Leaf Trip Corvallis to Seattle
May 25-28, 2019

The next road trip plan for my Leaf was to go to Seattle (with a stop near Centralia for a gathering at a friend's place) for Memorial weekend, using the lessons learned from the trip to Stanfield.

My charging plan on the way up:

  • Ridgefield
    • 107 miles, but I'll be in Centralia overnight, giving the batteries time to cool down
  • Centralia
    • A bump charge to get me to the gathering and then the hotel I planned to stay at Saturday night, which is near the Tumwater charging station
  • Tumwater
    • Since I'll be at the gathering for several hours, the batteries should have time to cool down enough to do a charge on the way to the hotel, which will then give them overnight to cool down again
  • South Seattle
    • Sunday, having charged the night before, I'll be able to make it all the way to South Seattle Nissan to charge, which will give me enough to run around Seattle the rest of the day. Sunday and Monday evenings, I'll again charge for the next day, if needed (as turned out, I didn't really).

On the way back:

  • Tuesday morning, before I head back, I'll find a 7kW "level 2" charger and charge while calling in to an 11am meeting.
  • Centralia
  • North end of Vancouver (where I205 joins I5)
  • Salem

All of those charges are to 80% as the last 20% is slow and harder on the battery when done as fast charging (50kW).

I ended up following the plan pretty much, except I ended up being able to skip the Salem charge on the way home - basically, if the weather cooperates, it only takes 2 charges to get between Seattle and Corvallis.

The hotel I stayed at in Seattle (4 Points Sheraton) actually had charging stations...but they were Tesla wall chargers, not standard J1772 chargers, so I ended up going back to the South Seattle Nissan dealer and used one of their fast chargers Monday night to get to 90%, and then one of their J1772 chargers to get almost fully charged during my Tuesday meeting.

Although I was actually able to do this trip, without much overheating of the batteries, Nissan still needs to do cooling - if it had been hot out, it would have been a completely different story!

Start at home

 
Off to a good start, with a 100% charge and outside temp in the low-60s. The charging screenshot must be showing the last fast charge I did, as I don't have a 30kW charger at home ;-)
 
Distance 0
Battery SOC 100
Battery Max Temperature
Outside Temperature 61
 
 
 

Ridgefield - Arrival

 
Arrived at the Ridgefield charging station with a comfortable margin after 106 miles
 
Distance 106
Battery SOC 30
Battery Max Temperature 84
Outside Temperature 55
 
 
 

Ridgefield - Departure

 
I grabbed lunch at the Country Cafe while charging; the temp gauge shows well below red line, probably thanks to it being cool out.
 
Distance 0
Battery SOC 80
Battery Max Temperature 112
Outside Temperature 62
 
 
 

Centralia - Arrival 1

 
Battery warmed a couple of degrees, but still looking ok... While doing these screenshots, I found that there were more screens than I thought in LeafSpy... The miles in the dash screen are low because I forgot to reset the trip meter for a bit. Several times on the trip :-( Fortunately, Leaf Spy screens show the odometer and I can compute the distance...
 
Distance 68
Battery SOC 13
Battery Max Temperature 113
Outside Temperature 52
 
 
 

Centralia - Departure 1

 
Although the battery wasn't all that hot, it still took 40 minutes to go just from 13% to 50%. No idea why the charging power screen went blank...
 
Distance 0
Battery SOC 50
Battery Max Temperature 118
Outside Temperature 55
 
 
 

Friends - Arrival

 
 
Distance 11
Battery SOC 40
Battery Max Temperature 117
Outside Temperature 53
 
 
 

Friends - Departure

 
I was at my friends' place for a little over 5 hours, and the batteries did cool down over 20F, but still a bit warm. And oh look, some previous charging screen came back to the charging screen :-( (I didn't charge to 80% in Centralia...)
 
Distance 0
Battery SOC 40
Battery Max Temperature 95
Outside Temperature 50
 
 
 

Tumwater - Arrival

 
 
Distance 20
Battery SOC 18
Battery Max Temperature 96
Outside Temperature 52
 
 
 

Tumwater - Departure

 
Batteries still hot enough that it took almost an hour to charge to 80%... except as I look at that charging screen, it says it's only charging at 30kW, and 20-80%, or 60% of 40kWh works out to 48 minutes. And that's the rate it was charging the first charge, so this is just the AV chargers being a little light on the power...
 
