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Ottawa - Shawinigan Road Trip

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Doug_G

Lead Moderator
Global Moderator
Apr 2, 2010
17,888
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Ottawa, Canada
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.

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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...

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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.

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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!
 
Okay, so I'm back at Hotel Mortagne in Boucherville. I was drafting trucks all the way, but had nasty headwinds. I found a nice slow one as soon as I got on the 40, but after about 20 minutes he started getting antsy. He suddenly changed lanes for no reason... I think he was trying to get me off his tail. I wasn't THAT close but he probably couldn't tell that. A faster truck went by so I latched onto that, but then we started getting nasty crosswinds and my power consumption went up. Every time we crossed into a forested area my consumption went down, and back up again in the open fields. I guess maybe the strong crosswinds were not only slowing me down directly, but may have been blowing the wake from the truck off-center.

In the end I did pretty well conserving energy, but not quite enough. I was hoping to push through to Ottawa, maybe stopping at the Canada Science and Technology Museum in the east end of town, to shave off a little distance and squeak it in. But my mental arithmetic was coming in under my 30 km reserve rule. Time to be conservative.

So I'm muinching on a hamburger in the bar (with tea, not beer). I figure I'll have a safe reserve in 1 hour 15 minutes. 40 minutes to go...

I've had a very good reception at the various charging stations in Quebec. Definitely an EV-friendly province!
 
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Hey DOUG !!!

Nice to hear from you!!

I told you that you would like MORGANE Cafe ... How did you find the confort in the place? Nice ambiance right?

I was a pleasure to finally MEET you in person in Shawinigan !! The Eco Route Quebec event was a GREAT success !!!

By the way, your roadster made the «NOUVELLISTE» it's the main Newspaper in Trois-Rivieres:

http://roulezelectrique.com/sun-cou...e-eco-route-quebec-et-simplante-a-shawinigan/

http://www.lapresse.ca/le-nouvellis...prise-eco-route-quebec-choisit-shawinigan.php
 
That's great - also fantastic to meet you! I always enjoy meeting other Tesla owners, especially one as enthusiastic as yourself.

Here's the photo from the article... nice because I didn't think to take pictures at the event!

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This is an old industrial building that is being converted into offices, a micro-brewery, and a "business incubator". Quite cool seeing modern finishes in an old industrial building - very nice effect.

Oh, and yes, the Cafe Morgane is probably the nicest coffee shop I've ever been in!
 
That's a great trip! Cafe Morgane is a must with their CS-90. When I do Quebec City - Montreal, I always stop for a coffee or more to encourage them being so EV friendly!

PS still waiting for my S - they still haven't found my issue with the 12v battery.
 
And I'm home! Arrived with 37 Ideal km remaining, pretty much right on plan. Spent much of the distance drafting trucks.

One surprise, though, the car went into the "Range Uncertain" mode at 38 km remaining, just 1 km from home! The only time it's ever done that before I was below 30 km (25 I think). Maybe this is because my 3-year-old Roadster's pack is down 2% on range?
 
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