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Let’s Do it Again

Dave Kimble, August 28, 2019 

It had been over a year since my last cross-country trip in my Nissan Leaf, so it was time to give it another go. This trip had two added complications, and two improvements from the 2019 trip:

First, the complications:

1) I convinced my wife to take this adventure with me, so I wouldn’t be able to drive for miles in 110 degree heat without the AC on to save range, and she required an earlier bedtime than I do.

2) This trip was to meet our new granddaughter, so we restricted ourselves to hotel chains that were been deemed COVID smart.

And the improvements:

1) Price, Utah added a brand new charging station in town, so I wouldn’t have to sit in a remote power company parking lot miles away from town.

2) Wendover, the site of my challenging charges last year, has added a charging station in their new welcome plaza.

Also in my favor:

1) I’d done this trip before, and so had experience, both with my car (e.g., ranges) and the charging stations.

2) My wife had done a sort of COVID-prepper purchase of a set of dehydrated meals. This would significantly improve the variety of our evening meals compared to the daily kale sandwiches from 2019.

We left Boulder on a Saturday morning, about two hours later than planned, and left the city limits yet another hour later than that.

The trip to Eagle was very slow going, with lots of backups on I70. Thankfully, slow traffic does not hurt the EV range. Because this the trip from Boulder to Eagle crosses the Continental Divide, the range margin dipped to 25 at its low point. But as you can see, it recovered nicely to a very comfortable 73 miles with 28% battery.

Once we got to Eagle, there was only one compatible fast charging station, and the display kept saying that there was a problem with it. It was only after some investigation that I realized that, even though there were two cables coming out of the charging station, only one could be used at a time, and a Jaguar was plugged into the other cable. Fortunately, the owner of the Jaguar showed up just a few moments later as we were deciding what to do. We started the charge and made some banana pudding.

We got to Grand Junction without any problems, and because the next city with both charging stations and good COVID hotels was so far away, we decided to stay the night in Grand Junction. Unfortunately, the library next to the charging station had just closed for the evening, so as we charged, we walked the couple of blocks to one of the city parks and spent <> there.

We stopped the charge after an hour and a half (at 87% capacity) so that we could get to the hotel, with the idea that I’d get up early the next morning and top off the battery. The morning charge pointing out a factor of charging that is important: it took <> to get from 87% to 98%. I tried to let it get to 100%, but <> minutes later, it was still at 98%. The upshot is that there’s a serious dropoff in added capacity after 98%.

The next leg of the journey was to Price, Utah, and the brand new charging station in town. This was going to be so much better than last years trip (with the 110 degree heat with no AC). Things were going well (and it was only around 80 degrees), when somewhere in the middle of the segment I watched the range drop to 7 miles below what we needed to reach Price. It rebounded some, but as we approached the city, we got the ominous, “You need to charge!” warning. Then, as the range dropped below 8 miles, the range display switched to just a row of dashes -- even more ominus. We did make it to the charging station, but based on our odometer when the car said we had 8 miles of range left, we had something less than 2 miles of range when we pulled in, and the battery was <1%. The actual charge went smoothly (the new station is in a much nicer location).

Next stop: Tooele, UT. And, as before, it appeared that the constraings trifecta of, needing an early stop, COVID hotel, and charging station meant we were staying there for the night. We arrived with a luxurious 50 miles of range left, drove to the hotel about 8 miles past the charging station (making it 10 miles from the highway), unpacked, then I drove back to the station to charge up. We got a late start the next morning as Dawn took a virtual yoga class with our dear friend Julia. After that, we stopped at the charging station again to “top off” from the 18 mile round trip between the station and the hotel.

On to Wendover, UT, which is the site of the second significant upgrade to the charging network. The city of Wendover has finished a welcome center, which includes a nice park with playground equipment, some basketball hoops, two tennis courts, and a fresh set of charging stations. However, when we got there, we discovered that the fast charge connector was not working (and probably hasn’t ever worked yet), so we did a level 2 (much slower) charge. While we waited the 3 hours to get us enough range for the next leg to Elko, NV (about 68% capacity), we spent time in the park, and I spent over an hour long boarding on the tennis courts. It was actually quite pleasant: once again, I recommend 80 degree weather over the desert hellscape from the year before.

The extra charging time in Wendover removed any question of going beyond Elko. We unpacked at the hotel, which was about a mile away from the charging station, and I drove back to charge, then ran the mile back to the hotel. I was exhausted, but delighted at my ability to run the mile, as I hadn’t done any running since COVID cancelled basketball. After an amazing dinner, my phone notified me that the charge was done, so I walked back to the charging station. The walk was a reality check, as the significant uphill climb the entire mile explained my relative ease running in the other direction.

