This part of our blog chronicles the Intrepids’ adventures driving around North America in an electric car. In part in recognition of the adverse and unconscionable planetary impact of a frivolous drive in a petrol driven car and in part to refute the popular belief that electric cars aren’t practical for long distance road trips, we have embarked on a drive around the continent in a Tesla S. The planned trip, equivalent in distance to driving right around the earth, will take us from Los Angeles, up the Pacific coast to Alaska, across the frozen wastes of Canada to Newfoundland, then down the East Coast to Florida and back through the deserts and canyons of Texas, Arizona and Utah. We plan to venture well beyond the supercharger network and may have to rely on all types of charging places as well as an extra long extension cord.
Yeh! We’ve made it to Alaska in our electric car, even if it is only to Hyder at the southern tip. We’re back in the US for a few hours after three weeks in Canada, travelling from Victoria on Vancouver Island, via Vancouver, Whistler, Prince George and the Cassiar and Glacier Highways to Stewart BC. En route we’ve seen orcas and seals, elk, moose and porcupines, bald eagles and ospreys and even a black bear or three, a beaver and a Canadian lynx. We’ve also seen some Dall sheep and mountain goats, wood bison, an arctic fox not too resplendent as it’d changed out of its white winter coat into its black/grey summer coat, some caribou (aka reindeer) and several musk ox looking very bedraggled as they shed their winter woolens.
We crossed from San Juan Island in Washington state to Sidney on Vancouver Island where we stayed in a little cottage beside a beautiful lake close to the capital Victoria. Victoria as its name suggests has a faintly victorian atmosphere, with a fascinating museum, lots of parks and gardens on the waterfront and a jazz festival competing with a ska festival. (we are not sure what ska is but it sounded more fun than some of the jazz participants) Then after another ferry crossing we arrived in Vancouver to get the car the new battery it had been asking for. Although we were assured it wasn’t urgent and could wait for 2-3 months before replacing, it was the 12v auxiliary one that works things like the central locking so we decided the prospect of finding ourselves locked out in the wilds of the Arctic surrounded by bears meant that it would be better done before we headed off the map. Turning up unannounced at the Tesla service centre mid afternoon, we were pleasantly surprised that they offered to do it right away, apologising profusely that they couldn’t lend us a car for the couple of hours it was going to take as we didn't have a local driving licence. Not only did they replace the battery but they gave it a complete service, replaced a few items that were subject to standard recalls and filled up the tank, tyres and washer fluid whilst we were having lunch. They then gave us an invoice for zero dollars. We're not sure how you would go taking a second hand Beema or a Merc into a service station mid afternoon in a foreign country, without an appointment, having it serviced with new parts and then getting it back 2 hours later but we're sure it wouldn't be with a bill for nix.
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| Butchart Gardens, in a disused quarry, |
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| Butchart Gardens, Victoria, BC |
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| Hanging baskets, Butchart Gardens, Victoria BC |
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| Captain James Cook, Victoria BC |
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| Parliament House, Victoria |
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| Fisgard Lighthouse, nr Victoria |
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| Gastown, Vancouver |
After driving through the lovely Stanley Park, being held up by a procession of canada geese crossing the road and then over the Lions Gate Bridge, Vancouver’s answer to Sydney’s Coathanger it’s on up the Sea to Sky Highway through the fjords and coastal mountains to Whistler, which has morphed from a ski resort into a mountain biking mecca. There are long lines of helmetted, suited bike riders with their chargers queuing for the ski/bike-lifts. Interesting to see how Whistler has become a popular year round destination, with busy cafes and shops, lots of activities for all interests, well maintained with parks, gardens and hanging baskets everywhere. It’s quite a contrast to traditional ski resorts which look so depressing without any snow.
