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. Continue reading The New West EV Family Goes to the Great Wolf Lodge
Category: Data Analysis
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 – 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.) Continue reading 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). Continue reading 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
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.
Continue reading Two trips to Kelowna – and many new Highway 3 chargers!
2015 Green Energy & Home Show
I participated in the Nelson EcoSave Green Energy & Home Show again this year as an Electric Vehicle (EV) ambassador. I also gave a short 5 minute talk and 3 minute Q&A afterwards. Many people were there to look at the EVs; Murray took a number of people for a ride in his LEAF, and Dave in a Tesla Model S also came down from Rossland. I also brought our electrified Edgerunner cargo bike. Lots of interested people with many many question!
This post contains the presentation I gave, along with a number of “infographics” that I prepared and left on a display table for the public to view while at the Home Show. Click on any of the files/images below to download or to view as a larger image.
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.