An Epic Cross Canada journey, with trailer

We made it and it was a lot of fun. Over 16,000km, one blown trailer tire, 130 charging stops, and a lot of learning about charging and different terrain and driving styles.

https://chrisalemany.ca/2022/08/15/saving-co2-on-a-cross-country-ev-journey/

You can see all the data and experiences on my blog. I logged all of our charging stops so there is tons of information there including CO2 emissions from each province.

Biggest takeaways for us was that Plugshare is amazing and speed and geography make a huge difference for range. The trailer took away about 30-50% of our range but there were still enough chargers to make it worry free for the most part.

The most important part was it was a lot of fun and the regular stops did not put a downer on the trip in general. Lots of time to have a meal, or stretch the legs or explore the vicinity of a charger.

Oh and we did all of this with a spent rear passenger side shock. I assume both rear shocks are done now, but it didn't impact our journey in a serious way.

 

Well I can't say Manitoba was so smooth.. nor a certain portion of northern Ontario outside North Bay when the trailer tire decided to blow at 11PM after a long day... but considering it was 16,000km, it was pretty smooth. Lots of good memories to outweigh a few challenging ones. I'd do it again, but likely never will in quite that way at least.

 

It is officially “not recommended”. We have had no problem.


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Well Highway 1 wasn't bad... but the stretch between Moose Jaw and Saskatoon was definitely pushing it. We did it in one leg though! And the scenery was well worth the reduced speed (90kph at the end) and anxious moments. We would have never learned that a man built monuments to Louis Riel along that Highway 11 if we hadn't been forced to go that route as the shortest stretch between chargers rather than Regina, or the Yellowhead from Winnipeg (which is devoid of L3s)

I don't know of any organizations in that sphere. That said, I did get a friendly email from Petro Canada inviting me to have a conversation with their manager of retail operations (or some title of that sort) in charge of both fossil fuel and EV systems. In his words, he is the person that has been put in charge of the EV station network after its initial roll out stage. He was very frank and understood the concerns I and many had brought up about reliability. He made a great point that in terms of fixing broken stations, the supply and servicing chain that exists for, say, a gas pump, that can often get it fixed within 12 hours... simply does not exist yet for the EV technology, but this is a big focus of theirs. He also admitted that the Flo network seems to really have this figured out the best right now, not counting the Electric Utilities (BCH, HydroQuebec) that have a somewhat built in advantage, much like petroleum companies do sourcing parts for petroleum pumps.

I was left with the feeling that PetroCan is very aware of its earned reputation at the moment and is very keen to fix it as quickly as it can. The gaps in the network, particularly Saskatchewan and Northern Ontario are also very well known and stem from a lack of economic payback with so few EVs on the road. That equation is changing. I think governments could be doing a lot more to bridge that economic gap in the mean time as well.

It was a great trip. A part of me still wishes I was on the road. Then I remember changing a trailer tire at 11PM somewhere outside North Bay and the feeling fades.

 

Not at all! I think you're bang on in terms of choices made for equipment having a big part to do with reliability! I told them they have to get more active on Plugshare to let people know what is happening. I'll keep bugging him periodically. I'm sure he'll rue the day he gave me his email. :+)

 

Hi Tim. Absolutely. I don’t know of any direct-plug compatible boxes. I used (DIY) the ZCI (“Zero Contact Interface”) model from Tekonsha. The exact model I have doesn’t appear to be available since I installed ours in 2020 but you can see a full blog about that installation too including pictures here:

https://chrisalemany.ca/2020/06/14/installing-a-hitch-and-wiring-harness-into-a-2019-hyundai-kona-electric/

We find that when we only use the trailer intermittently, which is our standard expectation, sometimes the running lights stay on after ignition is turned off. But we found after a week of solid use on EVCrossCanada that this stopped happening. I don’t know if the AI in the box got to know the levels in the wires or what but it definitely improved. I still always checked anyway because unplugging from the trailer is always easier than a dead 12V. Other than that, aside from the standard “trailer lights are temperamental at the best of times” warning, it went very well. Get some dielectric grease.


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