We left Elko early the next morning for one of the longest segments of the trip to Winnemucca. We got to Winnemucca around 10:30 and proceeded to the charging station in the Walmart parking lot. We found, to our horror, that the only charging station compatible with the Nissan Leaf was completely non-functional. I had had a similar experience last year in Wendover, where  I ended up surrupticiously charging at an RV park for one of the casinos. We found an RV park pretty quickly, but discovered that the electrical outlets were not the NEMO-150 that the Leaf can use. The Nissan employee who had help me with details last year had mentioned that in a pinch,  some auto repair shops have a 240V outlet with the right connector. I then spent the better part of an hour calling car places around town, talking to several car shops and a motor cycle shop (each of whom didn’t have the outlet I needed, but were very gracious in trying to help me find a place that did). The motor cycle shop finally suggested a car shop called <>, and amazingly, they had such an outlet in one of their bays, and agreed to let us use it (once the work truck in the bay was completed -- between 60 and 90 minutes expected). We walked a couple of blocks to the city cemetary (the only green we could see int the whole town), and waited. After 90 minutes, we returned to the car shop, and even though the work wasn’t done, pulled the truck out the bay so that we could pull in and charge. We returned to the cemetary to wait the 3 hours it took get us the range to make it to Reno (62%). Mike at the car place refused any kind of payment. Without his help, we would have been reduced to a standard 120V plug and close to a 24 hour stay in WInnemucca (with no COVID hotels anywhere!).

The drive to Reno was pretty easy, except that the 5 1/2 hours we had spent in Winnemucca meant it was dark when we arrived. One of the nice things about this stop was that our hotel had a free charging station available right in the parking lot (level 2, but still)! We stopped for the night, plugged in the car and had a very pleasant evening.

We got another late start the next morning as Dawn did another virtual Yoga class with Julia, then drove the remaining segment to San Francisco. The last leg was the longest, but the altitude drop between Reno (4600 ft) and San Francisco (50 ft) meant that we still had 32 miles of range after the 208 mile trip (the range differential went between -28 and 90, but last years trip showed there was no cause for concern). Now begins our COVID quarantine so that we can safely meet our new granddaughter.

The bottom line of this trip is that the network is still not ready. There are too many single point of failures that make it impossible to be confident that such a trip will go smoothly. Until there are shorter distances between charging stations, and each station has multiple charging connectors available, it’s too much uncertainty to make such a trip with any confidence. 

Mapping my route 

Dave Kimble, September 01, 2019 

So, I've mapped out my route to San Francisco next week. 

Here's the map: 
https://goo.gl/maps/38DGSquC9tDMcDb6A 

and here's the relevant section: 

As shown, I've decided to go the more southern route (70 west from Denver, north to Salt Lake City, then west on 80 through NV to CA) rather than the more northern route (north on 25 to route west 80: CO->WY->UT->NV->CA) because of the better Nissan Leaf charging along the southern route. The northern route is an hour shorter, but Wyoming has only Tesla-proprietary Supercharger stations (thanks, Elon!). 

The rest of the post is for those that want to nerd out on the charging details: 

My Leaf Plus has the larger 62kWh battery, with an official range of 226 miles on a full charge (vs. the standard Leaf has a 40kWh battery with a range of 150 miles). But you should know that I was an annoying hyper-miler in my Prius, getting mid 60’s MPG in the summer, so, as I mentioned before, I’m hoping to be able to extend that range. 

The Leaf has two charging ports, shown here: 

The one on the left is the “quick charge” connector called CHAdeMO (mothers, don’t let your engineers grow up to name things), and the right connector is called J-1772. 

Actually, according to Wikipedia, the name CHAdeMO: “is an abbreviation of "CHArge de MOve", equivalent to "move using charge" or "move by charge" or "charge 'n' go", a reference to the fact that it's a fast charger. The name is derived from the Japanese phrase O cha demo ikaga desuka, translating to English as "How about a cup of tea?", referring to the time it would take to charge a car.” 

For the Leaf Plus, the CHAdeMO connector supports a “Level 3” charge (the highest), and can charge the Leaf Plus battery 80% in 60 minutes (subject to battery temperature, which I talked about in an earlier post). 

The J-1772 connector supports “Level 1” charging (using a standard American 120v AC outlet plug), and “Level 2” charging (using a standard American 240V Nema 14-50 plug, like those used for electric ranges, or in RV parks). 

