3100km Canada road trip in a Leaf Plus - charge summary

This is my first post so I hope this is the right place to post!

Three of us (myself + two friends who own a Tesla Model 3 with a lot of road trip mileage) just completed a round trip from Toronto to the Gaspe peninsula in Quebec. It was 8 days, of which 5 were spent driving between cities/towns. In total, we drove over 3100km in my 2019 SL Plus, and not surprisingly experienced rapidgate firsthand.

I knew about the issue before buying the car and so did my friends before we went on this trip; my main objective is to provide some information along with some subjective observations/comments.

The short summary is that rapidgate is very real, and in practical terms limits the distance you can travel in one day to about 500-600km. This is highly dependent on a combination of how favourable the conditions are, and your own patience/tolerance:

-An aggressive driver (75mph/120km/hr) combined with hot conditions may need to charge sooner and only once, resulting in about 400km usable (225+175)
-A conservative driver (60mph/96kmhr) who is patient should be able to charge twice and drive 250+175+175 = 600km. Note this may be awkward if the roads you drive on has a 100km/hr speed limit which is the case for the 401 and most of Autoroute 20/40.
-A three charge journey is only really possible if you can tolerate either shorter intervals (e.g. 100-150km) or progressively longer waits (creeping up to 50+ minutes to drive 175-200km at a time)

Here are some observations having fast charged 15 times over the trip:
-On the first charge, I observed charge rates as high as 75-80kW at the 100kW stations
-50kW stations can reliably reach 45kW
-100kW stations don't make any sense if you plan to charge to 60+%, as I found that the tapering was much more severe and so getting to 70+% took almost as much time whether charging at 50kW or 100kW
-Charging up to 70% (usable range of 150-175km unless at end of trip, where 200km is possible) would generally enable at least two sessions averaging over 40kW; I do not recommend charging to 80%
-Driving at 90km/hr appears to allow the battery to cool enough over a 1.5 hour drive to keep charging times somewhat tolerable; I saw the temperature gauge drop when driving at this speed and keeping the power gauge as close to neutral as possible (e.g. limit regen and accelerate gradually)
-I almost never hit the red zone temperature wise, noting that highs were in the low-mid 20s (70s for Americans).

The most exhausting experience was the drive back from Quebec City to Toronto which is about 800km and took about 15 hours (left 11:30am and arrived at 2:40 the next morning). The hotel valet failed to charge my car (should have just parked in public parking with L2 like I did in other cities), and so I started the 800km trip with 17%. I estimate this extended my trip by at least 3 hours; 1:45 for driving around looking for an L3 station in Quebec City + waiting at a busy station + the actual process of charging. Another 1:15 is the ripple effect of the raised temperature caused by the first avoidable fast charge. Even if my car was 100% charged with good battery temps, the drive would still take about 12 hours; it's possible I could have cut another hour by driving a bit faster if the temps held up and if I had less range anxiety (generally targeted charging at 20%)

You can find as much information as I had available embedded in the following spreadsheet:
https://1drv.ms/x/s!AtaX91DszJ_zi4QRtps_KOPfR5mCsg?e=bh2Cf0

Happy to answer any questions or hear any comments/feedback.

Some other details/comments:
-I decided to inflate my tires (stock Ecopias) to about 40psi
-Total passenger weight was about 500lbs + 100lbs of baggage
-My friends were pleasantly surprised by how roomy the interior of the Leaf is; it might be a bit roomier in the back than the Model 3
-They were also impressed by how quiet the drive was
-The driver assist features were very useful; we spent probably 70+% of the time with adaptive cruise control + lane keeping on and it worked basically flawlessly
-There was some random thunderstorms/rain where having physical controls for wipers, climate control, etc. made life easier
-There was a wide range of energy economy averaging about 17.5kWh per 100km; during periods avoiding heating the battery too much by minimizing the absolute value of the battery discharge rate, I could average in the low 15s, but the Gaspe region is quite hilly and we were averaging close to 19 for some segments.

Excellent report !

"-I almost never hit the red zone temperature wise, noting that highs were in the low-mid 20s (70s for Americans)."
Mid 20s (C) refers to ambient, correct ?

I'm not clear whether you charged overnight at stops.

That's a great summary and really interesting information about fast charging, thanks for sharing.

Hope the trip was fun for yall. After experiencing all this would you consider another long trip in the car? Do you consider it a good EV for long distance travel?

nlspace said:

Do you consider it a good EV for long distance travel?

Click to expand...

Perhaps you missed "The most exhausting experience was the drive back from Quebec City to Toronto which is about 800km and took about 15 hours." That would be 33 mph average, or close to 2x the travel time in an ICE or a full fledged EV like a Tesla

---
And people should note that this drive was not in hot weather. If a LEAF+ cannot charge overnight then it may rapid-gate by the second charge of the day in hot weather. Then the practical and convenient daily range is about 250 miles. OP was accurate if diplomatic: In non-cool weather, 120 kph driving will run into rapid-gating quickly. To get ~ 350 miles a day from a LEAF+ you have two options:

1. Overnight charging and one more DCFC
2. Driving at 100 kph in cool weather

Cold weather is another basket of issues.

