Charging Around Drumheller?

[wayner]

Yes Plugshare is what I use, but here in Ontario you have lots of Superchargers. Your car will show all of the Superchargers, if you zoom out on the screen you should see everything within a few hundred km.

You can see the sites from the Tesla map here: Find Us | Tesla

Here is a screen cap of Alberta:

 

[Vawlkus]

Thanks Wayner, good to know about Strathmore and Bassano! We love to travel through rural Alberta when we go to visit our parents near Elk Island Park. From Medicine Hat, that would require us to stop and charge somewhere in the middle, and Drumheller is the largest centre along that route. When I am in these rural settings when no superchargers are not in the cards, is plugshare the best app to help me find a charge?

Yeah. PlugShare may not have every charger, but it’s got like 95% of them.

 

[Ohnj]

Yeah. PlugShare may not have every charger, but it’s got like 95% of them.

Appreciate your input!

 

[Ohnj]

Yes Plugshare is what I use, but here in Ontario you have lots of Superchargers. Your car will show all of the Superchargers, if you zoom out on the screen you should see everything within a few hundred km.

You can see the sites from the Tesla map here: Find Us | Tesla

Here is a screen cap of Alberta:

View attachment 701677

Thanks for helping the rookie!

 

[RadScientist]

I'm still sat here wishing that there was a DC fast charger in Drumheller. I visited two summers ago in the baking heat and had to sit at the level 2 charger for a few hours before I could make it back to a supercharger. Air conditioning was a necessity that day and put quite a drain on the battery. The free level 2 chargers at both the downtown parking lot and Badlands Community Centre are very much appreciated, but I worry that these will become overburdened during the tourist season, particularly considering the expanding number of EVs on the road.

I'm attending the Badlands Fondo this year and would love to take my car down there, but instead we'll have to take my girlfriend's gasmobile instead as I have a feeling that at such a large event there will be plenty of other people with EVs wanting to charge, especially consdering the overlap of people who cycle and people who own EVs.

 

[DuncanM]

I'm still sat here wishing that there was a DC fast charger in Drumheller. I visited two summers ago in the baking heat and had to sit at the level 2 charger for a few hours before I could make it back to a supercharger. Air conditioning was a necessity that day and put quite a drain on the battery. The free level 2 chargers at both the downtown parking lot and Badlands Community Centre are very much appreciated, but I worry that these will become overburdened during the tourist season, particularly considering the expanding number of EVs on the road.

I'm attending the Badlands Fondo this year and would love to take my car down there, but instead we'll have to take my girlfriend's gasmobile instead as I have a feeling that at such a large event there will be plenty of other people with EVs wanting to charge, especially consdering the overlap of people who cycle and people who own EVs.

I just visited Drumheller enroute from Abbotsford to Niagara Falls in my M3 RWD. There's a Supercharger station in Strathmore and Bassano, both of which are only 100km (62miles) from Drumheller. There's some DCFCs nearby as well.

Local hotels might make a 120v outlet available. You can also contact local RV camp grounds and see if they will let you charge at a 14-50 outlet.

 

[doubeld]

I just visited Drumheller enroute from Abbotsford to Niagara Falls in my M3 RWD. There's a Supercharger station in Strathmore and Bassano, both of which are only 100km (62miles) from Drumheller. There's some DCFCs nearby as well.

Local hotels might make a 120v outlet available. You can also contact local RV camp grounds and see if they will let you charge at a 14-50 outlet.

All of the DCFCs anywhere close to Drumheller are way out of the way if you're from Edmonton. @RadScientist best bet is to get an overnight charge and try to snake a L2 charge somewhere, at least to get you to Red Deer if possible or, at the very least, Olds where there is a 50kW charger (if you have CCS).

Otherwise, you might be able to do RD -> Drumheller -> RD if you're careful, depending on your model.

 

[RadScientist]

Thanks @doubeld and @DuncanM. It's not really a question of being able to do it (I've been out there several times already) so much as it is a question of doing it easily and without being sat at a level 2 for several hours or having to make an overnight stay. I could maybe charge up at a hotel overnight, but there is no guarantee that I could do that. Having lived and worked for several years recently in that part of the province, I know the opposition to and misinformation around EVs well enough that chances are I'd have the hotel manager trying to charge me $50 for electricity use the next morning. So far, on trips to these parts of the province, my best bet has been to stay overnight at an RV campground and sleep in the car while charging. However, if I want to make only a day trip to Drumheller, that negates overnight charging.
I have the SR+ so my battery is already limited. I can stop at the Airdrie Supercharger to grab a full charge before I head East, but when you have 2 bikes on the roof and need to run the air conditioning to deal with the > 30° weather it's not possible to do a 220km round-trip without some sort of charge in Drumheller. Going to a cycling fondo is likely to attract a bunch of others from the city who have a similar mindset and also drive EVs. That means there's going to be a lineup for the level 2 chargers in town. A lineup at a single DC fast charger wouldn't be all that terrible, but that same lineup at a single level two could take hours.
Plus, with the Royal Tyrell Museum in town, it's a place that attracts the sciency types; the same group of people that are more likely to drive an EV. I feel like it's in Drumheller's best interest to get a fast charger installed (FLO or otherwise). I'm not saying it needs to be a Supercharger, just something that can get me up to 60% again relatively quickly to make it back to Airdrie/Calgary. It's the only place in rural Alberta that I'd like to visit more frequently that doesn't have a fast charger.

 

[Hugh Mannity]

agree RadScientist; it's absolutely mind blowing to me that there isn't yet a DC fast charger there. I assume at some point Tesla will fire up that highway between Calgary and Saskatoon ? I would assume it would attract several Tesla cars between those two centres ?