18 Months of Petrol Burning
After happily being all-electric for almost four years, we sold our Leaf and, until early September ’23, have been driving a gas truck for the… Read More »18 Months of Petrol Burning
mountains
Winter driving in the Leaf up to Whitewater
Last year, I posted about one of our first trips up to the Whitewater Ski Resort, near Nelson, BC, with our electric vehicle (EV), a 2014 Nissan Leaf SL. We went on to drive up to the hill many many more times over the course of the winter, and the weekend ‘pilgrimage’ has started again, as of early December 2015.
For those more into video, I filmed portions of the drive up and down on a recent sunny weekend. I kept a running commentary on different topics (see below), interspersed with time-lapse portions with music.
Day-trip: Nelson to Fletcher Falls and Ainsworth Hotsprings
I’ve decided that I should be adding more posts of regular trips that my family embarks on around the Kootenays themselves, since most of the EV “adventure” posts have so far been about longer journeys outside of our region. I also will be adding a Page in the near future that will serve as a database of local trips that includes real data that I have collected so the growing collection of EV owners in our region have real data to work from!
Anyways – Marley’s mom is here visiting from Hamilton, Ontario this week, and with the beautiful fall weather, we thought a day-trip up the lake to see Fletcher Falls, with a soak in the Ainsworth Hot Springs on the way home, was just the ticket for her last day in BC.
Read More »Day-trip: Nelson to Fletcher Falls and Ainsworth Hotsprings
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
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!
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!)
Skiing and a Christmas Tree
For a video update on winter driving, go to the bottom… (original post follows)
Ski season started recently in the Kootenays! I love skiing so this is one of my favourite times of the year. There are a few ski hills close to Nelson, so in the fall I plugged the data into my spreadsheet model to see which trips were viable:
EV energy usage model by trip
Driving up to winter at Kokanee Glacier Park
The weather has been cold and clear in Nelson for the last week now. From our home, we get a tantalizing view of the mountain peaks covered in snow, and we woke up this morning wanting to get a better view. We had not been all the way up to Kokanee Glacier Park before, so we looked it up on the provincial parks website.
Click to enlarge – ok maybe the peaks are just barely peaking up above the ridge!
“Hmm, 20 km out to Kokanee Creek park, then 16 km of dirt road up the Kokanee Creek valley from Kootenay Lake, and the parking lot is at 1,570 m!” It was -3 C at our house, so it would only get colder going up. Driving slow up a bumpy dirt road with the heat on, and gaining just over 1,000m was going to do a number on the battery.Read More »Driving up to winter at Kokanee Glacier Park