Putting Range Anxiety to the Test: Day 7 - Almost There

We left White River late morning with a healthy 465 km - thanks to the Ivy charger across from the Continental Motel. We planned an easy day of 180 km to the Ivy charger near the Drifters Motel in Terrace Bay. Like other drivers, we found that 0064 worked but not 0054. We arrived with 270 km (we used a bit extra to enjoy the heat in the car for part of the journey). $14.08 for 20.4 kwh at $0.69 and topped up to 370 km. While we were there, two other evs pulled in. One left when she couldn't get 0054 to work. The other pulled in when we were leaving. So that's 3 evs per hour - not sure how typical that is. We are staying the night 10 km closer to Thunder Bay at The Voy Motel. So we have 360 km for the 210 km trip to Thunder Bay. Temperature today was around 8C, a bit chilly in the car. The heated seats and steering wheel help a lot and didn't seem to suck any kms. Also we bought a heated lap blanket that plugs into the lighter and doesn't seem to use kms. However, later in the season, I'm sure charging would be slower and consumption significantly higher. Not sure I'm ready to make this trip in the dead of winter. Tomorrow, we head to Thunder Bay. PlugShare shows only three fast chargers in Thunder Bay and reviews are spotty. I'll let you know how we make out. We'll be in Thunder Bay until Sun Oct 26, so I won't bother posting during that time. However, I will write some brief blogs about our return trip with a slightly different itinerary, which I hope will be useful to a few readers.

Also want to thank readers for comments including the reminder to minimize use of heat, drive at 80-90 km an hour and draft behind one of the big trucks on the road. All good tips. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Putting Range Anxiety to the Test: Day 2 - Easy Peasy

Day 2: Easy Peasy Lots of charging options between Kingston and Lake Cecebe (just south of Parry Sound). Yesterday I left Kingston with 435 km and arrived in Toronto with 170 km. I charged up to 400 km at the Shell station on Richmond St E (3 CCS chargers) in Toronto and went on to Barrie arriving with 275 km. I stayed there overnight, charged to 380 km at Zehr's (Park + Charge: 4 CCS chargers at 0.41/kwh) in the morning and drove to Lake Cecebe. The car has 175 km and I will trickle charge overnight to have 200 km, which is plenty to make the 80 km trip to Parry Sound where I plan to charge to 450 km. I am optimistic that I can make it to Sault Ste Marie (465 km) with a charge in Sudbury. I’ll post an update from Sault Ste Marie.
Read more

Putting Range Anxiety to the Test: Getting Started

Putting Range Anxiety to the Test: Getting Ready October 05, 2025 On October 16/25, we are setting out from Kingston in our 2024 AWD Ioniq 5 to drive to Thunder Bay – 1700 km each way. We did as much research as possible to ensure we could find charging stations on a daily basis. We benefited greatly from Carl Duivenvoorden’s blog  https://www.climatereality.ca/blog/learnings-from-driving-across-canada-in-an-electric-vehicle and from a personal conversation with Carl, who was very helpful and generous with his time. As he points out: “The most challenging part of the route is Northern Ontario, where chargers are fewer and further apart. The worst stretch: Sault Ste. Marie to White River, 315 km without a single charger. (On our trip westward, we arrived in White River with less than 30 km range left – phew!).” We consulted the key apps including PlugShare, ChargeHub and ABRP (A Better Route Planner) as well as the main suppliers Flo and Ivy. We learned that none of them is complete...
Read more

Putting Range Anxiety to the Test: Day 1

Day 1: Kingston to Barrie Ontario 350 km We spent many hours developing a detailed route plan. We will take five days to drive the 1700 km – a slow pace with lots of time to enjoy the magnificent landscapes and to create some buffers in case we run into challenges with charging. We assume we can charge to 400+ km at each fast charger on the way and our plan assumes that we can charge when we hit 150 km remaining. In a worst case scenario where the intented charger is out of service, we will book into a motel and trickle charge. We shared our initial blog post with PlugShare who said it was great to see us documenting our EV experience and sharing it with the community. They encouraged us to share our posts on relevant EV forums, Reddit communities, and directly with charging networks like Plug’n’Drive, Ivy, and Flo. They recommend including insights on charging locations, station reliability, and tips for future travelers. Ivy also thanked us and expressed appreciation for our eff...
Read more