Langley BC, to Kamloops BC

[nleggatt]

Alright everyone, if you tend to follow my "War" stories of making long distance trips with my 60, then here's a good one. This will be a test for the history books... ok, not that exciting but exciting non-the-less.

I'm going to charge up (as close to Range charge as possible) in Langley (I'm predicting 330 km range) and will take off from there on my journey to Kamloops. The plan is to NOT charge in Hope BC (though I could, but being that I'd in theory be only down 100km, I don't think the extra time warrants a stop - you'll see why in a second). Soooo, we will blow past Hope BC (well when I say blow by, I mean, drive as close the limit as possible and as fast as possible without using up my available battery power). And head over the Coquihalla! Yep, UP UP UP UP UP colder colder colder. Coming into Merritt I'll be stopping for food, and coffee and a quick charge (1 - 1.5 hours on a CS90), then over to our cabin for the night. Now I know what you're thinking... why not charge over night and make your life easy and not worry about the range stuff... well, the cabin has no power well, it has a generator (which may or may not charge the car, and solar which wont charge the car...) So I'm gambling on how much range will be lost overnight and how much will be used to get to Kamloops. Once in Kamloops I'll have my meetings, and will charge all day (er... 3 hours on a CS90) and then make my way home in one shot back to Hope BC, charge there on a CS90 for an hour, then arrive at my place in Abbotsford.

Crazy? Bets I wont make? lol. Emergency numbers for people who can laugh at us while stuck on the side of the road out of power...

I'll keep this thread up to date as we travel

AND. Just for kicks. I created a fun little document that I'll be updating... No mocking the spreadsheet... I just threw it together: Welcome to Google Docs

 

[Morristhecat]

Should be entertaining. Thanks again for being the guinea pig!

I think when you leave Langley you may have 350-360km rage. I usually get 305km standard change which at 85% of what i would guess is a 358km range charge. Accounting the uphill trip to merrit, you will probably be ok, but I would charge a little longer there just to be safe. Good luck!

 

[nleggatt]

Should be entertaining. Thanks again for being the guinea pig!

I think when you leave Langley you may have 350-360km rage. I usually get 305km standard change which at 85% of what i would guess is a 358km range charge. Accounting the uphill trip to merrit, you will probably be ok, but I would charge a little longer there just to be safe. Good luck!

Ok, I did a full charge, AND only left Langley with 313km???? That is Rated, not ideal, but what happened to getting 330 pre 4.3??? Ok, that was trouble #1 lol.

Made it to Hope, no troubles, charged for like 10 minutes while we grabbed a coffee, then went to Merritt, no troubles with charge. Coming into Merritt the car stopped responding to the accelerator pedal being pushed, luckily we coasted down the hill into town for a few km and rolled to a stop on the off ramp. Called Mark at Tesla, and magically he answered. Two seconds later he asks "Is the car in Drive"... bah... i had hit the shifter into N while coming into town cause it started raining and had not noticed... thanks Mark!

Ok, plugged into a CS90 ate at A&W across the street and went from 40km to 140km before departing for our cabin on the lake (which has no power, just Internet). Ok, so we're here, car has 97km, it's supposed to be cold tonight, and it's a 105 km jaunt from here to Merritt. Should we risk it and just drive slow?

What ever will happen - que evil laugh.

 

[nleggatt]

Ok, need some assistance here. Woke up, looked at car, it had 67km (ok, do the math on how much was lost over night on that one!) Ok, now, I plugin to the 120v plug on a generator here at the cabin... I'm loosing range? even though the car says, "4km/hour" gain... ok. not a good sign for our trip...

 

[Stephen4]

Where are you? At the cabin? If so, what's the temperature overnight?

 

[Thumper]

What is the fascination with cutting it close? You and Broder, why not stop in Hope and give it a good safe fill? You are just asking for trouble and when you get it, you will blame the car! With electrons or gas, play it safe. Leave a safety margin. Why do people seek drama?

 

[nleggatt]

Where are you? At the cabin? If so, what's the temperature overnight?

Was at the cabin in merrit where it hit zero over night. Turned out I did collect some range by way of the generator but not enough to help much so we had t charge again in Merritt before leaving for kamloops.

Got to kamloops ok but the charging station at the visitor center is only 60 amps so we went to whitespot one.... Well you can only spend soooo long at whitespot lol so we sucked it up and headed back to Merritt where we are charging again lol. We will get up to 200 km and make a long shot goal of going from Merritt bc to abbotsford bc in one shot!

 

[Stephen4]

I'd be interested in knowing your range loss/gain from the stretch from Coquihalla Lakes to Hope. My spidy senses tell me you'd show no range loss over the 50km hill. I'd also be interested in knowing how much you lost going up that hill.

 

[nleggatt]

What is the fascination with cutting it close? You and Broder, why not stop in Hope and give it a good safe fill? You are just asking for trouble and when you get it, you will blame the car! With electrons or gas, play it safe. Leave a safety margin. Why do people seek drama?

Hi thumper, I'm not going to blame the car. If you read my other posts you'll see that I'm very supportive of the car. I did stop in hope and charge. In fact we are stopped right now charging in chilliwack. No drama. We watched the numbers and made a decision to charge.

Drama is when you check on your car in the morning and have lost 20km overnight. Keep smiling thumper it's all fun and I'm enjoying the car!

 

[nleggatt]

Ok so now I've had time to sleep and refresh so ill add some "color" to my story. @thumper asked why not get a good charge in hope which was a good suggestion. Here's the problem...

I'm a modelS fanatic and love my car. I don't mind sitting and reading a book for an hour or so while getting a charge, but my friend isn't versed in the car (neither is the general public) and so me saying sorry we can't leave kamloops for another 4 hours or we have to sit in the middle of no where while we charge doesn't fly) we spend three hours in kamloops before coming home then spent an hour in Merritt where there are no coffee shops and then spend another 15 in hope bc and then another 20 on a slow charger in chilliwack. Yes I could have just stayed in merrit for an extra hour or hope. But again how do you tell your friend how fantastic the car is when you follow that by let's sit here for another hour or so.

Don't get me wrong if I had been more assertive I would have said "lets spend an extra 3 hours in kamloops at Starbucks and get some work done rather than making 5 little stops" truth is I expected to see faster charging when I was empty but this wasn't the case so charging when empty didn't help.

If we had a super charger in hope or merrit or kamloops this trip would be a breeze with absolute not fear. Wow how I pitty Canadian owners with single chargers.

Question was asked about the hill from the summit down to hope. Yep basically went 50km with only using 7km of range. Pretty fantastic.

Sooo yes I could or should have for full charges when possible. Faster chargers will help in the future.