ev-road-trip

Dammit!!!!

~ Ken Mirvis ~ 2 Comments

I thought we were getting into the swing of this EV travel thing. Maybe; maybe not.

We did it all correctly: We had a travel distance we could manage in one charge. We had a motel lined up with a charger (the Best Western near Purdue in Lafayette, Indiana just in case you keep a file of places NOT to stay). We called the motel to be sure that the info we had was correct. (It was.) By the time we arrived in Lafayette, we had 30 miles of capacity left. No problem. We had a room with a charger all set.

The hotel guy was almost right: They did indeed have an available charger. He just neglected to tell me that it wasn’t working, and I had not asked. 

There we were: 30 miles of capacity remaining, in the middle of freaking nowhere late on Saturday afternoon. So, I called the Nissan dealer. Yes! They had a charger. The guy on the phone told me that the manager had a key so we could get a charge at no cost. Five miles later, we are down to 25 miles of capacity. My heart was pounding.

The guys at the dealership were (pardon my language) assholes. They had two high speed chargers, but we couldn’t use them. They had one Level 2 pay-for-it charger (that would require 15 hours for us to charge). Everything else was just out of their control. (They were open for two more hours then closed all day Sunday.)

They told us that the nearby Walmart with four high-speed chargers would be the right option for us. Off we went. Two of the Walmart chargers were out of commission, and the other two had long lines.

Once again, I started looking for motels with chargers. Great! There was a Residence Inn. Having learned my lesson, I called with specific questions: Yes! They had ample chargers and they worked, but they were only for Teslas. Crap! (Note to self: Spend whatever it takes to have a full array of Tesla-to-Nissan adapters!)

We had one last option: the Doubletree. I called. I asked. All was good. We went. I plugged in. It worked. We made it. We checked in: $50 more than we wanted to pay, but Mo was charged by morning.

We took a load of stuff to the room then came back out for a few more things. There was another EV, a Chevy Bolt, parked next to us … but with no available charger. I like being a nice guy, but I was not about to move for someone else. I told the desk clerk that my car will be charged at 5:00 AM. I will move it then, but not before.

All we need is more infrastructure. Please ask the incoming Trump administration for some leadership on this issue. I’d appreciate it. 

Cheap and Easy So Far … but No False Sense of Security

~ Ken Mirvis ~ 2 Comments

I hope we have not experienced a calm before the storm, but I fear we might have!

We are nearing the end of our first week on the road, and we’ve travelled about 1,000 miles. The trip has been easy, gorgeous and chill, all on back roads laced with stone walls, beautiful mountains, nifty villages, plenty of manicured farms, and, not unexpectedly, a mind-blowing number of Trump signs. 

Interestingly, the Trump signs pretty much disappeared in the 60-mile stretch between Columbus, Ohio and Dayton, Ohio. In the center of that stretch sits Springfield, Ohio, a small-ish town with a rich immigrant population that was recently made famous by both Trump and Vance for their ravings about the Haitian immigrants eating their pets. We made a point of stopping there to try to get a sense of the place; we walked around the local Kroger supermarket for a while and engaged in some friendly banter. Yes, the people are more darkly hued than in the surrounding towns, and yes, they do have accents and appear to be less well off than others, but they were all extremely nice.  Just sayin’.  Trump won the county by 30 percentage points, so the electorate was no different from other places, but the visible, in-your-face Trump-ness was absent. I have no explanation; only observations.

But this blog entry is not about politics, flags, or yard signs. It is about keeping an EV charged and running. Our first few days, I fear, provided a false sense of ease and security. Chargers were plentiful and mostly free. Our first 800 miles cost just $15 thanks to motels with free overnight charging and really nice Nissan dealers who let us plug into their high-speed chargers.  

As we move west from the comfortable “woke-ness” of the east coast, the chargers get scarcer, the distances longer, and the cost, higher.  So far, the drive has been less costly than gasoline-powered travel. Now that we are entering Indiana, though … followed by southern Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska … I expect the cost and hassle to rise, perhaps by a lot.

Up until now, we have taken the straightest possible route that follows the AAA-map dotted highways, the scenic roads. That strategy is ending. Now, our goal is just to stay charged, regardless of time, cost, and distance. Running out of juice would really suck!

And the other great uncertainty, in addition to the location of charging stations and time required to charge, is the effect of cold. The last few days have been sub-freezing. Our battery capacity has fallen from 270 miles on a charge to 240 to 210. Tomorrow, we start seeing temps in the 40s and 50s again. What will the effect be? I’ll let you know. All I know for now is that I don’t want to go more than about 120 miles without a charge.

Our totally chill, relaxing drive will either stay that way … or it won’t. Stay tuned.

Newbie EV Learning Moments

~ Ken Mirvis ~ 2 Comments

Within a week of taking possession of “Mo,” our Nissan Ariya EV, we took a family trip to New York City, driving to Albany and catching an Amtrak into the City. We figured we’d have plenty of time upon our return to Albany to find a charger, figure out how to work it, charge up, and get home. We were mostly right.

We started at the closest charging station. It was in a public parking garage that charged a $20 flat rate for some event that evening. In addition to the charging rates, we’d have to pay the extra $20 just to spend a few minutes at the charger. I am way too cheap to fall for that one. The next option was a few miles away, so we plugged the address into the GPS and off we went. Everything was as advertised, and the charger worked fine, but it was in a seriously sketchy part of town. We hung close, playing with knobs and buttons trying to figure out more of the inner workings of our new toy.

Once the dashboard showed that we had 100 miles of excess driving capacity to get home, we bolted.

LESSON: When the dashboard says 100 miles, don’t count on.

We had driven south on a flat 2-lane road, toodling along at 55 or 60 on a warm afternoon. “Mo’s” computer calculated the 100-mile margin based on that trip. We drove back north on a cold evening through big mountains on an Interstate … with no chargers nearby. We planted the cruise control at 75 and enjoyed the ride. Then I noticed the 100-mile margin beginning to disappear. Cold weather, high speeds, and mountain roads, we learned, suck a lot more electricity than warm, slow, and flat. By the time we got home, the dashboard was blinking red warning lights at me screaming that we only had 20 miles of battery capacity left.

I guess I’ve experienced plenty of times when the gas station I thought would appear around the next bend never materialized. Fortunately, we made it home safely, and if all goes well, we will not experience that sort of “Oh shit, what are we going to do?” moment again.