Author Archives: lukefrugalev

Soon after the second generation Nissan Leaf came out back in 2018, there was the expectation that the new Leaf could take long road-trips “just-like-any-other-car”. Not so fast it turns out. users started to report slower than expected fast charging speeds on long road trips, and #rapidgate was born. Lets dive in and take aContinue reading “Living with #rapidgate”

Modern EV’s require all sorts of metals that must be dug out of the ground. What better way to explore this than a roadtrip into Northern Ontario. So lets hit the road on a 2000 km adventure and see where the minerals within my Nissan Leaf might have came from. We took this trip inContinue reading “EV trip to Timmins”

Mnt. Tremblant is a big step up from the “Ontario ski-hills”, with almost thrice the vertical of the biggest public ski hill in Ontario. We took the leaf skiing over a holiday weekend. Mnt. Tremblant is about 570 km from Toronto, just under the 650 km/day limit for our new (to us) 2018 Nissan LeafContinue reading “Tremblant ski trip”

My 2015 Nissan Leaf S did not come equipped with fast charging. Thus on road-trips, anything over 300 km per day become quite painful as we had to spend half of our 10 hr duty time charging. Lets use our performance model developed from a previous post to see what upgrades make a difference inContinue reading “Upgrading a 2015 Nissan Leaf S?”

At some point your EV will run out of electrons and you will need to charge your car. Survey after survey shows that convenient charging is a big deal for EV owners. Thus Id be amiss if I did not share some of my experience as an EV owner. As always, I do happen toContinue reading “Charging 101”

Did you know that the tallest public ski hill in all of Ontario is found at Calabogie peaks near Ottawa? Do you feel frustrated over long lines for the chair lift at your local ski-hill? If so, time for a road-trip to Calabogie peaks (https://www.calabogie.com/). The “vertical” in ski-lingo refers to the elevation from theContinue reading “Calabogie Ski trip”

Lets do some math, and explore how far I could expect to travel in a given day in my EV. I like this statistic more than range, as range ignores the fact that you can always charge along the way. So lets take a virtual EV “roadtrip” through the sheets of Excel and see howContinue reading “How many km/day can I get from my EV?”

From my home in Toronto, Barrie ON is only 100 km north of the city, easily reached in a 2015 Nissan Leaf, even in the wintertime. Several ski-resorts are found nearby for all ability levels. Ski trip anyone? Leg 1, 100 km Toronto to Barrie. I like to take the 404 Hwy just until IContinue reading “Barrie Ski trip”

Located near Bancroft ON, Silent Lake provincial park offers lots of year around fun. A tranquil lake with lots of hiking trails, swimming and paddling provides for a refreshing weekend trip. Silent lake is about 220 km from Toronto, so we had to make a charge stop along the way. The kids wanted to stopContinue reading “Silent lake”

The Georgian bay loop circles around one of the more scenic great lakes. From Barrie, ON, up to Sudbury and Manatoulin Island there is much to explore. We took off on a two week camping adventure to do just that. We did this trip in a 2015 Nissan Leaf which has an EPA range ratingContinue reading “1000 km+ in a 2015 Nissan Leaf, Around the Georgian bay”