Planning a road trip in an electric car

22 September 2026 · 6 minute read

The question people ask before their first long drive in an electric car is how far it goes. It is the wrong question, or at least the wrong first one. The better question is how often you want to stop, because a long drive in an electric car is a rhythm of stops, and the range only has to be long enough to carry that rhythm. The trip planner works that out for you. This guide is how to use it, and how to get its answer into the maps app you already drive with.

Range is a rhythm, not a limit

Most people driving a long way stop every two to three hours anyway, for fuel, a coffee, the toilet or just to walk around. Two to three hours at highway speed is 200 to 300 km, or 125 to 190 miles. A car with 300 to 400 km of real range, about 200 miles, covers that with room to spare, and that is most electric cars sold in the last few years.

So the drive becomes a series of hops from charger to charger. You arrive with some charge left, plug in, have your break, and leave with enough for the next hop. You are not charging to full at each stop: a battery charges fastest between about 10% and 80%, and the planner uses that band. Twenty to thirty minutes at an ultra fast charger is a normal stop, and it lines up with the break you were going to take. See why stops end at 80%.

Range on the badge is measured in a lab. On a highway, in the cold or with a roof box, plan on about 70 to 80% of it. The planner asks for the real figure, and it is better to be a little pessimistic here.

What to give the planner

The planner needs three things, and everything else has a sensible default.

Where the trip starts and ends. A street address, a town or suburb, a postcode, or a charging site by name. As you type an address the planner suggests matches; pick one and the plan is made from that exact address. The button beside the field uses your location for the start.
Your car's range on a full battery. Kilometres or miles, whichever your road signs use. Pick your car from the list and this fills itself in, along with the battery size, how fast it charges and which plugs it takes. You can change any of it afterwards.
How low you are willing to go. The reserve, which starts at 20%. The planner never puts a stop where you would arrive below it, at a charger or at your destination. Raise it in bad weather or where chargers are sparse; lower it if you know the road.

Under "More settings" you can also set the charge you leave with, how full each stop charges to, the slowest charger you will stop at, and the plugs you can use. If your car has a fast charging port that is not the usual one for your country, tick it here. The plug types guide says which is which.

Reading the plan

The plan is a map of the route with each stop numbered, and under it a timeline: where you start and with how much charge, each stop with the charge you arrive with, how long you plug in for and how much you leave with, and the destination with what you have left. At the top are the totals: the distance, the driving time, the time spent charging and the whole trip.

Every stop is a real charging site you can open, with its plugs, its power and what other drivers have said about it. If a stop looks wrong for you, change the settings and plan again: a higher minimum power skips the slower sites, and a bigger reserve moves stops earlier.

When the planner finds a stretch of road with no charger your car can reach, it says so and shows you where the gap is, rather than handing you a plan you could not drive. That is the moment to lower the reserve, add a plug, or look at whether a slower charger on the way would do.

Into Google Maps, Apple Maps or CarPlay

The planner picks the stops. Your maps app is still the best thing for turn by turn directions, traffic and the voice in the car, so a plan is made to hand over.

Open in Google Maps takes the whole trip, with every charging stop as a waypoint in order. On a phone it opens the Google Maps app; in a car with Android Auto or CarPlay, the route on your phone appears on the car's screen. Google Maps draws its own road between the stops, so it may differ from ours in places, but it passes through every stop.
Apple Maps takes one destination at a time from a link, so each stop and the destination has its own Apple Maps directions. Drive to the first stop, and when you are plugged in, open the next. That is how most people drive a long trip anyway, one leg at a time, and CarPlay picks up whichever directions your phone is showing.
Copy link and Share to an app send the plan itself. The address of the page is the whole plan, so whoever opens it sees the same route, stops and settings, and can change them for their own car.

Google Maps takes nine stops in one link. A longer trip is handed over in parts, each starting at the stop the last one ended on, so every stop is in exactly one part.

On the day

Check each stop's page before you leave. Chargers go out of order, and a site with two plugs is a site where you might wait.
Have the apps or cards the networks on your route want. Most stops on the plan name their network.
Arrive warm. A battery that has been driving for an hour charges faster than one that has been sitting in the cold, so a stop straight after a long leg is a quick one.
Keep the reserve you set. If a stop is busy or broken, the reserve is what gets you to the next one, and the nearby chargers on the site's page are your plan B.

Where it works

The planner covers Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States, on public chargers listed on ChargeAlong. It does not plan a route that crosses a sea, so Australia to New Zealand is two trips, but the United States and Canada are one road network and so are Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Street addresses are suggested as you type in Australia and the United States; a town, a suburb or a postcode works everywhere.