I drove 275 miles in under 12 hours

[johnrhansen]

In my mind, one qc each direction is within the limits of the leaf.

 

[finman100]

230 miles Albany, OR to Seattle, WA. 5 hours, 4 quick charges. Same for return trip the next day. Temp bars reached 10 at the end of each segment. Ambient air was hot, close to 90F. Plus a rain shower that cooled things.

250 miles from Albany, OR to Ashland, OR. 5 hours, 3 Quick charges. Return trip was four Quick charges. Temp bars were again 10 bars. Ambient was hot...over 90...peaked at 98F!

We have a Prius to do these trips...but the electric Highway was beckoning! I mean, cmon...500 miles no gasoline, all-electrons? Now that is a roadtrip.

That being said, my Leaf is not taking me from Oregon to South Dakota. Friends and family will have to come out here via gas or plane to drive this marvel.

My Leaf is my 'regional' car. Does EXACTLY what I want it to do...for me. I realize it's limitations but want to push them as well. I am an EV nerd and human.

Cheers,

Curt

PS Congrats Computerizer on the trip! Purely amazing. Thanks for allowing us to follow yet another EV pioneer. Sorry we were not able to meet up.

 

[GRA]

My point was completely missed. Yes it took 12 hours to get to spokane, but none of it was wasted. I enjoyed every minute of it. You see, if you enjoy the points in between, not a second is wasted, but if you just treat the journey as something to be endured, then 4 hours is wasted. I just cant understand a to b people, but well they can't understand me either. I never thought driving an electric car would teach me a life lesson. Slow down, smell the roses, enjoy every moment. Life is a lot better that way. Yes, I probably wont be taking the leaf again. But it still will probably take me more than 12 hours. Ill probably end up taking the north cascades highway and take 2 days!

Your point wasn't missed. Most people are willing to take a trip occasionally where the trip rather than the destination is the purpose. But most people are trying to get somewhere to do something most of the time, and there are only so many routes and so many interesting things to see en route. To regularly use a type of car on destination-type trips which negates most of the advantages that a car provides, i.e. providing direct, fast, flexible, no wait, no transfer transportation with a guaranteed seat in a weather-protected, climate-controlled environment for you, your passengers and your stuff, is a poor use of resources. There are plenty of other ways to travel which are more suitable to such a trip.

Case in point, I often go backpacking or skiing in the Sierra, at and most of the time above timberline. I have to drive from the Bay Area across the Central Valley and through the foothills to get there. While I might enjoy exploring all the little towns and byways along the way, in none of them can I do the thing which I'm taking the trip for, which requires that I go far and get to high altitude quickly so that I can spend as much time as possible doing my chosen recreation. If I really wanted to explore the byways enroute, walking or bicycling would be my preferred travel mode. But most of us have limited amounts of free time, and cannot afford to do both types of trip together; it's usually trip or destination.

 

[GRA]

In my mind, one qc each direction is within the limits of the leaf.

I think most of us would agree; anything more than that, and you're moving from a destination-type trip to a "the journey's the thing" type trip.

 

[Computerizer]

Here's a graph of battery temp (T1), ambient temp, and charging power (for correlation) during the 275-mile trip. The only time I wasn't recording data was at the start of the first DCQC session.

 

[GRA]

So, it looks like a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 10 degrees battery temperature bump per QC. I note the 'ambient' temp also bumps up during a QC - I know it's been mentioned before, but where's the OAT sensor located? It's obviously getting some heat during charging, and/or from lack of air cooling while sitting still. Anyway, your graph certainly demonstrates the need for active cooling for any BEV that's going to be QC'd more than once, absent a battery that's unaffected by high temps.

 

[johnrhansen]

I find it interesting that the battery temp didn't go up in between charging sessions... after all you are drawing 20 KW or so through the battery while you are driving too... guess the airflow over the battery while you are driving helped with that. Don't think it would have done me any good on my eastern Washington trip in the 100 degree weather!

 

[Computerizer]

I find it interesting that the battery temp didn't go up in between charging sessions... after all you are drawing 20 KW or so through the battery while you are driving too... guess the airflow over the battery while you are driving helped with that. Don't think it would have done me any good on my eastern Washington trip in the 100 degree weather!

Once the battery gets very hot, the difference in temperature between the ambient air flowing over the pack and the temperature of the pack is so great that it gets more cooling than whatever heating it gets from the draw (approx 20 kW as you said). If the battery temperature was nearly the same as the outside temperature, there is a slight increase in battery temperature due to draw, but it's very small. You can see this at the very beginning of the graph.