Lake Superior North Shore Trips (US)

[Jon Steinmetz]

I would be curious to hear from any of my neighbors here in the midwest who have taken their Taycan (or any other electric vehicle) up along the north shore of Superior. I live down near the Twin Cities in MN and like many others enjoy taking trips up to Grand Marais and other places. Looking at Plug Share it seems there are no high speed chargers other than Tesla along the route. I see a couple between here and Duluth that are ~50 kW but once you get north of Duluth there are mostly < 11 kW chargers.
Have you taken such a trip? How did it go?

Thanks

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[T-Fury]

My wife and I did it last summer with our e-Tron with bikes on the back and it went well. I didn't have my Taycan yet or I would have voted to take that! We live south of the Twin Cities so we hit the EA charger in Woodbury and then headed north on I-35. We stopped in Moose Lake at a 50 kW charger to grab lunch while we charged and then made our way to Duluth where we used a 50 kW charger to top off. We then headed up to the North Shore and stayed at Bluefin Bay and used their Clipper Creek chargers overnight to fill up for day excursions. I see there's a 50 kW charger planned for Grand Mariais on PlugShare in early 2021.

The trip is doable and with the Taycan being more efficient than the e-Tron (especially with no bikes) the trip would be a little easier. We specifically stayed at a hotel with EV charging available so we could slow charge overnight. Aside from the EA station the rest of the fast chargers only have a single plug for 50 kW charging so some patience may be in order if someone is using it when you get there. We used PlugShare to check and verify the chargers were operational and had been used recently before embarking on the journey. Certainly a beautiful area and worth the trip!

 

[arijaycomet]

I’ve not taken this precise trip (I live in Cleveland, Ohio but have taken a Tesla up the way you are talking about, a few years back). But just chiming in to say— as you get closer and closer to your trip, be sure to check PlugShare as @T-Fury suggested. Look to see what the most recent “check ins” have to show: are people having success charging? Are they showing low kW speeds? Etc... that is always useful data... if a lot of recent check-ins show a charger offline/not working, better to know that before your trip!

 

[Vik]

I would be curious to hear from any of my neighbors here in the midwest who have taken their Taycan (or any other electric vehicle) up along the north shore of Superior. I live down near the Twin Cities in MN and like many others enjoy taking trips up to Grand Marais and other places. Looking at Plug Share it seems there are no high speed chargers other than Tesla along the route. I see a couple between here and Duluth that are ~50 kW but once you get north of Duluth there are mostly < 11 kW chargers.
Have you taken such a trip? How did it go?

Thanks

My wife and I did it last summer with our e-Tron with bikes on the back and it went well. I didn't have my Taycan yet or I would have voted to take that! We live south of the Twin Cities so we hit the EA charger in Woodbury and then headed north on I-35. We stopped in Moose Lake at a 50 kW charger to grab lunch while we charged and then made our way to Duluth where we used a 50 kW charger to top off. We then headed up to the North Shore and stayed at Bluefin Bay and used their Clipper Creek chargers overnight to fill up for day excursions. I see there's a 50 kW charger planned for Grand Mariais on PlugShare in early 2021.

The trip is doable and with the Taycan being more efficient than the e-Tron (especially with no bikes) the trip would be a little easier. We specifically stayed at a hotel with EV charging available so we could slow charge overnight. Aside from the EA station the rest of the fast chargers only have a single plug for 50 kW charging so some patience may be in order if someone is using it when you get there. We used PlugShare to check and verify the chargers were operational and had been used recently before embarking on the journey. Certainly a beautiful area and worth the trip!

Why are all the ZEF energy stations only 50kw? Seems like an odd choice. It is great that they have deployed them in a lot of rural locations though.

Off topic - I am in MN as well and considering a 4S. How do you like Minneapolis or St Paul dealerships?

 

[Jon Steinmetz]

Why are all the ZEF energy stations only 50kw? Seems like an odd choice. It is great that they have deployed them in a lot of rural locations though.

Off topic - I am in MN as well and considering a 4S. How do you like Minneapolis or St Paul dealerships?

I have only dealt with the St. Paul dealership and they have been fine. There are other MN owners here that probably have some experience with both that could chime in. Both are owned by the same company, I believe.

You are right that there seem to be a lot of 50 kW chargers around. I wish EA would add a 350 kW charger in Duluth and Rochester. That would be a good start for common routes. 94 west would also be a good choice.

 

[T-Fury]

Why are all the ZEF energy stations only 50kw? Seems like an odd choice. It is great that they have deployed them in a lot of rural locations though.

@Vik I read an interesting article from 2019 that looked at fast charging in the Midwest and it basically said that with 50 kW chargers operators can at least break even with infrequent use. Utility demand charges tended to make anything above 150 kW difficult to break even on. Hence, all the 50 kW chargers in the state. I tend look at them as a starting point. Hopefully, as more EVs hit the road and the use frequency goes up 150 kW chargers will become more practical. Other options would include negotiating demand charges with specific utilities or installing batteries at charging stations to limit peak demand (more expensive). Here's a link to the article:

https://www.betterenergy.org/blog/demand-charges-and-dcfc/

Overall, I've been happy with both the Minneapolis and St. Paul dealerships although I haven't had any major issues with the car to really test them, lol. Knock on wood!

