A little trip

Now that we have a new electric car, we decided to take it on a road trip to see if we could handle the new technology.

The journey started on a Thursday morning and a few chores got done before attending my weekly pub meet-up. We took the afternoon ferry and ended the day at Rosalie’s cousin Jeannine’s house in Coquitlam. 18 Km were saved on that phase of the journey; I don’t know how, but it happened.

Rosalie decided to keep a mileage log of our journey to see if anything was gained with the regenerative braking. It seems to work well.

Next up was three nights with our daughter Lisa’s family at their cabin on Lake Harrison. The weather was cold and damp but we had our new great-granddaughter to entertain us for a very nice stay.

Our next stop was Kamloops to visit Rosalie’s cousin Hubert and his wife Gloria for lunch. We finished the day with our friend Maureen and stayed with her overnight.

The following day we were supposed to join up with more friends in Sicamous but they couldn’t make it. It was decided to go straight to Nakusp after a charging stop in Salmon Arm, intending to top up there.

After a scenic ride, we got there in good time. With the car plugged in, it was time for food, wine, and some great discussions with Dan and Linda about anything and everything under the sun. It was a wonderful evening. The following day we were off to Vernon.

When I checked the available mileage the next morning, I found that it hadn’t been charging at all, that night. Apparently, it was on the same breaker as their small hot tub. Oops! Now what.

Nakusp is a fairly small town so there are not many charging stations there. The museum has a fast charger but it was out of service. I plugged into the slower charger and took Rosalie for a coffee at a funky little coffee shop. The charge took an hour and a half and we still weren’t sure if it would make it to Vernon.

There is a free-charge station at the Needles ferry crossing, but was it working? Fortunately, it was, so the car got a fairly good charge.

The drive to Vernon was cold, down to 7C at one point so the heater came into use. Also, it was raining so the windshield wipers came on. Not knowing the limitations of the car there was a little concern. There was no need for worry as we arrived in Vernon with lots of mileage to spare. A fast charger in Vernon charged the car up in 30 minutes.

After an evening of more drinking, good food and staying overnight with Bob and Virginia, it was decided to make our next stop Hope. On the way, we visited yet another one of Rosalie’s cousins Mariette and Stephen in Kelowna.

The new goal was Hope for the next charge. On the way we stopped at a rest area and were surprised to find two free fast-chargers so we topped up again just to be sure. The guy next to us works in advertising and was traveling with a group of electric vehicles for promotional purposes. He gave us lots of free information about EVs and EV charging.

Arriving in Hope was a bit stressful as I couldn’t get my app to work to find us a charger. I finally got it figured out and we charged while having lunch. Again it was a free charge as they had an EV promotion going on.

From Hope to the ferry and finally home was a doddle as we had lots of power left.

Overall everything worked out great. We put 1700 km on the car for a total cost of $30. Some of the people we stayed with were great and let us plug in. The cost for the night is less than $2 so no real hardship.

We learned a lot of lessons and it reinforced our belief that an EV is the way to go for us and look forward to more trips, long and short.