@flyingcheesehead
el paso & midland, tx
El Paso looks to be in great shape for charging. Several Level 3 fast charging stations, and a bunch more Level 2 stations (these add 20-30 miles of range per hour, perfect for "wandering off for hours"). Looking at the fast chargers, there's one kitty-corner from the Home Depot on Eastlake that has a boatload of food options nearby, another on the other side of town near Wal-Mart, Bass Pro Shop, Sherwin-Williams and also a ton of food options, and a couple in between at Rudy's Country Store and BBQ locations.
Midland has one fast charging station at the Love's travel center.
As I recall, you're from the Fort Davis area? On the way back from Midland, there's also one in Odessa, one in Pecos, and one in Balmorhea on your way home if needed. And on the way to El Paso, there's one at the Lowe's in Van Horn.
-I hear occasional stories about charging stations being tied up by too many evehicles, or people parking there and wandering off for hours.
It happens, but it's very rare. I'm 100,000 miles in on my Tesla (that's my fifth electrified vehicle), and I've encountered it exactly once, and a spot opened up in less than two minutes. And yes, there are jerks in the world, but I've never had an issue with that either.
I'm not sure how the software in the GM and Rivian vehicles is these days, but in my Tesla, if the charging station will be full when I get there it'll route me to different charging stations.
-maybe I want to shop for hours, can I wander off?
Best thing to do then is to use a Level 2 charger instead of a fast charger. That also opens up a lot more possible charging locations.
-how much of a walk is it from a charging station to my destination (haircut, Dr, supply house, big box store) maybe that requires an uber?
Now that's a thing I've never done.
Also, one thing to note: Let's say you get a Silverado EV with 420 miles of range, and you're going on a 400-mile round trip. Let's also say that cold and/or headwinds are going to reduce your range to 300 miles so you'll need to charge somewhere in the destination city.
I have had SO many people ask "how long does it take to charge from empty to full?" I literally don't know. That's not a thing you do. If it took 40 minutes because of the bigger battery on the pickup, or even an hour, that's still irrelevant - You don't want to charge to full! 0-80% takes about the same amount of time as 80-100%, and fast charging at a public charging station is more expensive than charging at home.
So, you get to your destination and you have 100 miles of range left. You'll want to charge to 220ish miles of range (enough to get home, plus a little bit of a reserve), and then leave. So, you'll be charging from about 25% to 55% of your battery. I just looked up a charging curve for the Silverado and it looks like that would take you about 13 minutes, so it's not nearly as inconvenient as you might think. Personally, I have a couple hundred mile commute that I can only complete without charging under relatively ideal conditions, but all I do is stop at a charger along my way halfway back long enough to visit the facilities and grab a drink, and that's more than enough to complete the trip.
Fueling when you're empty and filling it up are gas-vehicle things. Stopping to fuel is something you do much more often with a gas vehicle than an EV. The overall amount of time spent fueling a gas vehicle is generally much higher than an EV, especially the "actively fueling" part that you have to be there for. It's amazingly hard to wrap your head around until you've had an EV, because we've all spent our whole lives gassing up cars and we're used to it. Now that I've been driving EVs for so long, I find it incredibly aggravating to have to visit a gas station if I'm driving my wife's car!
