Peak Experience (Click to enlarge)

Another Daytrip to Zion National Park December 9, 2014 Mark D Larsen

Once again, I drove to Zion National Park, this time to meet with the general manager of the lodge inside the park to learn more about the EVSE that they had recently installed for guests. I have described that visit in a separate post, but wanted to also summarize how my Leaf performed with its lower battery capacity, as a comparison with the first time I drove it to Zion, as well as with the time I participated in its Earth Day celebration last spring. Here are the readouts from the dashboard and LEAFStat before I departed:

Readout when leaving home (Click to enlarge)

LEAFStat when leaving home (Click to enlarge)

The GOM’s prediction of only 79 miles of range was the lowest I have ever seen with a 100% charge, but since I estimated that the distance to the lodge was about 56 miles, I figured that I would still be able to make it, despite the ascent to the mountains —albeit just barely. You can also see above on the right, that when I started the car, the battery registered 81.08% capacity.

After about 15 minutes, while driving over Red Cliffs Parkway, I was distraught to see the awful winter inversion that was choking St. George, shown below on the left. We had moved to this area because it was supposed to be pristine, with little pollution and better air quality. However, the city is quickly becoming as intolerable and unhealthy as up north. The residents here just don’t understand that they can’t have their growth and breathe it too.

Choke on it (Click to enlarge)

Zion was a breath of fresh air (Click to enlarge)

After taking the photo at the top of the page, I realized that I was still early for my appointment at the lodge, so I stopped at the Straw Ibis in Springdale for a cup of java. I then continued driving, entered the park, turned onto the valley floor road, and eventally found the lodge. I drove around several of its parking lots, looking for the EVSE, but couldn’t see it anywhere. I finally gave up, parked the car, entered the lodge, and asked the receptionist at the front desk where the charging station was located. Just my luck: it was only about twenty yards farther and around the corner in the very first parking lot I had entered, as shown above on the right.

I had estimated the distance fairly well, but had indeed cut it very close. When I pulled up to the EVSE, there was just one red charge bar left, the GOM displayed only 9 miles, and my miles-per-kWh average was a deplorable 4.5, as shown below on the left:

Little range remaining... (Click to enlarge)

...but more capacity (Click to enlarge)

Oddly enough, however, as shown above on the right, LEAFStat now showed more capacity: 81.21%. My guess is that, like I had experienced at NDEW 2014 in Las Vegas, temperature fluctuations can affect the accuracy of the capacity data. I also have to wonder how accurate the state-of-charge was at 24.03%, because right after I took that reading, the low battery warning sounded and the remaining miles had dropped to flashing 8, as shown below.

Warning sign (Click to enlarge)

Glad the EVSE was right in front of me (Click to enlarge)

I mean, if a 24.03% charge is good for only 8 miles of driving, then a full charge would have a range of... 33 miles!? Obviously, one needs to take LEAFStat’s state-of-charge readout with a rather large granite of salt.

I plugged in my Leaf, and walked back over to the lodge. The manager, Daisy Hobbs, was just coming out to greet me. She then introduced me to the maintenance manager, Butch Taylor, who had overseen the installation of the charging station. We wandered back over to the EVSE and chatted about electric vehicles for slightly more than an hour. They had seen other EVs, but never been in one, so I gave them a ride farther up the canyon. I was pleased that the GOM now registered 34 miles of range. Obviously their Clipper Creek EVSE had loaded electrons into my Leaf as fast as its pitiful 3.3 kW charger could handle. After we reached the top of the canyon, I let Daisy test drive it back down to the lodge, and when we arrived there were still 31 miles on the GOM —even though we had driven nearly 8 miles up and down the canyon.

Thanks to the lodge’s free Wi-Fi, I then settled myself down in the lobby with my laptop to work at my “day job” while the Leaf finished charging to 100%. Here are the readouts before I started the drive back home:

GOM takes the high road... (Click to enlarge)

...and GIDS take the low road (Click to enlarge)

Funny thing, I hadn’t seen an initial GOM that high for months, which only confirms that the gauge really is a Guffaw-o-Meter. LEAFStat, on the other hand, registered only 2 less gids than in the morning, and the capacity percentage hadn’t budged since I arrived.

That was also the case when I pulled into the garage: the pack still had 81.21% capacity, as shown below on the left. On the right, you can see that the descent from the National Park was much kinder on my range than the ascent earlier in the day: I arrived with four charge bars, 24 miles on the GOM, and a 5.9 miles-per-kWh average.

Holding steady (Click to enlarge)

Rising to the occasion (Click to enlarge)

You will note by comparing the readouts above that the outbound drive was one mile longer than the return trip. This was probably because I had meandered back-and-forth through the parking lots to find the EVSE at the lodge. I had reset both trip odometers in my Leaf that morning, and you can see it the photo below that the entire daytrip totaled 118.2 miles. The additional 7.8 miles are a result of the ride up and down the canyon when Daisy test drove the car. I had also reset the Energy Economy that morning, and the display now calculated 5.3 miles-per-kWh for the daytrip, as shown on the right below. Not bad, given the conditions.

Holding steady (Click to enlarge)

Rising to the occasion (Click to enlarge)

Nonetheless, as usual, CarWings disagrees with the car’s gauges. That service reports nearly 3 fewer miles and only 5.1 miles-per-kWh. Go figure:

I really enjoy visiting Zion National Park, and would even venture to declare that its vistas are more wondrous, awe-inspiring, and humbling than those in Yosemite. Now that there are dedicated EVSEs in the park, I hope to contemplate those vistas more often, despite my battery’s dwindling capacity.