Problem is that there are so few fast chargers away from the bigger towns, esp on the Prairies. The fear is that if a critical one is out of order, or too busy, you could be stranded for a while. Can you imagine trying to travel somewhere in your ICE vehicle and there is only one gas station in a location where you need to fill up or you will run dry?
I knew about the Dakotas and Montana - I guess I was more curious as to whether the Petro-Canada chargers made a trip across southern Canada was possible. I was playing with plugshare - it looks like getting from Thunder Bay to Winnipeg is also more or less impossible right now.
Take a small generator and a L2 charger or a long extension cord. I wouldnt do it, in the winter though, cuz of less range.
The new Petro Canada stations make the Praries much less land locked. I would say Winnipeg to Thunder bay is very doable in a Kona, mind you a better route planner has you going through Deluth Minnesota to make that happen. The bigger problem is between Brandon and Regina which is 362 km stretch. Should be able to manage in summer at speed limit or slower. Once you get to Regina the rest of the west is no problem.
The Langley Petro Canada charger finally went online today, so I gave it a try. Started my charge at 26%. The charger (CCS side) says 350 kV, but started pretty slowly. First 20kV, then ramped up pretty quickly to about 40, and slowly kept climbing after that, maxing out at 59kW. When my car reached 70% (40 min later), it abruptly dropped to 37%, and that's where I stopped it. This was my first charge at a Petro Canada charger, so not sure if that is normal or not. I hope they were not throttling them back. But I can't complain, as it is free. Talked to a couple other guys there, and they thought it would be free for another 4 months (although not sure where they heard that). There was also a Leaf charging on the other station (not mine), and he was there about the same time and got up to about 89%. But his charge was only 14 kV max and then dropped down to 4kV later. So his car was charging really slowly. At that speed, kind of a waste for those guys to use up a fast charger space. So overall, experience was pretty good. The plug cord is not very long, though. Worked OK on the Kona, because we have a front port. Not sure how well it will work on side port cars. And on one of the charging stations (there are 2 of them), the parking area was pretty tight, and not much room to open the driver door (my station was OK).
Victoria opened today: https://electricautonomy.ca/2019/12/17/petro-canada-marks-completion-of-cross-country-electric-highway-in-victoria/ Only issue with the article is this is NOT Petro Canada's western most charging station as Nanaimo's Petro Canada charger is actually .57 degrees west of Victoria. (And a little bit north)
Our experience at the charger in Merritt this morning was..... not worth sticking around for - to say the least. Topped out aw 42kw. =\ Sent from my iPhone using Inside EVs
Yup, most I saw was 59kw, and then dropped way down at 70%, when I decided to stop it. So if they will go with time based pay charging, 70% is a good place to stop.
Was just contacted by Petro Canada about participating in charging station testing (read: ‘Public Relations Outreach’) at the Kamloops location tomorrow. Has anyone done this before? Any thoughts on the process? #NoFreeLunch haha Sent from my iPhone using Inside EVs
Looks like PetroCan has announced time based rate of 33 cents a minute in Manitoba. Its a shame they are doing this vs actual Kw/hr delivery model. So if my math is correct in the winter at best your going to average a charge of around 50kw/hr(quite possibly worse if its very cold , the battery heater can take up to 15-20 minutes to warm the pack from sub zero C to 25C to accept the fastest charge), so $10 will buy you only 100 km, essentially it would be cheaper to drive a fuel efficient ICE vehicle like a Civic long distance in colder temps than charge your EV, nice. In the summer it will be cheaper and you should be able to get close to 190 km for $10. I guess any long distance trips with my Kona will only happen in the summer.
$20 / hr (based at 50 kW) should go a long way to pay for all that TV advertising. What else to expect from an oil company BC Hydro charger downtown charges .35/ kwh which translates to $17.50 for the same 50 kWh and then add .75 for parking fees as well. Guess I am in the wrong business
It's 27¢ a minute in BC, regardless of charge rate. By my reckoning, in the best case (low SOC, warm battery, mild weather) you'll pay about $4/100km, not quite twice the price of charging at home. At $13 you start getting into Kona Turbo territory. It seems hugely unfair that more expensive cars with higher maximum uptakes should be paying less for fuel.
Quebec seems the cheapest @.20 per minute. https://www.petro-canada.ca/en/personal/fuel/ev-fast-charge-network?redir=ev No "idle fees" I can see being an issue.
Time-based charging is preposterous on its face. I don't know how it's even become part of the discussion. You pay for what you get not the time it takes to get it. Especially when the time it takes is completely out of your control.
Well everyone Victoria is $.27 a minute so lets all write Petrocan and tell them do it by the KWH. If everyone does it then they night change .If you just complain here nothing will be done. I'm off to write then now.
Please let us know what they tell you. I'm curious whether there are provincial regulations or contracts that prevent them from reselling electricity, as opposed to renting a parking spot that happens to provide it.
Some bean counter somewhere did the math and determined that a price per minute made them more money. And I also wouldn't put it past them that there's a punitive aspect to it too. Get in/Get out! It's funny because they don't charge by the minute at gas pumps but how many times have you been waiting for a pump while somebody goes into the gas station to shop, pay, pee and chat with the proprietor? No penalties for that after 110 years of gas station etiquette failures.