ICEless in Seattle : Official Pacific NorthWest thread

[WetEV]

I love my Leaf, but I think of it only as an in-town commuter car. The whole issue of QC not working and reading about people's experience convinces me that road trips are a nice novelty but are very impractical.

Mostly agree, as of now. With one QC in Skykomish, about 2 EVs like a Leaf per hour can cross the pass, and maybe one more per hour using the L2 chargers and waiting around a lot. Compare with the number of ICE cars crossing the pass. Hard to see how EV traffic can scale. How many QC stations would be needed? MTBF will clearly improve, but that takes time. Getting places to put them all, getting power installed... Yet the trip there and back was reasonable, and not much bother. Practical, as long as only a few go that way.

Traffic over Stevens pass is thousands of cars per day. I've looked a bit, and found some numbers for a peak day of 6043 cars for November 29, 2005 (source not clear if that is only one way or total) per day. Assuming steady traffic for 12 hours and none for the other 12 hours, that is 504 cars per hour, which requires 252 QC stations. Exactly how this would fit in the valley near Skykomish isn't clear to me. Even if the traffic is exactly at the same rate for the whole 24 hours, that is still 126 QC stations near Skykomish.

There is a lot of unknowns about how an electric car future might look. However, until people start to do things, the best way to do them is often very hard to see. Experience can teach us lessons hard to learn in other ways. In 10 years, the QC stations may be seen as bad ideas, or the first ancestors of the wonderful QC stations that replaced them, or something in between.

I'm mostly driving a Leaf as a commuter, with a few trips off to do other things, mostly not needing to charge anywhere but home. This was a trip to get out of that rut, and see what a long trip would be like. I'll probably do more such trips, at least until the line at the QC station gets too long.

 

[GaslessInSeattle]

Drove 260 miles QC'ing in the Leaf yesterday, and 150 today... much more than an in-town car for this suburban family of 4! ... all for just a few dollars worth of electricity and this is just the first step of mass adoption, the next big jump in battery density is going to be a radical game changer.

I love my Leaf, but I think of it only as an in-town commuter car. The whole issue of QC not working and reading about people's experience convinces me that road trips are a nice novelty but are very impractical. Personally, I think selling the image of the EV as capable of distance trips is misleading and we would be better off convincing people that they are the perfect vehicle for the routine commute back and forth to work. Most all of us have a second car for distance trips.

 

[doug401]

I was surprised not to regain a bar on the decent from the summit of Stevens Pass westbound, as was running 10 kW to 20 kW of regeneration for much of the steep part of the decent.

Nice post... nice trip. That is surprising that no bars were gained dropping 3000 ft to Skykomish. I hope the important Sky charge station doesn't become the "problem child" for Aero and us EV'ers.

 

[WetEV]

I was surprised not to regain a bar on the decent from the summit of Stevens Pass westbound, as was running 10 kW to 20 kW of regeneration for much of the steep part of the decent.

Nice post... nice trip. That is surprising that no bars were gained dropping 3000 ft to Skykomish. I hope the important Sky charge station doesn't become the "problem child" for Aero and us EV'ers.

Thanks. The trip from Leavenworth to Skykomish was mostly uphill to the pass, so almost all of the regeneration was from the pass to Skykomish.
Total regeneration was 1.9kWh according to Carwings. I must have been almost ready to lose a bar at the summit and almost ready to regain a bar at Skykomish...

 

[WetEV]

The key DC QC for this trip is the one at Skykomish. Need it for the pass eastbound, need it to recharge after the pass to get back to Seattle westbound. If it isn't working, use the L2 there and make sure you have enough to continue, 10 bars for the trip to Leavenworth should be fine. Remember you can also stop at the L2 at the summit, both eastbound and westbound.

I'd best add make sure to stop in Skykomish westbound, as the trip to Sultan is going to take some kWhrs. I personally wouldn't continue on without charging at Skykomish without 6 bars, unlikely without a stop somewhere after Leavenworth. And the Skykomish Deli is right there.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/sky-deli-skykomish" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[Reddy]

....The key DC QC for this trip is the one at Skykomish. Need it for the pass eastbound, need it to recharge after the pass to get back to Seattle westbound....

This will be the same for I-90, but only with more cars: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=7322#p160624
Reddy

 

[WetEV]

Sorry, but this trip is not doable in a reasonable time yet as far as I know. Closest route is

Minor update Wenatchee now has a QC.
I've changed my mind. Route is very probably doable.

Seattle => Sultan (QC) => Skykomish (QC) => Leavenworth (QC) => Wenatchee(QC) => Ephrata (L2) => Moses Lake(L2) => Sprague, WA (L2) => Spokane.

Ephrada has RV campgrounds, as does Moses Lake. I've added Ephrada as the Wenatchee to Moses Lake is a bit long for a single hop, and we want to get to the far side of Moses Lake..

Sprague has RV campgrounds. Again, can probably get a L2 charge from an RV plug.

Yes, the Moses Lake to Sprague hop is 67 miles, but probably very doable at a lower speed (~40 mph). There are back roads paralleling I90 to Sprague, and while the average speed of traffic is likely rather higher than the speed limit, going slower than the speed limit will be less of a problem as traffic should be very very light.

