2019 "60 kWh" Leaf e-Plus

[Astros]

The car could manage more than ~120 miles between stops, but for us that's about the ideal spacing for breaks. That spacing also allowed us to keep a buffer of ~20% (LeafSpy) in case the next charger was broken or in use, and stop charging around 80% before charging tapered too badly. Our average consumption was 3.7 miles/kWh in both directions, while we averaged 3.8 miles/kWh on this trip with the 40kWh Leaf, and 3.9 miles/kWh with the 30kWh Leaf.

On the trip down we ate an early lunch in Castle Rock, ate an early dinner in Cottage Grove (which is why we were there so long), and stopped for a coffee in Grants Pass. We ate lunch and dinner at the restaurants, so we could have made a shorter stop if we had a gas car and ate while we drove, but we'd rather take the break. Also, while we had very little traffic, we still probably lost ~10 minutes in Seattle and ~20 in Portland, so it would really have taken a gas car ~8 hours. I'd say we usually would average a half hour break after every 2 hours of driving, so stopping for charging didn't add much to the length of our trip, though it did limit our options for where we ate lunch and dinner.

Also, we mostly stuck to the posted speed limit, so we might have driven ~10% faster in a gas car and saved 45 minutes. So, the main impact of taking the Leaf on this trip was fewer choices of where to take a break and get meals, sitting down for meals instead of eating in the car, and not driving over the speed limit.

[webeleafowners]

The car could manage more than ~120 miles between stops, but for us that's about the ideal spacing for breaks. That spacing also allowed us to keep a buffer of ~20% (LeafSpy) in case the next charger was broken or in use, and stop charging around 80% before charging tapered too badly. Our average consumption was 3.7 miles/kWh in both directions, while we averaged 3.8 miles/kWh on this trip with the 40kWh Leaf, and 3.9 miles/kWh with the 30kWh Leaf.

On the trip down we ate an early lunch in Castle Rock, ate an early dinner in Cottage Grove (which is why we were there so long), and stopped for a coffee in Grants Pass. We ate lunch and dinner at the restaurants, so we could have made a shorter stop if we had a gas car and ate while we drove, but we'd rather take the break. Also, while we had very little traffic, we still probably lost ~10 minutes in Seattle and ~20 in Portland, so it would really have taken a gas car ~8 hours. I'd say we usually would average a half hour break after every 2 hours of driving, so stopping for charging didn't add much to the length of our trip, though it did limit our options for where we ate lunch and dinner.

Also, we mostly stuck to the posted speed limit, so we might have driven ~10% faster in a gas car and saved 45 minutes. So, the main impact of taking the Leaf on this trip was fewer choices of where to take a break and get meals, sitting down for meals instead of eating in the car, and not driving over the speed limit.

Meh. Seems like a reasonable trade off. Cost of travelling is not a huge budget line item but there is no way it wasn't cheaper in the leaf. Just sayin.

[Astros]

Meh. Seems like a reasonable trade off. Cost of travelling is not a huge budget line item but there is no way it wasn't cheaper in the leaf. Just sayin.

Oh, it was much cheaper to take the Leaf. Even if we didn't have the no charge to charge program, Webasto offers unlimited charging for $20/month. Since we used two non-free chargers, we spent $16 to drive 950 miles. At current gas prices, a 30mpg car would cost a little over $100 for this trip. I'm happy to spend that on nice food instead

And, the Leaf did get us there with time to spare for our 8pm show, so I have no complaints!

[SageBrush]

Glad you enjoyed your trip @astros, and thanks for reporting.
Sounds like your car did fine, although I presume cool weather helped a lot

[webeleafowners]

Meh. Seems like a reasonable trade off. Cost of travelling is not a huge budget line item but there is no way it wasn't cheaper in the leaf. Just sayin.

Oh, it was much cheaper to take the Leaf. Even if we didn't have the no charge to charge program, Webasto offers unlimited charging for $20/month. Since we used two non-free chargers, we spent $16 to drive 950 miles. At current gas prices, a 30mpg car would cost a little over $100 for this trip. I'm happy to spend that on nice food instead

And, the Leaf did get us there with time to spare for our 8pm show, so I have no complaints!

