I left off just after lunch on Day 2 of our EcoRun. According to my schedule, and according to the request I made, I was all set to drive the new Chevrolet Bolt from Fredericton to Saint John. But as I got ready to go, the organizers, suspecting that that battery hadn’t gotten fully recharged at the charging station, worried that I might not have the range to make it to destination. Which meant, I had to wait while public charging stations were found before I could head off. Fortunately, there were some close to the restaurant where we’d eaten, and they were free.
In a bit of irony, the only other all-electric car included in this year’s EcoRun, the Nissan LEAF, fell victim to the same problem. It had been allocated to my good friend Jim Kerr, a Saskatoon-based journalist. So we decided hang together at the restaurant before hitting the road. We were now an hour behind the others, so we had to take the Trans-Canada and head straight for the hotel in Saint John, while still moderating our speed on the highway.
When we finally pulled up at the hotel, after driving at 100 km/h on the highway and a total of 111, the LEAF was down to about 30 km-worth of power, while the Bolt had over 100 km of range left. For the latter, this meant it had “consumed” 14 kW/100 km.
Tomorrow, Friday, is the last day of EcoRun 2018. I’ll be driving a Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV SUV, a small Mazda CX-3 and the Honda Clarity Plug-In Hybrid.
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