Whistler Beer Festival Via Nissan Leaf

My EV road trip is now in progress. I am in a Nissan Leaf headed to Whistler to take part in the beer festival.

I will update as we progress. For now, here is the data as we leave home:

That is 139 km of range in the batteries as we leave. And 83% charged.

Update – we are now in Squamish at a level 3 charger. We should be able to boost our batteries to 80% in 20 minutes.

We traveled from Burnaby to here in Squamish, a total of 77 kms and dropped from 83% to 37%. The “guess-o-meter” says we still have another 75+ kms of range.

However, someone else is charging at this time. So we wait until they come back. A goofy thing about charging at a level 3 charger is that after you reach 80% charge, the charging slows down to a trickle charge and so it could take another 35 minutes for his battery to be charged to 100%. That’s not an efficient use of the charging station.

Something that the EV community is still working out is the etiquette around whether an EV charging station is a parking spot or a CHARGING spot.

You wouldn’t park in front of a gas pump! Why Park your EV in front of the level 3 charger and then walk away making it so other EV owners can’t use it? It is about etiquette.

So we unplugged the poor etiquette Leaf, plugged ours in for 20 minutes and we’re back up to 86% battery level. That’s more than enough to get to Whistler AND back here to Squamish.

Arrived in Whistler after what I would describe as a spirited drive from Squamish to Whistler – nobody passed us.

The reality is that from Squamish to Whistler is a pretty significant climb in elevation. So although we used a lot of battery to get here, even if we didn’t charge here we would have more than enough to get back to Squamish because the Leaf would be charging all down the downhill section.

Oh, and that Leaf that was parked in the charging station? When we left Squamish it was still parked in the charging and another EV owner was charging their car while double parked beside the Leaf. Etiquette!!