I’ve found different numbers on charge times, but Levels 1 and 2 charge times seem to be in the range of 4-5 miles/hour of charge (i.e., about two days to go from 0 - full charge!) and 20-25 miles/hour of charge (about 9-11 hours to go from 0 - full charge) respectively. 

As you can see, Level 3 charging is the way to go for this trip, and with more Level 3 options, the southern route it is!

We're off -- and a Portal into what to think about the estimated range!  

Dave Kimble, September 04, 2019 

Let's talk about the Leaf display that shows you the expected range based on the current level of charge in the battery. 

Here is the Leaf console as I was about to start my trip. Notice the amazing 280 mile range available to me: 

Let's talk about the highlighted parts of this display, which provide trackable data for this trip. The two on the right need no explanation, but the two on the left reflect the Leaf's evaluation of the current battery state. The bottom left is pretty obvious, but the big number in the middle is interesting. 

Or should I say: This number is appears to be the best estimate the car can make based on the current driving conditions. In other words, it’s not well suited for a long trip (where the conditions can change dramatically). Similar to a pattern that would repeat throughout the trip, when I started driving (conservatively, mind you!) out of my neighborhood, and at some point I didn't catch, the range suddenly dropped to 260 miles. It was as if the 280 mile range was some sort of maximum of the range probability wave, but when the wave collapsed, the eigenvalue was always 260. In other words, 280 miles was only available if I didn't actually drive the car. 

Driving west on 70 from Golden, CO was an uphill climb to the continental divide. The range dropped precipitously, losing almost 100 miles more than the distance I had driven. Here is a snapshot of my console at the Eisenhower tunnel (the divide). Notice that the 110 miles range and the 64.3 miles driven is 170 total miles. Not quite the 260 (let alone 280) miles promised at the start: 

This is where my previous Steamboat Springs trip gave me comfort. I knew that the very effective regenerative braking of the Leaf would recover much of the lost 100 miles on the way down the western slope. 

And here is my console when I reached the charging station in Eagle, CO. I hadn't recovered the full 100 miles, but I'd driven almost 70 and my range had dropped only 1. 

I plugged in, then made myself some breakfast and ate it while it charged. This is also when I realized that I had forgotten to bring my guitar for just such charging sessions. When breakfast was done about 50 minutes later, the charging station showed that my battery was at 95% ($3 is not bad!): 

Which my car translated to 269 miles (is it true?): 

If the rest of the trip goes this smoothly, this blog is going to be pretty monotonous (I drove, I stopped, I charged...).

Made it to Grand Junction  

Dave Kimble, September 04, 2019 

Well, I made it to the Grand Junction library charging station. 

Here's my console when I stopped: 

If you'll recall, when I left Eagle, CO, my miles driven was 132 and my available range was an optimistic 269, for a total of 401 miles. 

As you can see above, the sum of the two is now down to 335 miles, this after an elevation drop between Eagle and Grand Junction of over 2000 feet. 

The Grand Junction charging station looked more "industrial" than the more commercial one in Eagle, and it took several times through the six step process (about 15 minutes, total) to get the charge started. Once started, I went in to the Grand Junction library next door and worked on my laptop. 

At this point, I should highlight a wonderful phone app provided by Nissan that allows me to monitor the car remotely. Here's a screenshot: 

As you can hopefully see, it provides the charging status, the car's interior temperature, and the somewhat fictional mileage range for the current charge. This allowed me to keep track of the charging session from the comfort of the public library. 

At the end of the charging session (about two hours because, remember, the car slowed the second charge to protect the battery), my car showed this: 

Because of the issue with quick charges in rapid succession, I started monitoring the temperature of the battery (note the white edging towards the red): 

My next charging station was in Price, Utah, a distance of 165 miles, so the 218 mile range seemed like a good buffer to get there.

Reaching Price, Utah in a pool of sweat  

Dave Kimble, September 04, 2019 

I made it to Price,  UT! 

My console showed that I arrived with a remaining range of 29, but there were times on this leg of the journey where it was just 13 miles more than the remaining distance (remember the 53 mile buffer I started with?): 

Because the range seemed precariously low, and the fact that running the A/C drops the range between 5 -8 miles (too close for comfort, vs. too hot for comfort), I drove the last half of this leg with my shirt and the A/C off, and the fan blowing on high (it was over 100 degrees, so it's debatable whether the fan was helping or hurting). 

Here's a screen capture of my Leaf app shortly after I started charging. Notice the interior temperature of the car to the right of the car image (between 103 and 113): 

Knowing that the range recovered a bit by the time I got to Price,  next time I'll run the AC. 

After the charge, my car showed this: