My First Road-trip in an EV

Every new EV owner eventually embarks on their first Road trip. Most of them quickly discovering that a road trip with an EV was no more eventful then if they had driven a gas guzzler, and that is the point. The following is from Michel Guérard.

I recently completed my first ever road trip in my 2023 Nissan Ariya: a 700 km journey from Langford to Tofino and thereabouts.  Recently, after chatting to Glenn Gary about my trip when I ran into him while walking my dog, he encouraged me to write up my trip report. Now obviously he did not mean for me to bore you with a “what I did on my summer holidays” type of story but more how I fared driving a moderate distance in an EV.

         I puzzled over what I should say/should write about driving a vehicle that could not access the ubiquitous gasoline dispensers that permeate our landscape, and I was stumped.  There had been nothing remarkable about the journey….and suddenly it dawned on me…that was the point!  

Having driven my Ariya for over a year, I had a pretty good handle on the range (far larger than my bladder capacity!).  Also having done some homework before hand, I knew well where the charging locations were.  Although there was a DC fast charger at the Shell Plaza/Timmies in Lantzville (we stopped for a coffee and a snack) the battery state of charge was too high and we carried on to Port Alberni and used the BC Hydro DC fast charger where a twenty-minute leg stretch brought my battery from 56 to 72% more than enough to get to Tofino.

         In Tofino, the hotel had two level 2 chargers free of charge for guests to use and I availed myself of the opportunity to top up the batter every night.  This hotel (Best Western Tin Was resort) had 8 DC fast charging stations in the process of being installed in their parking lot!  Not to mention that in the Coop grocery store parking lot in Tofino are two Flo 150KW DC faster chargers next to 12 Tesla supercharger stations.  

         The night before our return I charged the car up to 80% SOC as there was no need to charge the battery further given the number of options for charging on the way back.  As it was by happenstance more than by design, we did not charge on the way back and arrived home some 314 km later with a battery at 14% SOC. (I broke my cardinal rule of always graze charge will stopping for rest breaks).

         So, as I alluded to at the beginning of this tale, a moderate distance EV road trip with no real drama or range anxiety (what’s that I say!).  And so it should be thus.