Posts

Posted on

Road Tripping in an EV | 01 – Sisters, Oregon

We bought a Red Tesla Long Range Model 3 in February 2018 (310 rated miles, we named her Scarlett because you have to name your Tesla).

It was our first electric vehicle, and, a year later, it became our ONLY vehicle.

We’ve encountered several people along the way asking the universal two questions: How do you like your car? (Love it. Wouldn’t trade it for anything. Will never go back to an ICE) and the second question: Yeah, you love it, but would you take it on a long road trip? (usually they’re thinking 700 miles or so).

The answer to that last question is a resounding “yes!” In fact, we’ve taken our Model 3 on numerous road trips ranging from 1,200 to over 3,000 miles.

No issues. No problems. Easy.

So I wanted to share this latest trip with those of you that may be on the fence about road tripping in an EV.

Here we go!

High Camp Taphouse with Scarlett charging across the road at the Sisters Library

Passing from Eugene, our home, through Sisters on the first leg of our trip, we stopped at High Camp Taphouse. We always stop at High Camp. They have Himalayan and Nepalese food that is incredible. It now has joined Sisters Coffee as one of our “must stop” places when we travel this direction.

Also, High Camp is right across the street from the Sisters Library, which has free Level 2 charging (thank you, City of Sisters!). So we plug in, eat, walk down to coffee and get some extra miles added for free.

Momos (top) are Nepalese dumplings and they are to die for!

PLUS, we ran into one of my business partners whose family rode their bikes along the Old McKenzie Highway! Tomorrow: Redmond and Smith Rock.

Staff Meeting. Where is everyone else?
Posted on

Epilogue – Saturday March 5

Above is what our system looks like from my phone app. I have the battery set to self-consumption so we can use anything over 50% charge to run our house rather than send it back to EWEB. My reasoning is this: we pay $0.095 per KWh to have electricity delivered and when we have a surplus and send it back to EWEB, they only credit us $0.036. I’m going to monitor and adjust this to get the best value.

But that isn’t today’s story. Today is about Twende Solar.

Twende is Swahili for “let’s go”. It was Brandon Little and John Grieser, from Elemental Energy and “bridges the gap between renewable energy experts and economically marginalized communities with a need for a reliable, affordable source of clean energy to power their work.”

We donated our old inverter that I mentioned earlier in this series. When Elemental Energy removes and updates equipment such as what we did, if the homeowner so chooses, we can donate that old equipment to help add solar to marginalized communities in developing countries and even here in the US. Here is a great example of a local project at the Portland Rescue Mission.

This vision makes our choice of Elemental Energy even more satisfying.

Posted on

Days Three and Seven – Friday February 28 & March 4

Monday: Sent one of their electricians down on Monday to finalize the WiFi router issue. Got it resolved by tagging on to our electrical wiring for the signal boost. Apparently, even though we have a pretty straight shot from our router to the unit, because we have very thick walls and lots of insulation, it had troubles connecting.

Friday: We’ve been up and running all week. working well. City inspection was today and we passed with flying colors. But no surprise there. The Elemental Energy team was top notch, professional and friendly. Highly recommend!

Posted on

Day Two – Thursday February 24

After day one, Brenda and I got home late in the evening after they had left. The garage was clean, their tools were neatly stacked to the side and I was a happy camper.

I stopped by at lunch on day two and the panels were back up on the roof, they were finalizing pulling the wire and connecting/moving our critical load to the new sub-panel, and they were making good progress.

Everything was completed by the end of the day. Except… the system was not connecting to our WiFi router. They tried a booster, but it didn’t cut it. So on to Plan B.

Posted on

Day One – Wednesday February 23

I cleared out the garage around the area where the new system would go. Zach, from Elemental Energy in Portland and his crew showed up at 9:00 and started to work.

To those of you who know we have a Tesla, you may be wondering why we didn’t go with a Tesla PowerWall. Easy answer: Tesla wouldn’t sell one to us.

Tesla will only sell their PowerWalls to those who also buy Tesla solar. And we already have 6kW of solar panels that are working just fine. In my research, I came across the Enphase battery, which seems to be slightly more efficient than the PowerWalls.

