Round trip experiences - Santa Clara <-> San Francisco

[nsayer]

I live in Santa Clara and have a '16 SEL. I specifically wanted to insure that I got a car with some sort of quick charging option, and I'm very pleased with how it's turned out so far.

My normal commute is to Redwood City - only 20 miles one-way, so I am fine with (free) workplace charging and charging at home, but every once in a while I want to go to San Francisco. In the past (with the Fit EV), this meant driving to the city and finding someplace to abandon the car to charge for hours and using Muni or cabs for everything else.

But now, the pattern is to drive up to either Westlake or the Whole Foods on Market just north of the Castro and spend 15 minutes taking the car back up to ~85-90%. That done, I have enough juice to do whatever driving around town is required, and then make it home with a few miles to spare.

I've got an NVgo card and it costs something like $10 to do this, but that beats CalTrain and is competitive with gas, even taking into account the need to do a full charge once I get home (which for me is around $2.50).

 

[JoulesThief]

I live in Santa Clara and have a '16 SEL. I specifically wanted to insure that I got a car with some sort of quick charging option, and I'm very pleased with how it's turned out so far.

My normal commute is to Redwood City - only 20 miles one-way, so I am fine with (free) workplace charging and charging at home, but every once in a while I want to go to San Francisco. In the past (with the Fit EV), this meant driving to the city and finding someplace to abandon the car to charge for hours and using Muni or cabs for everything else.

But now, the pattern is to drive up to either Westlake or the Whole Foods on Market just north of the Castro and spend 15 minutes taking the car back up to ~85-90%. That done, I have enough juice to do whatever driving around town is required, and then make it home with a few miles to spare.

I've got an NVgo card and it costs something like $10 to do this, but that beats CalTrain and is competitive with gas, even taking into account the need to do a full charge once I get home (which for me is around $2.50).

Just a FYI...

VW's owner's manual suggests that you use quick charging "sparingly". I take that to mean less than 5% or all recharging cycles should be on the CCS, and they also recommend not recharging with CCS back to back recharges, always use a regular recharge cycle between fast recharges. This is just a FYI, the Owners manual has all the details, that's just what I remember or took away from reading it.


It probably has a lot to do with the Li battery chemistry, and VW chose not to use a coolant for the battery pack when recharging, to save money, certainly not to save battery life.

Your 85 to 90% is probably a very wise choice and use of that CCS charger, it's the last 15% that makes a lot of undesireable heat in the battery pack.

 

[nsayer]

Oh, I agree with that. I only make relatively infrequent trips to San Francisco. All of the rest of the charging I do is L2.

I also agree about avoid charging to 100% with CCS. I've only ever gone to 90%, and usually would prefer to only go to 85%. Of course, another big driver for that is simply that above 85% the charging starts to slow down significantly anyway, and the NRG quick chargers are priced by the minute.

 

[miimura]

My style would be to run down the battery more by driving to the City, driving around up there, then hitting the fast charger on the way home. There is a new site at Lucky's in Daly City. The Plugshare entry says it has two dual-standard chargers, but the pictures show one Nissan CHAdeMO and one ABB dual. Since it's a new site you might get a CCS connector sooner than Westlake. Also, the Walgreens in North Beach was upgraded to two ABB dual standard chargers.

 

[johnnylingo]

Just curious, have you ever done Santa Clara to the city and back on a full charge? It would be 90 miles round trip so cutting it very close. I'm just curious what consumption is on highway driving, specifically 101 vs. 280.

 

[JoulesThief]

Just curious, have you ever done Santa Clara to the city and back on a full charge? It would be 90 miles round trip so cutting it very close. I'm just curious what consumption is on highway driving, specifically 101 vs. 280.

Much better for the battery to charge at each end of that trip, than really run it really far down, then charge it back up. 2 small % recharges are better than 1 big full recharge. Just a FYI, for battery life purposes.

 

[nsayer]

My style would be to run down the battery more by driving to the City, driving around up there, then hitting the fast charger on the way home.

Myself, I'd prefer to do the time before the city stuff. Usually, when we're done with the fun stuff, the thinking is we're already facing an hour drive. Prefacing that with 20 minutes of battery charging is just more "meh" and if you're doing it after 10 PM then at least one site (the whole foods on Market) is locked up.

 

[nsayer]

Just curious, have you ever done Santa Clara to the city and back on a full charge? It would be 90 miles round trip so cutting it very close. I'm just curious what consumption is on highway driving, specifically 101 vs. 280.

I just don't like to tempt fate that much.

The first time I did the trip, I got the battery up to 75% before coming home and wound up with 4 miles of range on the GoM, and the "available power" meter thing (it's usually pointing to "max") was down to its last little red bar, and it was kind of late at night. Running out would have meant getting a tow. That would have just been an hour or two I'd never get back

 

[johnnylingo]

Good to know. Basically I'm wondering if it's possible to go from Santa Cruz to SF & back charging only once. Sounds like a no. I'd have to hit Daly City on the way up and still stop in Silicon Valley on the way back.

 

[stevestrange]

Good to know. Basically I'm wondering if it's possible to go from Santa Cruz to SF & back charging only once. Sounds like a no. I'd have to hit Daly City on the way up and still stop in Silicon Valley on the way back.

I think it's possible, but you might have to take 101 (not 280 -- too hilly) and/or keep the speed down in order to make it. We are in Mountain View, and we go to both Santa Cruz and SF. We have done each on a single charge, so I know it is possible.

 

[nsayer]

Good to know. Basically I'm wondering if it's possible to go from Santa Cruz to SF & back charging only once. Sounds like a no. I'd have to hit Daly City on the way up and still stop in Silicon Valley on the way back.

I would think not. It's another 30 miles from Santa Clara to Santa Cruz, so the one-way trip is something like 80 miles, and even if you take 101 to the South Bay, the mountain pass summit on CA-17 is ~1800 feet.

If I were doing it, I'd hit up a quick charger in the South Bay for 10 minutes on the way and on the way back.

 

[JoulesThief]

Good to know. Basically I'm wondering if it's possible to go from Santa Cruz to SF & back charging only once. Sounds like a no. I'd have to hit Daly City on the way up and still stop in Silicon Valley on the way back.

I would think not. It's another 30 miles from Santa Clara to Santa Cruz, so the one-way trip is something like 80 miles, and even if you take 101 to the South Bay, the mountain pass summit on CA-17 is ~1800 feet.

If I were doing it, I'd hit up a quick charger in the South Bay for 10 minutes on the way and on the way back.

Or some combination thereof, 10 minutes on the way there, and 15 minutes on the way home, the closer to home the better for the last 15 minute charge.

My observations have been that the first minute of charging sort of gets wasted getting the charger up to full current, like it takes a full minute to really start adding amps at near maximum rate of 115 -118 kw. So time wise, if you are charging by the minute, $ wise, it's kind of a burn. For the Efacec and the other unit that I have tried, 22 minutes seems to be the optimum time vs amount of kw taken on board.