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kootenay andrew

Andrew is an environmental engineer by day, "youth activity volunteer" by evening, and EV advocate / blogger in his remaining spare time. He is very passionate about the future of energy generation & usage. He prefers bikes & buses to cars, but acknowledges that Canadian cities have been developed primarily with cars in mind, so if we're going to drive, let's make them all EVs!

Say hello to our electric Edgy!

This blog is first and foremost about owning and driving an electric car in BC (or electric vehicle [EV]).  However, I think a bike can be considered a type of vehicle, so I am going to introduce the newest addition to the Kootenay EV Family – the electrified Edgerunner!  (Affectionately known as the “Edgy”.)

The red circle sticking out is the only real sign that the bike is electrified.

The red circle sticking out is the only real sign that the bike is electrified.

Read More »Say hello to our electric Edgy!

A Tale of Two Journeys – Part One

Introduction

In May I received an invitation to a workshop to help plan future deployment of Level 3 DCFC infrastructure in BC. The workshop was to take place in mid June in Vancouver and hosted by PlugInBC. The workshop was to include representatives from government, educational institutes, BC Hydro, various EVSE network service providers and several other EVangelists. I was invited to provide some perspective from outside of the Lower Mainland and was extremely excited about the prospect of attending. I immediately went into planning mode and floated the trip by Marley later that evening – I could either do the trip by myself, attending the workshop on Monday and getting home late Tuesday night (or heading straight to work in Trail on Wednesday morning), or we could move some of our holiday plans around to allow her and the kids to come as well… and of course we would have to do the trip in our EV! It would have been crazy to drive our gas car to attend a workshop on DCFC infrastructure – I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to explore the current state of Level 2 and DCFC infrastructure in the various regions of BC!  (click here for an explanation of Level 2 vs DCFC and visit PlugShare to explore what infrastructure is available in BC currently)Read More »A Tale of Two Journeys – Part One

Cost update – Feb to April 2015

The car just rolled over 36,000 km and it is 1 week away from owning the car for one year now – right about what I had estimated for kilometres.  Time for a cost report update!  (The first cost report I posted can be found here.)

The big news item in the intervening 3 months was the return of the Clean Energy Vehicle incentive, which for a Leaf is $5,000 off of the purchase price.  I have added a Leaf with this incentive added to illustrate what the incentive would have done, in my case anyways.

Read More »Cost update – Feb to April 2015

Trip Report: Kelowna and back, Part 3 (and the last!)

This is the third and final part of 3 posts on my trip from Nelson to Kelowna and back in February of 2015.  Links to the earlier posts:  Part 1, Part 2.  Part 3 covers my journey from Kelowna back to Nelson.

Trip back home

The night before I was to leave for home, I started thinking about the other possible ways to get home. I had previously looked at different ways to the Okanagan based on the infrastructure available in the Okanagan valley in the summer of 2014. At that time I had ruled out the ‘middle’ route from Vernon to Needles/Fauquier (via Cherryville), it was just too far of a stretch at 355 km with only Level 1 charging opportunities along the route (that’s about 36 hours of charging!) However, the northern route looked potentially promising, especially after Sicamous added a Sun Country Highway EVSE at their new visitor center, and the Best Western added an EVSE in Revelstoke. That brought the “Level 2 gap” down to only 250 km between Revelstoke and Nelson, comparable to the gap between Osoyoos and Nelson of 265 km.Read More »Trip Report: Kelowna and back, Part 3 (and the last!)

Clean Energy Vehicle incentive returns

CEV

Well, the Clean Energy Vehicle incentives have returned.  I am slightly bitter, since the program was cancelled ran out of funds in February of 2014 and I couldn’t buy my electric vehicle until at least April.  It was ridiculous of the government to sit on their thumbs for a year and put a few hundred early adopters at a future disadvantage in the used car market; but nonetheless, I think it is a good program to help EVs and PHEVs get on their feet so am happy to see it return.

Read More »Clean Energy Vehicle incentive returns