The first order of business was removing each solar panel so that the old inverter could be replaced with new, more efficient, micro-inverters. Then they started cutting holes, running wires and generally revamping our system. 

Tomorrow: cutting holes, running wires, and putting it all back together.

Posted on

Day Zero – Tuesday February 22

After 2,435 days, our SunnyBoy solar inverter is going away. During its time perched silently on our garage wall, it effortlessly logged every watt of electricity our solar array produced.

And in that time period, we generated 50,370,000 watt-hours of electricity. Yes, 50 MWh. That’s an average of almost 21 kWh per day, every day. Not too shabby.

But as with all things, technology advances. And with climate change becoming even more prominent, we felt we wanted to add a measure of comfort and security in case our electricity went out. We’ve had ice storms in recent years and smoke from fires to the extent that sometimes the electric grid in our area goes down. 

Our solar system was originally installed with a 110v outlet in case the power went out, we could switch over to solar and run at least a few items off that plug. But it was manual. And cumbersome.

So on February 23, we are having our SunnyBoy removed (and donated to a non-profit that installs off-grid solar in developing countries, more on that later) and a new Enphase system installed. It will have battery backup and be controlled via an app on our phone.

Posted on

Four Years In

February 10, 2018 we took delivery of our RWD LR Tesla Model 3. We were fortunate enough to have a friend who was a first day reservation holder from April 2016 and who didn’t want to wait two years. He instead bought a Model S and just recently upgraded to a new Model S.

So he gave us his spot in line. And after almost two years, we were able to order our car, which we named Scarlett. We found if you buy a Tesla, you have to name your car. And since we went red, Scarlett was a natural choice.

Our move to completely electric was probably as big a shift as our move to have just one car. When we moved downtown in 2015, we committed to use just one car. It actually was pretty easy. When we committed to go all-electric, the shift was equally easy. Things like range anxiety, etc. simply didn’t materialize. We’ve never “run out of electricity.” And that’s because of a) charging at home (just like your cell phone) and b) Tesla’s robust supercharging network for our road trips and travels.

As I’ve done in previous years, I look back on our experiences going 100% electric and abandoning gas stations completely (except for ice tea and bathroom breaks). So here’s my four year update.

We’ve driven just under 42,000 miles. Most has been around town, but we’ve taken several road trips of 1,000 to 3,000 miles. We’ve used just over 10,000 kWh of electricity and probably spent just a little over $1,000 on “fuel.” About $20/month on average. The equivalent of 138 miles per gallon. At $0.61 per gallon.

Our original 100% charge range was 310 miles. It has dropped to about 308-309. That’s about 0.6% battery degradation over four years. Our battery has an 8 year warranty. I think we’ll be fine.

We’ve spent $176 in regular maintenance (cabin air filter, tire rotation, wiper fluid and wiper blades). Total. And we’ve replaced the tires at a cost of just under $1,200.

Really, nothing to add. We still love driving her.

Posted on

Road Trip!

We recently returned from a 3,300 mile road trip through southern Utah and the five National Parks there. We also did a short side trip to Mesa Verde in southern Colorado.

And we did it all in an electric vehicle.

We’ve done road trips before, but this time, we seemed to have more people asking questions about our experience with our trip. Specifically, those questions centered around charging. So I thought a short recap might be in order.

Big picture: our trip would start in Eugene, head east through central and eastern Oregon, down through Idaho to Salt Lake City, east to Moab and Mesa Verde then back and south through Canyonlands, Bryce and Zion National Parks. We would then head north back home pretty much along the same route as we came in. In the middle of the trip, from Moab to Zion, we decided to take the scenic Route 12, which was a nice winding road, beautiful scenery and limited EV chargers.

About charging: it wasn’t a problem at all. It actually never has been. I’ve heard that the best cure for range anxiety is to actually own an EV. And that is really true. We’ve never been nervous that we might run out of charge on a road trip.

There are a couple of reasons for that. First, we drive a Tesla. And the Tesla Supercharging network is very robust. On this last trip, with just two exceptions, there were fast chargers about every 100 to 150 miles. And with a range of just over 300 miles, that makes it easy. We could stop at a Supercharger, have an iced tea, stretch our legs, get lunch, use the restroom and be on our way in 15 to 30 minutes on average.

