I was asked by Sun Country Highway to bring my Roadster to an event in Shawinigan, at the new Innovation Center.
Well, after doing a few MS road trips, I'm pretty spoiled. I have to say, road trips in the Model S are definitely easier and more comfortable. I would have had enough range to get to Trois Rivieres in the S, but with the Roadster I had to stop in Montreal to charge.
I do find the Roadster pretty comfortable, despite the cramped quarters, but it's a LOT noisier on the highway. Turning the heat on takes a much bigger chunk of your power budget, so I didn't use it. Fortunately the temperatures were a little above freezing, so I was comfortable with just the seat heater. I turned on recirculate, which still lets 20% outside air in, then directed the air to the vents... and closed the vents. This keeps outside air to a minimum and keeps you much warmer. No problem with fogging, though it would be easily handled if necessary by letting some more outside air in.
It was a cool and sunny day yesterday. The car was last cleaned before I stored it in November, and it was still quite shiny. I stopped at Hotel Mortagne in Boucherville, on the South Shore, to charge. Nice 70A power, but only 185V!!! So a bit slower than usual. I charged for a couple of hours, because I needed a little extra range.
From there I drove straight to Shawinigan for the event opening the Innovation Center. Shawinigan is putting a big emphasis on clean energy technology to boost their economy. This was also the official launch for "Eco Route Quebec" - the Quebec wing of Sun Country Highway. I left the car in the building for the night, plugged into 110V. That increased my range overnight from 80 km to 130 km. Not much, but quite useful!
The next day we did a photo/video shoot of the Roadster. Yes they put an Eco Route Quebec logo on my Roadster. I'll peel that off when I get home...
More of a cloudy day today, with some flurries that melted on impact. Unfortunately Shawinigan is still pretty grubby from the winter road sanding etc. so now my poor car is very dirty. :frown:
I left directly from the photo shoot for Trois Rivieres, which hosts the closest charging stations. The lovely Cafe Morgane has a CS-90, and I'm getting 70A at 235V! Ahhh....
I'm still at the Cafe as I write. It's a bit of a stretch to get to Ottawa from here (would have been easy for the Model S), so I'll probably go back to Hotel Mortagne. But we have much higher voltage here, so I'm going to stuff in as many electrons as I can manage! I'll stay until it starts to taper the charge current down. I'll probably be here more than two hours, but it's a nice place to sit, drink tea, do email, write TMC posts, etc.
The cafe actually has three charging stations, one of which is a CS-90 right by the door. And it's got an EV charging sign by the road, and EV Charging Only sign on the parking spots. These people really get it! :love: A great spot for EV road warriors!
Well, after doing a few MS road trips, I'm pretty spoiled. I have to say, road trips in the Model S are definitely easier and more comfortable. I would have had enough range to get to Trois Rivieres in the S, but with the Roadster I had to stop in Montreal to charge.
I do find the Roadster pretty comfortable, despite the cramped quarters, but it's a LOT noisier on the highway. Turning the heat on takes a much bigger chunk of your power budget, so I didn't use it. Fortunately the temperatures were a little above freezing, so I was comfortable with just the seat heater. I turned on recirculate, which still lets 20% outside air in, then directed the air to the vents... and closed the vents. This keeps outside air to a minimum and keeps you much warmer. No problem with fogging, though it would be easily handled if necessary by letting some more outside air in.
It was a cool and sunny day yesterday. The car was last cleaned before I stored it in November, and it was still quite shiny. I stopped at Hotel Mortagne in Boucherville, on the South Shore, to charge. Nice 70A power, but only 185V!!! So a bit slower than usual. I charged for a couple of hours, because I needed a little extra range.
From there I drove straight to Shawinigan for the event opening the Innovation Center. Shawinigan is putting a big emphasis on clean energy technology to boost their economy. This was also the official launch for "Eco Route Quebec" - the Quebec wing of Sun Country Highway. I left the car in the building for the night, plugged into 110V. That increased my range overnight from 80 km to 130 km. Not much, but quite useful!
The next day we did a photo/video shoot of the Roadster. Yes they put an Eco Route Quebec logo on my Roadster. I'll peel that off when I get home...
More of a cloudy day today, with some flurries that melted on impact. Unfortunately Shawinigan is still pretty grubby from the winter road sanding etc. so now my poor car is very dirty. :frown:
I left directly from the photo shoot for Trois Rivieres, which hosts the closest charging stations. The lovely Cafe Morgane has a CS-90, and I'm getting 70A at 235V! Ahhh....
I'm still at the Cafe as I write. It's a bit of a stretch to get to Ottawa from here (would have been easy for the Model S), so I'll probably go back to Hotel Mortagne. But we have much higher voltage here, so I'm going to stuff in as many electrons as I can manage! I'll stay until it starts to taper the charge current down. I'll probably be here more than two hours, but it's a nice place to sit, drink tea, do email, write TMC posts, etc.
The cafe actually has three charging stations, one of which is a CS-90 right by the door. And it's got an EV charging sign by the road, and EV Charging Only sign on the parking spots. These people really get it! :love: A great spot for EV road warriors!