Finding a Hotel with a Charger

[blturner]

I'm new at this but I see some hotels with chargers and most without.
Of course I will want to charge every night when on the road but unless there is some app that lists hotels with chargers and maybe even a reservation system for those chargers this seems difficult to do.
I do the Kansas City to Denver run a few times each year for weekend trips. At about 550 miles that trip will have several hours of charging. But if I head out Friday after work, stay in a hotel while charging I can arrive in Denver in the mid morning with no time lost to charging.
Right now, when we start to get tired we pull up the map app on one of our phones and pick an upcoming hotel.

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[mwexler2]

Booking.com has a filter for EV charging. It’s not perfect, maybe 80%. So I always check with the hotel before I show up. Find out what type of charger and where.

 

[Forager]

Following.

I’m also curious about charging etiquette for L2 destination chargers like hotels, inns, parks, etc.

Is it acceptable to pull 100kWh overnight? What if a Nissan Leaf gets there 5 minutes after you and is also staying the night —at what point is it reasonable for them to unplug your vehicle so they can charge (60%, 80%, 100%)? Should you set an alert so if your charge session to 60% ends at 2am you unplug and leave it ready for the next EV?

Im sure these questions are covered somewhere, I’ve just never seen it.

 

[crashmtb]

Chargepoint/PlugShare/ABRP/other charging apps do a good job of showing hotels with charging. Play around with those.

 

[Dark-Fx]

Following.

I’m also curious about charging etiquette for L2 destination chargers like hotels, inns, parks, etc.

Is it acceptable to pull 100kWh overnight? What if a Nissan Leaf gets there 5 minutes after you and is also staying the night —at what point is it reasonable for them to unplug your vehicle so they can charge (60%, 80%, 100%)? Should you set an alert so if your charge session to 60% ends at 2am you unplug and leave it ready for the next EV?

Im sure these questions are covered somewhere, I’ve just never seen it.

Having just taken my Hummer on a multi-week trip, I'm probably uniquely qualified to answer the questions.

Generally chargers are first come first serve. Every hotel I've stayed at with a charger didn't have a way to reserve them. The couple I had questions about, the people working the front desk were essentially clueless about them.

Most of the J1772 chargers at hotels are 32A units. Over the course of 13 hours, we pulled ~75kWh from one. If they really don't want guests to pull that much energy over the course of their stay, they would be charging for the usage. Some hotels do have a flat rate for it, but none of the ones we stayed at did. They were all free.

I would recommend never depending on L2 infrastructure at a hotel to make it to the next closest DCFC. We got to one that had one broken charger, and one occupied charger, so we weren't able to get a charge that stay. It just meant we needed one more fast charging stop the next day than we would have otherwise.

We did this route across WV, charging up to 100% at the EA in Wytheville just in case we weren't able to charge at the hotel in Parkersburg. 263 miles was definitely pushing the range of the Hummer through the mountains with snow and sleet coming down, but would have been doable. Luckily the L2 at the hotel was working, so ended up being a non-issue. I haven't driven the Rivian enough to know if I would have the confidence it would have made it.

 

[140 degrees]

Tesla compatible chargers seem to be more abundant than J1772 chargers at the hotels I have checked. Has anyone tried using one of the adapters that would allow access to the Tesla level 2 chargers for their R1T? Some vehicles seem to have issues with fitting the adapters.

 

[Autolycus]

Following.

I’m also curious about charging etiquette for L2 destination chargers like hotels, inns, parks, etc.

Is it acceptable to pull 100kWh overnight? What if a Nissan Leaf gets there 5 minutes after you and is also staying the night —at what point is it reasonable for them to unplug your vehicle so they can charge (60%, 80%, 100%)? Should you set an alert so if your charge session to 60% ends at 2am you unplug and leave it ready for the next EV?

Im sure these questions are covered somewhere, I’ve just never seen it.

I think a lot of people have put their phone number somewhere visible so that the other EV driver can contact them. That way they can try to coordinate a solution that works best for the two of them. But yeah, it's first-come-first-served, which can really mess up plans if there's only 1 charger at a hotel.

 

[ads75]

With more PEHVs coming, I wouldn’t count on a charger to be available at a hotel. I remember someone recently posting in a thread about being frustrated after a busy day they had to drive to a supercharger to charge up, because there were some PHEV Jeeps charging at the hotel (adding a whopping 30 miles of range for them)

 

[zipzag]

Staying in a motel near an EA if possible is more reliable. Charging on arrival with a warm battery is best in cooler weather.

 

[Cosmacelf]

This Tesla adapter seems to be highly rated, and they’ve been selling it for years. Should work with any non Tesla EV that needs a charge from a Tesla destination charger.

http://www.umc-j1772.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=17&product_id=102

 

[NorthernOak]

Tesla compatible chargers seem to be more abundant than J1772 chargers at the hotels I have checked. Has anyone tried using one of the adapters that would allow access to the Tesla level 2 chargers for their R1T? Some vehicles seem to have issues with fitting the adapters.

I use a Tesla adapter to charge at home every night for my R1T. Its the TeslaTap Mini 60. I already had a Tesla Gen2 Wall charger and I got another one on ebay so I can charge both the R1T and my Model 3 at the same time using their power share feature. Together the chargers share a 60A circuit. This particular adapter is a pretty tight fit on the charger cord so getting it on/off isn't the easiest. Also, it being so small there just isn't much to grab onto to pull it off the cord. I just leave it on my home charger and whenever I go on a road trip I'll pull it off and take it with me.

 

[moosetags]

Along this same line, EV charging at RV Parks is going to be a thing in the near future. RV Parks have the advantage of 30 and 50 amp outlets at each campsite. I'm sure that RV Park operators will start a surcharge for EV charging at your campsite. The advantage here is that each campsite has its own outlets so you don't have to compete for an outlet. You can just stay plugged-in overnight with no problem.

Brian

 

[Dark-Fx]

This Tesla adapter seems to be highly rated, and they’ve been selling it for years. Should work with any non Tesla EV that needs a charge from a Tesla destination charger.

http://www.umc-j1772.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=17&product_id=102

I have one of these but didn't bring it. I did bring my 80A Mini with me. It worked at all the UMCs except for the 80A ones. Had the weather not been complete shit, and the hotel not have a J1772 available, I might have tried calling the support line, but it is what it is.

 

[Speedrye]

I went to a larger beach resort a few weeks back that I frequent and figured I'd check out the charging situation for the day my Rivian eventually shows up. There were two 30A chargers and they were constantly being used. I definitely won't be counting on those for future visits and will plan my trip accordingly for charging when I'm down there next. Being new to EVs, I'm starting to scope out charging for future trips.

 

[shamoo]

This Tesla adapter seems to be highly rated, and they’ve been selling it for years. Should work with any non Tesla EV that needs a charge from a Tesla destination charger.

http://www.umc-j1772.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=17&product_id=102

Sorry, new to EVs and a dumb question.

Does this mean, with this product, I can charge a non-Tesla (Rivian for example) at a Tesla supercharger?

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