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| Give way to geese, downtown Vancouver |
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| Sea to Sky Highway picnic, Porteau Cove between Vancouver and Whistler |
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| Joffre Lake, BC |
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| Nairn Falls, BC |
There are superchargers in Whistler, the last ones on the road north, but we decide it’s easier to recharge overnight in the Convention Centre near our hotel, so with a full tank in the morning we start our journey north into the unknown, well unknown to Tesla at least. By evening we reach the Caribou highway where there is a little, rather grotty motel but with a charger, ready and waiting. This takes us on to the Sugar Shack at 70 Mile House. In Canadian parlance a Sugar Shack is a log cabin where maple sap is boiled down to make syrup, and this one lives up to its name, where we refuel with maple syrup infused coffee, bacon and pancakes. We chat with the owner who regales us with the history of the place, the nuances of maple syrup making and stories of people who call him to find out if his maple syrup infused EV charger is working. After the car too has had its fill we press on to Williams Lake, where the good folks at the Thompson River University have also just installed a charger on their campus, specially for us. We learn that it’s the day of the Williams Lake Stampede, the biggest in British Columbia so we decide we must go. It’s a pretty big deal in these parts and everyone is wearing their best cowboy/cowgirl gear and has polished up their utes and their boots. There are national competitions and world series competitions for who can ride longest bareback on various types of four legged animals which themselves seem to be competing to see how quickly they can throw off the tosser on their backs and get a hoof in. Like the mountain race with a dozen horses galloping down from way above the town into the stadium, it’s all good fun and keeps the ambos busy until it’s time to wrestle and tie steers. Two horsemen chase a steer, one has to lasoo it and the other has to jump off his horse, wrestle it to the ground and tie up its feet.
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| Williams Lake Stampede |
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| Prince George |
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| Giant fishing rod, Houston BC |
Unfortunately, the following day it's raining hard, the first real rain of the entire trip so we skip the celebratory stampede pancake breakfast and press on up the Caribou Highway to Prince George, which despite its remoteness is the second largest town in BC, and which fortunately also has an EV charger at the hotel. After one of the best japanese meals in a while, we venture out to sample the nightlife and catch up with Elton John at the local multiplex. Following the Yellow Brick Road we walk back to the hotel in the broad midnight daylight. Then it’s west on the Yellowhead Highway to Houston with its giant fishing rod and on via (Mr) Burns Lake to the charger in Smithers (has Matt Groening been along this road?) where we chat to a woman who’s just driven up from Vancouver in her brand new EV, for which the Canadian and BC governments have contributed $10,000. (Scomo are you listening?) Although she’s not planning to drive it to Alaska she’s interested in the possibility.
After Smithers, we encounter our first charging setback, at Hazelton at the start of the Cassiar Highway. We make a detour, across the highest and scariest bridge in North America to a charger shown on our map at Gitanmaax, only to find that no-one at the petrol station knows where the key is, and when they eventually find the key, no-one knows the code. We finally get that worked out, but then no-one knows how to operate the thing. This is our first encounter with a non-public charger and would’ve been the first where we might have had to pay for electricity. Fortunately we save ourselves a few dollars but not without some degree of trepidation and a lot of bravado we decide to press on to Stewart 150mi further north down the Glacier Highway, putting a lot of faith in the little range calculator that says we might make it with 30 miles to spare.
We begin to appreciate the capabilities of the range calculator as, unlike those we have previously encountered, it appears to know not just the distance, but also the gradients and the ambient temperature, so seems to be able to calculate pretty accurately the power consumption and the range. Although the route involves some major grades and lots of twists and turns it proves surprisingly accurate, and we make it with exactly the predicted range. The drive down the Glacier Highway is spectacular, lined with cascading waterfalls, the Bear Glacier and several other glaciers reaching almost to the road, despite it being a record-breaking ice-melting 32C. In Stewart, an interesting little town with many historic wooden buildings we charged the car for the first time in the woods at a campsite, a slow but ultimately successful process. It’s also the first time in more than 5000mi that we have to pay for fuel.
