Final Day (5) - AB to BC

Happy (hopefully) last day! It’s -5 in Medicine Hat and Geoff’s come down with a terrible cold L. We’re headed to Lethbridge, with an est’d 12% on arrival. Arrived with 24% (driving slower on a two lane road and less wind is the reason (we believe).

Headed to Costco to load up for winter – if Alfie was squished before, he’s really cozy now, amidst all kinds of Christmas goodies! Quickly packed it all in the car (some of it in the Thule refrigerator ;)) and drove 11km to an Electrify Canada station (350kW) where we charged to 97% (45 mins; 65.93kW at .60 cents/kW) while Geoff had an important work call. I think these are my favourite chargers (we have one of these in Barrie that we use between Toronto and the cottage – it always works and it’s ridiculously fast!).

31% estimated arrival in Fernie. Today we’re getting 28 kWh/100km; yesterday with the wind it was 37! And just now (later in the afternoon) we were getting 22.7!! Think this is very much influenced by slower speed, warm battery and low winds.

En route from Lethbridge to Fernie we started to see foothills and the trees were coated in snow/ice and looked really pretty. ‘Looking like winter again. We charged to 60% at Fernie and made a quick stop at Le Grand Fromage (great cheese shop), only to learn that the Nelson location has closed L. We have an estimated 29% on arrival in Cranbrook.

In Cranbrook we charged at the 350KW charger at the On the Go at the Chevron station - fast and cheap! $0.20 / KWh - the lowest we had ever paid before that was $0.50 /kwh. We pay about $0.16/Kwh at home in Ontario so this was really cheap - perhaps they are trying to buy market share? I am sure BC hydro rates are lower with all the moving water they have. We charged to 90% then drove 230 km to Nelson with no charging stops and arrived with 29% left! We got ~21kwh/100 on that leg even going up over the Kootenay Pass. We were driving about 80km/h due to road conditions with the wind at our back, so that is a big factor - the speed and wind.

We arrived in Nelson at our place tired, but feeling accomplished. This is the end of our 3900km journey. We will post another post in a couple of days summarizing our lessons learned and tips. I am signing off to enjoy a well deserved new NBC beer!