Wanted to try a little trip that would test the car and hopefully help alleviate some of my dearwifes range anxiety. We have been driving to nearby charging stations and checking them out to make sure they work and to help us get more comfortable with the 100% electric.
Our Leaf has a Chademo, so we started our trip at the local Nissan dealer in SLC. We left there with 70 miles on the range guesser and were heading to where Plugshare promised a charger would be in Park City. We then went past Deer Valley to Guardsmans Pass and dropped into Big Cottonwood Canyon to head home. The trip elevation gain was from 4265ft to 9862ft and back down again. Maps shows it as 7552ft up and then 7552ft back down. Quite an adventure at this stage for us in the Leaf.
We tried to stay at 65 MPH up Parleys, but mixing it up with large trucks pushed us to go 70 MPH some of the way for safety's sake. Our first stop was the outlet mall in Kimball Junction. We made it there with 16 miles still on the meter. The wife was happily surprised that it made it and they have free L2 charging stations for shoppers. (Oh crap... Maybe that wasn't a smart idea after all $$$)
A few miles down the road we searched for the promised Chademo and finally found it right at the front doors of the Newpark Resort Hotel. It is on a free trial for now, but it worked and we enjoyed a nice walk around the area while the car charged for 25 minutes.
Our route:
Our next task was to make it to the top of the drive- Guardsmans Pass. And hope it had not been CLOSED for the season.
The little Leaf climbed right up the steep back roads and I was surprised at how fast the charge was being depleted on the dash meter. In the 13 miles from the last Chademo to the peak we used a lot of battery, arriving with just 9 miles showing on the dash range guesser. It was about 40F at the pass.
At least it was all downhill from here! We regenerated to about 46 miles as we enjoyed the scenery going down the canyon to home. We did see another Leaf heading up the canyon.
All in all a beautiful drive and great confidence builder for us and our Leaf. We will probably never take it on anything with this much elevation gain again, but it's nice to know what is possible.