Sacramento to Lake Tahoe & Sacramento to Santa Cruz?

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leaftryer

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 27, 2011
Messages
67
Location
Sacramento
I'm considering a used 2016 Leaf after the 2018s come out and maybe used 2016s become more widely available and therefore drop significantly in price. I could even wait until 2019 when off-lease 2016s become commonly available.
I might consider a new 2017 in the next 6 months if there are some super amazing lease deals to close out the old models, but I won't count on that.

The 107 mile range is more than enough for my normal round trip commute of 40-50 miles as well as any errands around town, but I need to make very occasional trips to Lake Tahoe and Santa Cruz (maybe 4 times a year combined).

Since I won't need to do it often, I'm willing to live with making 2 recharging stops along the way if they are DC fast chargers. I think that's still more convenient than renting and returning a rental car 4 times a year.

However, is this even possible based on the charging infrastructure along the routes especially driving uphill on highway 50 to Lake Tahoe?
Has anyone made this trip? What happens if one of the chargers on the route is down?
 
Looks like 80 will be a better choice when all those new EVgo stations come online. Not sure if you can make it on 50 from the last DCQC on a degraded battery.
 
Looks like there are plenty of DCQC options on I-80, according to PlugShare.com

The EV trip planner will also give a pretty good estimate of the total energy you'll need to get from one DCQC to the next:

https://www.evtripplanner.com

Choose the "Nissan Leaf (BETA)" EV profile and for the "Buffer charge" set that to 10%
 
alozzy said:
Looks like there are plenty of DCQC options on I-80, according to PlugShare.com

The EV trip planner will also give a pretty good estimate of the total energy you'll need to get from one DCQC to the next:

https://www.evtripplanner.com

Choose the "Nissan Leaf (BETA)" EV profile and for the "Buffer charge" set that to 10%


I just tried that site, but it seems to only route through Tesla super chargers even though I set it as Nissan Leaf Beta. I can't figure it out.
I think the trip to Tahoe could work via highway 50, recharging in Pollock Pines using the DCQC, but if the Pollock Pines chargers are out of service, I would be stuck. All I could do is turn around and see if I could make it back to chargers in Placerville going mostly downhill and then continue back to Sacramento.
Maybe a Chevy Volt is a better choice for me since I regularly only drive 40-50 miles and could use it as an EV 95% of the time and still take road trips without hassle.
 
The point of the EV tripper, at least for the Leaf, is to help you understand the kWh energy requirements of each leg of the journey. Unfortunately, that means you need to plan your DCQC stops using plugshare, then confirm that you can actually make it between charges by using the EV trip planner.

It would be nice if either plugshare or EV trip planner did both, hopefully someday...
 
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