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| Bear Glacier, near Stewart, BC |
All the way down the Glacier Highway the car was anxiously asking if we really knew what we were doing as it got increasingly concerned we were about to drive off the edge of the world, or at least into terra incognita from which it thought the only way back would be on the back of a truck. However, there were no dragons here, only bears and a moose, and anyway we have a selection of plugs, extension cords and adaptors so with a little trepidation we make it to the campsite with 30 miles worth of electrons to spare, and a short walk to the nearby hotel.
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| Charging in the woods, Stewart, BC |
After celebrating Canada Day and waving flags for the street parade, we cross the border to the virtual ghost town of Hyder, USA. The US entry formalities are the easiest we have ever encountered and once in Alaska we drive to the Fish Creek Bear Viewing Lookout. Alas, the bears which are supposed to be here from July to scoop up the chum salmon are too busy celebrating Canada Day and have taken the day off and the salmon are still using the Julian calendar so haven’t arrived yet. So it’s back to Canada as there are no roads beyond Hyder, where we are interrogated by customs officials, probably sent to the world’s quietest border post as a training exercise, or perhaps as punishment. There are no roads into the US side other than the one we came in, nor any hotels or shops so everyone and everything coming back into Canada must have come across from Canada earlier that day. Doesn’t stop them doing a full inspection of our wine cellar though.
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| Canada Day Parade, Stewart, BC |
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| We make it to Alasaka |
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| World's biggest toaster collection, Stewart, BC |
We spend a relaxing two days hanging out in Stewart, watching the Canada Day fireworks and parade consisting of the tiny town’s two police cars, fire engine and ambulance, plus a ute belonging to the wharfies union and the librarians car, and inspecting the toaster collection at the hotel. Then with a full tank we drive back up the Glacier Highway to rejoin the Cassiar Highway north, through magnificent forest, lake and mountain scenery to Iskut. On the way we see eagles and a moose, in a swampy lake exactly where the guide book says to look out for them. The weather is warm and sunny, the road’s in good order with very little traffic so it’s a pleasant, relaxing drive. At Iskut there’s a little cabin by a lake in the woods waiting for us as well as a place to plug in the car at possibly the tidiest camp site we’ve ever seen. The owner even rakes the gravel every morning. He happily allows us to stay on till mid afternoon until the car is ready to go but his wife is not so sure - she wants to charge us for an extra night but is overruled.
The following day sees us crossing from British Columbia into the Yukon, scene of the fabled Klondike gold rush in the 1890’s, reaching Watson Lake where the Cassiar Highway meets the Alaska Highway, the main road linking Alaska and the lower 48 states. It’s a bit busier, with some stretches undergoing their summer repairs but is a much better road than the pot-holed dirt track we had been led to expect. There aren’t many electric cars in Yukon, possibly because there are only two charging stations in the entire province so we generate fair amount of interest. Although this is clearly Big Ute territory, and the bigger the better, we get the impression that Yukonites in particular are acutely aware of the impact of climate change and are keen to encourage EVs. We’re told that they’ve already experiencing a 4C rise in temperatures over the past decade and anticipate a 14C impact over the next 30-40 years. This is borne out by the unprecedentedly warm temperatures we experience, the wildfires which are causing thick smoke haze and health warnings and the rapidly retreating glaciers. It seems the effects of climate change are far more apparent in these northern latitudes which are disproportionately impacted by the melting arctic ice. One guy we met is busy planting orchards and planning a vineyard in an area which only a few years ago would’ve been good only for conifers and blueberries.