And you get to take credit for taking you wife to nicer restaurants...even if it didn't cost you anymore.

It would be interesting to see the trip duration delta if the chargers had been 100 KW units. Our one trip that we make fairly often is exactly 554 kilomters to the hotel (with destination charging. Our halfway point charge stop has a single 50 KW Chademo/CCS station. Petro Can is currently putting in a dual Chademo and Dual CCS in the same town. It should be finished by Christmas. Our Eplus SL arrives in March. Right now with our current leaf (2016 SV) we charge three times. Having said that the 30 KW doesn't take long to charge and doesn't seem to suffer much from multiple charges. Great car.

[Titanium48]

^Considering the level of battery heating and charge rate throttling with the 50 kW chargers, I doubt 100 kW chargers would have saved more than a few minutes.

As for the 30 kWh car, the battery charges quickly but the problem is finding places to charge within range. Not counting the ones in town, the closest L3 for me is 150 km down a busy highway with an average speed close to 120 km/h. Causing a traffic jam by driving 90 km/h to barely make it just isn't a reasonable option, so my Leaf is strictly a city car.

[DougWantsALeaf]

While I haven't charged at rates above 70-73kW, I would hypothesize that charging at a faster rate creates less heat per kWh of charge. It would be interesting to see heat vs. power at different rates.

[webeleafowners]

^Considering the level of battery heating and charge rate throttling with the 50 kW chargers, I doubt 100 kW chargers would have saved more than a few minutes.

As for the 30 kWh car, the battery charges quickly but the problem is finding places to charge within range. Not counting the ones in town, the closest L3 for me is 150 km down a busy highway with an average speed close to 120 km/h. Causing a traffic jam by driving 90 km/h to barely make it just isn't a reasonable option, so my Leaf is strictly a city car.

Yah I hear ya. That’s the way it was here four years ago. Now pretty much every 50 to 80 kilometres there is at least one Chademo/CCS (and sometimes two or three) in every direction from our place. And there is a lot more in the works. The government actually used a leaf to plan the sites when the project started a few years ago. The government is leading the way but the private players are also part of the planning. Petrocan, Canadian Tire, Shell etc. We have a socialist government in this province so the goverment is very involved in the buildout. As well BC hydro is also a public (owned by the province) utility and they are big time into infrastructure buildout for all major and minor highways. BC passed a law a few months back that all vehicles sold after Jan 1st 2040 must be zero emmision. Dealerships have some time to push their manufacturers to build more Electric vehicles. If they don’t it’s going to be a province full of Tesla’s and leafs. .

Presently, for all intense purposes 100 percent of our power comes from hydro except for isolated areas. Kinda cool.

[Titanium48]

^^Heating during charge (or discharge) is a result of internal resistance in the battery. Power dissipation by resistance is proportional to current squared, so doubling the current quadruples the heating rate. The battery charges in half the time if the higher current can be sustained, but accumulates twice as much heat.

^It is not at all surprising that the Alberta government is much less involved in charging infrastructure deployment, but it is disappointing that everything North of highway 1 has been largely ignored by the non-government players as well. Edmonton is by far the largest city not included in any of their plans.

[webeleafowners]

^^Heating during charge (or discharge) is a result of internal resistance in the battery. Power dissipation by resistance is proportional to current squared, so doubling the current quadruples the heating rate. The battery charges in half the time if the higher current can be sustained, but accumulates twice as much heat.

^It is not at all surprising that the Alberta government is much less involved in charging infrastructure deployment, but it is disappointing that everything North of highway 1 has been largely ignored by the non-government players as well. Edmonton is by far the largest city not included in any of their plans.

Yep. It actually affects our plans a bit. We lived for 8 years in cold lake. Lots of friends up there. No way of getting up there. At some point tourist numbers will start to get affected for areas that have no EV infrastructure.