Distance 0
Battery SOC 80
Battery Max Temperature 116
Outside Temperature 50
 
 
 

Tumwater Hotel - Arrival

 
 
Distance 2
Battery SOC 78
Battery Max Temperature 114
Outside Temperature 49
 
 
 

Tumwater Hotel - Departure

 
Not sure how I managed to lose 2% overnight! And the batteries still haven't completely cooled off, being still 20F over ambient...
 
Distance 0
Battery SOC 76
Battery Max Temperature 78
Outside Temperature 55
 
 
 

South Seattle Nissan - Arrival 1

 
In the speed graph, you can definitely see the effect of Seattle area traffic ;-) I really love the active cruise control in the Leaf!
 
Distance 62
Battery SOC 29
Battery Max Temperature 83
Outside Temperature 59
 
 
 

South Seattle Nissan - Intermediate 1

 
Now in this charging screen, you can see the effect of battery temperature (or something), as before, the charging power dropped off when the battery got to 70%, and here, it drops off when it gets to about 65%, though the fact that this charger is charging around 40kW may have an effect too.

Since I had some time to kill, waiting for a friend I was going to meet to become available, and the battery wasn't too warm, I let it keep going...
 
Distance 0
Battery SOC 81
Battery Max Temperature 105
Outside Temperature 67
 
 
 

South Seattle Nissan - Departure 1

 
No one was waiting for a charger, I had time to kill, and the battery wasn't heating up, so it ended up going to 98%. There was a definite additional drop in charging power at 90% from the graph though.
 
Distance 0
Battery SOC 98
Battery Max Temperature 105
Outside Temperature 69
 
 
 

South Seattle Nissan - Departure 2

 
I didn't record the arrival stats, as they weren't really relevant - just some local driving - only about 50 miles total. Probably should have captured it for completeness though. Here, I charged up to 90% since I had the time the evening before I was heading back. I had a phone meeting to call into at 11am the next day, and planned to come back here and Level 2 charge to 100% while in that meeting. Charging up tonight gave overnight to cool off, though as it turns out, that wasn't needed. Even so, I didn't want to start off the trip with a fast charge first thing...

The charging power screen clearly didn't record this charging session :-(
 
Distance 51
Battery SOC 91
Battery Max Temperature 91
Outside Temperature 65
 
 
 

South Seattle Nissan - Arrival 3

 
It was a bit more of a round trip to the hotel than I thought, hope the meeting is a long one if I want to get to 100% at Level 2 ;-)
 
Distance 11
Battery SOC 83
Battery Max Temperature 79
Outside Temperature 62
 
 
 

South Seattle Nissan - Departure 3

 
Well, the meeting wasn't quite long enough to get to 100%, but close enough... Looks like the Level 2 was charging at 5.5kW, though even it dropped at the end.
 
Distance 0
Battery SOC 98
Battery Max Temperature 78
Outside Temperature 66
 
 
 

Centralia - Arrival 2

 
Only a 40% charge shouldn't heat things up too much
 
Distance 80
Battery SOC 39
Battery Max Temperature 88
Outside Temperature 63
 
 
 

Centralia - Departure 2

 
A half an hour for a 40% charge is about right I guess...
 
Distance 0
Battery SOC 80
Battery Max Temperature 107
Outside Temperature 67
 
 
 

North Vancouver Freddies - Arrival

 
 
Distance 75
Battery SOC 15
Battery Max Temperature 110
Outside Temperature 64
 
 
 

North Vancouver Freddies - Departure

 
An hour to do 65% (15->80)...is actually about right I suppose. I guess I need to get used to having a larger battery ;-) However this one did take me right up to redline!
 
Distance 0
Battery SOC 80
Battery Max Temperature 125
Outside Temperature 77
 
 
 

Arrival Home

 
It took 4 tries to get the picture showing the remaining miles, as it was blinking and the camera kept catching it when it was off ;-)

I actually made it all the way home on the 80% charge - which really shows the difference weather makes, as when it's coldy and rainy, an 80% charge at Wilsonville will get me home with little more...
 
Distance 98
Battery SOC 8
Battery Max Temperature 122
Outside Temperature 69