Electric Car Blues

I recently purchased a 2013 Nissan Leaf, which is 100% electric. It goes about 90 miles on a full charge, but it will go further if the route is flat. Unfortunately, I live in the foothills of the San Bernadino mountains, which are full of winding canyon roads. While the drive is beautiful, it's rough on my car.

There are some things you should know about electric vehicles. First, electric vehicles don’t measure power like your typical gas vehicle. Instead of RPM and MPG, there are “miles per kilowatt” and a power bar on your dashboard with colored dots. White dots use power. Green dots recharge the battery. It uses approximately no power for one to two white dots. Going uphill uses 3-4 dots of power to maintain speed. If you have to accelerate uphill, it can use 5-6 dots. You use power to accelerate and go uphill. Second, if you need to charge your car, it takes about 1 hour for 25%, 2 for 50%, 3 for 75% and 4 for 100% charge from zero charge. These are 240V “fast chargers.” At home, if you use a standard outlet (120V), it takes 12-16 hours to charge to 100%. Finally, there is a meter on the right hand side that has bars of power (about 10 miles per bar of power) and an approximation (in miles) of how far your car thinks you can go. Usually you can go much further, but it is not recommended to push your limits.

Today, I pushed the limits. My friend, who cannot drive, needed someone to take her for a medical procedure, and I volunteered. I was hoping my car would be fully charged after charging overnight, but I was two bars short of a full charge. This means my car thought I could go 70 miles. My friend’s house is about 10-15 miles from my house, and the drive is relatively flat, so I used very little charge to get to her house. Her doctor’s appointment, however, was about 20 miles away, near my work. When we got to her appointment, I was down to about 50% charge (45 miles). I had known ahead of time that we were stopping at her cousin’s house after her procedure, and I was pretty sure I’d have enough charge to get her home and then get myself home.

When I dropped her off for her procedure, I did go and look around Riverside (CA) for a place to charge. There are three parking garages, each with two charging spots near the hospital, but all were full. There are no charging spots between Riverside, my house and her house, so I knew if I wanted to charge that I needed to stop in Riverside. Since I thought we’d be fine, I decided not to make her hang out at my work to charge the car.

After my friend’s procedure, her doctor changed her medication, and she wanted to stop by the pharmacy on the way home. I told her that was fine, and there are many pharmacies between Riverside and her house. Unfortunately, she wanted to go to a specific pharmacy that was an extra 10 miles past her house. At this point, I’m starting to worry that I might not be able to take her to the pharmacy and make it home. We are already out of Riverside, and she was not feeling well, so I decided not to argue. Remember, she cannot drive, and there was no one else available to help her out today.

By the time we finished at her cousin’s house, I was down to three bars of power, which is literally the amount I needed to take her home and get home, but I hoped I could push it a little further by driving more slowly and turning off the A/C. So I rolled down all the windows and we cruised down a flat street to the pharmacy. When we left the pharmacy, I had one bar of power left. Then I started panicking, but I did not want her to see my distress. Since the pharmacy is in a small town, I was able to drive under the speed limit in the right lane without any trouble. When we got to her house, I was down to no bars of power.

I have made it home from her house with only one bar of power twice before. Remember, there is nowhere that I can go to charge on the way home, so I took a deep breath and prayed my way back into the foothills. Again, it’s relatively flat between her house and my house, but I do have to go uphill to get to my street. I said a prayer at every red light, only accelerated between one and two dots of power and avoided looking at the flashing lights on my dashboard. There have been several times that the “gas light” has come on when I was about five miles from my house. Well, three miles from my house, an orange turtle appeared on my dashboard. While deceptively adorable, this caused me quite a bit of concern. All I could do was try to make it, so I gave my car a pep talk and started up the hill to my street, one mile from my house. Come on car. Come on car. I’m sorry. I’ll never do it again. Just one more mile, then we’re home and I don’t have to call a tow truck. Just one more mile.

I did not make it. I am literally stranded one mile from my house. I can see the light that takes me to my neighborhood. It’s just over the crest of this hill I’m stuck on. Luckily, I have roadside assistance, and the tow truck should be here any minute. My lovely car insurance company is not going to charge me to tow me one-mile home.

While I do not recommend experimenting with this sort of adventurous, dismissive attitude toward range limits, this was a fun experiment. I literally made it 10-15 miles on very little charge. My car did not recommend trying to go more than two miles. TWO! I was SO CLOSE. I almost made it. Obviously, in hind sight, it would’ve been better just to hang out at my office for an hour, or to tell my friend we could get her medicine tomorrow.

I was giggling almost the entire way home, entertaining myself with the profanities that my car must be silently screaming at me when I behave this way. My car said things to me (in my head), like, WTF is wrong with you, human? Do you not understand that I am out of power? I can’t take you up this hill. You need to find a charging station. (It actually does ask me multiple times if I’d like it to find the nearest charging station – which is further away from my friend’s house than my house.) I’m thinking about writing a skit with an electric car progressing from sarcasm to out and out abusive language at a dismissive human pushing the limit of miles per kilowatt. Possibly up a mountain, and then coasting back down once they run out of power. Either way, I think this is the least destructive way to deal with “range anxiety.” Just ignore it completely.