Venkatesh Srinivas

Archives

pinned

Day 1 of my electric roadtrip, I drove from Tacoma, WA to Stanton Park, Canyonville, OR (~350 miles). I like to camp when possible on EV road trips; tent time is good, and I can usually charge overnight at any RV spots.

Packing:
Packing for an electric road trip is more or less the same as for a regular (gas car) roadtrip; there’s just a couple of things that are different, enabled by the big EV battery:

• I carry a power pack (EcoFlow Delta Mini) and a powered cooler; the main EV battery keeps the Delta topped off during the day, the EcoFlow keeps the cooler cool through the night
• I also bring electric camp kitchen devices - an electric Moka pot, an electric kettle. In the mornings, I can run them off of the EcoFlow and not have to get out fuel or my little alcohol stove

Planning and routing:
Planning and routing an EV Roadtrip planning currently requires a hodgepodge of mapping apps and maps; basically, you need to find a destination; a route with chargers spaced well; and a plan for which chargers to use and how long to charge at each one.
Some considerations:

• Electric cars generally charge _much_ faster when their batteries are low than when they’re closer to full; for the Chevy Bolt, it charges at ~50 kW in the 0% - 50% range; and tapers off from there to ‘pretty slow’ in the 80% range
• You don’t need to or want to “fill up” at each charger; you instead want to charge only enough to get to the next charger in your plan, plus some buffer
• Hills and temperature affect range - budget for them!

For the first day, I looked for a campground near Grants Pass, OR; I had a noon meeting, so I couldn’t start that early. Grants Pass is ~380 miles, a good day’s drive.

Once I found an open campground (Stanton Park, in Canyonville, OR), I used ‘A Better Router Planner’ (better than nothing, anyway) to make a route from Tacoma, WA to the campground:

A Better Route Planner created a plan that had me charge for ~30 minutes in Portland, OR and ~30 minutes in Springfield, OR.

Once A Better Route Planner comes up with a plan, I check the first charger on PlugShare, an app that tracks recent checkins to a charger, to make sure that it's working. I then use Google Maps to route to the charger. At each charger, I repeat for the next, while waiting for the car to charge.

On-the-fly Rerouting:
Today was a beautiful, mid-70s, low-wind day; the Bolt was running more efficiently than it has all winter, so I was able to stretch the first leg from Portland, OR to Wilsonville, OR. Wilsonville, OR has one of my favorite chargers - it’s right next to a library and a city park, a great spot to fill up on water and go for a solid walk. And It’s on the Shell Recharge network, which works reliably in my experience.

To re-route, I checked the Wilsonville charger on PlugShare and had Google Maps route there instead:

At Wilsonville, I chose to wait longer than the plan called for, charging for ~50 minutes up to over 80% while I walked around the park and had a snack.

I then had A Better Route Planner remake the plan - it doesn’t seem to cope with being ‘off route’ and it doesn’t know how to pull live data (charge %) from the Bolt, so I had to put that in. It came up with a new plan, a quick stop in Springfield, OR.

A 15 minute stop in Springfield, in a Target parking lot (not every fast charger can be next to a park or a bakery). This charger was an Electrify America station, worked on the first try.

It’s possible this stop wouldn’t have been required if I had spent a bit more time in Wilsonville and had been willing to let the battery run lower, but I was playing it conservatively while I figured out my route.

Then I drove ~100 miles down to the campground in Canyonville, OR and set up camp. RV sites (where I can charge overnight) were available.

At the campground, I was able to plug in to an RV post; the post has a 30 A plug, unfortunately the standard for ’30 A’ plugs is 120v/30A, and the Bolt limits itself to 12 A on 120v (1.4 kW). A number of EVs have this limitation, though not Teslas.

This campground is a good-enough option, though it’s pretty close to I-5.

Good night! On to Grants Pass and California tomorrow

ev

I'm going on an electric car road trip - Seattle to Bodega Bay, CA to help my ex- in the field at Bodega Marine Reserve; then Bodega Bay, CA to Dolores, CO to train for and ride the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic and to go to the Telluride Bluegrass Festival with family; then back to Seattle.

