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Data Analysis

Cost update – 3.5 years and 135,888 km

Time for another electric vehicle (EV) total cost of ownership (TCO) update for my 2014 Nissan Leaf SL.  This is the eighth in a series – the earlier posts can be found at the “Cost Info Posts” page.  I’ve now crossed 136,000 km (~85,000 miles) at the time of writing at just over the 3.5 year mark.  Note that these costs are all $CDN.

I’ve also included a few bits of news I found of interest from the EV world in the last 6 months down below the cost information.Read More »Cost update – 3.5 years and 135,888 km

Cost update – 3 years and 117,000 km

Time for another electric vehicle (EV) total cost of ownership (TCO) update for my 2014 Nissan Leaf SL.  This is the seventh in a series – the earlier posts can be found at the “Cost Info Posts” page.  I’ve now crossed over 122,500 km at this time of writing, of which I had hit about 117,000 km at the 3 year mark 7 weeks ago.

Read More »Cost update – 3 years and 117,000 km

The New West EV Family Goes to the Great Wolf Lodge

In late March 2016 during spring break, the New West EV Family made the trek south of Olympia, WA to the Great Wolf Lodge all the way from New Westminster, BC. Great Wolf Lodge is a hot and humid indoor water-park and thematic hotel in the middle of no-where Washington state. There are a dozen or more of these monstrosities across the US and this one is perfectly situated, equidistant from Seattle and Portland, for frazzled parents to whisk away their kiddos for some distraction in the middle of the gloomy winters. For us Canadians it was a welcome escape from our cool, damp, and grey winters. We had really wanted to get someplace like Palm Springs or San Diego for some authentic sunshine but since our loonies and toonies don’t go as far these days the artificial tropics of the Great Wolf Lodge was just what we needed and what the pocket book would accept.Read More »The New West EV Family Goes to the Great Wolf Lodge

Cost update – 77,777 km and 2 years

Almost 80,000 km in 2 years (I drive too much!)  The Leaf remains as perky and smooth as day 1, which is pretty amazing.

I changed the format of my cost updates somewhat and will issue them on a roughly 6 month basis going forward.  The new format of the chart should be easier to read and thus more informative.  Previous updates are linked below:

Lucky 27,777km and February 2015 Cumulative Cost Update

Cost update Feb to April 2015

50,000 km and cost update

Cost update 63,500 km, Dec 2015

Read More »Cost update – 77,777 km and 2 years

Cost update – 63,500 km, Dec 2015

I’ve now covered over 64,000 km in our electric vehicle (EV), a 2014 Nissan Leaf.  The cover image for this blog post shows that I finally “turtled” the car (on purpose!) this month (December 2015) – another blog post in the near future will explain why I was doing this!  (Turtling the car means you go into reduced power mode and have less than 1 km to drive, the car continually limits your power to force you to pull off to the side of the road safely – this protects the battery from discharging too far.)Read More »Cost update – 63,500 km, Dec 2015

New West EV Family Goes to the Zoo – Part 2/2

Hello again from the New West EV Family!

This post is the third in a series and discusses the second half of our Seattle Zoo trip in our 2013 Nissan Leaf. My first guest post was an introduction and review of charging requirements for the trip. In part one of my trip report we discussed the drive plan and our trip south from New Westminster to the Seattle area and our stops for charging along the way.

On my last post we ended day one enjoying a nice meal at the Cheesecake Factory while charging to 100% on L2 at the Bellevue Square mall. We returned to our hotel in Everett with 73% remaining and 7 battery temperature bars while Leaf Spy showed the battery temperature to be nearly 40 degrees C. Now for most of you in California or Arizona this isn’t an uncommon temperature but we barely saw 6 bars this summer, 5 is normal, and we will probably see 4 bars all ‘winter’. Regardless, the battery cooled to about 24.5 C overnight on this trip. (note: the ambient temperatures I am guessing were ~12 C overnight; high battery temperatures are something to be minimized over the long term).Read More »New West EV Family Goes to the Zoo – Part 2/2

Two trips to Kelowna – and many new Highway 3 chargers!

I’ve gone from Nelson to Kelowna twice in the last month and thought I’d share some photos, data, and random insights from each trip… and in between the two trips, several new chargers were added on Highway 3, happy days!!

Don’t worry, this isn’t a novella (unlike the Sechelt trip report!)

September – Nelson to Kelowna via Revelstoke, back via Osoyoos

September Map

Click to enlarge…

Since I completed my last trip to Kelowna in the spring in our electric vehicle (EV), a 2014 Nissan LEAF, a new Direct Current Fast Charger (DCFC) had come online in Revelstoke, so when I planned this trip, I really wanted to take the slightly longer northern route.

Read More »Two trips to Kelowna – and many new Highway 3 chargers!