Topeka Trip

On Thursday November 29th I drove my Leaf to visit a friend in Topeka Kansas. It would be a nearly 140 mile round trip and would require charging along the way. I was very excited about the trip.

I charged the Leaf to 100% the night before I left for Topeka. I planned to stop and charge in Lawrence.  I preheated the car with it plugged in so I would use as little energy as possible  for the trip. The temperature was 45 degrees when I left. I knew the colder temperature would affect my range so I tried to be as conservative with my energy use as possible. Lawrence is 37.6 miles from my house. I mapped out my route so I could stay off Interstate I-70 where the speed limit is 70mph. I did not know that Tonganoxie Road had a speed limit of 65mph with little opportunity for other cars to pass me so I ended up going faster than I would have liked on the first leg of my trip.
                                       

Leaving Lansing	Twelve Miles Into the Trip

As I came into Tonganoxie I missed my turn and ended up running across a memorial park at the VFW. The tank and helicopter are real. I also spied an 110v plug on a light pole. I checked it and it was live. That plug would be one of my backup plans in case I bit off more than I could chew on the way home. By the time I reached Tonganoxie the temperature had fallen to 35 degrees.

VFW Memorial Park Tonganoxie	Arriving in Tonganoxie

I arrived at my first stop, the Hyvee at 3504 Clinton Parkway Lawrence, right on schedule at 9am.

The Tee Pee house just outside Lawrence	Pulling into Lawrence Hyvee on Clinton Pkwy

The Hyvee on Clinton Pkwy has a coffee shop/cafe' with wifi and TVs. It was a perfect place to catch up on emails and get a bite to eat. A very nice man stopped and asked me about my Leaf while I was plugging in. I mentioned fishing during our conversation. I went into the Hyvee coffee shop/cafe'. 15 minutes later the man came back with two bags of crappie filets. I LOVE CRAPPIE! We found some dry ice and a thremo bag in Hyvee and I was on my way to Topeka.

Plugging in At Hyvee Lawrence	20 Crappie Filets

I ended up charging at Lawrence for about an hour and forty five minutes which gave me three more bars. I left Lawrence with 9 bars.

                                 


My 29.1 mile trip from Lawrence to to Topeka was pretty uneventful. I was able to drive between 45mph and 55 mph. I drove to a friends house and he followed me to Capitol City Nissan. The Nissan dealer had a charging station on the outside of the building and they were very friendly. I didn't call the dealership ahead of time but I think I will start doing that in the future. As it turned out though, there was a charging station on the street my friend and I had coffee so it really wouldn't have been an issue anyway.

   

                                                      
                                       

row 1, cell 1	row 1, cell 2
row 2, cell 1	row 2, cell 2

"Evvie" Comes Home

This is our 2012 100% Electric Nissan Leaf "Evvie". We picked "Evvie" up from Blue Springs Nissan on October 30th 2012. We leased the car for a two year term. On this blog I will chronicle some of our adventures as we go along. We are getting a late start so I’ll have to do some catch up work here.

My family is not new to driving electric. In 2006 I had an electric vehicle dealership called Midwest EV here in Leavenworth Kansas where I mainly sold the ZAP electric vehicle. Here’s a part of a post I did on the mynissanleaf.com (MNL) forum that tells a short history of my experience with electric cars before I got my LEAF.

 Ever since I worked at a gas station pumping gas back in 1976 (I was 12 years old BTW) I dreamed of having an electric car. I saw the "gas crisis" up close and personal. Grown men yelled (and I mean YELLED!) at me like it was my fault that gas had risen over fifty cents a gallon.

In 2004 or so I decided I was going to have an electric car no matter what it looked like or how primitive it was in function and design. I am not a DIY guy so I needed a vehicle that was made by a company (preferably still in business) with some kind of support. I also needed it to be affordable and as useful as possible. The Myers motors http://www.myersmotors.com/ car wouldn't work. Very fast but no place to put the dog. The four wheel cars for sale like the GEM and ZENN NEV had a top speed of 25. Too slow for my town. Then came the ZAP. It had three wheels so it was classified as a motorcycle. Since it was a motorcycle there were no safety or speed restrictions. This is my ZAP: http://evalbum.com/993 The ZAP had a breakneck top speed of 35mph and you could get up to 40mph with a good wind behind you. You also had a 25 mile range that was way more than I needed in a town 7 miles long and 2 miles wide. I loved driving electric so much I became a dealer. The vehicle was very flawed and gas prices dropped and that was the end of my dealership.

Even though the dealership failed, I still look back on the experience as one of the best experiences of my life. I remember talking to one of my fellow dealers and saying “Can you believe we are looking at multiple electric cars, all in one place and anyone can buy them?” It was amazing to us after the hope and then disappointment that was the EV1 experience. Seeing the look on my customers faces as they took their first drive in their all electric cars made me tear up.

My dream then morphed into having an electric that I would be able to drive from town to town. Then came the Leaf.

Yesterday I drove from Leavenworth Kansas to Topeka Kansas to visit a friend. My friend also happened to be an old customer from my ZAP days. I dropped my car off at Capitol City Nissan in Topeka for a charge. My friend and I had coffee with a rep from Westar (our local electric provider) hung out and talked EVs then it was time for the return trip home. I was brought back to the Nissan dealership in a ZAP.

We may not be all the way there yet. There will be problems with this car (no car is perfect right off the line) and improvements and modifications will be made. Most will love the car and some will give up on it but we have come a long way and I’m very happy I am able to be a part of it.