Road trip to welcome a new chapter.

By Stan Janacz, president of the Central New Jersey chapter of the  Electric Auto Association 

Our Central New Jersey chapter is 10 months young now, and we’ve more than tripled our membership base since our kick-off event to 37 paying members, plus 160 non-members on our mailing list. And it’s still growing. 

Our launch turned out to be well timed. Soon after our first meeting, the Electric Auto Association announced a nationwide membership drive contest. Based on the achieved tier of new members, the chapters were to earn Electric Auto Association pins, polo shirts, and even feather flags.

We finished the contest at  the 20+ new members tier, earning 10 shirts and two flags. However, demand for the shirts was much higher, so we ordered a total of 27 shirts. We also purchased an extra flag from corporate grants. But by the time our three feather flags and the polo shirts arrived, the pandemic had started, so the shirts could not be handed-out at an in-person meeting.

Meanwhile, we had been planning the formation of a second, Northern New Jersey chapter, and I felt that the second flag we earned should go to them. Together with Ken Jones, my soon-to-be counterpart to the north, we scheduled a flag transfer ceremony to be held in the town of Maplewood, located at the interface of Central and North Jersey, formally on the northern side.

It dawned on me that I had an opportunity here. I could as well deliver the polo shirts  on my way to Maplewood, and then to locations farther north after that, all the way to Sussex. Aside from six shirts that were already delivered, 21 shirts were still awaiting delivery at 16 destinations. And, all of that could be accomplished in one of our electric vehicles (EV’s).  I chose my wife’s car, a 2017 Chevrolet Bolt, for its greater range over my 2015 Nissan Leaf. 

The most efficient routing called for slightly over 300 miles. I was curious if the whole trip could be accomplished on a single charge while driving a vehicle with an EPA range of 238 miles.

I started out from my home in Somerset in Central New Jersey early on a Saturday morning. The trip was a big adventure recorded on a smartphone. I was thrilled that, despite traversing the hilly terrains in North Jersey and running the A/C due to the hot weather, the vehicle was able to give 294 miles on full charge, with 3% remaining (about 9 miles). I managed to make all shirt deliveries, stop for the flag transfer ceremony in Maplewood, and drive all the way home. I was even able to absorb the lost mileage from a wrong turn.

It must be noted that my record distance traveled in the Bolt came in August of 2018, when I used approximately two-thirds of charge to travel 235 miles. Had the vehicle been fully charged, I estimated that it would have given over 350 miles worth of travel. That trip was on flatter land than the ride to Maplewood.

‘Research trips’ to Long Island

One of my most frequent longer distance destinations has been to a friend’s house in the town of Selden in Suffolk County, New York, which is some 100 miles away from my home. When our family acquired a Mitsubishi iMiEV in 2012, the research on ‘what is possible’ began. 

After re-routing for a shorter distance, I was able to make over 90 miles on a single charge when the EPA rating was a meager 62 miles. Later, with my Leaf, I had a longer range, but it was still necessary  to charge at my friend’s residence before returning home. Now, if I take the Bolt on this journey, I can make it to Selden and back in one charge, which makes it clear how the technology has changed.

I’m proud to say that I have never been stranded in any of my EV’s. This has come from careful planning, and knowing when limitations prevented me from taking a trip I knew I would not be able to make.