Bjorn Nyland takes cars on 1000 km without overnight stop challenges mostly in Norway and sometimes in Sweden. The LEAF is out of the competition. Even the VW ID.3 '55 kWh' model (some 41 kWh usable) only took 11.3 hours

https://youtu.be/xSWAuMxrfdw?t=1502

Great report.

People don’t like me saying it, but the Leaf is best thought of as an urban corridor runabout.

Yes, you can do other things with it, but you’re going to be working pretty hard at them.

On the other hand, it’s one of the most compelling cars you can drive used for what it’s really good for.

There’s no shame in being an urban corridor runabout.

Thank you for the write up.

The one drive I did about 500 miles in the day with our SV+ involved a long stop in the middle to visit friends (Chicsgo to Door County and back). I only had L2 at the far end, so topped up at the northern most Chademo in Milwaukee (68%-90%)before driving the rest of the way up. I did some work at he Door County visitor center (with 4 L2s) before heading farther up for the visit and an L1 charge for a few hours and left at 80% SoC. On the way back I did a top up from 5-40% at the same DC station in the way back to the final leg home. Ambient was about 12-18C for the day. The battery after the 2nd DC charge peaked around 90F /32C.

I have done many other 350-400 mile in a day drives, but those never needed more than 1 long and 1 short DC charge, so hadn't really seen any rapidgating as of yet.

If you are not starting with a full charge I could see it being a long day though.

I am very curious to try a 1000km in a day all in one shot now with our S+ to see if the lower power draw allows for more back to back DC charging.

frontrangeleaf said:

People don’t like me saying it, but the Leaf is best thought of as an urban corridor runabout.

Click to expand...

Or less. Our 2013 LEAF is an urban runabout. It never leaves our small city, but it meets our use case. I was ready to dump it this year for an EV that could make the 100 mile round trip to our neighboring city but we have always taken the Tesla for that trip so after a while my wife convinced me that I was trying to solve a theoretical problem.

For us the LEAF price was right, the car is a reliable EV, and it does the modest amount we ask of it.

SageBrush said:

nlspace said:

Do you consider it a good EV for long distance travel?

Click to expand...

Perhaps you missed "The most exhausting experience was the drive back from Quebec City to Toronto which is about 800km and took about 15 hours." That would be 33 mph average, or close to 2x the travel time in an ICE or a full fledged EV like a Tesla

---
And people should note that this drive was not in hot weather. If a LEAF+ cannot charge overnight then it may rapid-gate by the second charge of the day in hot weather. Then the practical and convenient daily range is about 250 miles. OP was accurate if diplomatic: In non-cool weather, 120 kph driving will run into rapid-gating quickly. To get ~ 350 miles a day from a LEAF+ you have two options:

1. Overnight charging and one more DCFC
2. Driving at 100 kph in cool weather

Cold weather is another basket of issues.

Click to expand...

I would say that had the overnight L2 not been botched by the hotel, I could have done the trip in 11-12 hours, or more like 1.5x the travel time instead of 2x. However, the point here is that the Leaf needs optimal conditions to make long distance travel bearable. Under similar circumstances, it is likely so-called "full fledged" EVs would have been set back less severely (only paying the 1.75 hour penalty of hunting for a station, waiting to plug in, and charging, without any heating penalty affecting the rest of the trip).

It's also worth noting that the 15 hours includes another 30-60mins of being delayed in congested traffic, primarily trying to cross Montreal Island.

In a best case, I likely could have driven 250km (2.75 hours), charged for 45min to 70%, drove another 175km (2 hours), charged for 45min to 70%, drove another 175km (2 hours), charged for 1 hour, drove another 200km (2.25 hours), for a grand total of 11.5 hours or averaging about 65-70km/hr or about 40-45mph - not great but better than when other problematic factors weigh things down.

SageBrush said:

Excellent report !

"-I almost never hit the red zone temperature wise, noting that highs were in the low-mid 20s (70s for Americans)."
Mid 20s (C) refers to ambient, correct ?

I'm not clear whether you charged overnight at stops.

Click to expand...

Yes, mid 20s (C) was the approximate daily high.

I generally did L2 overnight charging, with the exception of the last night where the hotel valet didn't plug in correctly (or at all). My heart sank when I got into the car and saw the charge still at 17% unchanged from when I handed over the keys the night before. Unfortunately this was also ahead of one of the longest legs of the trip which as you can see contributed overall a likely 2-3 hour penalty to the trip - partly because I had to drive around the city to find a place to charge and wait to plug in and then charge, compared to simply getting out of the city immediately.

frontrangeleaf said:

Great report.

People don’t like me saying it, but the Leaf is best thought of as an urban corridor runabout.

Yes, you can do other things with it, but you’re going to be working pretty hard at them.

On the other hand, it’s one of the most compelling cars you can drive used for what it’s really good for.

There’s no shame in being an urban corridor runabout.

Click to expand...

