Los Altos to Monterey and Back

[Rat]

Okay, it wasn't on a single charge, but I thought some people might enjoy the tale. We rented a beach house in La Selva Beach. Both kids came into town from out of state with their significant others, flying into San Jose. We left from Los Altos on Saturday in two cars (Leaf + Acura TSX, 6 people plus luggage and food). I charged to 100% and arrived in La Selva with a little over 40 miles on the GOM. I forgot to look at the number of bars, but probably only 4, maybe 5. I had specifically checked with the owner of the rental house that they had a real garage with a plug, not just a carport, but when I got there I found the plug didn't work with the EVSE. Maybe it wasn't GFI. No problem, the cord was long enough to reach into the laundry room where the plug worked just fine. I charged to 100% there. It did start the charging on the first blue light, so I think the state of charge was well below 50%. We had two great days of weather and a beautiful house to relax in. The third day was foggy but we drove down to Monterey to see the Aquarium. I had programmed in the closest parking lot (on Foam St.) through Google Maps and the nav took us right there. We were among the first in the lot, then a pile of cars came in right after us. We returned along the same route using the History feature of Carwings to select the beach house as destination. We got the LBW about 15 miles from the house, but the GOM stayed on 13 mi. for the entire segment from just before the Buena Vista Dr. exit to well onto San Andreas Rd., about 3 or 4 miles, slightly downhill. We arrived with one bar and 5 mi. on the GOM for a R/T of 67 miles, two people in the car, A/C on, freeway speed most of the way. I plugged in immediately with the level 1 EVSE and it finished charging to 100% by 6:00 AM the next morning. Today I drove direct from La Selva to the SJ airport to drop off two people and then to Los Altos, plugged in on my Level 2 EVSE, and had 100% charge by the time we went to dinner. The extra cargo space in the Leaf made a difference, too, since the cooler we had for the refrigerated food would not fit in the Acura's trunk. This is the first family vacation we've taken in the Leaf (now over a year old) and I wanted to show that it is possible and not even troublesome as long as you know the distances are within limits. Of course if we'd had a big honkin' SUV we could have done it all in one car but then we'd be wasting all that gas and money for the rest of the year driving it eight blocks to the grocery store or library every day.

 

[TEG]

I did Palo Alto to almost Monterey (Refuel races at Laguna seca) and back all in the same day (this past Sunday).

Overrode my nightly 80% timer to start the day with 100%.
Drove south to stop at eBay for 30 minutes of extra L2 (bringing ~80% back up to ~90%), continued on to Nissan in Gilroy for another 30 minutes, then on to Salinas Nissan for another 30 minutes then when I got to Laguna Seca my GOM had dropped all the way to 0 miles left and I basically limped up to the Nissan Mobile QC they brought to the event. I got QCed back to 80% during the event, then used my EVSEupgrade mobile J1772 with NEMA14-50 to go 80% back up to 100% for the return trip. Did basically the same L2 routine in reverse, but stopped at Salinas Rabobank instead of the Nissan dealer. I drove nearly 200 miles that day.

 

[leafetarian]

I have made many trips from Los Gatos to Monterey and back in the same day.
I leave with full charge and then when I reach Monterey, I am down to about 20 miles range on GOM and 2-3 bars. I leave my car plugged in at Monterey on Level 2 and go to the beach etc. In 4-5 hours I reach full charge while I enjoy my time in Monterey. And then I can make it back the same day.