 

[Edax Rerum]

I would be curious to hear from any of my neighbors here in the midwest who have taken their Taycan (or any other electric vehicle) up along the north shore of Superior. I live down near the Twin Cities in MN and like many others enjoy taking trips up to Grand Marais and other places. Looking at Plug Share it seems there are no high speed chargers other than Tesla along the route. I see a couple between here and Duluth that are ~50 kW but once you get north of Duluth there are mostly < 11 kW chargers.
Have you taken such a trip? How did it go?

Thanks

I made that trip with my girlfriend last summer, a week after getting the car (first EV, so I wanted to see what a road trip would entail).

There is a "fast" charger (50kW, only one spot when I was there) in Duluth (address is Canal Park) that I used a couple times. It's a ChargePoint, but it's free...except you technically have to pay $1/hr for parking. I figured that was easily worth the price. The only issue I had was that one of the times I wanted it, there was a Bolt parked there (and fully charged), but the owner came back within a few minutes and departed.

Gooseberry Falls State Park has free charging (only two spots, and only 7kW). We spent a few hours wandering around admiring the scenery. The lot was pretty full, but no one had ICEd the EV parking spots. Not super fast charging, but convenient to have if you're going to do some hiking.

The final spot we charged was at the Grand Marais Recreation Area (campground). We spent a night there after driving all the way up to the border, so started off the next day with a full charge which was easily enough to stop in Duluth on the way back to Illinois.

There's apparently a fast charger at the casino in Grand Portage, but I don't recall that being an option. Perhaps I don't recall it because we weren't going to spend time in a casino?

There are other possibilities along the way, but they are slow and we didn't need them. At least in the summer months, there were no range worries. Now that I'm experiencing the winter temps, range is not quite as good, but I'm also not taking any long trips right now.

 

[Vik]

I have only dealt with the St. Paul dealership and they have been fine. There are other MN owners here that probably have some experience with both that could chime in. Both are owned by the same company, I believe.

You are right that there seem to be a lot of 50 kW chargers around. I wish EA would add a 350 kW charger in Duluth and Rochester. That would be a good start for common routes. 94 west would also be a good choice.

Thanks!

@Vik I read an interesting article from 2019 that looked at fast charging in the Midwest and it basically said that with 50 kW chargers operators can at least break even with infrequent use. Utility demand charges tended to make anything above 150 kW difficult to break even on. Hence, all the 50 kW chargers in the state. I tend look at them as a starting point. Hopefully, as more EVs hit the road and the use frequency goes up 150 kW chargers will become more practical. Other options would include negotiating demand charges with specific utilities or installing batteries at charging stations to limit peak demand (more expensive). Here's a link to the article:

https://www.betterenergy.org/blog/demand-charges-and-dcfc/

Overall, I've been happy with both the Minneapolis and St. Paul dealerships although I haven't had any major issues with the car to really test them, lol. Knock on wood!

Thank you. Great article! Makes sense that they did 50kw, especially in rural areas. Hopefully utilities will figure out a way to eliminate demand charges for EV stations.

I made that trip with my girlfriend last summer, a week after getting the car (first EV, so I wanted to see what a road trip would entail).

There is a "fast" charger (50kW, only one spot when I was there) in Duluth (address is Canal Park) that I used a couple times. It's a ChargePoint, but it's free...except you technically have to pay $1/hr for parking. I figured that was easily worth the price. The only issue I had was that one of the times I wanted it, there was a Bolt parked there (and fully charged), but the owner came back within a few minutes and departed.

Gooseberry Falls State Park has free charging (only two spots, and only 7kW). We spent a few hours wandering around admiring the scenery. The lot was pretty full, but no one had ICEd the EV parking spots. Not super fast charging, but convenient to have if you're going to do some hiking.

The final spot we charged was at the Grand Marais Recreation Area (campground). We spent a night there after driving all the way up to the border, so started off the next day with a full charge which was easily enough to stop in Duluth on the way back to Illinois.

There's apparently a fast charger at the casino in Grand Portage, but I don't recall that being an option. Perhaps I don't recall it because we weren't going to spend time in a casino?

There are other possibilities along the way, but they are slow and we didn't need them. At least in the summer months, there were no range worries. Now that I'm experiencing the winter temps, range is not quite as good, but I'm also not taking any long trips right now.

I see you are from Chicago. I will be doing a handful of trips a year between Minneapolis and Chicago and would like to use the Taycan 4S. How have the EA chargers been along the route? Getting full +200kw speeds?

 

[Edax Rerum]

I see you are from Chicago. I will be doing a handful of trips a year between Minneapolis and Chicago and would like to use the Taycan 4S. How have the EA chargers been along the route? Getting full +200kw speeds?

I didn't have any issues until the day I was making the return trip. Then, any EA charger I tried to use would essentially lock up. It would try connecting to the car, but it would not work, no matter how I tried to do it. Ended up calling EA, and they initiated a restart of the unit and provided me with a free session each time (no limit on time).

I don't recall finding any that were over 150kW, so no, I didn't hit anything over 200.

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