An Epic EV Road Trip

As many of you know, since Jerry retired he has been buying and selling a lot of Large Shiny Metal Objects (LSMO's). Here are some pictures.

Cessna 172 Bought and Sold

Two Cessna 182's Bought and Sold - He didn't like the first one

Malibu Mirage Bought and Sold

Cessna Cardinal Bought

Model A Ford Bought

When Jerry came up with the idea of selling his low-mileage Toyota hybrid plug-in to buy an all electric Chevy Bolt. I thought, here we go again.

What made this buying and selling of LSMO's deal worse as far as I was concerned was that he decided to buy it from a car dealer in Portland, Oregon and drive it back to San Diego, a distance of 1076 miles. You might ask, Why buy it in Portland? Don't they sell these things in San Diego? Well, because he already has an Oregon driver's license and an Oregon business address he could buy it there and he would save at least $3000 in sales tax. Need I say more?

After making up his mind to go through with this deal he put out email blasts (perhaps you received one) offering to pay someone's (anyone's) expenses to accompany him on this road trip with his new LSMO. Oddly enough, no one took him up on his generous offer. 

The night before he was to fly to Portland to pick up the new LSMO I was furious with him - I tried all my tricks to get him to change his mind (even withholding my affection). Nothing worked.

On Sunday morning October 1, 2017 he got up bright and early to catch his flight to PDX. That's when my conscience started bothering me - I couldn't let him go alone. I would be worried sick for at least 3 days. (Remember he had a heart attack less than a month before.) Much as I didn't want to, I bought myself a ticket on Southwest Airlines and headed off with him to the SD airport. I could do no other.

The flight to Portland was delayed but by around 4 PM we were ready to leave the Chevy dealership with our new LSMO and head home to San Diego. Only 1,076 miles to go.

Jerry started calmly driving south on 5 and I started studying the owners manual and the Chevy Bolt app which he had downloaded to his phone. 

I started to freak out. This is an all-electric vehicle! Gas stations don't help one bit! We have to find EV charging stations along the way to get us home! 

Mind you, I hadn't done any homework on this as I really wasn't planning on going in the first place. I started getting up to speed on the subject of EV cars. Here is some important information. 

• With a full electric charge our maximum range is 238 miles. 
• Let's say we were to visit our friends in Oregon on the way home and recharge our car at their house. To get a full charge of 238 miles we would have to stay with them for @60 hours. (@4 miles per hour of charge on a 120 volt outlet). Then we would have to find 5 more friends to visit for 60 hours before we got home - that would be around the end of October.
• Let's say we found a 220 volt charging station at someone's home or at a public station. It would take us 9.52  hours to fully charge the car. (@25 miles per hour of charge.) But then we would have to find 5 more places to do that before we got home - that would be in a week if we were lucky.  
• Our best option would be to find the Super Fast charging stations at 440 volts. With that we would get @90 miles in about 30 minutes. We could make it home in a few days Whoopeee!

2) Now comes the issue of recharging plugs.

• There are three types of Super Fast plugs for three different cars. Tesla is different from Nissan is different from Chevy. 
• You've got to find the right plug for your car or it won't charge. 

OK, NOW WHERE DO YOU FIND THESE SUPER FAST CHARGING STATIONS WITH THE RIGHT PLUG FOR THE CHEVY BOLT????????

Our Epic EV Journey

Leg #1: Portland to Cottage Grove, Oregon

As I said before, Jerry was calmly driving us down Interstate 5 while I was freaking out. We had a Chevy app on his phone and it showed 2 charging stations in Cottage Grove, Oregon. One was behind a restaurant called the Vintage Inn. Why not stop for dinner at the restaurant while we charge our car? 

Sounded like a good idea, except when we came out of the restaurant the car hadn't charged one  mile.  @30 miles left.

But then there was a second charging station down the street next to a convenience store. - and it was a super fast ChargePoint that fit our car. YEAH! 

