Carrying a kayak and expected range

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Well-known member
Joined
Sep 20, 2017
Messages
75
Location
Washington, D.C. Metro
I'm going to pick up a kayak near Charlottesville, and this is one of the edge cases where having only an EV in the household is a little tricky. It's about 135 miles from my house in the DC area, and the few DCFCs aren't located well for my route.

It looks like the minimum distance from FC to FC is ~80 miles. Will I make it with an 18' kayak on the roof? (Hx 95, 75 Ahr) Driving will be mostly back roads, ~55 mph.

I may just borrow the Prius that I sold to a friend, since I still have the clips to put my Yakima rack on it.
 
I've carried 2 kayaks on my roof in my ICE car and it had to work noticeably harder. That was going uphill at 70+ mph though so not sure how relevant that is to your situation. If you do try it, I would keep your speed as low as possible. The increased air drag will be significant and that increases quickly at higher speeds. Or just take the Prius. I'm sure you could make it in the Leaf but the added time of the slower speeds and the required re-charging will add quite a bit to the total trip time.
 
I have a 17ft sea kayak, and mounted on my old Pontiac Vibe, typical fuel consumption was about 7L/100km without and with easily got to 10L/100km...

Of course, this was also a weak 4 cyl engine, with little torque.. maybe the torque of an BEV could actually help with the overall efficiency... I don't currently have a BEV to do an actual test... waiting on an order of the 2018 leaf...

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