The 2019 Hyundai Kona EV at Seattles iconic Gas Works Park, that features the remnants of the Seattle Gas Light Company gasification plant that supplied power to the city from 1906 to 1956.Andrew McCredie (Editor’s note: This is the first in an occasional series called Power Trips, in which we go on a road trip in an electric vehicle to explore the pros and cons of traveling along the ever-expanding EV highway.)It was out of curiosity, not necessity that we pulled into the I-5 rest stop some 10 kilometres south of the Canada-USA border.Wed left North Vancouver an hour earlier with 422 kilometres of range in the 2019 Hyundai Kona EV, and as we pulled up to the rest stops two Level Two Webasto charging stations, the readout showed a robust 368 kilometres still remaining, more than enough to cover the 167 kilometres to our weekend destination, the Kimpton Alexis Hotel in downtown Seattle. But I was curious to see if anyone was plugged in, and sure enough a Kia Soul was getting a charge while its owner sat in the drivers seat reading a newspaper and drinking a coffee. The other station was not in use. With a full-charge range north of 400 kilometres, there was no need to plug the Kona EV into the Level 2 charging at an I-5 rest stop. Andrew McCredie Back on the road, we were quickly up to speed that limit, incidentally, being 112.65 km/h, or 70 mph with a museum visit and lunch in Bellingham next on the travel itinerary. Less than a half-hour later, we pulled into a parking spot right in front of the Spark Museum of Electrical Invention located in the heart of the university town.Again, no need to look for a charging station, so into the museum we went to check out the incredible collection of electrical innovations and device from the past 100-plus years. In particular were some true Holy Grails from the technology, including Thomas Edisons first successful electric light bulb and a section of Edisons DC power cable installed in New York City in 1883 and unearthed following the World Trade Centre terrorist attack in 2001. These priceless artifacts are part of the War of the Currents exhibit, which chronicles the battle between three of the worlds greatest engineers Edison, George Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla to determine the electric technology that would power the world AC or DC. That story is told in the Hollywood movie The Current War, which opened in October. Another electrifying exhibit is the nine-foot Tesla Coil that emits four million volts of lightning. Thats some 3,999,644 more volts than the Kona EVs maximum voltage generated from the 64.0 kWh lithium-ion polymer battery. After visiting the Spark Museum and driving off in the Kona EV, it was difficult not to feel a stronger connection, and certainly a more profound understanding, of the 21st Century technology Hyundai engineers have packed into the tidy crossover. Try as we might, we couldnt find a Bellingham restaurant with an over-riding electric theme, so we opted for our favourite local haunt, the Boundary Bay Brew Pub.Fueled on a bowl of beef stew and still no need for a charge up we were back on I-5 for the final push to the Emerald City, a 140-kilometre straight shot south along the Pacific coast. It should be noted here that there was no hyper-miling involved in this road trip nor will there ever be in our Power Trips series as speed limits were maintained, and admittedly exceeded during some highway sections I was just keeping up with the traffic flow, officer. Likewise, the onboard systems from navigation to sound system to climate control were all used with no thought to their affect on battery range. To that last function, when we left North Vancouver it was zero degrees centigrade, so the heat was blasting and the heated seats and heated steering wheel were turned up all the way.Traffic was surprisingly light for Black Friday, and in less than two hours the Konas Nav system had us pulling up to the Kimpton Alexis Hotel, just a couple of blocks south of the iconic Pike Place Market. One note on that Nav system: like most systems circa 2019, it conveys plenty of real time information, including traffic conditions on the road ahead. But its real appeal comes from the EV-related information, including nearby charging station icons displayed on the map and your current range in relation to the destination you have inputted into the system. Ive been driving EVs on a very regular basis now for almost a decade, and I still fret over range, often checking out current battery charge and doing quick calculations to ensure all is well. Of course, with most new model EVs touching, some cresting, a 400-kilometre full-charge range, this seems quite illogical and unnecessary. After all, how often do you look at your current range when driving a gasoline-powered vehicle? But, the fact remains that if you run dangerously low in gas, theyll most likely be a gas station at the next off-ramp. True, there might also be a
Origin: Power Trips: An electrifying road trip in a Hyundai Kona EV