Given that my passengers have done tens of thousands of kilometres in their Model 3 on road trips in the last year and were generally complimentary about the driving experience in my Leaf, it makes things even more frustrating that this one weakness could have made the car far more competitive. They found the ride to be comfortable, smooth, quiet, zippy enough (I agree, having missed little compared to my 2012 Audi A5 2.0T), and with broadly comparable range (about 10% less; the gap widens in the M3's favour past 105-110km/hr or 65-70mph) to their standard trim.

This may be subjective or needs verification by another M3 owner, but they also said the L2 autonomy was also similar, and found access to some controls/measurements easier (e.g. wipers, and power output of the motor and accessories). They also found one foot driving was somewhat preferable in the Leaf, but the calibration of the regen is highly personal (e.g. I like D mode for most driving, I don't think B mode is aggressive enough compared to the levels I've experienced test driving other EVs with paddles).

We were doing informal measurements of sound levels and energy economy. The Leaf tended to measure about 3dB quieter under a range of road conditions, but also hit an energy economy wall at 110-115km/hr where the energy usage began to rise noticeably faster.

nlspace said:

That's a great summary and really interesting information about fast charging, thanks for sharing.

Hope the trip was fun for yall. After experiencing all this would you consider another long trip in the car? Do you consider it a good EV for long distance travel?

Click to expand...

Personally, I would definitely consider more long trips, but that does not mean the Leaf is a good long distance EV.

Charging is not zero hassle as it ought to be, and requires careful planning to minimize the impact of rapidgate which includes factors beyond your control such as weather (wind and temperature being critical) and the availability of DCFC stations at the right points along the way, plus L2 stations overnight. There are other factors which are more controllable such as how you drive, but it can make the drive a bit less enjoyable.

It's worth noting some hassles are EV specific, not Leaf specific. If you cannot L2 to 100% overnight, other EVs will handle DCFC much more gracefully (faster and cooler) at any point during a drive, but that still means searching, waiting, and charging when it could otherwise be done while you sleep. The Leaf Plus is capable of charging quite quickly, but generally not for very long and/or not more than once a day (see the spreadsheet).

I will say that I was generally very impressed by the availability and reliability of Electric Circuit stations in Quebec. Many stations had 2+ chargers and many had a 100kW option, even in small towns. My only gripe is that I could not stop charging from the app which, if I was dining or exploring, resulted in charging past the optimum point and creating excess heat in the process. This is a non issue for actively cooled batteries although the cost per kWh goes up as the SOC approaches/passes 80% since DCFC stations charge for time, rather than energy.

jslifoaw said:

My heart sank when I got into the car and saw the charge still at 17% unchanged from when I handed over the keys the night before.

Click to expand...

I hear you.

Does your car have a connected phone app ? I'm not familiar with LEAF telematics but some EVs can be checked on remotely.

SageBrush said:

frontrangeleaf said:

People don’t like me saying it, but the Leaf is best thought of as an urban corridor runabout.

Click to expand...

Or less. Our 2013 LEAF is an urban runabout. It never leaves our small city, but it meets our use case. I was ready to dump it this year for an EV that could make the 100 mile round trip to our neighboring city but we have always taken the Tesla for that trip so after a while my wife convinced me that I was trying to solve a theoretical problem.

For us the LEAF price was right, the car is a reliable EV, and it does the modest amount we ask of it.

Click to expand...

I wouldn't disagree. The gen1 Leaf was an urban runabout, which is why we never bought one. Our gen2 Leaf+ has considerably more useful range, hence my term "urban corridor runabout", by which I mean the Front Range in my case - from our home in the northern metro Denver area north to Ft Collins and back on a single charge, and as far as Cheyenne with a charge, south to Colorado Springs on a single charge, and as far as Pueblo with charging. Beyond that, you're getting into diminishing returns in my view, and there are better tools for the job.

I'm with a few folks here in following "buy twice the battery you think you need, and more if you can afford it."

We really like our Leaf+. I'm not disappointed that it doesn't make a great over-the-road car. I never expected it to be. That would be like expecting my roadster to be great off-road. Not the right car for that.

jslifoaw said:

SageBrush said:

Excellent report !

"-I almost never hit the red zone temperature wise, noting that highs were in the low-mid 20s (70s for Americans)."
Mid 20s (C) refers to ambient, correct ?

I'm not clear whether you charged overnight at stops.

Click to expand...

Yes, mid 20s (C) was the approximate daily high.

I generally did L2 overnight charging, with the exception of the last night where the hotel valet didn't plug in correctly (or at all). My heart sank when I got into the car and saw the charge still at 17% unchanged from when I handed over the keys the night before. Unfortunately this was also ahead of one of the longest legs of the trip which as you can see contributed overall a likely 2-3 hour penalty to the trip - partly because I had to drive around the city to find a place to charge and wait to plug in and then charge, compared to simply getting out of the city immediately.

Click to expand...

In this situation is there a reason you didn't just look at the Nissan EV Connect App to verify it was charging after drop off at the valet? I know I use this App or the MyLeaf app a lot to connect to the car.