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| sunset, around 11pm, Watson Lake, Yukon |
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| Alaska Highway, Yukon |
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| Moose |
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| Brown Bear |
Eventually we arrive in Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon where we stay in a cabin with floor to ceiling glass walls designed for viewing the northern lights from under the doona. A great idea but with the sun not setting to 11.30pm and reappearing at 2am our chance of seeing anything apart from perhaps a moose is remote. Whitehorse turns out to be a thriving little town with some great bars, restaurants and museums, one recording the history of the Beringia region, the vast area of Siberia through Alaska to Canada which provided the land bridge between Asia and North America during the last ice age when sea levels were much lower as so much water was locked up in ice. Many animals, and people, were able to spread from Asia into North and South America as a result, with the horse and possibly potatoes going the other way. We learn that when it’s cold animals are bigger, hence the mammoths, masterdons, giant bears, giant ground sloths, and in Australia giant wombats. Not quite sure why if this is the case elephants now live in hot climates but there you go. We also re learn that on islands, with the absence of external predators, animals evolve with the big ones getting smaller (need less food) and the small ones get bigger (less need to hide) to a point where they can all fit into a shoebox, not together of course.
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| Ideal for viewing the northern lights, but not in summer |
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| Arriving in Whitehorse, Yukon |
In Whitehorse we spend a day canoeing down the Yukon river where we see dozens of eagles and visit the SS Klondike a 1930s sternwheel paddle steamer that used to ply the 600 mile route to Dawson City, the centre for gold mining taking prospectors down river and their loot back up to connect with the White Pass railway. Late one evening we set off to hike round a lake, keeping a watchful eye for bears and instead see a beaver happily catching fish and gnawing on a log.
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| Paddle steamer, Whitehorse |
Staying in a rambling Bnb with a fabulous rambling garden we visit a nearby wildlife preserve where we see a few of the animals that so far have remained elusive, including a Canadian lynx and an arctic fox. Then after staying in a wilderness cabin overlooking a remote lake and discussing teslas with the enthusiastic owner who wants to buy ours on the spot, we drive down to Alaska again, this time to Skagway where, after being interrogated at the US border (actually it was very courteous and quick), we are back in the USA ready to board the MV Malaspina, our Alaska Marine Highway ferry which will be our home for the next 2 days while the car takes a well earned rest during the trip down the inside passage back to Canada.
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| Hazy sunset over Haines, Alaska |
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| Boarding the ferry at Skagway, Alaska |
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| Glaciers and whales from the ferry |
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| Petersburg, Alaska |
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| Approaching Prince Rupert, BC |
Although not quite a cruise liner, the ferry is surprisingly comfortable even if it doesn’t have a bar, It calls in at several remote ports and fishing villages and we see lots of humpback whales, sea otters, dall porpoise and other wildlife as well as glaciers and snow-capped mountains during the voyage to Prince Rupert.
So what’s it like driving a tesla and what of the range anxiety?
Driving a Tesla into the unknown can be a little unnerving now that we are well beyond the supercharger network where a full charge takes less than an hour. So like a pilot we have to plan ahead a little more and have a contingency airfield to divert to if the planned charge point is unavailable. This happens when we reach Hazelton in northern British Columbia where we had planned to top up our tank, but no-one in the petrol station with its two brand new EV chargers can find the key and the manager has gone fishing. But we know if we drive carefully that we can make it to Stewart, 150miles down the road so after an iced coffee we press on, setting the car to cruise at 50mi/hr.
So far it’s fair to say that despite some initial Range Anxiety, we haven’t had to modify or constrain our plans and have been to plenty of remote areas, mountain regions and mostly kept to scenic byways, always with the ability to charge overnight or whilst getting coffee. Even in northern BC and into the Yukon and Alaska it did require require a bit more planning ahead. The car when full has a nominal range of 265 miles or 420km. By driving cautiously, sticking to speed limits and not accelerating hard up hills we’re finding that we can get very close to or even exceed this mileage. The car itself is very accurate at calculating at the start of the journey how much fuel we need to get to a particular destination, as it takes into account not just the distance but the gradients and prevailing temperature. It then monitors it throughout the trip so we can adjust our driving style if the expected amount of charge remaining starts to fall. Now that we are comfortable relying on its calculations venturing into the unknown becomes much less stressful. However it is clearly not as simple as filling up with petrol, although in this part of the world petrol stations can be 200km apart. Where only 30A power at 110V is available as is the case in many RV parks in this region, we are limited to 400km per day interspersed with 24 hour charging breaks - no wonder it’s taking so long to get here. However parks with 50A and 240v are much better, taking only an overnight 8 hours to recharge fully. So far most of our recharging beyond the supercharger network has been done during overnight stops, with many hotels having dedicated chargers in their carparks or within walking distance of public charging facilities.
