With the Tesla I can adjust -
* the State of Charge at which charging ends (I have yet to ever charge my Tesla to 100%)
* the ac charging current at either 120vac or 240vac, from 5A all the way up to 80A at 240vac
* the time that I want charging to start
This flexibility has proven useful, especially the ability to dial-down the the current to match the sometimes questionable power source wiring.
First off, to show there is nothing new under the sun, here is a photograph of a 1917 home charging station (from the Henry Ford Museum of Innovation in Dearborn, MI) - that's 100 years ago!
Crossing the US using Superchargers is effortless, and we had a couple of stations in Wyoming open up just a few days before we arrived (I had adjusted our route accordingly). Outside Quebec City the new Supercharger station opened a week after this photo was taken
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Not to worry, Quebec Province is peppered with CHAdeMOs and that night we stayed at the nearby hotel and used this one - thank you sandange for pointing out that the FLO charging card is popular in Canada - I obtained one just before leaving home.
This last summer New Brunswick had installed quite a few charging stations across the province, which was fortuitous as there are no Tesla Superchargers up there. Here's a typical one (note the CHAdeMO-to-Tesla adapter in both the above photo and this one) -
Once we got to Nova Scotia a number of people suggested we do the Cabot Trail circumnavigating Cape Breton. After a long day's drive we arrived at Baddeck (start of the Trail and home to the fantastic Alexander Graham Bell museum) only to find their charging station DOA. No worries, a friendly local boatyard nicely obliged and I managed to pick up 240vac from their vacuum system connector. Helps to have a huge collection of adapters. Did a nice museum tour while the car charged as everything in town is within walking distance.
By the Bay of Fundy (I wanted to see the experimental tidal power generating stations) we stopped at the lovely village of Parrsboro where this lonely EVSE was located right in front of their town hall. Stayed the night at a very nice Inn just a short walk away.
I prefer to let the car slowly charge overnight (even often using L1) instead of hitting it with the Supercharger. Here's an example of one of many motels with available L2 EVSEs - I parked on the (unused) sidewalk, fearful of cars backing out -
On Route 66, we stayed at one of the cute preserved 1930's motels (Blue Swallow) in Tucumcari NM which had modern conveniences such as a Tesla HPWC and J1772 and Wi-Fi -
At the Grand Canyon one can plug in the car at their RV park and then go for a nice long touristy sightseeing walk along the rim -
Finally, arriving back in California and what happens at the Supercharger station outside of Truckee? ICEd - the only time on this entire trip! Luckily there was a spot available, and the fallback was the Supercharger in Truckee itself nearby.
Here's why the i-MiEV charging port (right rear side) is superior to the left side of the vehicle (Tesla, Volt, Bolt, etc.). If you want to park right next to the building you can't do it with the left side of the car because you need to open the door. If you park the other way around you have to drag the cable around the car and have the connector precariously protrude, in this case into the narrow alleyway. I would have preferred to squeeze the car closer to the wall. Similar argument when charging stations are located next to the curb.
What a well-prepared EV road warrior carries in his pocket; hmm, only seven charging cards, I thought I had more -
Here's what resides in a plastic box in the frunk of the Tesla. Every connector is labeled (blue tape). Not shown are the various heavy-duty extension cables. Of particular note are the J1772 extension and CHAdeMO adapter.
Here's the list of all the adapters (I think) -
http://www.katiekat.net/Vehicles/Mitsi/ ... rsJoeS.pdf
Hope to post a few photos from the trip shortly...
On our trip this year while in New Orleans I had intended to backtrack the hundred miles to Biloxi to meet with Don again, but my wife (who had flown to Medford from Nashville for a family emergency) had moved up the timeframe for rejoining me and was already booked to fly into Dallas and I was just a bit short on time - Don, catch you next time.
