Vancouver to Prince George EV Road Trip

I am starting a Vancouver to Prince George EV road trip today (Tuesday, July 28). I am starting by leaving home in Vancouver in the morning, working in Chilliwack during the day (and early evening for a meeting) and continuing on my way. Here is my projected route, with an expected arrival in PG Wednesday evening. Follow me on facebook or twitter to see where I am. After arrival, I will post about the actual route and how it went. I can’t wait!

This is my rough EV trip plan  for Vancouver to Prince George. I have or will be contacting all non-formal charging opportunities (RV parks, welding shops, etc) to verify that I can charge there, and determine opening hours and charge rates ($). Successful locations, with permission from the owner, will be posted on plugshare afterward.

Coquihalla Challenge

I simply couldn’t resist giving the “Coquihalla Challenge” a try with my LEAF.

For those unfamilar, the Coquihalla Highway is a steep, mountainous route connecting Hope to Merritt and Kamloops. The first section, Hope to Merritt, is about 121 km (from the Hope charging station to Merritt charging station) and involves over 1000 m of elevation gain. The profile looks like this:

As you can imagine, that incline eats up range like crazy (and burns gas like crazy in an ICE [internal combustion engine] vehicle).

Vancouver-Hope-Lillooet-Pemberton-Vancouver Loop – 602 km in a weekend

A number of months ago, I heard Rick Cluff, the CBC Radio Early Edition host in Vancouver, interviewing someone (it may have even been Vancouver Electric Vehicle Association (VEVA) President, Bruce Stout) about electric vehicles when he remarked (something along the lines of): “I just want to know, can I make it to Hope in one of these?”

While the short is answer is yes of course, there are lots of charging stations along the ~150 km stretch between Vancouver and Hope, I took that question as a challenge to do it in a single charge with the world’s bestselling electric car, a Nissan LEAF.