. After that, parks will be added by reader demand and by our own interests. If there’s a park you’d like a guide written for sooner, be sure to reach out in the comments or on social media!

 

 

Updated Guides For New Mexico Available!

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After taking some time to visit two national parks and one recreation area in an EV over the last few days, I made some updates and improvements!

First off, I updated Carlsbad Caverns and Guadalupe Mountains national parks with new information and updated photos from my visit. There’s no much more information about attractions nearby, especially on the backroads behind both parks. I have more trips planned for that area in the fall and will be adding more and updating. An important thing I added to both pages was information about the Guadalupe Rim, a great but rugged path into the area.

An image from my recent drive into the area near both parks via Guadalupe Rim Road.

 

Another important thing I did was add a page for a very underrated recreation area near Socorro, New Mexico: San Lorenzo Canyon. There, you’ll find a very nice set of sandstone canyons that almost any EV can not only get to, but drive in the bottom of!

Charge To The Parks

You CAN get there in an EV!

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