A Rough Start

G-- D--- you Ivy Charging Network

My motel in Wawa, 6:15 Saturday morning

If you have read my previous posts, you’ll know I don’t think much of Ontario’s Ivy Charging Network—a joint venture of Hydro One and Ontario Power Generation. I’ve driven quite a bit in Quebec, and Hydro Québec’s network of chargers is extensive, efficient, fast and well-maintained, at least in my experience. Ivy is none of the things.

Saturday morning I got up before dawn in Wawa, ready for my 480 km. drive to Thunder Bay, where I am stopping off to see a friend.

The Wawa goose (6:17 a.m.). It was too f—ing cold for me to run around it into the snow to get a better angle.

The weather was brutal. Minus 9 and a howling wind. When I originally planned this trip, I was going to go in May and June, partly because the EV’s battery performs better in warmer weather, and partly because both interior heat and air conditioning suck the battery hard. I was looking for temperate weather. But my daughter, Sophia, reminded me that she was graduating in June, which moved my plans up.

Of course, when I started out from Wawa, I put on the seat warmer and the steering wheel heater as well as the interior heat, just to stop myself from shivering. And because it was pitch black, I didn’t want to drive at anything less than the 90-km. speed limit for fear that some big semi would ram into my back end. But it quickly became evident that in combination, all this was draining my range.

My plan setting out on Saturday was to stop at the Ivy charger in White River. In this underserved region, my general approach, as much as possible, is to have enough range in the battery to make it to the charger-after-next for fear that one will be broken down and I’ll be stuck.

As I drove, the temperature dropped to -13, the snow was gusting across my path, and my battery was draining much more quickly than normal. Once dawn came, I lowered my speed to 80 to save power and when the car got decently warm, I’d turn off the heat for a while. But that never lasted too long. Besides the fact that my feet were freezing and my fingers would get chilly even inside my gloves, the windshield would frost up.

Early morning on the #1

When I reached White River, I pulled up to the Ivy chargers. Their video screens were a dull grey, and when I went on the Ivy app to put in my coordinates, the app said the chargers were “unavailable”.

It was almost another 100 kilometres to Marathon, where there is a Petro-Canada charger. Although my car’s display claimed I had 180 kilometres range in the battery, I knew that it was draining far quicker than the algorithm was predicting. And so I trudged, now at 65 km/h, to save battery, and turning the heat off more often and for longer. The seat warmer and steering-wheel heater were now forgotten memories. When semis appeared in my rear-view mirror, I would put on my flashers and pull over to let them whiz by.

My worst fear was that I my battery would die before I got to Marathon. I was wearing reasonably warm clothes, but nothing you’d want to walk 20 kilometres in.

As I was driving, a phone-call popped up on my screen, from my son, Alex. I hesitated in answering it, thinking that I was pretty distracted as it was. In the end, I did take the call. Alex is just completing the first year of his two-year graduate program in psychotherapy at the University of Ottawa. He told me he had won a major research scholarship. Bravo, Alex! At least if I froze to death at the side of #1, my last phone call would be a happy one.

As I chugged along and watched the battery, the range algorithm and the distance to Marathon, I was increasingly reassured I would make it, at least to Marathon.

My still remaining concern was whether the Petro-Canada charger in Marathon would be working. If not, my option would likely be to get a hotel room in Marathon and slow-charge on a household outlet for as long as it took to get the battery up to drive the the nearest fast charger, another 80 kilometres on. Probably half a day, maybe more.

When I reached the charger, it was -20 counting the wind chill, and my teeth chattered as the Petro-Canada app refused to open on my phone. Nor would the terminal recognize my credit card. But it did accept the card on my phone. I was charging.

Hey! Presto! An hour later later, having drafted this post and consumed a bacon and egg muffin at an A&W, I was back on the road!