I’m going to Canada from Mexico and I’ll be driving a brand new Nissan LEAF

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I will be driving over 1600 miles (2575 km), just like I did 10 years ago. This trip will be conducted June 18-21, 2022, during the 10th anniversary of the original All Electric Vehicle Rally from Baja California, Mexico to British Columbia, Canada. We called that original trip simply “BC2BC.”

That first journey was conducted on June 12-20, 2012. Originally, it was just a brand new 2012 Nissan LEAF, then just two weeks old, plus my then 10-year-old daughter, Kendal. It was the first time an Electric Vehicle (EV) was driven between the two countries, and the first electric vehicle to cross both Oregon and Washington State using only “DC fast chargers”. Each of those two states were crossed in just one day.

This year, 2022, it will be just me, solo, with another brand new Nissan LEAF. Some of you are likely asking, “Why wouldn’t you want to crush the time record, from the original time you set 10 years ago of 9 days, by using the most capable electric car, with the most cable electric recharging infrastructure?” 

For the record, in 2022, it’s not a Nissan LEAF, nor is it the Nissan LEAF charging infrastructure, that will set any time records! Think of this as a parade lap, and not a race. We proved that it could be done in 2012, and we brought attention to the state of California as to the woeful state of recharging infrastructure in 2012, compared to Oregon and Washington state with their brand new “West Coast Electric Highway”.

In June of 2012, my choices for an all-electric powered car were the Tesla Roadster (very expensive, quirky, rare, and not a mass-market vehicle, and already discontinued), the Nissan LEAF, the very rare Coda, or the Mitsubishi iMiev. The Tesla Model S did not yet exist, the Tesla Supercharger network did not exist. There really wasn’t much fast-charging infrastructure available even for the Nissan LEAF. Outside of Oregon and Washington states, there were only a few DC fast chargers in all of California. At least one didn’t work, at least one was locked behind a fence, and most of them were poorly implemented. I believe I only used two of them in the entire state of California.

5 years ago, Alex Bessinger drove my 2014 Toyota RAV4 EV (this car uses a Tesla drivetrain) from our shop in San Diego County, California to near the Canadian border in about 45 hours. Not a true BC2BC, but substantially the same route. It was a vast improvement over the 9 days required in 2012.

How fast could this trip be done if it were a “Cannonball Run” type event? First, I would suggest that the entire trip be driven on both the shortest and fastest route, Interstate 5, which is only 1383 miles (2226 km), instead of the 1600+ miles of my route. Assuming an average speed of 66 mph (106 km per hour), which includes all recharging time, the journey could be driven in about 21 hours. Is “66 mph” even possible? It appears “yes” is the answer.

Last year, a Tesla Model S crossed the USA, from “sea to shining sea”, from east to west, in 42 hours and 17 minutes. Over the course of 2800 miles (4500 km) from the Red Ball Garage in New York City to the  Portofino Hotel in Redondo Beach, California required an average speed of 66 miles per hour. It is possible.

If the Cannonball Run is considered a marathon, then the BC2BC event might be a half marathon at roughly half the distance. But, neither in 2012 nor in 2022 will any speed or time record be set with any Nissan LEAF. The drive is simply “accomplished”.

I will be driving the exact same route that I took in 2012, starting at the California / Mexico border in San Ysidro, California on the early morning of Saturday, June 18, 2022. It’s not the shortest route, nor the fastest route. It was the route I needed to drive in 2012 just to accomplish the goal. I expect my 2022 drive, including recharging events, hotel stays, social meetups, picture-taking opportunities, etc, to be about 80 hours over a 4-day period. My average speed will be dismal.

Source: NISSAN

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