Second, we plan our trips. Driving an EV cross-country does require some planning ahead of time. I use the PlugShare app, which lists virtually every charger location across the US. I also favor lodging that has overnight, or destination chargers. Many hotels and bed and breakfasts have complimentary chargers that we can plug in when we go to bed and be fully charged by morning.

Just like a cell phone.

And that’s what we did along that scenic Route 12. From the Green River Supercharger through Bryce and Zion then on to the Cedar City Supercharger, it’s a little over 350 miles. And that’s without any side trips. But we stayed at a very nice hotel in Escalante (Canyon Country Lodge) that had four Tesla chargers and one universal charger. Then we stayed at some of the cutest cabins in Tropic (Bryce Canyon Inn) that had two Tesla chargers. In Zion, our hotel had six universal EV chargers. At all of those locations, when we checked out to head on our way, we had 100% charge.

So overall, while it does take some additional planning, it isn’t difficult or nerve-wracking. Will we do a long road trip again? 

Absolutely!

Posted on

Happy Birthday, Scarlett! (again)

Today marks Scarlett’s 3rd birthday. We took delivery on February 10, 2018. And this is, actually, kind of a bittersweet birthday. Bittersweet largely because while our Model 3 was (and is) cutting edge as far as technology and features, it has graduated to the commonplace. 

When we took delivery, we were in the first 6,300 Model 3s manufactured in the US and only the second Model 3 in Eugene. We could only get the premium interior, single motor, rear wheel drive with the long range battery (really glad we did that!).  And being in that early grouping, whenever we’d pass 12 year old boys or even many adults, we’d get stares. And wide eyes. We often could see those boys mouthing “Tesla!”

When we’d meet another Model 3, we’d flash the peace sign or wave. It was this early-adopter kind of club. But then, something happened.

Tesla became mainstream. Not that it is a bad thing. Transitioning to electric vehicles is happening (like it or not) and it is happening fast. The EV market share in the US is increasing logarithmically from under 1% in 2016 to over 2% in 2020 and an estimate 20% in 2030. In mid-2020, the Tesla Model 3 was the best selling automobile in California. Among ALL new cars sold. Gas or electric.

Now, when we meet another Tesla, there is rarely the peace sign. And the 12 year old boys are mostly indifferent. I can’t remember the last time someone walked up to me in a parking lot and asked “is that a Tesla?”

But there is that quiet satisfaction that we are making a difference in the environment. That we are helping transition our culture to EVs. That we are saving a boat-load of money on fuel and maintenance, too.

Happy birthday, Scarlett! You are growing up and maturing.

And so is our culture.

Posted on

Autumn Reflections

Brenda has an excellent eye and is a great photographer

As I moved my office computers home (again) to work during our latest COVID shut down, I realized I hadn’t really done a five year update of living downtown. And we’re now at almost five and a half years living near downtown Eugene.

In fairness, the last 18 months has brought helping our son purchase and renovate a 1907 fixer-upper (MAJOR fixer upper) AND a world-wide pandemic, to name just two major events. Our son did finish his renovation and just signed papers on his mortgage a few days ago. Twelve months of renovating and six months dealing with the bank. Don’t get me started.

We moved our staff home in March because of the virus. We moved back into the office sometime in July (I think; everything the last nine months is kind of a blur) and then we just moved back home yesterday.

So as I was sitting at my home office desk and Brenda was on a work break and taking some pictures of our landscaping, I thought I should update you on our life on Lawrence Street. And it’s good.

As we head into celebrating Thanksgiving next week, we personally have much to be thankful for. None of our immediate family have contracted the virus, although we know some who have. Our son got his mortgage at a reasonable rate and is off on the journey of homeownership. Scarlett, our Tesla Model 3 is still running along well, not needing anything more than an occasional plug into the wall for a recharge. Our landscaper is running late trimming our shrubs and that has allowed us to enjoy those beautiful barberries in the photo above just a little bit longer. Work has gone well for both of us and neither of us has experienced any layoff or reduction in salary. Our neighborhood gatherings are now on “pause” but that’s ok for now.

Life at the edge of downtown Eugene is still very very good.

Please consider this our five year update and a time to be thankful. Have a great Thanksgiving holiday!