So I can see a way to get there.

Time would be (roughly) driving time plus 30 minutes per QC plus 4 hours per L2.

7 hours + 4* 0.5 + 3*4 = about 21 hours, assuming no waits at the charge stations. I'd take two days for this trip, overnight at Moses Lake.

I'm tempted to try it just to see if it can be done...

 

[eeman]

An update for those wanting to travel to Port Townsend. There is currently a Level 2 charger located at Power Trip Energy Corp, 360-643-3080 that is free. However, this location is a distance from downtown and would only be used in an emergency. I believe I have convinced the Maritime Center, located right downtown, to replace their outdated and incompatible charger with either a Blink or Chargepoint unit. When it happens I will note it on this Board.

 

[GaslessInSeattle]

For those feeling withdrawal, you can pop more popcorn and start tracking Tony's car again around 6:30 AM tomorrow/Sunday morning as it begins it's long journey back to Southern California. We'll be starting from Shoreline WA and trading off in Portland around 3pm. If all goes well, we should be rolling into Portland early. We'll be charging at the QC on the Electric Avenue if anyone in the Portland area wants to come say hello!

I'll be tracking battery temp, ambient temp, and all that good stuff for those wanting to know more before planning a Seattle-Portland trip.

 

[Tagbert]

Has anyone heard anything about whether the Green Highway project plans to put any QC stations on I-5 between Bellingham and Tumwater? That is a 154 mile gap. It seems like there should be stations at Tukwila and Everett or nearby.

 

[derekjsmith]

Yes two Blink DC fast chargers are going in Seattle and are supposed to be also around Lynnwood, the SeaTac area would also be nice: http://www.plugshare.com

 

[saywatt]

There is a DCQC in the South Lake Union area of Seattle at the SLU Discovery Center. It was operational, in test mode, up until about 2 weeks ago. It is now waiting on replacement parts.

 

[Tagbert]

Yes two Blink DC fast chargers are going in Seattle and are supposed to be also around Lynnwood, the SeaTac area would also be nice: http://www.plugshare.com

Lynnwood would help. I live near Renton and most of the known existing stations are further out than I am really comfortable with driving at highway speeds on a normal charge.

There just seem to be a lot of holes on the WA stretch of I-5. The other big gap is from Centralia to Ridgefield/Vancouver. Once you cross into Oregon, things look better.

There does not seem to be any solid information in where other stations are planned and when they might go online. I think that it would help give people some more confidence if this information were shared.

 

[Luft]

Three questions:

1. If I start at the Tumwater DC QC and take I-5 to Seattle and not go faster than 60 MPH will I make it?

2. If I do get to Seattle are either of the two Blink DC QC stations operational?

3. If I do make it to Seattle and a QC station is operational how much does it cost to use?

 

[LEAFer]

These two links have info that might help:

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=9323" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=9170&start=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Three questions:

1. If I start at the Tumwater DC QC and take I-5 to Seattle and not go faster than 60 MPH will I make it?

2. If I do get to Seattle are either of the two Blink DC QC stations operational?

3. If I do make it to Seattle and a QC station is operational how much does it cost to use?

1) what part of Seattle? if any part, absolutely. i drove from Bellevue to Lacey which is about the same distance more or less. made it with 10 miles to spare
if you still have 100% SOC then you can get 80+ miles if you keep it under 60 mph


2) no

3) nothing

**edit** answer 1 assumes flat ground of which you we dont have. but you can still make it

 

[rdhauser]

1. If I start at the Tumwater DC QC and take I-5 to Seattle and not go faster than 60 MPH will I make it?

A few weeks ago, my wife and I went from downtown Oly to Burien (about 140th SW) and had 40 mi left on the GOM. We kept it at 52, though. Stayed over night with friends and used their 120 to charge back to 100%.

Having done that, we're more sure that we could go to Ocean Shores (about 73 mi), at least in the summer.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

1. If I start at the Tumwater DC QC and take I-5 to Seattle and not go faster than 60 MPH will I make it?

A few weeks ago, my wife and I went from downtown Oly to Burien (about 140th SW) and had 40 mi left on the GOM. We kept it at 52, though. Stayed over night with friends and used their 120 to charge back to 100%.

Having done that, we're more sure that we could go to Ocean Shores (about 73 mi), at least in the summer.

actually its 79 miles from my house in Lacey to Ocean City State Park and its doable. i did it with 4 miles to spare and drove between 55-60

 

[Walker]

Both ports on the Blink DC Quickcharger at South Lake Union Discovery Center are operational as of today. I've been using the one on the left since Monday. Today the tech got the one on the right working too. For your GPS, the address is 101 Westlake Ave N, Seattle

* first post on this Forum

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Both ports on the Blink DC Quickcharger at South Lake Union Discovery Center are operational as of today. I've been using the one on the left since Monday. Today the tech got the one on the right working too. For your GPS, the address is 101 Westlake Ave N, Seattle

* first post on this Forum

welcome to forum