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| Superchargers, N America |
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| Superchargers, Australia |
Whilst recharging the car needs planning and can mean a relatively slow journey if there’s no designated charger at our destination, the actual driving is very relaxing. As long as there is some sort of faint line down the road, or at the edge, the car pretty much drives itself on autopilot, allowing us to take in the scenery, look for wildlife and even read the guidebook whilst driving along. We are not sure of the effect on other motorists when they see us watching an eagle through binoculars while negotiating bends at 50mi/hr. Most however are so firmly glued to the wheel of their 50’ RV rigs, desperately trying to make sure they don’t end up in the ditch that they barely notice.
The autopilot function works surprisingly well, adjusting to speed limit signs, even temporary ones, slowing for bends or obstructions and speeding up again when it’s clear. It reminds you to keep a hand loosely on the wheel and has a strict two strikes and you are out rule, sending you to the naughty room and refusing to operate if it has already warned you twice on a particular trip. Occasionally when it has difficulty seeing the road, such as when its raining hard or where the lines are confused it politely asks you if you would mind awfully taking over for a little while. On an expressway it checks the blind spot and changes lanes when you indicate to overtake or to take an exit.
Other aspects of driving an electric car compared with a normal car are its quietness with no engine noise or vibration, and the regenerative braking, which means the car slows quickly when you take your foot off the pedal without you needing to brake, using the energy to charge the battery. It also has surprising large luggage capacity, larger than our X5, with our wardrobe in the back and our larder and wine cellar in the front (or frunk)
So we hear you ask, if it drives for you, speeds up, slows down, corners and even parks itself, no gears to change and no engine roar, where is the fun in driving? You may as well have caught the bus. Well did we mention it also accelerates faster than a Ferrari? One moment you are crawling along behind a truck at 30km/hr, and three seconds later your stomach’s in the back seat and are are shooting past it at 100km/hr. It also has a fireplace, cowbells, and a rainbow road and Santa but you’ll have to get your own to know about these.
So you then ask, should you buy an electric car? And of course the answer is “it depends”. There’s little doubt that electric cars will replace petrol/diesel cars within the next two decades, even if it does mean Scomo foregoing his weekend hilux trips. Europe and more importantly China are both committed to phasing out new petrol cars within this time frame, so it matters little what Australia thinks. Of course the charging network will have expanded by then to match, just as the petrol station network grew as Henry Ford rolled his model Ts off the line.
For now however, if you live in a city and can get one at Californian prices it makes complete sense, unless you are planning to drive across the Simpson desert on a regular basis. For the vast majority of trips you would simply charge at home overnight, and perhaps make an occasional visit to a supercharger if you were driving long distances between cities. Bear in mind too that these cars have very few moving parts, don’t need a grease and oil change or spark plugs replaced, or even air filters changed or new brake pads - regenerative braking means you don’t actually use the brakes very often. Unfortunately though with prices in Australia substantially higher than those in the US, and the choice of used ones far more restricted, it may make sense to wait a few years, by which time they will be ubiquitous. But you will be missing out on the fun, and coughing up $100 every time you go to the petrol station.
The other cool and unexpected thing about driving a tesla is the people you meet, like Brian in Prince Rupert who very generously let us charge the car overnight at his place, or Peter the sculptor from northern Alberta who shared with us his enthusiasm for his bright red Model 3, his campaign against fracking and whose sculptures grace many of canada's public spaces.
If you want to learn more about the pros and cons of driving an electric car in our next blog we will include a recent Quora post which summarises it in some detail.
Alternatively if you just want to look at the pictures, click here
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Love you both! xx