I'm driving a Chevy Bolt; the Bolt uses the "CCS" network of public chargers, like most non-Tesla electric cars. CCS and public charging have a mixed-reputation; electric roadtripping is still a "new" phenomena, especially with non-Teslas. My co-worker Liz Shelly prompted me to share my experiences - how I plan the trip, how / where I charge and camp, and what worked and what didn't!

I'll be liveblogging the trip; day 1, Tacoma, WA on to Oregon!

ev

Johannes Ackva (Founders Pledge - Climate Fund) and David Roberts (Volts podcast, formerly Vox) got together last summer to talk about climate philanthropy, the Founders Pledge Climate Fund's approach, and the role of small-scale smart giving in the climate space. I found the conversation notable and decided to transcribe it.

Few highlights from the conversation and the approach:

• Climate damage is highly non-linear -- going from 1.5 C to 2 C is less bad than 3.5 C to 4 C


• Most climate folks (including me) prioritize reducing emissions rather than 'minimizing damage'; however since damage is non-linear, the two approaches don't always track and it's important to focus on the actual goal


• Low-risk, well-understood solutions are currently well-funded; higher risk solutions are often underfunded for structural reasons


• Those underfunded higher-risk solutions likely are ones most required in higher-'damage' worlds


• A particularly valuable (high leverage) role for philanthropy is to take risks; hedge against the worst outcomes; and accept failure

https://www.volts.wtf/p/volts-podcast-johannes-ackva-on-effective
Transcribed with OpenAI Whisper followed by a hand-editing pass.

Continue reading "Johannes Ackva (Founders Pledge Climate Fund)/Dave Roberts (Volts) transcript"

climate

• Finished my Masters degree (CSE @ UW)!; on top of that, took an Advanced Computer Architecture class & an Electric Grid regulation class from a WA UTC commissioner
• Two ten-year anniversaries - ten years since my 4K bike ride from Baltimore to Portland (Chelsea from my year wrote the best retrospective); and ten years since I started working at Google
  
• Failed to hold a relationship together
• Tens of thousands of miles of EV road-tripping!
  Seattle, WA to Bodega Bay to North Lake Tahoe to Moab to Pullman, WA;
  Seattle, WA to Dolores, CO and back;
  Seattle, WA to Taos, NM and back;
  
  
  
  
  
• A week sampling clover at Bodega Marine Lab, overlooking the Pacific Ocean
  
  
• Spent a month in a ~new place and state (Taos, NM)
• Donated a quarter of my income to climate and Effective Altruism organizations 😬 (details)
• Read 26 books; top three:
  • Warmth, Daniel Sherrell - Talking about "The Problem" (Climate Change) in letters to a future child.

    The author, Daniel Sherrell, is from New Jersey, not far from where and when I grew up; he works on climate advocacy in New York State. I found his perspective very relatable - he understands and draws on the technical, but writes the visceral. His evocation of love as fury is pretty powerful and stood out to me among climate writing.

  • On Repentance and Repair, Danya Ruttenberg - Thinking about repentance, repair, and reconcilliation through a framework from Maimonides

    The framework offered here is fairly different than the one I grew up with - it starts with objective statements of what happened; change to ensure the harm is not repeated; restitution and consequences; apology (delayed all the way to step 4!); and making different choices. As elaborated, it sounds like it would better address harm I have caused; it also seems like it'd be pretty demanding. I particularly appreciated an examination of something I do (apologize) but had never given great thought to.

  • Ducks, Kate Beaton
  
  
• First concert since the pandemic started (Gregory Alan Isakov at the Gorge)
  
• Made jam and Ice Cream for the first time!
  
  
  Made Fig and Pear, Peach, and Onion jams; Onion was the most successful
• Biked Mt. Constitution, part of the Sea to Sky Highway (BC Hwy 99), and Harvest Century
  
  
• Grew tomatoes, a Sequoia, and potatoes (by mistake!)
  
  
• News story from the year that's stayed with me - Climate Change from A to Z, Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker Nov 2022

It's been an eventful, rich year. There's a lot I wish I'd done, a lot I wish I'd done better; but I tried new and hard things and learned from both the successes and failures.

See you in 2023!

main