Now you don't just swipe a credit card into a card reader and get your juice - you have to create an account, give them your credit card info, etc. etc. We noticed an 800 number on the side of the machine. After about 45 minutes of begging on the phone and a rebooting of the whole system we finally got it working. Our car would be fully charged at 10:05 PM. Fortunately, there was a Quality Inn across the street so we trundled over there with our suitcases, left the car on charge for the night, and got a reasonably good night's sleep. 

Leg #2: Cottage Grove to Yreka, California via Ashland, Oregon 

The next morning we had our breakfast at the Quality Inn while the morning news was scrolling pictures and information about the Las Vegas Massacre. Not a good way to start the day.

I decided that our next stop should be Ashland, Oregon. There is a Chevy dealer there (they should have a SuperFast Bolt Charger, right?) plus Ashland has a divine yarn shop called Web-sters. We got to the dealership with less than 20 miles left to go. It didn't look like they had a SuperFast Charger there after all. But they very nicely whisked our car to the back of the dealership and drove us into town.  In Ashland we had a delicious breakfast and a fruitful yarn shop visit (Jerry bought me some lovely yarn) for a couple of hours. We called the dealership to get a pick up. When we get back to the car, we saw we only gained about 40 miles. Uh oh. 

The next portion of the day I call The Ashland Purgatory. I thought we would never get out of Oregon! Our app showed some charging stations in Ashland but they are the 220 volt ones - in about 8 hours we would be fully charged. Then I remembered that I still had the 800 number from the night before on my phone. They would tell us where the ChargePoint stations are!

So I consult the "CbargePoint Oracle" and they directed us to a ChargePoint behind a Carl's Jr. in Yreka, CA.  We had enough range to make it there. Yeah!!

After dinner at the forgettable Black Bear Diner we were fully charged again. It was only about 7 PM so we forged on.

Leg #3: Yreka to Corning

By now I've got the ChargePoint App on my phone and we see we can make it to Corning, California. It's a breeze - we find the charging station, walk across the street to a motel for the night, and in the morning our car is fully charged again. This is getting easy!

Leg #4: Corning to Galt via Sacramento

By now, we are taking turns driving the car. Actually, I really like the car. It rides very smoothly and is easy to maneuver. Jerry got that right!

By mid-morning we arrived in Sacramento and I got the inspiration to go to the Nissan dealership. (The app we were using showed no ChargePoint stations until we got to Newport Beach. And the Chevy app wasn't much help either. ) Not fully understanding at this point that our Bolt SuperCharge Plugs were incompatible we drove into the Nissan dealership hoping to get juiced up.

After a bit of a runaround, we met this guy John who really knew his electric cars. He helped us download the PlugShare app which gave us a map not only of the ChargePoint stations but other types of stations such as EVgo.  Jerry's brother Phil had been telling us about this app too.

John told us we needed to go down 99. Not much charging opportunity on Interstate 5. The closest one was in Galt.

On the way to Galt, I had a meltdown.  We NEEDED to find this charger,  but every time our GPS gave us directions through the car speakers, the radio started blaring! *&^%$@!@* The car windows shook with my screaming and swearing. I was so frustrated.

But we found the charger in front of Rayley's! And it worked!

This was the turning point of the trip. 

Leg #5: Galt, to Madera

Once again the app worked and we stopped at Madera California and got fully charged in front of a Save Mart. I got a Starbuck's iced tea while we waited. I think we got a frozen yogurt too.

Leg #6: Madera to Bakersfield

A full charge in front of a Wal-Mart. Dinner at In-n-Out Burger. We were going to make it home that night!

Leg #7: Bakersfield to Anaheim

A stop in the parking lot of Anaheim Plaza where we got into a nice conversation with a Nissan Leaf driver. I started to have a good time. It's kind of fun to be in the EV Club!

Leg #8: Anaheim to Home

We did it!! The next morning, though, we both said we felt like we got hit by an EV truck. 

The epic EV driving journey lasted from 4 PM Sunday, October 1 to about 11 PM on Tuesday, October 3. We spent @$30 in "fuel."

It turned out to be a fun adventure. Am I crazy????!